It's about time!
- The Gamebreakers
- 6 hours ago
- 3 min read
Time in Astira is not a river. It is a resource: measured, stored, and spent.
Among fractured frontlines, even seconds can decide whether a settlement stands or falls. Most commanders fight for ground, for crystal, for survival. But there are those rare few who learn to fight for something far more dangerous: Control over the moment itself.
Today, we turn our attention to one such force on the battlefield: Magistra Selina Wynford! A master of temporal manipulation, Selina bends the flow of battle by accelerating allies, delaying enemies, and reshaping critical seconds into decisive victories.
In the defense of the Blackstone Essence Mine, her power proved the difference between collapse and survival… and revealed just how fragile the present truly is when placed in the hands of someone who can rewrite it.
A Borrowed Hour
The wind over Blackstone Ridge carried the scent of sap and rot long before the Bloodthorne came into view. From the battlements of the Essence Mine, High Warden Elara Steelheart watched the forest edge darken with movement - roots twisting where no wind touched them, and crimson eyes gathering like embers in wet ash.
Beside her stood Magistra Selina Wynford, calm amid the rising tension. The hourglass at her hip flowed upward, defying sense, each grain of sand marking a future not yet chosen. “They’ll breach the western approach in under a minute,” she said. Elara followed her gaze to a narrow road winding toward the mine gates, where a lone Phalanx company was still sprinting to reinforce the line. Too slow. Always too slow.
Selina lifted a hand. The air shimmered, and the Phalanx soldiers blurred forward - not faster in motion, but compressed through time itself. To Elara’s eyes they simply vanished and reappeared at the choke point in a fully formed battle line, shields locked, hammers ready. Moments later, the Bloodthorne struck the position where empty ground had been, only to find steel waiting. The impact echoed across the ridge like a breaking dam.
A second wave surged toward a narrow pass between two stone spires on the eastern flank. Razorleaf Hunters poured in, eager to encircle the mine. Selina turned her focus there, her expression tightening. Time thickened. The passage froze - not in space, but in duration itself. The lead creatures hung mid-leap, claws suspended in air, while those behind them crashed into an advance that no longer progressed. The choke point became a stalled moment stretched thin, holding the horde in place like a wound refusing to close.
Elara exhaled sharply as her soldiers held both fronts. “Remind me never to argue with you about timing,” she muttered. Selina’s voice was quieter now, strained at the edges. “Time always collects its due.” Still, she held the battlefield steady until, hours that felt like heartbeats later, the Bloodthorne withdrew as abruptly as they had come. When the pressure released, the frozen passage shuddered back into motion, finding only defeat waiting on the other side.
Silence settled over the mine, broken only by the crackle of broken timber and the distant calls of survivors. Elara looked out over the secured walls, then at the Chronomancer who had bent the battle itself. “You didn’t just defend the mine,” she said. Selina lowered her hand, the hourglass settling back into its natural rhythm. “No,” she replied. “I borrowed enough seconds to make sure it couldn’t be taken.”
And for the first time since the first Bloodthorne root had crossed the horizon, Elara Steelheart allowed herself to believe the Blackstone mine would still be there tomorrow.
---
Magistra Selina Wynford is now available! Secure her for your Silver Line army before it is, ahem, too late.
