Time, as viewed from the System's perspective, should be split into two overarching parts.

  The first is broad: Structural Time, time that progresses for the entirety of existence, and Integration. This time ticks forward, naturally, at what we describe as Chronoseconds. A Chronosecond is not exactly the same as an ordinary second, for seconds are dilated across various worlds, affected by things like gravity and other magical phenomena. Chronoseconds, on the other hand, are accumulated by the System, and they are kept consistent. We know this because on certain worlds, they collect unique crystallizations of Time Mana to spend as currency and to reshape their own beings.

  It is on these worlds that we discover the second aspect of time: Personal Time. The denizens of these worlds are constantly decaying and accelerating. They experience time at an uneven pace, and the richest among them are practically immutable, unchanging. They have gathered the bulk of time within their strange and fraying world and concentrated it within themselves. As such, they move far quicker than their lesser kindred. They are practically the main engines of commerce, of research, of development, and of privilege. As such, this has created a sort of pseudo-caste system for them, and the ones who've accumulated the most time are dubbed 'Tempest Primus'—the ones that arrive first and foremost.

  However, as the people of this world are primitive and undeveloped in a variety of other lores and technologies, we've managed to scry details from them without them ever noticing our observations. The striations of personal chronology have left them more than culturally scattered. They are barely able to interact with one another due to the separations of temporal progression. And though this benefits the elites of their society, they still need to issue decrees and have their lessers work. Quantity still matters, even if the quantity is slow and near unmoving from your perspective.

  As such, they have created the foundations of what I like to call 'Temporally Stabilized Domains.' Here is where everyone's personal times are synchronized to the Structural Time of the System. These domains are created from their very currency, spires of gold that reach up, interminably spearing past the heavens, past the void, into the flesh of the System itself. For time and space are the things that are most aligned to the shape of the System. Beyond matter, these are universal concepts, experienced to some extent by almost every creature, even those aberrants from the Outside.

  Having observed these facts, inspiration has filled me. As we do not experience chrono-entropy as the people of this time-wrought world do, we are capable of gathering the chrono-progressive units they use to sustain themselves and forge something new out of them.

  I believe that should we be able to create a Sequestered Gate and have it centered exactly around time, we can experience more of a deviation of sorts, for Gates can become like people—its own temporal history deviating from the System's standard.

  It will take an immense amount of matter, but as I said before, the people of this world are primitive, savage, and they do not have the proper capacity to defend themselves. Best that we use their resources for something proper. They will not evolve, merely remain on the stage of inevitable destruction.

  We should devote their resources to the construction of a new realm where time spins and is decelerated so much that a year has passed within, while a second passed without. This will allow us to create and achieve a great many things on an expedited timetable.

  We would be able to forward armies of true and potent Pathbearers as well as ensure the conclusion of countless experiments that demand massive time and investment.

  And now, you might ask me: why a loop? Because I wish for the normalcy of our daily schedule to be preserved, and for the citizenry not to notice.

  Indeed, I wish to expand this experiment to encase our cities, and practically our entire nation, in a bubble of accelerated time.

  But there is still the issue of Chronomantic Debt that needs to be solved, for just as we are not entities of temporal decay, we also lack easy means to directly modify ourselves through these chrono-units. The time we spend within the dilated space will be taken from us thereafter if one does not possess the requisite Chronomancy skills.

  -Maiden the Genius on Chrono-Recursion Theory

  262 (I)

  Accelerated [I]

  "You had a Temporal Gate with you this entire time?" Shiv asked, his eyes widening at Rusty's golden glowing form. It was a surprise, to say the least. He'd never sensed even the slightest hint that Rusty possessed Chronomantic Mana. Yet here before him, the blade was glowing gold and pouring out so much magic that Shiv felt himself choked by its pressure.

  And I couldn’t feel anything before…

  Jessica laughed. "That's not the only surprise Rusty has inside him. The others, well, maybe I'll show you some in time if this whole thing works out better than I think it will. Or maybe you'll find out the ugly way when Rusty tears into you again."

  Her threat was not even implicit, but Shiv let it go—her provocations were playful anyway. "Alright, so, what do we do? How does Rusty’s time thing work?"

  "Simple," Jessica said. "Let me cut you."

  “Uh-huh. How about this: We take turns, and I go first.”

  "Oh, don’t be soft, it's not going to be painful. It's more like when I stole Blackedge. You're going to be taken inside Rusty. And I need you to lower your Magical Resistance if you want to get into the gate. No other way around it. We’re talking trust? Well, trust is rusty and double-edged."

  "Is there anything inside right now?" Uva asked.

  "There's plenty of things inside: enemies I've captured, like that orc I used to find you," Jessica grinned at Shiv.

  "Your Temporal Gate is a prison?" Shiv asked.

  "A jail, more like," Jessica replied. "Everyone I placed there is only a temporary resident. Before we move them to a Rubix Well. It's a pretty effective mechanism overall. If you break someone's Magical Resistance, you take them into the prison, and there they'll have to stay as time loops on. Eventually, Maiden gets what she wants. That’s why she has an Avatar in every one of these gates. Easy access for experimentation.”

  "What?" Adam hissed. "Maiden is inside your sword?"

  "One of her dormant Avatars is, anyway." Jessica rolled her eyes. "Don't worry about that. The bitch is absent-minded at the best of times. She's not going to notice. Probably."

  "Probably." Adam's eyes were growing larger. His incredulity was matched by Shiv’s own outrage. "Probably. You have the Avatar of an Ascendant in your sword—the Ascendant that Cursed Shiv, no less. And your best guarantee for us is 'probably.'"

  "You want me to downgrade that to 'hopefully'?" Jessica waved a hand dismissively. "Calm down, kid. If she was there, she would make herself known. More importantly, she can't just make the Avatar jump out and attack us. It's not how this works. There are costs to pay for being inside the gate. Costs that even she can’t get out of as an Ascendant.”

  "So, how does it work?" Uva asked. She was less inclined to play along with this whole charade compared to Adam and Shiv.

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  "It works a bunch of different ways. Look, Maiden's usually hyper-focused on some kind of experiment or another, and eventually, she gets distracted by something else. But when she's hyper-focused, she's there. One Avatar, not multiple. She's completely devoted, and she won't be anywhere else. That’s why I’m not worried. Apparently, she’s working on some kind of dimensional network upgrade for all her bot birds.”

  Shiv and Adam shared a mutual look of discomfort as they remembered seeing the artificial birds during their escape.

  “Bot birds?” Uva asked, confused.

  “Yeah. Something about having the birds mark someone with a clinging cocoon of Dimensionality so that an Inquisition unit can be dispatched to them immediately. She’s thinking about using the birds to replace all the Jump Towers.” Jessica huffed. “Hope she doesn’t manage it. Towers look pretty good in my opinion. On top of this, however, there's the problem with the Temporal Gate itself. The Temporal Gate has Chrono-Debt."

  "And what the hells is that?" Shiv asked. At the same time, he directed a specific thought to Uva, asking her to connect him with the other Chronomancers they were allied with. She briefly made eye contact with Hymn, and the Headmaster reached with his Psychomancy to include a few others in the Dragon’s Biscuit.

  Gone, Kura, and Tulveg emerged like faint shadows in the back of Shiv’s mind, but went utterly unnoticed by Jessica as she began her explanation. "Alright, so, the idea behind Chrono-Debt is pretty simple, right? There's a reason why we're not just using this gate on everyone, having our best Pathbearers train inside them so that they can experience seven days for every one that passes."

  Adam's eyes widened. "Seven! You can go through seven days inside the Gate?"

  "Hells, we can crank it all the way up to eight, but that just turns most people into dust." Jessica laughed to herself; everyone else responded more along the lines of unease. "And this is where we get into Chrono-Debt. Simply put, time inside the gate is dilated on the inside, but you eventually need to pay the same amount of time, along with the actual day you spend, before you can rematerialize outside. Every day you spend on the inside is going to incur debt on your outside. You’re a Chronomancer, right?" Shiv nodded. "OK, so, you might be able to offset some of that because of your Chronomancy. Maybe we can do eight with you since you’re… Master-Tier. Everyone else who doesn't have Chronomancy, however, is going to get displaced seven days into the future with one actual day spent, and then fourteen with two. So, if you send someone to work on something for two weeks inside, they’ll only show up after sixteen days.”

  "What? Why?" Shiv asked.

  "Because distorting time and messing with someone's personal chronology when they don't have a Chronomancy field they can manipulate is very messy. And also, I don't know how Maiden managed to get the Mana Core inside Rusty to develop this skill, but it’s unstable as shit. And by unstable as shit, I mean really unreliable. Beyond giving you more time while you're inside and displacing you for twice that time outside, it can’t be used as a weapon, doesn’t let you shape any time spells—it’s an unfinished Gate, is what I’m saying. The only reason I have one is to collect test data for her. And because it lets me put people in a time prison they can’t quite get out of."

  And then the Giantsbane paused as she frowned. “Except for that fucking orc. No idea how he got away at all.”

  Once more, Shiv wondered just how powerful Veronica Chandler was. He knew she was a Legendary Dimensionalist, not a Chronomancer, at least not from what he'd seen. Could she have just gotten Maiden to steal 812 for her? It seemed more likely.

  “Wait,” Adam said, “if it’s delayed to such an extent, how can we use it to get anything done? It’ll take even longer than usual.”

  At that, Jessica smirked. “Yeah, so, there’s a way around this. As it turns out, the debt doesn’t apply to mana-based objects for some reason. Basically, anything that can’t accumulate any legend or gain skills can come straight out. Mana can also pass all the way through. Communication suffers brutal delays, but still works.”

  “So, the Slipgate can be finished and tuned,” Adam breathed. “But… why does this debt only affect entities that can gain skills?”

  “Felling hells if I know. I’m just a tester. You have to ask Maiden, but something tells me you two would rather not get into a situation where that's possible.”

  As soon as Jessica finished her explanation, Tulveg clicked his tongue. The vampire spent a few moments ruminating on the Giantsbane’s words before he finally addressed Shiv. “I do not know anything of this Chrono-Debt. My knowledge of Chronomancy remains at the standard. I do not understand, nor have I heard of anyone being dilated across time. Perhaps this is a more novel or monster-based skill.”

  Kura gave an uncertain grunt. “You should not be able to be displaced like this. That is not how the lore of time works. We all have Personal Time, but it is equalized and tied to Structural Time. For one to be cast so far ahead in the future that they disintegrate… That means that there are certain dynamics taking place—dynamics that probably extend beyond this world's lore of Chronomancy.”

  Shiv sighed. He was almost considering asking the orcs if they knew anything when the last member of their current inner circle spoke up.

  “I think I know what this is,” Gone suddenly whispered. “There was a world of people who were temporally accelerated at different rates. I saw the bits and ruins left of their civilization. They were called the… Tempestii. I think. Maybe. Hard to remember. We went through their world once while I was still owned by the Realmrunner. It was like… like everyone had just disappeared at once. No signs of combat, no nothing. Runner called it a ‘rapturing.’ We left as soon as we could. I think he was scared. Because he also felt that it was like something had taken them all at the same time. The decay that touched their architecture, the remnants of their city... It was like it'd been abandoned for tens of thousands of years.”

  A heavy tension built inside Shiv as he considered the possibility that Maiden was the architect behind the Tempestii's destruction. More importantly, Gone’s cold dread mingled with his; whether it was because she was recalling a period of enslavement at the hands of the Realmrunner or if she was unnerved by the disappearance of an entire civilization, Shiv was uncertain. Maybe it was both.

  Adam huffed. "So, what you are effectively saying is that there is a severe consequence for using this Gate. That whoever enters for a day will lose seven in exchange, and then seven more after that for every actual day expended." The Gate Lord blinked rapidly as he sought more clarification. He was thinking about something—perhaps a way to circumvent the cost of using the Gate.

  "Yeah," Jessica said. "If you go into the Gate, you don't pop back out immediately. Seven days is the price you pay at baseline, but we convert it from a one to seven rate..." She looked at Rusty. "After seven, things get a little tricky. After five, maybe you don't emerge at all. Especially if you're not a Chronomancer. Maiden didn't exactly explain to me why, but my guess and Rusty's feeling is that the person can’t adjust their own chronological acceleration, and to compensate, the System throws them to a point in the future that's so far ahead that nothing can exist, and they disintegrate.”

  Shiv struggled not to rub his temples. “Okay. To summarize: Not only is this Gate unreliable as hells, it's also potentially a death trap for anyone without a Chronomancy skill."

  "That about sums it up," Jessica said. "And before you ask, no, I don't know any other Temporal Gates. This is the one I have on me. This is the one that was given to me. And this is the one I know about. The Inquisition operates on need-to-know. Despite me being a Legend, Maiden isn't exactly the type to inform anyone any more than she thinks they need to know. Which is very godsdamned little."

  "That has always been her way." The Starhawk's voice rumbled like distant thunder. "She was always reluctant to share anything, at least not until her projects were done. Once, it was a symbol of shame; she fears and loathes failure. Now, she fears that someone may steal her brilliance, take her inventions to create something of their own design instead."

  The atmosphere of the thoughtscape was painted with the faintest hints of incandescence. Jessica looked up and scoffed. "Starhawk. It’s been a while. I would say it's good to see you again, but considering you and your favorite son decided to fuck up my life... I don’t really feel like lying to you."

  "Giantsbane. I had hoped our reunion to be under better circumstances. Still, it gladdens me to see that you are capable of reason, and that you are—"

  "Oh, please don't do that," Jessica hissed. Her teeth were clenched, and Shiv saw a brief combustion of genuine anger at the center of her heart. "Please don't fucking do that. Please don't patronize me. I'm not casting in with you guys. I'm simply here to see if this one you caught... if he can actually do what he says. Now, Rose is back, but I'm getting a lot of 'probably's and 'maybe's from him. 'Probably' and 'maybe' are not very promising."

  "About as promising as your gate, it seems," Shiv shot back. "Frankly, it's only a 'probably' and 'maybe' because I don't know how it works. If we can get our hands on Udraal, then the ‘probably’ is probably closer to a ‘certainly.’"

  That made Jessica throw her head back and bark a loud, hysterical laugh. "'Get our hands on Udraal,' 'probably closer to a certainly.' Politician's promises, if I've ever heard any. Shit, kid, if I can get you to put on a wig and some makeup, I can start calling you Veronica.”

  “The fuck you will,” Shiv muttered under his breath, keeping his annoyance barely caged. “Look. We don’t have to pretend to be friends or anything, but this is an honest trade. I came to you. I decided to be honest with you. If you think there’s a scheme happening here, you should tell me, because I’m definitely not smart enough to come up with some rat-bastard bullshit.”

  "Nah, I know there's no scheme." Jessica shook her head. She pointed upwards. "There's never a scheme when he's involved. The Starhawk can be stupid, but conniving? No. Not anymore."