Timepiece

The Timepiece is an artifact given by the Outsider that enables its user to shift through the timeline. It is used during the mission A Crack in the Slab.

When held, the foldable lenses on top of the Timepiece refract and provide a view of a given time period – either 1852 (the present) or 1849 (the past) in Aramis Stilton's manor. Activating the artifact allows its user to move between the two periods of the timeline.

If there is something blocking the user from going from one time period to the other, the artifact will not work, and the lenses will darken, not showing the other timeline until the user moves to another area where their destination between timelines is no longer blocked.

Trivia

 * An item reminiscent of a bone charm floats in the center of the Timepiece.
 * While Emily Kaldwin or Corvo Attano keep the Timepiece in their inventory until the end of the mission, it cannot be used outside Stilton Manor, and will say the destination is blocked.
 * If the protagonist climbs with the Timepiece's lenses unfolded, the lenses automatically fold by the time they have finished climbing.
 * The Timepiece can make a useful escape device, switching to the other timeline when the protagonist is low on health.
 * However, enemies can kill the protagonist even after they have begun to move between timelines.
 * The protagonist cannot stow their weapons at the same time as they unfold the lenses, but can when they fold the lenses.
 * During early development, the Timepiece did not exist, and was simply "a dirty hack" that moved the protagonist up or down, as the map for the manor is actually three different maps stacked on top of each other. This means that, from a developmental standpoint, the Timepiece simply offsets the protagonist's position.
 * This raised the issue of the protagonist teleporting inside objects, which was later solved with the message saying that the destination is blocked.
 * The lenses were added to ensure that the protagonist could see where they were moving to, preventing them from transporting to undesirable locations, such as into groups of guards or bloodflies.
 * The lenses appear to be made out of shards of Blood Amber.