"...that's what scares me. How did I know all this, and how did I know who that is a temple to..." She said softly to Revoness, before going to get ready herself.

He gives her a quick hug and a warm grandfatherly smile as she expresses her fears.

"We are here to get you through anything that comes up no need to be afraid dear."

"I still say I am older than you." She seemed to relax when he hugged her though. "I wonder if that can be checked..."

"Hey, does the ship have any historical archives in it's computers? You know, pre and post Gap?" She wondered.

"Of course we do, Phelar," the Captain replies. "I don't know if they'll have whatever you are looking for. It is my understanding that no computer is ever going to have 100% of all the data of civilization, even if we have the memory capacity to do so. It's about logistics. While computers can talk to each other, it usually requires some sort of human interface. That's where the errors occur, though they can be errors of omission."

"I've ceased to be amazed at the wonders of the universe. Not that they don't intrigue me sometimes, but once you've traveled through The Drift, everything else is just... stuff."

"Amnesia is a peculiar thing, Phelar," Sol responds to her.

"Sometimes a sound or a scent can trigger a memory. I suppose it's like a computer with many folders and files, not to mention hidden files. You can do a search for a specific word, and it will search through every file and give you a list of every place that word is found. Sometimes, if you are lucky, it's only in one file."

"In your case, we don't know if your amnesia is a result of injury and trauma or if it's somehow been induced. I'm beginning to think it's induced. I have no idea what the point of that is, or how or why it was done. I'd guess that the entity that did that to you did so for a specific reason, maybe several. For instance, if it all came back to you at once, it might be overwhelming, to the point that it sends you into neural shock."

"There may also be an endgame in which you are to play a significant role. If you knew about it ahead of time, you might do something, unintentionally, that changes the outcome."

"Remember, we're on a treasure hunt. You are either the map, or the key to reading the map. I remember a tale where the treasure map was tattooed onto a person's shaved head. When his hair grew back, the map was essentially hidden."

"The map might have identified Pointed Rock as the starting place, then show 50 paces northwest, etc. That's what we've got going here."

"So, you only get to recall things when that piece of information is needed. No need to clutter up your mind with data that isn't needed."

"Anyway, as Revonoss said, these adjustments you made are impressive. However, it's not like it was quantum step forward. In another 10 or 20 years, our techs might have figure them out, too. There just hasn't been a need for it... till now. And who else is likely to find this place again?"

"Captain, when we're done here I would like to start looking in them if I could." She asked with a small nod.

Then she looked towards Sol a moment, considering what he's saying. "That's true. But it makes me wonder...  Did I lay it out myself?" She asked with a shoulder shrug. "Anyway, we have a curious temple to a god that is a part of the Goddess Triune, both of which I am somehow tied to, in the middle of a lost segment of the elemental plane of fire, AND full of people, to go check out!" That all seemed to make her especially enthusiastic.

Not surprisingly but still rather impressive, when the ship's airlock opens, there is only mild heat coming from the structure.

Not to ask his crew to do anything he wouldn't, Captain Zenith steps out of the airlock quite cautiously, prepared to step back in if it feels too hot.

It's warm, but clearly it's a dry heat, so it's not uncomfortable.

"I am Captain Zenith of the starship Starhawk. These are some of my crew. You'll pardon me if I'm a bit terse with my manners, but what is this place?"

"No need to apologize," the one figure says as it waves you inside.

"This fiery terrain can be very intimidating."

"I am Thorion Jinx and this is my protege Aleria Psyll."

"Welcome to Soliton, a bastion of cool in the midst of eternal flame."

As you approach them, you can see that they are both dressed in shimmering gold robes. Thorion appears to be some sort of lion-man while Aleria is a female centaur.

Revonoss follows suit his drone by his shoulder sampling the air and temperature ready to warn them at a moments notice as he simple makes a small curtsey as the captain introduces them as crew. But with the man in charge talking he just tries to absorb as much data as he can.

Phelar finally speaks up. "I'm Phelar Morilla." She said, kinda abruptly but she did not let that stop her. "That's a temple to Casandalee, the android Iron God who is now a part of Triune." She said pointing to the temple. "It seems, out of place. How'd it get here?" She seemed more curious then dismissive.

"We brought it here," Aleria answers.

"Anyone steeped in technology is essentially a worshiper of Casandalee, so, in that sense we are all priests of the temple."

"A ship we were on passed through The Drift near this phenomenon, which the captain said wasn't here the year before. That meant it was drawn in to The Drift fairly recently. We all agreed that this was a perfect opportunity to investigate it."

"And here we are."

"I see you have the interphasic shields that let your ship endure this blazing inferno. Did you come here intentionally, or are you wanderers that stumbled upon it?"

"In a way, it's a bit of both," the Captain responds.

"We think we're being pursued by a Vesk ship, so we made a couple of unexpected turns in The Drift. We spotted this temple here in the flames of what we guessed was a piece of the Elemental Plane of Fire. So we decided to check it out."

"It wasn't until we got close that we became aware it was actually occupied."

"How long have you been here?"

"...I don't really worship any deity. To be honest, I have no memories or knowledge of any of the gods, or anything else for that matter, except for what suddenly flashes to my mind. Such as, how I found out I have Triune Blessing, but have no knowledge of her..." Phelar said to Aleria.

"That's also how we got the shields. We did not have them a few hours ago, then suddenly...I knew how to modify our shields. I sometimes get these, glimpses like that..." She said as she looked around again, then back to Aleria.

"We are from Glorantha," Aleria responds. "This is our mobile research station. We are here in The Drift to explore, investigate and analyze these extra-planar phenomena. While current theory holds that these phenomena are shifted into The Drift each time a ship enters The Drift, it was thought that the size was in correlation with the size of the ship. This piece of the Elemental Plane of Fire is far greater than any size ship we are aware of."

"We are attempting to ascertain if it's a composite of smaller pieces or brought here as is."

When the correlation was explained Revonoss feels its safe to chip in without being rude.

"We also encountered a massive slab from the elemental plane of earth. That too was much bigger then any ship known to us. Sadly enough we had to little time to explore properly because of our pursuers."

"We've only been here for three months now," Thorion responds. "Even with the proper technology, it's still dangerous taking samples from the Fire."

"And it's not like earth that remains relatively intact for eons. Plasma... fire, if you will... is volatile and constantly in motion, blending, merging, shifting."

"We are still trying to ascertain its properties so we can better analyze it. Not sure how much longer we will remain here if we don't produce results soon."

"Air is even harder, with water similar. We might have better luck investigating an earth zone."

"I don't suppose you've encountered any of the quasi-elemental deposits, have you?"

"No, we have not been in The Drift that long," Sol replies.

"Nor have I heard of any such deposits from other drifters.  If there were para-deposits, would not they merely be a merging of two primes? For that matter, how could you tell?"

"Here in The Drift, that may very well be the case," Aleria replies. "But does that hold true in the Para-Elemental Planes? They've been in existing for millions of years. Are they still just a mix of the two, or have they taken on a separate identity?"

"If every ship that enters... or exits... The Drift causes a shift a material from the Elemental Planes, is there a way to eliminate that? Minimize it? Reverse it? What is the end product going to be? As near as we know, The Drift is endless, so it can never be 'filled up'. But it is already starting to make travel through it difficult."

"Without knowing the cause, how can we say that it won't start pulling in pieces of other planes? There have already been a hundred books written by sages and scholars about what that would mean."

Phelar only barely understands what they are discussing, but one thing Aleria said seemed to tickle a corner of her mind.

Suddenly at something Aleria said Phelar would stagger a bit, then straighten up, shaking her head she just stood there for a moment staring off into the distance like she had several times before. "Worlds not of our own, planes not of our own, they do not want to be here, as much as we do not want them here." There was a short pause in what she was saying, her voice was unusually prophetic before she finally snapped back. "I can help you. I'm not sure, why the flash suddenly came to me...  But I can help you. And we can reverse it too."

She seemed a bit lost on how she knew what she knew, but she did. "...what you are trying to do can be done via a process of quantification, by attuning the metaphasic shields to a micro-wavelength. I don't know what causes the effect though, but I am certain it can be reversed."
This message was last edited by the player at 05:43, Mon 09 Nov 2020.

When Phelar has yet another insight the old engineer stands close to her and even his drone sweeps by to record every word she says.

"Please go on dear. I will start to work on the theory to put it into praxis straight away. Or at least try to create a working model. I might be out of my league on the divine aspect but i can do science."

Already the CPU in his drone was being tasked with doing the calculations on the suggested theories.

"Divine aspect?" She cocked her head to one side. "I do not see what the divine has to do with a simple matter of quantification by attuning the metaphasic shields to a micro-wavelength. Unless you mean the divine put me where I was to set you on your path?" She asked, blinking, cocking her head the other way.

"Anyway, I digress. Take me to your equipment, and along the way I'll explain what needs to be done. As you can see, my friend will record everything I say so nothing will be forgotten!" The older apparently teen human said. Then almost instantly without waiting she began a long explanation of what needs to be done to eliminate the elemental drag, and possibly even reverse it.

"That's... astonishing!" Thorion responds. "How is it that you get these flashes of brilliance? Such things are usually only associated with geniuses!"

He and Aleria lead them to engineering section of the citadel.

"As you can see, we are able to harness the heat and light from the fire to power the shields. You'd think, at best, we should be able to achieve a state of equilibrium that way, neither succumbing to the fire nor repressing it fully. But, you see, the heat and light comes from all directions, which means we receive more than just that which comes from straight ahead. Yet, it's only the fire straight ahead that is dangerous to us, to the ship."

"I have a vague notion about what you said, Phelar Morilla, but the engineering is beyond my meager abilities. It is the robotic tools that do that sort of work."

She looked to Thorion a moment and cocked her head to the side, considering his question. "I do not know. I have flashes of many things. Brilliance, danger, the past...  But yet I do not know anything about myself except what a computer told me, my name. And that somehow, I have a blessing from the God, for which the god that this temple is a part of, that I have no idea why I have and no idea why I would even worship such a deity as a human." She explained as they walked. "Then there are the dreams, of the past, and futures yet to come."

"Maybe we can help each other. Yes?" She asked, quietly. "I will help you do what you need to do, and give you what knowledge I can on reversing the elemental drag effect as long as you share it with others. In return, you help us with what we need." Then she turned to look at him again. "Both about Golarion, and if you can, me."

It still isn't known if The Drift is a natural phenomenon (such as one of the planes) 'discovered' by Triune or if it was created by Triune. At the very least, Triune gave everyone the ability to enter The Drift. There are some who claim to understand how the stardrive works, but it's unclear if they truly do.

That's why the 'elemental drag' is so baffling. And, of course, there are as many theories as their are scientists.

Even what will eventually happen if The Drift gets 'full' is debatable.

As it turns out, it's the interface between two elemental planes that is the 'source' of the drive/transition. This interface is in a constant state of flux. Thought to be just the collision of two elements, it's actually the flux that keeps them apart. By tapping into this flux, a ship can transit to The Drift. Because it's tapping into a flux between two elements, one or both of those elements get 'dragged' along.

At this point, it's equally uncertain whether this was a 'design flaw' given to the races by Triune (for some unfathomable reason) or if the stardrives were just misinterpreted or simply built wrong due to lack of understanding or proper resources.

The drives aren't designed or built to make those kinds of micro adjustments. It's like focusing a flame: if you balance the fuel and the air just right, you get the perfect and hottest flame possible. If you don't, you still get a flame, but it's not as hot as possible and it wastes fuel.

The drives, by not being focused finely enough, 'scoop' up pieces of the elements. The bigger the ship, the bigger the drives, and the larger the pieces of elements that get dragged into The Drift.

The theory here is that a ship could be designed such that when it leaves The Drift, it drags elemental debris with it, which will put that element back in its proper plane.

While Phelar 'explains' some of this to Thorion and the engineering robots, Revonoss realizes that current stardrives cannot be adjusted to do this. It'd be like using a yardstick as a micrometer. So, while new engines can be built to these specs, it is going to be impractical to replace all existing engines.