The Story of NoTemp'o
This story takes place in a uchrony, occuring in the Bay of Napoli during the year 2107.
Sciences, technologies and innovations are center placed.
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During these chapters, we will see the story of the protagonist Sofia, in her quest of finding her missing husband. She will go through 7 unique locations (levels) that will lead her to her final answer! For instance, only the level 3 is developed as it was our End-Study Project.
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Take a look!
01
An horrendous night
Sofia is a member of several scientific groups where she enjoys discussing her reflections and research. One night, after having some drinks with her colleagues, she finally took the funicular to return home to her apartment in the district of Via Veneto. A vintage but charming location for a slow-paced life.
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She was approaching her apartment and faced the inevitable; her door was broken, and the interior of the flat was in disarray. Yelling for her husband, there was no answer, only a small breeze passing through the hall of the building through the opened windows.
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She broke down for several minutes, but she didn't have time to lose; she needed to find answers, even if they were not of good quality. She searched all around her apartment for evidence or information, but found nothing. In a hurry, she crafted a prototype of NoTemp'o hidden in her bedroom and took an example of a Teleportation Module. She was ready to leave her flat and go to the Chief Office situated at the crossroads of Via Veneto and Mare Solar, but she stopped some minutes and finally decided to go to the Chief Office tomorrow... Here, she had to gather more information and do some research!
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The night had turned into a harrowing quest for answers and perhaps some of them had been captured on camera!
02
Federico De Angeli was here?
On that night, Sofia didn't sleep at all. She focused solely on preparing her prototypes and trying to gather information about the disappearance of not only her husband but also their research.
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At precisely 8 o'clock, Sofia was already outside. She approached neighbors, all the grannies who were awake since 6 o'clock (some things never really change), and even the kids around.
There was no explanation, and assuming the coup was orchestrated at 8 pm, it wasn't a surprise. Everyone was already eating, and sometimes in this district, the lights are shut down to conserve energy and resources to keep the heart of the city well-lit.
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Sofia had no choice but to take the funicular and navigate through obstacles and construction sites. She arrived at Mare Solar, a tourist location and balneary station. Her first and only objective was to find the Chief Officer and ask to see the security cameras of Via Veneto.
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As she walked through the streets of Mare Solar and listened to the conversations of residents and tourists, Sofia noticed that a private event was taking place tonight on Isola Festival, a celebration of new technologies where a timeless presentation would occur. She is one of the city's leading thinkers and innovators, yet she isn't even invited. That's suspicious!
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Finally, she arrived at the Chief Office and conducted a questioning interview to obtain camera recordings and ask questions to Imani Mirano the Chief Officer about Federico (an oppulent innovator and investor) and the Isola Festival event. She learned that last night Federico had stayed nearby, waiting for his henchmen to return from Via Veneto; they had a mission to accomplish there!
Sofia's thoughts raced, and for her, she had her answer.
She had to go to this masquerade party and find her husband and their research. In just one day, he couldn't have made everything disappear! Sofia is certain Federico wants and will present their research (to both her and her husband)!
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Heading to Isola Festival, shrouded in anonymity and anxiety.
03
A great masquerade, Isola Festival
It was at the Mare Solar dock that she decided to "borrow" a boat and infiltrate incognito onto Isola Festival. Fortunately for her, it was a masquerade night, so she could go unnoticed. After long minutes, she finally reached the Isola Festival delivery dock; there was no way she was using the entrance reserved for the true guests of the evening.
Uncertain where to begin in finding her documents, she occasionally eavesdropped on discussions between some assertive guests: Charlotte, the opera singer, or the artistic director Martha De Giulia.
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She then faced Federico's demonstration. A flash of light and a new spatiotemporal effect occurred... Sofia emerged from this paradox and found herself back on the delivery docks. Doubtful, she checked her hastily crafted NoTemp'o and realized that the time was no longer the same. She moved again on the island and encountered the same guests... the same discussions... everything repeated in a loop. Her logic and knowledge of time immediately made her understand that she was not dreaming but rather experiencing what Leandre and she had feared... a temporal anomaly.
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Retrieving her research documents was not easy in this monitored space, and obtaining them within a limited time seemed, at the moment, impossible.
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Yet, she was well-equipped; her NoTemp'o prototype might do the trick! But at what cost? She tried, freezing certain guests and discussions in time. Events changed, guests no longer did exactly the same things; that was the solution. Free to move and strangely unaffected by the time loop, Sofia pieced together the puzzle and, by reliving the same evening in a loop, eventually gathered the necessary information.
After entering Federico's office, Sofia searched the documents and eventually found them. In the briefcase, there was no proof of Leandre's disappearance but a lot of information about Federico's organization and his plan to improve his faltering society: Mente Scope.
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Moreover, Sofia recognized a familiar face on the organization members' list: Marco Livio, one of her best friends when they were studying physics and biology at the university.
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Maybe he knows more about Federico the vanishing of Leandre! Sofia has her new objective in mind—to find Marco Livio, and she knows that he gives courses at the University of Marine Biology. Tomorrow, at the first hour, Sofia will go to it.
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But for now, she needs to escape this place without being seen and without being taken back to the beginning of the party! Like in a microcosm, moving away from the loop, Sofia is no longer brought back to the docks at the same time. This time anomaly has surely caused significant problems...
04
Marco Livio the Gentle
After sorting through her thoughts and regaining her composure, Sofia realizes that this time loop has likely affected other locations along the coast. Urgency sets in as she fears Leandre might disappear permanently. Knowing that Marco Livio, her scientist friend, has ties to Federico and could provide precise information, Sofia decides to rest and head to the Marine Biology School at dawn the next day. There, Marco was scheduled to teach a specialized course on time and advanced relativity theory.
Arriving at the school perched on a cliff, Sofia finds an eerily calm building, rarely used during the summer except for specialized courses.
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Sofia, forced to use NoTemp'o due to another temporal anomaly, realizes that the entire interior is frozen in time. Navigating this museum-like environment, she freezes elements to create chain reactions between physical and organic components. After an extensive search, she locates Marco in one of the underground part of the building, a sort of aquarium with testing laboratories. Now, she must carry him out and return him to the real time, away from this frozen university.
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During their reunion, a lengthy discussion unfolds in Porto Felice to learn everything Marco knows about Federico. Marco reveals Federico's questionable actions, driven by his ill wife, Katrina, and mentions a temporal anomaly at Federico's home, an apparent rift to another reality.
During their discussion, Marco received a notification from another member of Federico's Organization, Mona Isabella. She asked him again if he could attend the gathering at the new Monte Alto stadium tomorrow around 5 pm. The plan seemed to involve adding new members to the existing team.
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Sofia is now convinced that Leandre is at Federico's home. The challenge is that no one knows his address, not even Marco Livio. Going to the Monte Alto stadium appears to be the only way to uncover more evidence and get answers as several members of the organization could be there!
05
Past or New Organisation
The time in this place didn't freeze but instead catapulted into the past, a very distant past. What had been intended as a cutting-edge Aerial Football stadium vanished, replaced by ancient Gallo-Roman ruins.
Sofia and Marco needed to navigate through collapses and debris, passing behind leaning columns in the amphitheater ruins. Moving in this remote and unstable environment was extremely challenging.
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The temporal leap not only displaced the structure but also triggered unforeseen consequences, creating ambushes, rockfalls, and avalanches. These hazards caused the unfortunate demise or severe injuries of some members of Federico's organization during the process. Sofia and Marco had to be careful. Helped by Marco, Sofia now needed to question the organizer, Mona Isabella, who was best positioned to provide information on Federico's whereabouts. Sofia, knowing she shouldn't be there, added an additional layer of danger to her mission.
That's why Marco left her sooner, to appear less suspicious and to explore the place at his own pace. After some minutes, Marco sent the location of Mona Isabella, who was a bit injured under some ruins, to Sofia. The latter had to be prepared for all eventualities now, such as collapses or enemy ambushes. After a successful infiltration, Sofia managed to find Mona Isabella, the main organizer. Unfortunately, her attempts to interrogate Mona proved futile. Mona refused to cooperate and threatened to call the guards, Marco remaining silent between the two in order to not appear suspicious.
Luckily, she made a sly proposition to Sofia. In exchange for her silence, Mona made an offer, and Sofia needed to help her, Marco, and two other members escape the debris. She preferred abandoning other organization members than having all of them "perish" here.
Sofia accepted the deal and searched for the remaining two individuals and the Hémantic portal activation device located near the planned stadium site. She moved cautiously, avoiding those who might silence her forever. On the other hand, Mona didn't want Sofia to be caught, fearing she might never return home.
She acknowledged Sofia's talent and the undeniable advantage her NoTemp'o provided. Sofia located one of the two sought-after individuals and communicated the plan and rendezvous point. Unfortunately, the last member didn't survive and was crushed under the debris.
Time was of the essence; Sofia hurried to the meeting point and activated the device to reset the Hémantic portal. The path was clear, and the four "allies" managed to escape.
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After these adventures, Mona was finally willing to reveal what she knew about Federico, advising Sofia to access the Memoria Archive and enter the code she provided.
This code would grant access to a specific section of the Archive, reserved for major investors, of which Federico was a part.
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The Archives contains information about everyone at all times. It's a veritable treasure trove of information and resources, a kind of Library of Babel for the Bay of Napoli.
06
Archives: Memories of the Futur
Sofia had met her friend Marco Livio in a restaurant in the Mare Solar district the day after the events of Monte Alto. During their discussion, they debated the action plan and the information provided by Mona. Mona had spent a lot of time searching for Federico's file and had even managed to obtain his exact address at one point.
However, the address had probably changed since last year, meaning Sofia had to check for herself and find the necessary information, including Federico's exact address and the access code to his residence.
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It might have seemed strange nowadays, but to avoid data conflicts and interference between cybersecurity devices, access codes for residences were all listed in a vast database. Sofia knew how this worked; she herself had been affected by this system and had to wait several months to get the code for her own apartment. The society was capitalist, but extreme individualism and private property were somewhat controlled to prevent serious outbreaks and to keep track of dissidents. Sofia concluded that Federico's apartment address, as well as his plan, was listed in a register and a specific server alley.
That's where she had to search and investigate. Fortunately, Mona had given her the access code to the alley where Federico was affiliated.
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Waiting for the closing of the Archives, Sofia and Marco had fortunately prepared something to have a step ahead.
The Memoria Archives were aptly named and were closely monitored. They indeed contained most of the city's data, including residential access codes, but also copies of prototypes and other mechanical objects from the past. It was a real stroke of luck for Marco and Sofia to have a Hemantic portal at the heart of the archives.
Thanks to their talent, Marco and Sofia managed to logically connect two Hemantic portals: the one on the edge of Mare Solar and the one in the Memoria Archives! Sofia could now search for Federico's address and plan, as well as his access code.
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She went through the portal and found herself in an environment where time flowed backward. Security cameras, archive-closing staff, employees, and infrastructure guards – everything unfolded backward. Sofia was the only one moving in the correct timeline.
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The difficulty lay in the fact that the new access code, the one Sofia was looking for, changed hands before returning to its creator and disappearing permanently. Sofia could not obtain a code that hadn't even been created and validated by the archives yet. She had to act quickly, follow the leads, and get the code before its creation.
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However, this phenomenon created a huge risk for time itself because Sofia, the free electron, was in a timeline that advanced normally, while the environment around her flowed backward. The clash between these two timelines created a paradox so significant that if Sofia stayed longer than expected, time collapsed and disappeared. Any form of life present in the archives would be shattered and simply vanish.
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After a tough struggle against time, Sofia finally managed to leave the archive premises with the code that had not yet been created in the archive's timeline but had already been implemented in the real timeline, where Sofia and Federico operated since the beginning.
07
Leandre, Time & Fracture
Sofia finally arrives at Paradiso Serafino, a luxurious futuristic villa perched on the cliff's edge, elegantly concealed by the surrounding nature. Led by Marco Livio, Sofia expresses her heartfelt gratitude for his invaluable assistance before entering the mansion and leaving him behind.
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This place and the events that unfold depend on a simple action that can be taken in level 3, at Isola Festival. Not specified earlier, it appears that Katrina (Federico's ailing wife) was on the top floor of the mansion, kept alive by a complex assembly of advanced technologies. If, at that moment in her adventure, Sofia decided to "end her suffering," the subsequent story for Federico and Leandre at Paradiso Serafino would be profoundly affected.
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The story's conclusion and the atmosphere emanating from this villa entirely hinge on this choice:
If Sofia ends Katrina's suffering on Isola Festival, then Federico's demeanor will be utterly monotonous, depressive, with dimmed lights, alone, and almost alcoholized. After concluding her conversation with Federico, Sofia faces two choices: either join her husband Leandre in another timeline or stay here and rectify the mistakes with Federico's assistance. According to him, it's the fault of the NoTemp'o (and its creators) that these three individuals are in this situation. Federico has no one left except himself; Sofia and Leandre are separated by time, and the excessive use of superhuman power has condemned them all.
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Conversely, if Sofia hasn't ended Katrina's life, the tone and atmosphere in the villa will be lighter, brighter, and Federico will invite Sofia to join her husband Leandre in his research laboratory. The two lovers are reunited, emanating immeasurable happiness. However, regardless of Sofia's actions at Isola Festival, Katrina will never live to reach Paradiso Serafino.
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Finally, a discussion among our three protagonists takes place, and the choice lies with Sofia. Will she forgive Federico for his past actions and help repair the future, escape through the temporal rift and evade this reality with Leandre, or continue living but disappear from Federico's life, never to hear from him again?
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In any case, the final choice belongs to Sofia, and it will determine the course of her adventure and the consequences of her actions.