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TGCP Chapter 60: Slithering Through Time
🕑 Added 2021-04-22 03:22:17 +0000 UTCThe thought-light flickered in response to my decision.
Traveler: You have flowed through time, and it has flowed through you. You gain the ability to more freely flow through time distortions, and are able to greatly reduce their effects on your form at will. (Provided by: Ouroboros, [Chrono Fire])
For once, I didn’t feel my body change. I didn’t feel my scale-flesh warp, or a new organ form, or anything like that. Instead, I just knew.
I looked forward, and I simply knew.
I knew the ways that the slow-spot around me formed itself, created of interlocking swirls of distorted time, the ways that each piece linked together. I knew the places that would allow me through.
They weren’t visible - not in my sight, at least. They weren’t holes where time managed to slip through, allowing the light from outside to reach the flames where I waited. But still, I knew that - for me - they might as well have been.
I turned around, pulling my tail from the slow-time that had trapped it. It slipped free with ease, winding its way in a curving path through the openings that I knew existed.
And then I pushed myself forward, flowing through the slow-spot that surrounded me.
A moment later, I was free.
Unfortunately, that mostly meant free to fall, with the way that the slot-spot had stopped my platform of flesh from falling in the first place. The ground caught me.
I writhed in pain for a second before straightening myself to take in the scene around me. Just as I had expected, the Coreless had reduced the bad-thing that hid within the flame-water into a bloody husk, tearing it to shreds with a viciousness that warmed my heart.
That warmth quickly faded, lost underneath the fatigue of my many recent lives. I had strained myself, I was sure. In the end, the lesser Core had been more powerful than I expected.
I managed to hold my head up high, hiding my weakness. The Coreless disciples were watching, and - as the Great Core’s chosen - I had to hold myself accordingly.
They each made noises as they saw me, begging for my favor, desperate to receive recognition for their assistance in my victory over the lesser Core and its disgusting bad-things. I gave it to them with an approving hiss, understanding their need for it.
They broke into heated conversation, fighting over who they thought had deserved the honor of my approval the most.
I assumed.
The unrepentant one spoke first, face split into a scowl at the knowledge that it hadn’t been meant for him. Obviously. He still had a long way to go before he even began to earn my approval. “We take our eyes off the thing for one second, and it eats the damn Core. Fucking great.”
The-female-who-was-not-Needle made a few noises in return. “We don’t know that for sure, do we?”
He pointed behind me, making a few more noises. I followed the movement, catching the sight of the sacred slow-spot that I had created around the bad-thing’s mouth-flesh. Even still, it floated in the air, all but frozen in time with the strength of the slow-spot.
I preened at the sight, proud of my new ability’s resemblance to one of the Great Core’s own powers. Proud of what it meant.
Just before I turned back, the flames of [Chrono Fire] that hid within the shell of slowed time burnt themselves out, causing the floating mouth-flesh to fall to the ground at last. It hit with a wet splat, a trail of blood finally managing to escape and run its way across the floor.
“Fair point. I think he earned it though, don’t you?”
“Earned it or not, Orken doesn’t have that many Cores. Now we’ve lost two to the thing.”
“It’s not like we could have gotten to it ourselves, anyway…”
Will made a strange noise, clearing his throat. “What’s done is done. I’m more interested in if this changes anything. The snake may have saved our lives and led us through the Dungeon before, but what about now that it got what it wanted?”
I slithered towards the Coreless. All but the-female-who-was-not-Needle took a cautious step back, aware of their own unworthiness. They had borne witness to the Great Core’s newest blessings; they had seen [Chrono Fire] with their own eyes.
Their awe was natural, but I did not want it. Not right now.
Though the-female-who-was-not-Needle held still, I knew that she must have been awed in her own way, left frozen by the things she had witnessed. I could not fault her for it.
I slowly twisted my way up the-female-who-was-not-Needle’s body, finding my perch upon her shoulder and resting my head. It felt heavy, despite my joy at the Great Core’s newest blessing. Defeating the lesser Core and its awful bad-things had been more difficult than I had expected. Though the Great Core, in its infinite power, brought me back each time I died, it did little for the mental exhaustion that came with constant failure and continuous death.
I was tired.
Later, I could receive the Coreless’ praise. For now, I just wanted to sleep.
It felt like it had been a long time.
===
Valera reached out a cautious hand towards the strange little monster that slept on her shoulder. He simply breathed in and out slowly, peacefully - nothing like she would have expected a wild monster to do.
He should have been untrusting, hostile towards anything that wasn’t created by the same Core that had created him.
He wasn’t. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, she had to admit. Even she recognized that he hadn’t been her biggest fan - not at the start. Why would he be?
Yet now, as she rubbed a finger slowly across the smooth scales of the tiny snake’s head, she knew that things had changed. For whatever reason, the little snake had accepted her - along with Kala, Erik, and even Doran - as something to be trusted.
After he had fallen asleep on her shoulder, everyone had a long talk about what to do. Doran wasn’t wrong about the loss of the Cores. It stung. Every new Core that they managed to capture was another source of safety for their friends and family. Another way to beat back the darkness of the World Dungeon.
Even so, getting rid of the Cores was still helpful on its own. The further away any Cores were from Orken, the less likely it was that monsters would attempt to raid it. She knew that it was well-defended, with its docks floating above the null-water as every proper town and city did, but that didn’t mean it was invincible.
No town was.
In the end, she managed to convince the others that it was a net gain. They may have lost access to the Cores, but they had kept their lives. All of them were aware of how easily things could have gone differently. All of them were aware of how easily the same could happen in the future. Maybe, with the little snake around, that could become less likely.
Another troubling problem was how long their resident monster continued to sleep, and how heavily. Exerting itself in the way that he had must have taken its toll. Valera had become used to the way that it hissed in response to her attempts to befriend it, always on guard. Yet, tired as it was, it didn’t even notice anymore. Here and there, the little guy shifted slightly, tightening its coiled grasp on her upper arm, but it did little more than that.
Even when they were forced to sneak by the Flame Formicans again in a search for a way out, it hardly budged. Even when that had almost gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Fortunately, the monsters were in disarray after the loss of their Core, and they managed to make it out okay.
Still, to not have woken up from that?
The little cutie must have worked hard to keep them safe.
Guided by their maps, it only took a couple of days for them to reach their destination.
Home sweet home, at last.
Orken awaited.
There should be a double chapter likely tomorrow or the day after. Either way, there will be 5 chapters this week, as always.
Snek needs sleep.
Also, if anyone has any idea on the way that the end of [Chrono Fire] would look when it ends while viewing it from the outside, let me know. I'm honestly not sure if the sounds/light that had been slowed should stack up or not if you're viewing it from the outside. If so, I would like to change the description in this chapter of when it ends to reflect that. In the end, I could say "magic" and handwave my mangled physics away, but I'd prefer not to do that.
Comments
Zat
On the topic of time fire zone effects, This is what I would expect... As Dilation Increases: - The zone would become dimmer. More light is 'piling up' as things slow down more, resulting in the area having overall less light coming out of it. If time slowed down enough, the area could even become pitch back when time slows to near a stop. - The zone would become quieter. For much the same reasons as the light becomes dimmer. This effect would be much more pronounced given the slower speed of sound. Basically a lot more sound can pile up in the zone, and if the dilation is increasing quickly enough, it may never be able to reach the other side before the effect expires. I would expect a zone to become silent from the outside much sooner than it becomes black. Maybe even before the dimming effect becomes noticeable at all, given the huge difference between the speed of light and the speed of sound. When the effect expires, I think it'd basically be a flashbang, much more heavily weighted toward sound than light. The strength would depend on exactly how much light and sound entered it in the period where none of that light and sound could make it out of the other side (because of heavy time dilation). It'd all come out effectively instantly once the zone burnt out... which could make a pretty big flash and bang. IDK how long that period of build-up would really be. The zone would need to be in the 1,000x+ dilation range to start building up a meaningful amount of sound (given how quickly it moves), and over 1,000,000,000x to start really building up light. I would expect everything inside the zone to look essentially stationary from outside before you hit either of those points. If that period only lasted a second or two (of 'normal' time) it probably wouldn't be so bad, but if it's like, a minute, that could make a pretty powerful explosion.
Zat
You know, if the core-less thought about it, given the ability they think Paradox has, they really shouldn't be expecting to snag any of these cores. They think it can see the future. If the snake wants the core, they're going to have an awfully hard time keeping it from manipulating things so that it gets it.
Craig
Light originating in a slow spot will look blue shifted out of a slow spot. The slow spot will look like a zone of blacklight from the outside. From the inside of the slow spot light from outside will red shift since there is not that much UV to red shift underground everything outside the slow time slot will just go dark
It should be today. I’ve been pretty sick over the last few days and haven’t been able to write. Starting to feel better, so I should be able to get it done.
Matthias
where's the promised double chapter? is it going to drop some time today?
If air molecules can enter, but net escape the slow spot, do you guys think a minor explosion would be likely if the slow spot stopped suddenly?
bob barker
but sense the air molecules will escape an area of fast time, it will create a vacuum and reduce the volume of propagated waves due to there being lower air density within the field. This lower density would happen almost instantaneously, with a variance depending on the speed of sound in whatever air/fluid/solid density that they're at. Interestingly, there will be noticeably greater disconnect between nearby-felt earth impacts and the air-based sound waves accompanying them, depending on the speed shift and the area of the speed shift.
bob barker
since sound is just a series of higher and lower density air undulations which propagate at a speed determined by air density, the pitch and volume would change. If the source is fast and receiver is normal or slow, then the receiver hears higher pitch, or hears the still-audible proportion, since 20khz is the approximate top of a human's hearing. If the source is slow and the receiver is fast, then they will hear a significant deepening of tone. Humans have a significantly differing perception of volume based on frequency at the low and top ends. It's particularly noticeable at low ends. Every octave of pitch shift upward will increase sound levels by 3dB, and the opposite when lowering frequencies. Maximum dB in sea level air density is about 180dB. If it is only their mind that is being slowed, then they ought to think and experience things sluggishly, and the tone might be the same as normal except experienced in a seemingly paused state of reality, since audio waves are received by the hairs in the ears and turned into electrical signals. The time spirals will garble the sound to the degree that they encompass the space around the time-shift. When the time field ceases to exist, there will be a tonal shift back to normal frequencies. As far as light goes, I'm not terribly familiar with EM radiation and can't offer a well-educated guess. But I can guess that in a sped-up environment, it would be darker, since the outside environment is relatively slow and emitting lesser energy per second. To outside users, it should look normal. If time is slowed down for the user but not the exterior, then more light will enter their eyes on a per-unit-time basis. Unaffected should perceive normal light. But there are always distortions with distance causing interference, so the spirals of time might cause imperceptible distorations.
InfernalDrake
I wrote a comment responding on exactly this in chapter 59, but it's a little wonky. With it being a shell/bubble of slowed time instead of a "core" of slowed time, you are making several event horizons in both directions. But after thinking on it a bit, it gets even weirder. Light isn't exactly affected by time, only space. And only time is getting slowed here, without the usual accompaniment of space curvature that would cause blue/red shifts in light. So light might very well pass through it without caring at all as it uses space itself as the medium for the waves to travel rather than matter. But soundwaves would definitely get caught in it.
Alexandria Clarke
Damn, the Coreless will never know the lengths Paradox had to go through to get them where they are right now...
From the inside of the slow spot, everything outside it would get brighter and (I think, but can’t explain why) bluer. Brighter, because for every second of subjective time, more light is produced. IE, at a normal rate, a candle outside the slow field produces 1 candle of photons per second of objective time. When the field has slowed to half normal time, where for every second of subjective time 2 seconds of objective time passes, the candle would produce twice as many photons. Same thing with everything reflecting light, they’d all get brighter to an observer in the slow field. To an observer outside the slow field, everything inside it would seem to get darker for the same reason. To Valera, Paradox would seem to get darker the slower the slow field gets. I also think it’d get redder, but again, I struggle to explain why. In any case, having the wavelength of the light change would be very dangerous; anything inside the slow field would be bombarded with Gamma rays. You should probably have the magic take care of that part.
Although is the rate at which time is slowing is still increasing when the waves finish going through it, then it would not be an echo, but more of a distortion. They might end up 'stretched' so to speak, resulting in a lower frequnecy. Finally, if the slow spot does not collapse at once when it finishes (I forgot that it slowly goes back to normal time) then it should continue making these sounds until it disappears. So in the case that it does not terminate, and taking into account the fact that waves coming out will do so slower each second, I would expect it to make weird, perhaps freaky, moaning sounds. These may increase in volume just after the slow spot reaches it's slowest point
I think that as far as things stacking up go, it depends on if anything can enter the slow spot once it's approching the end. After all, sound is pretty fast, so even slowed by 10 times, it's not like it would stop propogating. On the other hand, if things can enter the edges of the slow spot as time comes near to a stand still, then yes, there should be a bang of some sort. Waves are additive, so they don't cancel out when combined. My thoughs are that is should make a weird sorta echo for the first couple minutes, then at the very end go silent followed by a minor bang, like a gunshot.
