"Not eating? My wife's cooking is delicious you know?" [Farmer]

"First explain properly."

"Later, later, we have time after all. Don't be shy, just eat to your heart's content. Just like your short friend." [Farmer]

"Gah'raagh! Bradn not short, mohn'ustur too tall!" [Bradn]

"Mohn'ustur?" [Farmer]

"Explain."

"Let's do it like this, I'll explain only after you eat something okay?" [Farmer]

"I cannot do that."

"And why is that?" [Farmer]

Dar'ith removed its mask, revealing its skull, causing a small commotion among the other people in the room and leading to a few swords being pointed its way.

"Oh, that is indeed a good reason." [Farmer]

The three of them were now walking outside, toward the barn.

Dar'ith was just finishing writing down all the informations and making a sense out of everything.

"So, if I got this correctly: the farm, along with its inhabitants are stuck in a continuous loop in which every day at morning everything is reset to the state in which they entered the anomaly. Correct?"

"Sounds about right." [Farmer]

"Leaving the premises only leads to being stuck in a second loop where you're teleported back the moment you leave over and over again until you go back. Is this also correct?"

"Oh, that sounds a lot smarter than what I usually say. Teach me the words later." [Farmer]

"And you've been stuck here for over two centuries and a half."

"Two hundred and fifty six for me and my family, yes." [Farmer]

"For the others?"

"The most recent ones before you, arrived twenty years or so ago. I don't really remember the others." [Farmer]

"You said that the meteor is the cause."

"It is." [Farmer]

"And it falls every night at midnight to start everything again."

"That's what it does." [Farmer]

The farmer held out his arm and stopped the group from going forward.

Everyone stopped just a dozen of meters before the barn.

"I wouldn't recommend going forward unless you wish to get lost in time or who knows what world." [Farmer]

"Explain."

"The surroundings of the barn makes little sense. You might find yourself near the entrance with a step and pass past it with the next.

Other effects include sudden changes in age, rotting, being born again, finding yourself in the midst of strange stone and glass buildings that reach the sky or in the middle of a war fought with loud... uh... black bows without strings that explode at the end?

Also people lacked armors and were dressed in green. You may also see strange fleshy and skinless humanoid figures, bright lights and the floor might not stay a floor." [Farmer]

"Those are rather peculiar effects for someting that manipulates time."

"Never said it manipulated time, only said that the barn is weird." [Farmer]

"Mm... I'm guessing you know of these effects from experience."

"Yeah, I made a few trips already. The scholars here wanted to study the meteor and a few of the guards and adventurers here wanted to be heroes." [Farmer]

"The meteor? Is that not in the sky waiting to fall down again?"

"Yeah, it's also inside the barn though." [Farmer]

"How?"

"I don't know. Magic?" [Farmer]

"Have you tried destroying it to remove the anomaly?"

"Of course, that's the first thing I did." [Farmer]

"Is it invulnerable to damage?"

"No, it very much felt every hit." [Farmer]

"Then is it very resilient?"

"Nah, you can cut through it very easily." [Farmer]

"...so the effect is still up even after it being destroyed?"

"The meteor is still intact though?" [Farmer]

Dar'ith closed its notes.

"Explain how it is not destroyed after being easy to damage."

"You remember our fight yesterday?" [Farmer]

"Yes, is the meteor incredibly fast and possesses high reaction speeds?"

"Hahaha, thanks for the compliments but I got my ass handed to me multiple times during our fight." [Farmer]

"No? You blocked all my attacks."

"No, I just rewound us back in time and remembered the attack order." [Farmer]

"You know of the reality bending magic [Rewind]? Can you teach me?"

"Do I look like a mage? No, I just move my hands and stuff goes back." [Farmer]

"You can use magic without chanting? Can you teach me?"

"Mm... No? Although it is magic now that I think about it." [Farmer]

"What are the limitations? Do you need to see the target? Need to touch them? How far back? Can you teach me?"

"I can put people in any state they were in during the last fifteen seconds, limbs will be reattached, wounds close, broken stuff gets fixed and I can even revive people.

Not that the last one is useful here as they'll get revived the next day anyway. I can also choose not to return things to a previous state and instead just put them back in a previous position.

The effects on me are enhanced and I can do any of the things mentioned earlier but the moment can be as far back as the last year.

I can only do this by moving a hand and if left dis 'armed', ha! I can't do any of that.

Also no, I can't teach you." [Farmer]

"So I'm guessing the meteor can do the same."

"Yes, that's why even after six millennia of fighting I couldn't destroy it." [Farmer]

The dwarf and the skeleton both eyed the sighing farmer.

"What is 'millennia'?" [Bradn]

"Six thousand? I thought the oldest ones here have been stuck for less than three hundred years."

"Ah, time in the barn passes differently. It is also why I have all this wrinkles and old shabby clothes compared to the rest of my family.

Time does have an effect on you inside there as you don't get reset anymore. Also my eyes rotted away somewhere during the battle." [Farmer]

"So you're not an undead?"

"I never died so I guess no?" [Farmer]

"...how did you gain that ability?"

"During my fight with the thing, it 'infects' stuff with strange tentacle things and leaves marks like these which give special properties to the object. Or at least that's what the scholars told me." [Farmer]

The farmer showed the backs of his hands along with the attachment ring of his scythe.

On all of these were strange pale azure crystals that extended across the cracks or the veins of their respective hosts.

"I, got that ability, my scythe, retains the same sharpness and form no matter how damaged it gets." [Farmer]

"And you got these abilities by fighting the meteor."

"Yes." [Farmer]

"I would like to try and fight the meteor."

"Ha! Be my guest, take a step forward and get to the barn. I'll get you out after a nap." [Farmer]

The farmer laughed and went back to his house, leaving the giant skeleton and short dwarf to their own devices.

"Bradn comes too?" [Bradn]

"If you want to."

The two of them stepped forward and walked.

A couple of hours passed and Dar'ith noticed that the barn was still at the same distance it was at the start.

Turning around to check on its companion, the skeleton noticed that he was missing.

Turning around again the scenery was now dead and dry, all signs of life were gone and the barn was nowhere to be seen.

Stepping backwards, Dar'ith bumped into a wall: it was the back of the barn.

Going around the barn to find the entrance, the undead noticed men going around with tools and planks, inent on building the barn it was trying to enter.

Am I back in time? Thought the skeleton as it noticed the barn back in the original position, cracked and ruined by the time.

A sword stopped in front of the undead.

"Who are y-!?" [Man]

A black haired man asked Dar'ith before swirling his sword and slashing down on the undead.

The man was fast but Dar'ith saw the attack and parried to the side while chanting a spell that created a bright red magic formation between of them.

During this, the undead also noticed mana accumulating inside the young man.

"Heey, Daaamieeen... Are you ther-!?" [Woman]

A woman with bat wings, a long tail ending in a blade and two horns came out of the surrounding forest and stared at the undead first in surprise, then in shock.

The woman started trembling and with uncertain voice she asked:

"That magic... I-it can't be... Are you the-" [Woman]

The chant finished and the scenery changed once again.

Roads made of what looked like a single piece of stone, carriages made of metal that moved by themselves and towering buildings made out of stone and glass that reached the sky.

A fireball shot off of the finished magic formation, creating an explosion on one of the towering houses and causing it to slowly collapse.

Are those made out of glass!? I thought glass making was incredibly hard, is this the past? The future? Another world?

People were running around in panic, some pointing at the robed skeletons, some screaming while others speaking into small hand sized tablets of various colors with moving images on them.

Four groups of people dressed in white and blue clothes made of strange fabric appeared out of nowhere.

A few of them held their hands out and the building stopped collapsing, staying still in midair.

The rest surrounded Dar'ith and either assumed battle stances or pointed some strange black things with a hole at the end of them at the undead.

"Hold your hands where we can see them, this is the A.H.C.D. You are under arrest! Do not try to run, your powers have been identified as 'teleportation' and 'pyrokinesis', anti ability equipment has already been put down, your powers will not activate." [Woman]

"Chantless magic? What is this place?"

Dark.

As the skeleton stepped forward, the light faded out of existance, the land was dead and dry, crumbling under its feet.

The only light it could see were the stars. Maybe it was night, but then, why was the moon missing?

"Oh? Have I already passed through here? Or are you perhaps the creation of one of my children? Perhaps Rahhash, he likes things like you." [Fatherly and kind voice]

Dar'ith turned around, searching for the one that was speaking magic language so fluently and all it saw was a cloud of dust flying at it as something that it only knew as a 'golem' downed another one and dug its arm into the fallen one's body.

A bright enveloped the winner as the second one crumbled leaving behind a metal furnace.

"Why? Why did this happen... Brother..." [Golem]

The skeleton made another step and this time a forest surrounded it. Compared to the previous views, this was relatively peaceful.

A rustle in the bush behind made the undead turn around.

A slightly muscular greenskinned child with small tusks coming out of his lower jaw, holding a boar on his back met its eyes.

"Waaaaaaaagh!" [Greenskinned child]

Throwing the boar at the skeleton, the child ran away in panic.

At this point a hand grabbed Dar'ith's shoulder and the farmer's face appeared from the side.

"Come, it's almost night time. Let's go back. Keep holding my scythe so that you don't get lost." [Farmer]

The scenery changed back to the farm they started from.

After a few hour of walking and a couple more changes of the surroundings, the two finally managed to get back to the original world.

"By the way, you moved through time really quickly. Me and the others got stuck for days or months at a time in other timelines the first time around." [Farmer]

"Were all those visions from the past?"

"Past, future both near and far. And they're not visions, you actually went there." [Farmer]

"I travelled through time?"

"Yes, do you know the story of the magic farmer?" [Farmer]

"The children's book? The one about the farmer that came back every year without aging a... You're the main character?"

"Oh, I expected a... More surprised reaction but yes, that is indeed me. After I learned the correct path through that place, I found some people I took a liking to and visited them every once in a while.

I just had to take a step in the right direction after all, so why not do that and surprise them. I never expected for them to write a story about me." [Farmer]

"Step? So the actions we take change our positions in time?"

"Yes, from what I learned." [Farmer]

"Fascinating."

"I guess, I'll go back and search for your friend now. Let's hope he's not jumping around as quick as you were." [Farmer]

"Ah! Found!" [Bradn]

At that moment, the small dwarf appeared from behind them with a large grin.

"Bradn worried, drakhnahhi Dar'ith was naktul. Bradn thought wara niknik derr Dar'ith, after wagharr wara niknik tavra shaussi, Bradn tah'tah waugh." [Bradn]

"What?" [Farmer]

"In altrian Bradn."

"Oh, kittargh. Uuh... So, Bradn fight... Shine, uuh... Glass? No, Crystal! Bradn fight shine crystal... ta, ra, rata... Seven days then go back." [Bradn]

"You fought a shining crystal for a week?"

"Was it pulsing and more meaty feeling compared to its image?" [Farmer]

"Fuh'nahal, soft like meat." [Bradn]

"Incredible, you actually got to the barn... And back... On your first try... How?" [Farmer]

"Bradn tah'tah to naktul nash place. So Bradn stomp ground and stay! Like this." [Bradn]

The dwarf stomped on the ground like he said and the terrain wrapped around his foot.

"Like this, Bradn notice shassa change. Old, young, so Bradn move if shassa naktul change." [Bradn]

"Cool." [Farmer]

"Fascinating."

"Oh, and look! Bradn beard is... Huh!?" [Bradn]

"What about your beard?"

"Huh, eh, huuuuh!? Bradn beard! It long before, It reach shassa, now back?" [Bradn]

"Ah, any change to your person during the travel is turned back when you get in the barn or when you get out of the place. So the beard you grew most likely returned to what it was before you entered." [Farmer]

"Nooooooo..." [Bradn]

"Did you managed to destroy or permanently damage the crystal?"

"No, Bradn move slow." [Bradn]

"Mm..."

"Want to try anything else? Although I won't help this time, it's almost dinner time and then I want some more sleep." [Farmer]

"Can you not guide me to the meteor? I can't study something I can't see."

"Sure, but we'll go tomorrow, like I said I'm not missing dinner." [Farmer]

"Then I'll try to attack it from here."

Mana swirled around the undead, the air wobbling with heat as a red magic circle appeared in front of Dar'ith's extended hand.

"Small, compact, powerful. Warm, hot, hotter. Fly, catch. Expand, explode, devour. Leave only ashes."

"Follow me, dwarf, it'll be dangerous to stay here." [Farmer]

"Why is?" [Bradn]

The formation collapsed into an enormous ball of fire that compressed itself into a point no larger than a finger and shot to the barn.

The tiny fireball flew all the way across and made contact with the barn, suddently expanding and enveloping the undead in flames that quickly burned its possessions and melted its bones and weapons.

Dar'ith had died again.

It was morning.

A bright warm sun, a clear blue sky, not a single cloud in a mile. A wonderful new day inside this charming little farm.

"Drakhnahhi Dar'ith?" [Bradn]

"What happened?"

"Dar'ith explode with fire." [Bradn]

"Whoose fire?"

"Dar'ith fire." [Bradn]

A maddened scream followed by the sound of a blade wading through flesh broke the moment.

Countless men and women dressed in a variety of equipments, with different ages and of different castes were killing themselves and each others with terrified and horrified expressions.

In between all of this madness were other men fighting for their lives and mercy killing the traumatized ones.

"So it really does reset."

The same man got decapitated again and the farmer stood in front of the two.

"So yeah, any attack thrown at the barn suffers the same effects of leaving the premises of the farm: it gets back to where it started moving." [Farmer]

"Why have you not mentioned that beforehand?"

"It was more amusing this way." [Farmer]

"Mm..."

Dar'ith grabbed its diary and prepared to write down some more notes.

But with something that felt like a shocked expression it stopped.

"W-what!? Yesterday's notes! They're gone!"

"Yeah, everything gets reset, there was nothing written there when you entered so there will be nothing today either." [Farmer]

"We can't keep the research?"

"No?" [Farmer]

"Guide me to the crystal now, I have to destoy it."

"After breakfast." [Farmer]

"I have to get rid of it as early as possible."

"You either wait or I won't guide you at all." [Farmer]

And with this, Dar'ith nervously waited for the farmer to finish his breakfast while writing down any notes it remembered once again.

Thankfully for the skeleton, the trapped scholars had researched the crystal during their stay so no knowledge was lost on that day.