You quickly unbuckle yourself from the pilot's chair, your boots crunching on broken glass from the shattered gauges. The peasant girl takes several steps back as the time machine's hatch hisses open. 'Peace, I mean no harm,' you say in practiced Renaissance Italian, raising your empty hands. Her eyes dart between your strange clothing and the smoking machine behind you.

Leaving the frightened girl behind, you move through the orderly rows of grapevines, their leaves rustling in the autumn breeze. Your temporal scanner beeps faintly in your pocket - something is wrong here. The readings show chronal distortions radiating from the vineyard's stone farmhouse. As you approach, you notice the building's outline shimmers slightly, like a mirage in desert heat.

Pushing open the heavy wooden door, you're greeted by an impossible sight: the farmhouse interior stretches far beyond its exterior dimensions, its walls lined with anachronistic electrical equipment. A man in Renaissance merchant's clothing stands before a glowing apparatus, his hands moving across controls that shouldn't exist for another four centuries. He turns abruptly at your entrance, revealing eyes that glow faintly blue. 'Ah,' he says calmly, 'you're earlier than I calculated.'

Outside, you hear the peasant girl screaming. Through the window, you see a squadron of armored soldiers marching up the vineyard path - their polished breastplates emblazoned with an unknown sigil. The merchant sighs, adjusting his strange wrist device. 'Tell me, timewalker - how familiar are you with the concept of paradox cascades?' The scanner in your pocket begins shrieking as multiple temporal anomalies suddenly bloom across the countryside.