Early Third Day, Expedition Time

[personalityquarks]

Hey, so, uh... Are you guys okay out there? It's been like two weeks and we're kind of getting a little worried down here.

Comments

[nojohnyouare]

Weeks? A few days. Though... When we arrived, it felt strange.

[personalityquarks]

More than two weeks, actually, it's been sixteen days if you want to be technical.

[Mai will note that the date and time on her network device matches this.]

[nojohnyouare]

So the device isn't broken. I thought it was cold damage.

[personalityquarks]

Cold wouldn't damage them that much! Unless I suppose you stabbed one with ice magic.

Don't get ideas.

[nojohnyouare]

We'll try to be fast. But... It's large here.

[personalityquarks]

It's alright! We'll hold tight, just let us know when you guys are on your way back.

[nojohnyouare]

Okay. If it takes a long time... Sorry.

[personalityquarks]

We were designed to be virtually immortal except from damage. Don't worry, we can handle it.

And we'll take good care of everyone's pets, so don't worry about that!

[nojohnyouare]

Thank you. You do well.

[motherfucking_ghost]

r u crazy its been like 2 days

[personalityquarks]

Have I ever been crazy?

[Top you keep a pet possum.]

[motherfucking_ghost]

idek how would i no

[personalityquarks]

I'm usually the reasonable one, I promise.

Are not.

Shhh.

[motherfucking_ghost]

look u cant just drop oh btw time doesnt exist anymore on us and then thats it like wtf are u talking abt tho are we the crazy ones did we forget things what

[tomatowizard]

There is a time dilation effect in this fissure. Time is moving MUCH more slowly for us than it is for you. Approximately 5.3 times slower, in fact.

I took notes.

[Included is an attachment which is just pictures directly from Samata's notebook of all the observations she took when she reached the fissure's edge, as well as some pictures she took of things being poked through and even a video of her tossing rocks in.]

[personalityquarks]

Well that's... Huh.

Alright then.

[What are they supposed to do with this information right now.]

[tomatowizard]

Just so.

Things seem a little disorganized in here, but we're making good progress. For now, please just wait for us.

[plentyfriendly]

How did you measure that?

[tomatowizard]

The speed of a falling object is fixed, right? These "smartphones" have timers on them, so I threw rocks through the edge of the fissure from the outside and measured how long it took them to reach the ground.

[plentyfriendly]

That's a lot of assumptions to make about local physics. What if the fissure was also altering the strength of gravity?

[tomatowizard]

Look I was very deliberate and thorough. It's all in the notes I just uploaded!

[plentyfriendly]

In which case you won't mind if I peer-review them, right?

[tomatowizard]

That is what I meant, yes.

[plentyfriendly]

Just checking.

[tomatowizard]

I suppose I SHOULD have people review my work, really. I would be a pretty poor excuse of a natural philosopher if I refused to accept any criticism.

[plentyfriendly]

Plus you'll have other people to recommend you. Not that that'll stop people from disagreeing with you completely, of course.

[daughterofthemark]

What? I'm certain it has not been that long.

[personalityquarks]

Check your phone clock, it should still be synced to ours here.

[daughterofthemark]

It has been behaving strangely. Have we truly all lost track of time entirely without them?

[personalityquarks]

It looks more like time's flowing slower where you guys are.

Don't stress too much, just come home safe.

[have_hat_will_travel]

[Having read Samata's comment...]

Huh. I didn't think that that kind of time pacing difference was possible without proper planar separation being involved?

But yes, we're steady in here so far at least.

[theosophomoric]

The fissures are by their nature damaged and overlapping planes, are they not? Maybe not in quite the same way that your world or mine recognizes it, but to similar effect.

[have_hat_will_travel]

You're right, it just... Seeing it this starkly is a different sort of terrifying.

[plentyfriendly]

I thought something like this might happen when we got in. I've had... some amount of experience with time-related weirdness.

[Up to and including time being slowed down/sped up compared to others, though that was because of brain-altering disease rather than magic.]

[personalityquarks]

Well, as long as everyone's okay.

Check in once in a while, yeah?

[plentyfriendly]

I'll make time for that, sure.

un; inconvenient

[theosophomoric]

As the others have said, we're making good time, but it's a great deal of territory and time itself seems to be an issue with this fissure.

No great misfortune has befallen us, and a number of our party seem to think that their new purpose in life is to put additional jumpers on anyone who stands still long enough, so we're doing well enough.

[personalityquarks]

As they should, considering how some of you were dressed when you left.

[whatsmytalentagain]

I think everyone else already explained what's going on.

[That also explains why his watch has been acting up... Dangit.]

We should be fine for now. I'm thinking maybe we could send you a distress signal of some kind if we get in too deep, but IDK how that's gonna work with the huge time delay.

[personalityquarks]

It doesn't seem to be a delay so much as just a slow for you guys. If it was a delay then things would probably be futher worse off.

We don't need to sleep very much anyway, so don't worry! It's not hard for us to have someone always awake keeping an eye on things.

[whatsmytalentagain]

Yeah... I meant it might appear to be a delay on your end, with time being wonky and all.

Thanks. I can't say the same for most of us but at least we can take shifts or something. How are things holding up at the station?

[personalityquarks]

Don't be too concerned about us. In the worst case scenario we can hole up for quite some time, though the outbuildings might suffer a bit for it.

[whatsmytalentagain]

Outbuildings...? You mean the stuff in Lodestone station or something?

[personalityquarks]

Oh, right, you're one of the newer people, aren't you? Originally it was just the main Station building here - the annex, the apartment building, and the stables were all built since people started to arrive here.

[whatsmytalentagain]

Yup, I'm new here.

That's good to know. Anything else I might wanna keep in mind while we're out here?

[personalityquarks]

Just make sure you listen to the medical staff about the hypothermia risk. We don't want anyone freezing out there.

[whatsmytalentagain]

Gotcha.