Mm. "<The statue-- this statue, at least, doesn't seem to be storing actual memories, just some images and text, and receiving heartbeats from something else far away. Still, it seems like if there are any that *do* store memories, we should be able to access them,>" he says, mostly for Hornfels' benefit in case any of that information is news to them, having shared the updates from Ounu with the party as they came via their own link.

"That's strange. I don't think the memory statues were meant to store anything like that. Do you have a way of showing me what images are stored? If not I can have someone try to connect with the statue later and get the information with our systems."

<Wrinkle, think you could make an illusory image?>

Probably?

He'll go ahead and give it a try regardless.

Retrieving another one of the crystal dowels and starts waving it around as he decodes the visual information that Sandy sent into the physical motions necessary to produce an illusion conveying the same. It looks a little bit like painting, though not precisely the same.

The image is a picture of a broken down rectangular structure built in the snow.

"That looks like a picture taken by one of our astronauts on Brittle Hollow. I wonder how that got onto the statue. I'll have to ask around and try to find out how that might have happened."

Huh. "<It might have something to do with whatever the statue seemed to be connected to. Do you know whether statues are normally networked together in some way?>"

"Oh we know they're connected to the chamber that was supposed to run the time loop. The Nomai didn't want to send people back in time because then you'd end up with a bunch of copies of whoever you sent so instead they decided to send memories back in time.

"The idea was that these statues would record someone's memories during the loops and then send them back to the person at the start of each new loop."

"<Ah! Hm. I guess somehow that might've been gotten tangled up in whatever you're using to record and transmit images for your 'space program'?>"

Mischief pokes him again. They've got the info they were looking for, and more besides, they should get going.

"<Right. Thank you for the guidance, and we'll take a look at the other memory statue in the black hole forge when pass by, and look into the others as it becomes relevant. Otherwise, Mischief seems to believe we're ready to get going, so we'll be off.>"

And then hopefully Moraine can show them the way from the museum to the train station? Though if not they can probably find their own way without too much trouble.

Moraine is indeed waiting where they left them. "Ready to go to the teleporters now? I hope Hornfels wasn't too much for you. He can be pretty excitable."

Sandy chuckles as he replies, "<Indeed! And, not too much I think! Mischief's patience has been a bit strained, but not more than Wrinkle tests it on a regular basis.>"

And then they are presumably off to their next destination.

Moraine leads them around the city mostly sticking to the outskirts and to a train station a little ways away. They don't have to wait long for the next train it's a relatively quick ride once they get on the train.

The Teleporter complex is obviously a Hearthian building built around a Nomai structure that was open to the sky. The departure teleporter itself is a purple square platform that's brightly lit and has these pulses of light flowing towards an extremely black core in a fixture in its center.

The operator gawps at the sudden presence of aliens for a short while but once they get control over themself they're quite business like

"When you're ready we can hit the button and send you. Y'all need to be standing on the platform with all your limbs fully within the cube this platform is the base of."

Moraine does not join them. "I've radio'd ahead but I don't have a space suit and hand and while there's usually air around the Hanging City it's not consistent enough to be safe without one. Good luck on your journey."

Wrinkle's eyes all but sparkle with acquisitive curiosity as they approach the teleporter, but Sandy gently reminds them that this is probably not the right time to take a break to study the teleporter's pad.

He himself is curious about the common purple coloration, though. He wonders whether it's just a matter of Nomai aesthetic sensibilities or if there's something to the alignment between it and the blues and purples of uncertain stones.

"<Reasonable, and good luck to you as well,>" Sandy replies, before the party forms up on the pad. Once they're all in position, Sandy will signal to the operator that they're read for departure.

A wave of both darkness and heaviness washes over them for an instant before they find themselves in the expected spot on the hanging city.

A large Hearthian in a space suit is waiting for them. "Oh wow, Moraine wasn't pulling my leg about you being aliens. I'm uh Riebeck and I'm one of the leaders of the project studying the city here. Moraine said you wanted to go to the Black Hole Forge? It's not being used right now so we should be able to go right there."

What a strange experience, and rather opposite to how they arrived, dark and heavy rather than bright and weightless.

"<Indeed we are! I'm Sandy, and these are Wrinkle and Mischief,>" he greets, gesturing to each in turn, before extruding a dreamflesh pseudopod, "<and this is an extension of Ounu. And yes, we're hopeful that Wrinkle can puzzle out some clue for how we might get back home by analyzing the equipment used for constructing teleporters and related technologies, so that would be appreciated. Having just experienced what traveling through one of these is like, it was...was quite different from what brought us here felt like, but in a way that feels tangibly opposite, rather than completely unrelated,>" Sandy answers as the group quickly clears off of the teleporter pad (making sure that no one ever has more than one foot off of the ground at a time) and, presumably, follows Riebeck to the forge.

Riebeck will never criticize people for being too careful and will display a similar level of caution.

"How exciting, we have writings that say the Nomai's vessel used an advanced warp core to teleport itself around the universe. I'm pretty sure they needed to know where they were going though. Do you know where you're going or I guess where it is relative to here?"

Once they get to the corridor down they have to psych themselves up for a few seconds before stepping across the gravity boundary.

"<Roughly? But there wasn't a precise map at the museum, so we'd mostly just be vaguely trying to move in the right direction. A proper route would be appreciated.>"

The party, meanwhile, once they see whichever way the gravity changes, will cross the threshold with confidence (but no less caution).

"Oh, no I meant where you want to study teleporters to get to. The Black Hole Forge entrance is just at the bottom of this shaft. As anxious as it makes me to walk down it. There are regular catchers that turn on if someone's falling though. I'm so glad I wasn't the first person to discover those it would have been terrifying. Well it was still terrifying but it would have been worse."

"<Ah, well, yes, we know where we'd like to go, we'd like to go back to the Shadowfell, preferably Brancorell or another Barisian city, though to be frank I'd accept getting dumped somewhere in the Astral Sea as long as we're back home. The real trouble is that we don't know how to get there, since so far as we can tell, your world is a different spatial continuum from ours, so there isn't a direction we could point in and say 'home is that way,' for example. From Wrinkle tells me, the trouble here is as much figuring out 'where' we are right now, relative to home, as it is about crossing the gap between here and there.>"

"A different spatial continuum that sounds much more like Dark Bramble than the Nomai teleporters. I understand trying to learn how to get home this way first though. Dark Bramble is scary."

He sighs. "<Agreed on both accounts. We are hopeful we won't have to brave the...giant fish that eats ships, among other things, but if we must, we will.>"

If Riebeck offers further conversation as they traverse the vertical Sandy will respond, but won't actively seek out further chat.

Riebeck doesn't initiate further conversation and they can arrive at the bottom of the shaft and then walk into the Forge. After entering it turns out to be another location mostly built at a 90° angle to normal. As promised there's another statue.

There's also a complicated apparatus built into the bottom window and several consoles with unfamiliar text surrounding it. There's a set of platforms outside below the window that look like they can move.

Another Hearthian is waiting for them there. "Hello there, I'm Chert. I'm the one who managed to use Hal, Syl and Riebeck's translations to make this machine work. Hopefully, I can help with whatever you need help with."

"<Hello, we're Sandy, Ounu, Mischief and Wrinkle,>" he replies, gesturing to Wrinkle in particular, who steps forward. "<Wrinkle here has some various analyses he'd like to run on the equipment that forms the teleportation cores, and ideally also the actual...harvesting process, for lack of a better word, though I understand if isn't feasible.>"

"We can make more cores today, we'll find a use for them eventually even if we don't need them right away. Do you wanna do that right away or do your scans of the stuff with it off first?"