Morello and void got more Ap tho , so did liandries which got a big buff through locket removalBut . I wish they made more out of haunting guise <| sep |> I hope that insured traders choose to eject in escape pods and puthe bounties on pirates , rather than dying to the last man or suiciding <| sep |> HIs opponent was on a deck <| sep |> Shit . Anders watched the last line of code flicker on the screen for a full ten seconds before exhaling again . ' Transport Complete . ' There was a painful silence the pale green glow of the monitors softly illuminating a dozen stony faces . Beyond the monitors , carved into the far wall of the room , the machine lay vacant . Only a partial , bloody footprint and the quiet hum of flowing coolant signalled its recent occupancy . Well , came a voice from the back , what now ? A short , stout woman in her forties who had been leering at the same monitor as Anders straightened herself up and cleared her throat . All we know is that he ' s gone , and nothing seems to have changed . That means one of two things . Either the transportation failed and he just died enroute or . the NoChange theorists are correct and he ' s currently alive in the twelfth century . Jene , how could that be ? The latter , I mean . Well , the short answer is we don ' t know . He could simply have arrived and failed in whatever crazed mission he had . A less likely , but theoretically possible scenario , is that he has indeed changed everything , albeit for a timeline other than our own . Henry Culville arrived with almost unbearable pain paralyzing his left leg . He collapsed to the ground , his backpack ' s contents spilling over the wet , grassy field . Light rain diluted the blood covering his leg and washed it into the ground . With gritted teeth , he surveyed his landscape . The enormous manor in the distance looked reassuringly familiar . He grinned to himself , removed his bag and reached into it to retrieve a small epidural needle . Stabbing it quickly into his leg near the fresh bullet wound , he stifled a scream and rolled onto his back . After a few minutes of heavy breathing , he managed to stand . ' The wonders of modern medicine , ' he thought to himself , enjoying the irony . The thought made him laugh , softly at first , but as his situation began to dawn on him it grew louder and louder , until he was hysterical , bent over double and howling . A young girl he hadn ' t noticed until now stood about a hundred feet away , staring by now . She wore clothes he had heard of but never seen , and a facial expression that mixed fear and wonder . With a confident stride , he walked towards her , arms outstretched and smiling , blood on his clothes . She immediately turned and ran towards the manor . Every news station and every corner of social media was awash with the terrifying news . Time travel was possible , and it had gone seriously wrong . Updated reports came in every five minutes of the motives , background and mental health of the rogue engineer who had hijacked the machine . Mixed descriptions circled from friends and colleagues of an overworked employee , a genius and a loner . A skilled technician with the highest level of clearance and access . A dysfunctional maniac with delusions of grandeur . Protests in every major city called for the suspension of research , the overview of the people and the regulation government . The private sector had gone too far . Someone had to pay and in the meantime , time travel was on hold . He stared at the historical figure bleeding out on the ground in front of him . Turning to his left , Henry flicked through the technical pages left open on the man ' s desk . It was no wonder the huge manor , the wealth and influence , the scientific reputation in wouldbe history books this man truly was revolutionary . That is why Henry hated him . The confusion on his face was almost comical . Henry could imagine that he was just as perplexed about the weapon used against him as the motive . Nobody in this time had ever seen a gun and , if he had his way , nobody ever would . The future had grown like a disease inside his mind . The pressure of modern society , the pointlessness of every pursuit , the global pandemics , wars and genocides at the touch of a button . It had been his passion for so long but only in the end had it become so clear to him that technology was primarily a solution to the problems it created . So what if medicine remained primitive ? So what if people died younger ? Is that really worse than the nuclear weapons or biological warfare ? As he watched his victim bleed out and lose consciousness , he imagined the world as it could be . Pure . Simple . Dark ages , yet there was comfort in the darkness . No harsh light . No progress for the sake of progress . Just life for the sake of life . An imperfect , beautiful world . Yes , this was worth it . Yes , he could do it . Yes , he would do it . It just took guts . The protests had stopped . Without Henry Culville , progress on restarting the Time Machine was slow anyway . Not that it mattered , in theory . Time travel was time travel afterall . Still , the political and personal pressures of the world were not comforted by such thoughts , so Anders Kovach and Jene Galston worked night and day to offer some reassurance , some note of hope that they could repair the damage they had done . Not just for their investors or their reputation , but for themselves . They needed to believe that whatever Henry had achieved could and would be reversed . It was one of the first times technological ability had outpaced the theoretical predictions of what might happen . Time travel was rife with paradoxes and circularities . Had they already gone back in time and stopped him ? Had he simply disappeared from this timeline and branched off to an entirely separate reality ? Was that even possible ? They had to find out , and there was only one way to do it . It had worked . Part of him couldn ' t believe it . Henry stood at the gallows , staring at a thick rope that hung at eye level . After his first kill , he had gone straight to the Cathedral and demonstrated his heretical abilities . A few more murders convinced the Church quickly enough of the danger he presented . The danger his technology presented . He told them there would be more like him , that their purpose was clear the end of the Church , the end of God . After destroying what he had brought with him , he was captured . He was sentenced to death . The Church the most powerful body in this time period now had a new enemy , and he was their first victory . Jene stood behind a podium that was slightly too tall for her . She looked at the expectant faces in the crowd . She cleared her throat . Today , we have the chance to correct a terrible mistake . Henry Culville was a sick man , and his vision which I ' m sure you ' ve all read by now was a deeply distorted one . It is true that the modern world we have is wrought with problems . It is true that some of them are a direct result of our own progress . But that progress is what we live for , and there is little more human than the excitement of discovery . She paused and looked around the room . The power of time travel is obviously immense , yet its impact difficult to characterize . Henry ' s departure seems to have had no effect on us , as far as we can measure . He is not in our history . He has not destroyed our future . Wherever , or whenever he has gone . the wonders of technology our clean transportation , our space travel , our energy and food systems all remain alive and well in the great year of 1808 . First time doing a writing prompt response . Hope it ' s not too confusing time travel ideas can go that way .