human
Valt:  I don’t know what they are, but they’re certainly not deities. Following the Age of Gods and prior to the start of the Dark Age, there is a blank period of time. That was when they zeroed in on our world, introduced these experimental items, and recorded what we do like we were toys in a miniature garden. Valt studied Tinasha’s reaction. Before, in many other lives, he had told her this truth.
gpt
Tinasha:  "What exactly is this family of Time-Readers?" This time was no different, as Tinasha repeated the inquiry verbatim. She never changed.
human
Valt:  Valt chuckled before giving the same answer. "We are the descendants of that first child saved by time travel. Ever since Eleterria was first given to humans, one member of my lineage per generation has been trapped as part of the artifact’s power. Our souls are used as record sheets."
gpt
Tinasha:  "What…? Your souls?"
human
Valt:  "Outsiders’ artifacts defy the laws of magic because the artifacts are each powered by fundamentals from beyond this world. Didn’t it strike you as odd that a tiny little orb could be so powerful as to overwrite the world by turning back time?"
gpt
Tinasha:  "Well…yes. It didn’t map to the scale of it at all."
human
Valt:  "Exactly. That’s because Eleterria incorporates the soul of the current Time-Reader heir when it activates. Once it’s triggered, it calls up a specified point in time from the pool of memories the world has stored and reproduces it. The soul of the heir serves as the anchor that stabilizes that specified point and then acts as the record board where a log of usage is inscribed. The names of all the heirs, past and future, are also written upon that board. Our ability to retain memories of the lifetimes we’ve repeated is only a by-product of all of that." Whoever the outsider that came up with such a mechanism was, they must have been ignorant of the acute suffering of the humans whose souls would be used for this. Because Valt’s family was only alive thanks to Eleterria, the system would abuse them for centuries to come.
gpt
Valt:  Valt tapped his forehead, his smile not reaching his eyes. "I have a complete log of everyone who’s ever used Eleterria and why stored in here. At present, the last time it was used was sixteen years ago so that the late Queen Rosalia of Farsas could save her son’s life. And Eleterria’s most massive overwrite happened four hundred years ago, when the twenty-first king of Farsas, Oscar Lyeth Increatos Loz Farsas, changed the past for his wife, a witch. It all adds up, doesn’t it?"
human
Valt:  Tinasha’s jaw had dropped, which Valt observed with a tight grin. Lives, rewound abruptly because someone else wished it so. Memories, accruing and overlapping. That would be enough torture to crush the average person. The worst part of it all was that it was only a side effect. Irritation welling up within him, Valt let his gaze wander.