The Simultaneous Circle is a chronomantic device on floor 4 of the Lighthouse-Monolith of Serpent Island that projects bodies to specific points in time, forcing them into the role of Uchronic Guards. Its documented use sent the Time Bandits from 1901 to Sarajevo, 28 June 1914.
| Type | Artifact (chronomantic device) |
| Location | Floor 4, Lighthouse-Monolith, Serpent Island |
| Era | Operating in 1901 |
| Operators | The Black Hand |
| Spanish entry | El Círculo Simultáneo |
Description
A circular floor ten to fifteen meters across, engraved with a fourfold sigil and divided into four quadrants that activate simultaneously. It uses Abjuration and Conjuration (teleportation and portal techniques).
The name refers to its central property: occupants exist in two times at once — 1901 (origin) and 1914 (destination). The soul must fuse with a “host” body of the destination time so as not to be torn apart.
The Uchronic Guard mechanism
The Circle does not transport freely. It compels occupants, by magic, to carry out specific historical assassinations. Activation causes:
- Partial amnesia — the traveler forgets who he is and remembers who he must be.
- Loss of agency — the will is subordinated to the host’s role.
- Fusion with the host — Claude became Cvjetko Popović; the rest of the group became other real conspirators of the assassination.
The body returns to the Circle only after the assassination is complete; return is partial if the mission fails, which it rarely does, since the device allows no voluntary escape.
Activation ritual
- Serbian revolutionaries of the Black Hand form a circle in the four quadrants.
- They chant in a Russian dialect, the ritual’s priestly language.
- Combined necromantic and conjuration energy rises in stacked green, blue and white.
- Abjuring shields contain it within the circle.
- The target group is projected to Sarajevo and lives the whole event (minutes, hours, days), while their bodies on the Island spend only a few breaths.
Interpretation
The Chronicler of the Plata considers the Circle a convergence node where higher temporal and cosmic forces, such as the Inevitables, can intervene in history without descending physically. The archive catalogs the mechanism as “Guardian + Symphonic Motif”: time travel is orchestrated, not free. The chain it closes has its chronomantic root in Kosovo, 1389.
Open questions
- Who or what older power gave the Black Hand the device or its knowledge is not established.