Anchor 6X6.B – The ChronoBazaar
There are Anchors, and then there are anomalies. Anchor 6X6.B was not a timeline — it was a market built between them. A world that didn't follow causality, gravity, or even logic.
It was known only as the ChronoBazaar, and it thrived on one thing:
> Selling time.
From bottled moments of joy to compressed centuries of war, the Bazaar was a black market for stolen seconds, auctioned hours, and extinct futures.
Here, the most dangerous currency wasn't gold — it was memories.
And tonight, the ChronoKnots had business to attend to.
---
Kael led the team into the Bazaar disguised in gray time-cloaks, their faces pixelated by chrono-masks to avoid detection. They were here for a single, high-stakes objective:
To retrieve a stolen timeline — one that had once belonged to an Anchor wiped clean by a chrono-tyrant named Telrix.
Telrix wasn't a typical villain. She was an auctioneer of fate, a rogue time-trader who trafficked in lost potential. She'd once sold a timeline where the sun never rose, just to prove she could.
Now, she had something Kael needed — the Thread of Aven-47, a future that held the key to preventing a chain of Anchor collapses spreading through the West Loop.
---
As they walked through the ChronoBazaar, the team passed stalls that defied understanding:
A merchant selling sunsets from doomed planets, glowing in jars.
A stall auctioning the final breaths of emperors, each scent carrying forgotten declarations.
Children offering years of their future for moments of their parents' pasts.
Everything was for sale.
And everyone had a price.
---
Myra scanned the crowd. "We're being watched."
Aren pulled up a holographic feed. "Not just watched. Tracked. Telrix knows we're here."
Ghost Ronin cracked his neck. "Let's give her a reason to regret that."
---
The Auction House stood at the center of the Bazaar — a towering spiral of floating glass, each floor rotating independently. Time itself warped inside it; you could enter on one floor and exit in your own childhood.
Kael took a deep breath. "No violence unless absolutely necessary. We're here to win."
Myra snorted. "You mean cheat?"
Kael smiled. "Same thing in a place like this."
---
Inside, the auction had already begun.
A smooth, ageless voice echoed across the chamber.
> "Lot #774: A Year of Peace During the Infinite War. Opening bid: three generations of guilt."
Telrix stood on a floating dais, surrounded by loyal chrono-guards and memory-draining drones. Her eyes were silver, and her hair shimmered with the hue of lost regrets.
> "Let's not pretend time is sacred," she purred. "It's a commodity — and I'm its queen."
Kael raised a hand. "We're bidding on Lot #808."
Telrix smiled darkly. "Ah… the Thread of Aven-47. Dangerous. Priceless. Perfect."
---
The bidding began.
To win, the team had to outbid rogue historians, dying empires, and even a god-memory from Anchor ∆Y5 — all offering twisted currencies:
Myra bid a memory of her first betrayal.
Aren offered ten hypothetical futures where he died saving Kael.
Kael… offered his own name — erased from one forgotten timeline.
And they won.
---
As the gavel struck the air, and the thread floated into their hands, Telrix leaned in and whispered to Kael:
> "You've stolen more than time today. You've bought a war."
Kael grinned. "Good. We were getting bored."
---
As alarms blared and the Bazaar collapsed into chaos — guards swarming, time glitches cracking walls — the team vanished into a fold of anchored reality, Thread in hand.
They hadn't just bought back a timeline.
They'd bought a target on their backs.
And Telrix never forgot a thief.
---
Anchor 6X6.B – Temporal Market Disrupted
Entity: Telrix the Auctioneer – Engaged
Object Secured: Thread of Aven-47
---
Back in the Sanctuary...
Kael unspooled the Thread and placed it in the ChronoFrame.
The timeline shimmered, revealing glimpses of something horrifying.
> "This thread," Myra whispered, "leads to a moment… where someone kills a ChronoKnot."
Kael's face hardened. "Then we stop it before it happens."
Aren checked the next mission alert.
The system pulsed red.
> "Anchor 1V1.A – Emergency Beacon Activated."