Bash was a burly man with messy blonde hair that reached down to his shoulder. There was what looked like a permanent oil stain in his shirt and the amount of muscles he had suggested he could easily lift up a horse. Most people tended to avoid a man like him, but his friends knew him to be a gentle giant. Bridget and Lavini had become two of those people and today, they had asked him to come with them to the old cathedral of Alinavious. The ancient building had mostly been picked clean already in favour of the new church, but there were still a few items of note left.
   “The astrolabe is almost as large as the room it is built in. This reconnaissance mission is just meant to help you estimate how many men and carts you’ll need.” Bridget had explained earlier. Bash had met her roughly four years ago when she first walked through his home town. Back then, she was the only Keeper of Time of this age, carrying with her five Divine Level Creations. Since then, four of the five DLC’s had each been claimed by five different people. There was even a sixth Keeper of Time that had been slumbering for over a thousand years.
   “We must be careful,” Bridget said. “It’s still a ruin. Some of the hallways aren’t safe.”
   “Don’t worry,” Bash chuckled. “I know how to handle a ruin.” The temple was just up ahead and the upper towers were already visible. A smile appeared on Bridget’s face while Lavini seemed a bit hesitant.
   “Seeing it really makes me wonder what it was like back in the day,” Lavini pondered out loud. “Was it anything like our church now?”
   “Well, I imagine it was different, considering your goddess was still uh…” Bash said but when he saw the saddened looks he received from both of his companions, he decided against finishing that sentence how he wanted to end it. “Around,” he just said.
   “Perhaps Ysera would know,” Bridget said. “She was around back then after all.”
   “Hmm, a good point,” Lavini said as more details of the temple became apparent. The large gates seemed to have fallen down completely and almost all of the stained glass windows were shattered or cracked. In the courtyard stood a large statue depicting the goddess that had mostly survived the test of time, though one of her hands had fallen off and some of the details had eroded away. There were also a great amount of overgrown hedges that blocked off the pathway.
   “The hedges were once grown to display a grand clock. Without any upkeep though…” Bridget explained.
   “We should think of doing something similar in New Stepolis, Bridget dear,” Lavini said.
   “Good idea!” the clockwork elemental said, seemingly thinking about it.
   “We’re gonna have to cut away these hedges if we want any carts to reach the gates,” Bash said. It would be quite the job, but the time elementals were paying handsomely.
   “Ah, good point,” Bridget said. “Akita, Cassie and I got in through that little pathway that has been cut free over there. I have no idea who made it. Someone must have cut it open with a sword shortly before I first arrived here, but I haven’t really seen any traces of recent looting.”
   “We can use the pathway for now,” Lavini said.
   “No, don’t worry,” Bridget said with a smile. “I can take care of the hedges.” She then stepped forwards and spread her arms. The skirt she was wearing started spinning as Bridget began performing what looked like a ballet performance.
   “I suggest we stand back, sir Bash” Lavini said, smiling.
   “Don’t have to tell me twice,” Bash chuckled, taking a few steps backwards. The teeth on Bridget’s gear-like skirt started expanding as it spun faster and faster. When Bridget was satisfied with its speed, she finally dashed forwards gracefully. The hedges stood no chance against the saw blade that was Bridget. It didn’t take long before a pathway was created that was broad enough for even a large cart. When she was satisfied, her skirt slowly stopped spinning and it diminished in size again.
   “And this is why one should never make Bridget angry,” Lavini chuckled as Bridget gave them a courteous bow. It was very obvious that through it all, she remained a ballerina at her clockwork heart.

The interior was as disheveled as the outside suggested. Broken clocks, shards of glass, rusty metal beams. Bash could see that it was gonna be a huge undertaking to retrieve this astrolabe. The two women led him up a set of stairs that had seen better days until eventually, they arrived at a closed set of doors. The image of the sun surrounded by several small planets was etched into a metal plate that was attached to the doors. Whoever made it must have been a true artist, Bash thought to himself. Bridget tried to open the doors but they seemed to be stuck.
   “Need help?” Bash asked.
   “Yes please,” Bridget chuckled, placing an arm behind her head. The man pressed his shoulder into the left of the double doors while Bridget did the same on the right. The clockwork elemental was remarkably strong. Of course, that was due to the fact that her body was made of metal. A lot of men envied her for that and some even refused to believe that she was that strong. Bash knew better than that.
   “One… two… three!” Bridget counted and she started pushing hard, as did Bash. Thanks to their combined efforts, the doors finally budged. It still wouldn’t open fully, though but they at least had a slit to look inside though. The reason the door was so hard to open became apparent quickly as they could see a lot of metal sprayed out on the floor. Part of the astrolabe must have collapsed and it was blocking the entrance.
   “Lavini… do you think you can take care of that?” Bridget asked.
   “Of course,” Lavini nodded before using her staff. From the hourglass at its tip, which Bash had identified as one of the DLC’s Bridget had carried with her four years ago, streams of sand shot outwards through the slit. Being mostly made of glass, Lavini was not very durable. She was still a force to be reckoned with though as her spells were stronger than anything Bash had ever seen. Sure enough, the sands of time started affecting the metal beams blocking the door. Bash could see that some of the rust and cracks on it vanished until eventually, the beams started lifting themselves up. Of course, Lavini was using her chronomancy to revert the metal beams to a state where they hadn’t yet fallen to the floor. A moment in time when they were still intact. When the spell finished, Bash and Bridget felt that they were able to push the doors open easily. The room that stretched out before them was large and remarkably high. Several metal beams and orbs hung from the dome-shaped ceiling, but most of the astrolabe had fallen to the floor. There were a great amount of metal rings, each of varying sizes, that were sprayed out on the ground and there were an equal amount of metal orbs. Some had broken. Others were merely cracked. All of it was covered in layer upon layer of rust though.
   “Such a shame to see it in this state,” Lavini sighed as the sands returned to her staff again.
   “This astrolabe once showed all of the night’s sky,” Bridget said.
   “We’re gonna have to cut some of this stuff into smaller pieces,” Bash said, eyeing some of the larger chunks.
   “I figured,” Bridget nodded. “Lavini will have to clean up the rust too with her sands.”
   “So… why did you want to bring all of this to New Stepolis?” Bash asked.
   “Our sisters Zexa Xeza insisted on it,” Lavini said. “Since they represent the sun- and moondial, it was only natural that they would want the astrolabe to stand proudly back at home.”
   “Huh? Then… why didn’t they come along?” Bash asked, raising an eyebrow and folding his arms.
   “Because they have a priority problem,” Bridget huffed. “Instead of coming to claim what they’ve been nagging us about for ages, they instead went off to visit the Spring of Aeons in Listanta together with their girlfriend Julia and a man by the name of Larry who had a quest there.”
   “Oh, you know how they are, Bridget dear,” Lavini chuckled. “Besides, the astrolabe is not just a toy for Zexa Xeza. It is an important piece of history.”
   “I know… but still,” Bridget complained. Bash laughed and started looking around. Most of the astrolabe’s pieces wouldn’t be too much of a problem. Getting to the ceiling would prove to be a greater challenge though as it was way too high to reach. In the center hung a particularly large sphere. Bash figured that it must have represented the sun once. It hung from a particularly strong chain from the highest part of the dome-shaped roof.
   “That’s gonna be a problem,” Bash thought out loud.
   “According to the ancient tome we found, that orb used to shine like the sun,” Bridget explained. “All of the other globes you see were all planets that revolved around the sun.”
   “Sounds cool,” Bash nodded as he imagined what that must have looked like.
   “Now, would it be okay if Lavini and I left you alone for a bit?” Bridget asked. “I wanted to show her something.”
   “Ah yes, the hall of your attunement, was it not?” Lavini asked.
   “Indeed!” Bridget nodded.
   “No prob,” Bash chuckled. “I’ll just continue to make my estimations here.”
   “Thank you very much, sir Bash,” Lavini said with a smile before she and Bridget went for the door.
   “We won’t be long!” Bridget said. Bash couldn’t help but smile to himself. The time elementals were an interesting bunch. Each of them had been human once, but they had given up that life in favour of this new existence. The man couldn’t help but wonder what it must be like for them. To devote your entire life to a long-dead goddess. To have your entire existence revolve around the concept of time. He figured he’d probably never really get to know. Looking up to the large sun globe again, he started wondering how to go about it. He could have his men construct a tower that would reach up high enough to cut the chains, but that still left the matter of getting it down. It looked quite heavy. In fact, everything must have been rather heavy and he figured that it’d take several trips to bring everything back to New Stepolis. He was about to move over to one of the globes lying on the ground when he heard something above him. Looking up, he was horrified to find that the chains that held up the sun globe had shattered and the heavy globe was falling down directly towards him.
   “FUCK!” Bash yelled and he jumped out of the way, the globe barely missing his leg. It created a large dent into the floor and he could hear rubble falling down outside of the room as well. Bash feared that the floor would give way or that the debris may have accidentally harmed the two time elementals. Thankfully, the floor held and he could only hope that Bridget and Lavini had managed to stay out of harm’s way. He stood up and dusted himself off. When he looked to the globe, he gasped. It had broken and it now lay in two halfs on the ground. He cursed to himself. Of all the days it could have fallen, it just had to fall today. Bridget and Lavini would probably be disappointed by this, but it wasn’t his fault as far as he knew. That’s when he noticed something lying among the rubble. Something… shiny? It looked like a small, glass sphere. Inside of the sphere was a light, as if on fire. Was this a DLC? Tentatively, Bash reached for it and picked it up. It was quite a remarkable trinket. Why was this inside of the sun globe?
   “Bridget and Lavini will wanna see you,” Bash said. He was about to move off to find them when the light within the sphere started glowing brighter than ever. It looked as if he held the sun in the palm of his hand. It then started hovering up and it floated in front of the man.
   “Uh… okay… Bridget and Lavini will REALLY wanna see you,” Bash said. That’s when the orb suddenly shot down and crashed into his stomach. To him, it felt like a punch. Looking down, he was surprised to find that the sphere had vanished. He didn’t have to ponder for long on what happened though as he could see that his stomach was glowing, as if it was on fire.
   “What the…!” Bash yelled. Was he on fire?! The light spread out and he could feel the warmth spreading. Not only that, but his muscular chest actually started to slim down a bit. Interestingly though, the light did not spread further. It remained a small orb, only it was within him now. The area around it became pitch black and Bash could even make out a few white specks here and there. Wondering what those were would have to wait though as the transformation spread further. His waist slimmed down while his hips expanded. The same thing happened to his chest. Though his muscles had always already amplified the shape of his chest, the orbs that were now starting to press into his shirt were definitely not something a normal man had. At the same time, he could feel a tingle in his manhood. Bash yelped as he could feel it retreating back into his body.
   “Bridget! Lavini!” Bash shouted for help but they simply didn’t come. Could they not hear him? Whatever the case, he was alone. He tried to run but the sensations he felt within his body made that very hard. The clothes he was wearing slowly dissipated as the transformation passed over them. All of his skin converted into the speckled black substance as everything slimmed down. On his chest now stood two pert breasts as his new vagina now fully formed down below. When the darkness spread into his arms and legs, he could actually feel his strength leaving him.
   “Help!” Bash called out, but his voice was no longer the booming male voice he once had. Instead, it was rather feminine now. Finally, the pitch black substance reached up into his head. His cheeks puffed out, as did his lips and his jawline became softer. His irises vanished while the whites of his eyes started lighting up in a bright white light. It didn’t seem to actually affect his eyesight though. His hair actually started flowing as its length increased to about the middle of his back. When the transformation was finally finished, he felt a kind of black haze enveloping his body. To him, it felt like clothes that softly caressed his new curves that concealed his new, sensitive nipples and womanhood, yet it did not seem to hide the speckled blackness of his body. The haze was swirling and twisting constantly as if it was mist, yet it seemed to maintain the form of a gown with a skirt that reached down to his knees. When it was finally over, Bash looked down to find what exactly had happened to his body. Where he was once a big burly man, he was now a lithe young woman. Within his waste shone the bright light from the sphere. Now that he could take a good look at it, he finally realized what it all was exactly. The sphere in his waist was the sun and his body had basically become like a window into outer space. The small specks of light here and there must therefore have been stars. Moving his body also seemed to move the image of space within him slightly, but the sun never moved from its spot within his waist.
   “Great…” Bash said, his high-pitched voice making him feel even worse about it all. The fact that he had become a woman was not that big a deal to him. He had been transformed once before and he figured that it would inevitably happen again. The fact that it happened here thanks to an ancient DLC was what startled him more though.
   “Don’t panic… you’re just gonna have to find Bridget and Lavini. They’ll know of a way out of thi-” Bash started telling himself when he felt that something new happened. His body had already transformed. How could the changes still not be finished? Turning around to the source of the new sensation, he could see that one of the large metal globes in the room had lifted up off the ground. It too cracked open as the sun globe had and it too held a smaller sphere inside. This new sphere came flying towards Bash, but unlike the sun’s sphere, this one actually didn’t crash into him. Rather, it started going around him in circles. Almost… as if it was in orbit around the sun inside of him. The sphere created a small, metal ring that floated around his waist at an angle and the sphere was following the ring perfectly. Shortly afterwards, a second globe opened up. And then a third one. And then a fourth one. Soon, there were several small spheres, all orbiting the sun within Bash and each with its own angled ring. None of the orbs ever seemed to crash into each-other for their rings were all of differing sizes, even though they were going quite fast. Bash noticed that each sphere was spinning on its own axis. There were even a few tiny marbles with their own metal rings here and there that revolved around some of the spheres. He soon realized that all of these spheres and marbles were planets and moons. It was all quite impressive, and it was honestly rather incredible to see the planets and rings floating around him in mid-air. There were not a whole lot of them though, and he wondered to himself why that was.
   That’s because each planet represents a god or goddess, and a lot of them were wiped out, he figured. Something still felt off though. As if something else was missing besides the planets and his manhood. What was it? He thought about it hard when it hit him like a tsunami. Time. He almost collapsed from the sensations as he could feel time coursing through him. The planets that had swirled around him were slowing down and he knew then that each of the planets were showing their accurate orbital speeds around the sun. Each of the rings around his body were angled differently, as they were indeed out there in outer space. Time flowed differently on each planet. For some, a day was as short as four human hours while for another, a day could almost last a human lifetime. That’s when memories filled his mind.
   It was in this very room when Hestia had undergone her transformation into the grand astrolabe of Alinavious. Blessed by the goddess herself, she accepted her new existence eagerly. When her goddess fell though, she was overcome by grief. Unable to do anything, she had sealed herself and the planets into the large metal astrolabe.
   Wait… huh? That can’t be right, Bash thought to himself. Who was this Hestia?
   I am Hestia, she thought. Why did she think she wasn’t who she was?
   But… I am not… Bash started thinking, hesitating. Doubt settled in quite a bit now.
   Yes I am, Hestia thought, much more certain about herself. She was indeed Hestia, an elemental of time and space. Both elements flowed through her freely and she was very glad for that. A smile formed on her face, though it would be quite hard to tell since most of her body was just pitch black space. Her smile instantly faded again though when she realized something: She was awake. Why was she awake? Had the goddess returned? No, she would have felt that. Something or someone must have stirred her in her sleep. She thought about what it could have been when she heard a gasp from behind her. Gasping herself, she jumped which caused her to leap several feet into the air. Of course, that was since her body held almost no weight to it. She turned around to find two strangers standing in the doorway. One of the women was made of metal and the other was made of glass.
   “Who… are you?” the metal one asked.
   “I… No, wait, who are YOU?” Hestia asked, raising an eyebrow. “You’re the ones who have entered my room…”
   “We heard something crash and so we made our way here,” the glass one said.
   “Crash?” Hestia asked. Ah, of course. That must have been what had caused her to wake. Looking down, she could see the broken globe that had held her inside.
   “I am Bridget,” the metal woman said, “and this is Lavini. Are… you a time elemental of goddess Alinavious too?” Hestia gasped.
   “Yes… yes I am!” she said eagerly. Her smile returned to her face as she stepped forwards. It was only now that she was able to make out more of their bodies. Lavini’s glass body seemed to hold an hourglass inside and Bridget seemed to represent a mechanical clock. They were time elementals alright, just as she was.
   “What is your name, dear?” Lavini asked.
   “Hestia,” the astrolabe elemental answered. She tilted her head then. “If this cathedral lies in ruin… what are you two doing here?”
   “Well,” Bridget started, placing her hand behind her head and chuckling uncomfortably, “we had actually come here with the intent to deconstruct your astrolabe and take it with us. I was just showing Lavini something when we heard the crash. We tried to get here faster than we did, but the hallway had collapsed.”
   “Retrieve my astrolabe?” Hestia asked, frowning slightly. Were these time elementals… stealing from the house of their own goddess?
   “Yes, dear,” Lavini said. “One of our sisters proposed the idea and we agreed upon it. It was our wish to restore the astrolabe and place it into the new church of Alinavious.”
   “New church?” Hestia asked, her eyes widened.
   “Yep,” Bridget said. “Back in New Stepolis. Our sisters and us built it not too long ago.”
   “Then… I would like to see it for myself!” Hestia proclaimed. A new church of Alinavious! This was incredible news! And the two new elementals had even hinted at the presence of other time elementals! She smiled broadly to herself as she stepped forwards. The rings of her planets seemed to shrink down slightly, as did the sun within her. If she were to fit through a narrow hallway, she had to keep the planets within her body for now. To anyone looking at her, it looked like she had zoomed out her body.
   “Tell me, dear,” Lavini spoke up. “Are you perhaps familiar with a time elemental by the name of Ysera?”
   “Ysera?” Hestia gasped. “Yes! She has awoken as well?” Ysera was a priestess just as she was and they had been transformed not too long after one another. When the goddess fell 1042 years ago, Ysera had been among the first to fall into a slumber while Hestia waited, unable to believe what had happened.
   “She has indeed,” Lavini nodded. “And I believe that our sisters Zexa Xeza will really want to meet you as well. They should be back shortly from their visit with cousin Rylla. You can meet them all if you come with us.”
   “Gladly!” Hestia said, smiling as the three women started walking down the stairs. Her life had certainly taken some interesting twists and turns since she had attuned herself to the goddess. Some good but mostly it had been hard. Now though, it finally seemed that things were looking up. A new era had begun as the planets aligned perfectly.