EVENT - Ripple and Warp IC log (part 1!)

[pluviosamods]

ripple and warp

Hello and welcome to the IC log for Pluviosa's Fourth Wall event, Ripple and Warp!

In addition to providing information about how characters arrive on the new deck (whether they're existing passengers or not), this post also serves as a place where Fourth Wall characters can post top-levels without joining the game community.

Further information on Fourth Walls in general and the other accompanying OOC updates to the game can be found on the OOC information post here. This post also serves in lieu of a regular between-events Test Drive.

Finally, you may now start sending in your applications to keep your AU, CRAU, and so on characters around after the Fourth Wall! Be sure to note the minor changes to the Applications page (namely, the addition of an "AU information" section).

Without further ado - How did you get here? And more importantly, where is 'here' anyway?

existing characters

Whether or not characters remember falling asleep on the evening of Day 37, they wake up somewhere different on Day 38, lying on a couch in an almost-familiar room. The couch is similar to the ones in the lounge, though those with keen noses will note that the cushions don't smell the same - there's no scent of your fellow passengers, or of the faint hint of an unknown, arid place that first accompanied the clean furnishings the Ship dragged out.

The room isn't one you've been in before, either, but it's still clearly on the Ship somewhere - there's the familiar motion of the legs moving, and the overhead emergency lights (the only source of light initially in the room) are the same as the ones in the hallways on Fern that the Ship has been working so hard to restore. However, that doesn't mean that it's hard to see - indeed, considering the contents of the room, the low lighting might be a blessing in disguise.

It's full of mirrors.

Not only the sorts of mirrors that character would expect to find, the ones that have been missing from the Ship's bathrooms and other expected places, though there are certainly plenty of those in the room - but the walls, the door, and the ceiling are also all mirrors. Mirrors hang on a portion of the larger furniture in what appears to be the living room of a suite. It's not as dramatic as it could be, but aside from the couch characters wake up on, it's pretty close. The floor, at least, is not reflective mirrors, though it's not much less shiny - instead of the usual hotel-esque carpet of the suites, there's seamless stone tile in stormcloud grey, slight variations in the color indicating marble. And all of those reflective surfaces are perfectly clean - although it's possible to find dried spots of decay on the backs of the mirrors, overall, it seems as though time doesn't have claim on this part of the Ship, much less the Growth.

And of course, where there are mirrors, there are reflections.

Some of them - probably the majority - are normal, perfect mirrors of the person the character expects to see. Some of them are distorted, but in a normal, mundane way - funhouse mirrors among the panels on the walls, making you wide or skinny or warped.

And then some of them show reflections of you that are distorted, not as in bent, but as in there being something different about the you that's in them. Different clothes; different hair; different age; different species. Added scars, or missing ones; limbs missing, or replaced with something else. A completely unknown you in the mirror.

For the most part, these altered reflections act the way you would expect, imitating the movements of the rest of the reflections in the room. But sometimes they don't. Sometimes they climb out of the mirror - and whether they're friendly or not remains to be seen.

There's a note on the mirror-topped table next to the couch. In backwards writing that needs to be held up to a mirror to be read easily, it says:

Thanks for visiting! I'm sorry I couldn't be there to meet you, but there's just so many people here today!

I wonder if you'll get a chance to meet the real you?

Good luck!

new characters and visitors

For those who are new around here, the method of arrival is... a bit different. This applies equally to characters who are just here for the fourth wall (alternates of existing characters etc) or those who will be apped as permanent residents - there isn't a distinction to these categories until the end of the event.

These characters arrive with a first sensation of being pressed against a hard, glass surface - not unlike the whispers of sensation that haunted the existing passengers over the last few days. The difference is that this time, the glass you're pressed against isn't a horizontal floor or bed - it's vertical or at least mostly vertical, and you can tell which way is down.

Or, put another way: Newly arrived characters start their boatride on the wrong side of the mirrors that are packed away into the unknown deck. They are facing towards the real world side, the way they would if they were reflections made physical, but turning around and looking behind them is nearly impossible.

Indeed, there's a growing pressure forcing them against the glass barrier. It grows harder and harder to breathe, almost like drowning, or being crushed by water pressure -

Until, just when you think you can't survive any more, something gives way, and you stumble out of the mirror into the real world. It's not the glass breaking - it's more like forcing your way through a soap bubble or the membrane that sits inside an eggshell that separates the hard pieces from the white. Water, too, cascades down out of the mirror with you, splattering all over the floor, but it's just water, and it doesn't seem to have left more than a bit of surface dampness on you.

However, when characters turn around, they will find that while the glass is still in place and unbroken, the mirror will no longer reflect anything - not even the shine of light cast on the glass - rendering these mirrors completely black. This reflectivity stays on the puddle of water around your feet instead, which aggressively reflects the area around it even if taken elsewhere - even if poured into a cup. In motion, it's too transparent to be taken for mercury or silver, but when pooled undisturbed, it does not ripple in response to the motion of the ship. Only the actions of characters or other forces can cause ripples. Otherwise, it appears to be normal water.

Characters who are alternates of each other might come out of the mirrors while they're literally being reflected (a certain surprise for those who are on the normal side of the mirror doing the looking), but they might also just appear in rooms all by themselves, or in the presence of someone else they know (or think they know). Those who don't have any immediate connections among the current passengers are more likely to appear in some empty room, but ultimately this is left to player discretion.

shallower reflections

Not all reflections are as potentially friendly as those played by those of us on the player side of the screen, however. In addition to the "deeper" reflections played by real humans, who have or at least appear to have personalities and histories of their own, there are also "shallow" reflections. Unlike the Fourth Wall arrivals, shallow reflections can't be of characters who aren't present at the time - they only appear in response to characters looking into mirrors (whether those characters are existing residents or new arrivals).

The shallow reflections come out of the mirrors just like the Fourth Wall arrivals, but there's always something a little off about them. Some of them stay reversed like a reflection; some of them don't make any noise when they move and cannot speak; some of them come out of the mirrors with the funhouse-esque warped reflections and stay that way. Like their more 'real' counterparts, the mirrors the shallow reflections come out of turn completely flat, unreflective black; unlike their counterparts, they don't really hesitate in striding out, much less stumble and potentially collapse.

What do they want? To shove whoever they're a reflection of into the black mirror they came from. What happens if they succeed?

You die. I mean, probably. There's no way of knowing unless one of them does succeed, after all. If you want your character to die in this fashion, please let the mod team know. While we cannot guarantee that interesting things will happen to all characters (and those who are only here to visit for the Fourth Wall are not eligible), this may have permanent consequences for your character, take them out of play for longer ICly than a typical death, or impact other characters in the game beyond the typical levels of emotional harm. Or some combination of all three.

Fortunately, the shallow reflections only have physical strength on their side - they do not possess any powers of those they take the shapes of, and they can be killed in largely the same way as unremarkable flesh and blood humans. A killing blow causes them to collapse into the same hyper-reflective water as described above; the mirror they came out of remains black.

??? deck

The deck itself is open fully to character navigation. Like the lab specimen storage of Zinnia, this deck - whose name is not posted anywhere for characters to find easily - is clear of any signs of Growth, and manages to feel chilly even if you get up to the top deck where the sun is shining.

Or... Should be shining. Regardless of the weather on other deck dimensions, the skies above this deck are
always, at best, a cloudy, half-stormy grey. The air above hangs tense, like the clouds are waiting for something to happen. Unlike the other instances of Ship weather, you don't need Neuvillette's particular affinity with water to sense it - any character with empathic or telepathic powers will be able to feel the sense of looming, helpless frustration in the clouds.

The most notable feature of this deck, of course, is that it's full of mirrors. Indeed, it's not only the mirrors that are missing from the suite bathrooms, the public restrooms by the cafeteria, and so on - there are far more mirrors than the Ship would reasonably need to outfit the decks it has, even including the multidimensional nature of it. Mirrors hang from the walls, and then more mirrors lean against those, or against the other furnishings, or even against each other (since some of them are standing mirrors), and the groups against the walls are often five or six panels deep with the largest at the back the side of the glass panels of the Ship's sliding glass balcony doors. (Yes, those are also replaced by mirrors, reflective in both directions.) Tabletops are reflective in their own rights, and then littered with even more, antique-looking hand mirrors and makeup compacts and those little circular mirrors sold in bags by the dozen at the craft store, only an inch across.

Considering all the reflective surfaces, it might be a good thing that there is only emergency power supplied to this deck - enough to keep the guide lights on and ensure that the sliding doors (though not the elevators) are working, and that whatever system pumps water through the faucets and showers is still going. The water is all cold, however, and there isn't any food available on the deck so far as characters are able to find. In the place where characters are used to finding the cafeteria, there is instead a terrifying mirrored bar filled with empty bottles and glasses as well as - well. Take a guess.

With the exception of the sliding glass doors in the suites, the glass of windows and so forth seems to be what it should be - though it's more reflective than seems natural, too. Like Zinnia, the cleaniness of this deck means that characters have full run of it, all the way down to the lounge on the bottom of the Ship - which is the only place that isn't completely clean on this deck. The super-reflective water that pours out of the mirrors seems to have flowed down here at some point, where it sits, unaffected by the motion of the Ship, about an inch deep across the entire floor. This water is the only feature down in the bottom lounge - there is no furniture, in contrast to its Zinnia counterpart.

And on this floor, at the very bottom, and only this floor, the reflective water has the smell - only the smell, not any other qualities - of fresh blood.

The Ship will not answer characters here - although the terminals in the residential deck that can normally be used to communicate with it (in whatever limited capacity) are present, their screens are (of course!) mirrors, and unresponsive. There's also no signs of drones about, not even the basic roomba-like cleaning drones; there's no evidence that they've been here recently, either.

A follow-up log, in which the Ship manages to make contact with characters wherever they are, will be posted later (mod goal time is 2-3 weeks from now). That log will take place on Day 40 and will bring with it food (for everyone who has gotten very hungry by then) and drone assistance, but whether characters actually manage to escape at that point or later on on Day 42 is left open to the opinions of you, the players! Both current players and visitors will be able to vote in a Discord poll on the matter, to be posted in the Discord announcements channel tomorrow (after you've had the chance to sleep on this post and let it cook in your brains a little).

Happy playing! Questions can be asked on Discord or added to the usual questions header below this post.

Comments

[highjustice]

"If there had not been a Hydro Archon to weep upon her throne, then who knows what further punishments the cruel heavens might have devised for Fontaine?" Neuvillette asks in return, which isn't an answer, directly, and yet it is. If the prophecy had not been fulfilled, in letter if not in spirit, then something far worse might have occurred.

(He is not unaware of how Focalors cultivated him into a person who would understand her decision, who would defend it as well as her nation after she was gone.)

"As for Arlecchino, I suspect but cannot confirm that she made an attempt to retrieve the Gnosis from Furina's person directly. However, it was not there; it never had been." It's a strong suspicion, however, from how Furina's demeanor towards the woman turned fearful seemingly out of the blue, one day not long after the Traveler's arrival.

"It's possible," Neuvillette says in regards to the speculation. "However, the rest of us here did not arrive via mirrors. Indeed, in the areas of the ship to which we have grown accustomed, there are no mirrors - all of them, I presume, being here."

[primordialice]

"A question you'll never need to have answered. Congratulations." It would be wrong to say that Brighella doesn't care about the prophecy. He's been making his own preparations, moving recruits out of the fortress to Snezhnaya as stealthily as he can and monitoring the sluice gate to make sure he's not caught unawares. He's even been working to create safe and waterproof pods in the Fortress for non-Fatui prisoners to retreat to and creating systems to divert water to the outside world. He's fairly confident the Fortress will be intact once the floodwaters recede, although there will likely be casualties. However, when it comes to the fate of the Hydro Archon? He couldn't give less of a shit. She's welcome to do all the weeping she likes.

"Hmm, I've always guessed that if she's not the one holding onto it, it must be powering the Oratrice. The Knave seems to think I might have it, which is hilarious - and somewhat annoying, considering the kittens she sent to scurry around my turf." He really hates having the House of the Hearth children there. He doesn't want to hurt them, but he also doesn't want them poking into his business. They're allied with the Traveller - what they know, he's going to know... and that's a lot more of a concern than some fellow Fatui knowing.

"I haven't seen a door to another area yet - how'd you get in? I'd love to see the rest of the ship." Knowledge is power, after all.

[highjustice]

"A question I am quite glad to have unanswered, as someone who was alive to see what became of Khaenri'ah." There's, perhaps, a slight warning note there - one fails to take the Heavenly Principles seriously at their peril.

Rather than answering the implication - it is and isn't correct; the Oratrice was the conduit of the people's belief to the Gnosis, growing its power into something that could fell the Throne, but the physical device did not contain it - Neuvillette raises his eyebrows and says, "Forgive me, but from my perspective, this is quite the sudden interest. What business have you with the Gnosis?"

[primordialice]

Instead of answering immediately, Wriothesley stands as smoothly as a man in his teens or twenties, rather than the forty-odd years he carries chronologically. He raises an eyebrow right back. "Do you really think you're familiar with all my interests, Iudex? From my perspective, we're not that close."

He pulls the chain holding his Vision off his shoulder, turning the somewhat-bulky case around and pressing a hidden button, causing it to snap into its true form - a Fatui Hydro Delusion, tucked away behind his Vision. "That answer your question, Hydro Dragon?"

[highjustice]

"I count the Wriothesley I know to be one of my dearest friends, and he has given me no reason to believe that he bears me the resentment you so obviously carry." A straightforward answer from a straightforward man - what else is there to expect, really?

Neuvillette's eyes narrow on the Delusion - being that it is of Hydro, Wriothesley may feel a slight tingle from it, an invisible investigation as to its authenticity (so far as a Delusion is ever authentic) before Neuvillette, too, stands. "I see. Then you'll forgive me for playing some few cards still close to my chest. In the end, despite having every reason to resent her myself, the Hydro Archon earned my loyalty and respect both through her cunning, determination, and selflessness. If you are aware of the history of gods and dragons, then you know surely that that is no small thing."

[primordialice]

"You - or at least, the Neuvillette I know - threw a child into prison and then sent the people who most wanted him dead in after him," Brighella answers coolly. "If your Wriothesley doesn't resent you for that, I'll freely admit that he's a better man than I am." He could throw a lot more into Neuvillette's face, but he's not going to, even if it might make him have a reaction. The man is always so damned cool-headed.

"Oh, I never thought you'd actually tell me where the Gnosis is, so there's nothing to forgive. Besides, that line of questioning's more of a sideline for me - the Knave was the one tasked with retrieving it. I'd just find it amusing to get there first." Beating Arlecchino would be so satisfying, but apparently not in the cards today. "I can't imagine the Archon surviving the transfer of power and the destruction of her Throne. She martyred herself for you and Fontaine?" Because that sounds like a eulogy.

[highjustice]

"And I account it among the worst things that I have ever done," he says simply. No excuses, and no attempts at an apology - it doesn't seem desired, and the last thing he wants is to be insulting with it.

Instead, still somber, he shifts his weight, such that he can rest the tip of his cane on the floor and both his hands over the top of it. He says simply, "That was her 'Justice,' in the end. The best outcome she could find, for everyone except herself."

[primordialice]

That does, admittedly, take some of the wind out of Wriothesley's sails. It's not something his Iudex has ever said to him - it's always seemed like the events that occurred decades before were glossed over, swept under the rug. He looks off into the distance, his eyes swirling with the Primordial Sea before snapping back to his usual ice blue before he nods. "I'm glad you can admit it. It can't change the facts, but I appreciate the honesty."

Neuvillette looks so solemn, so official, it's clear this weighs on him. "Sorry for your loss." He doesn't add 'congratulations on the promotion', so he feels like he's being as sensitive as he can manage under the circumstances. "So the Seven are the Six now... I wonder how Her Majesty's feeling about that."

[highjustice]

"People are quick to believe that my position administering the law means that I believe it the final arbiter of justice," he replies. "The reality is that I am forced to be more aware of its failures than most."

And there are few it failed so utterly as Wriothesley. Even with how he has worked to correct that source of injustice and misfortune, there are still far too many cracks. A society of imperfect beings is definitionally imperfect as well.

(Another service Arlecchino renders to Fontaine, though she knows not that he considers it such - Neuvillette would far rather the orphans be given unto the House under its current, damn-giving patriarch than he would for the other forces on Fontaine's streets who might desire them.)

"You would have a better idea than I," he says. "As the one who inherited the ideal of 'Justice,' I do intend to deliver judgement on the gods - but for the greatest part, they are not going anywhere, and the Heavenly Principles are a far more immediate concern to all of us."

[primordialice]

Wriothesley sighs, cracking his neck, and lets his form go, returning to his natural sixteen year old body, looking up at Neuvillette with the resentment back in his eyes. His voice is raw and scraped, like the still-healing scars along the front of his neck. "And you sit on that stage and let those failures fall out of your mouth anyway. Maybe there's no perfect solution, but there has to be something better than 'throw a kid in the Fortress of Meropide and forget he exists for fifteen years'. Is it any wonder I took the first hand I was offered?"

He crosses his arms and shrugs, the gesture almost comical with the now over-sized coat almost falling off his shoulders. "Well, I don't think I've gotten that far yet. The Primordial Sea is still bubbling away under the Fortress - the pressure's rising, but nothing's exploded yet."

[highjustice]

"In another life, that hand was Sigewinne's," Neuvillette replies. "Even if I had the inclination to forget, she would never have allowed it."

He eyes the boy in the oversized clothes in front of him seriously, before adding, "And in that life, you are a typical citizen of Fontaine, and would not have survived whatever encounter with the Primordial waters left you so. So perhaps that other hand would never have been offered in the first place."

If nothing else - he is well aware that the Archon of frozen heart does not pick up strays who are not useful to her.

Shoulders relaxing slightly, he sighs. "And I do not think that whatever words I might say would be truly balm to your heart, since they are not from the 'me' who wronged you. Though I doubt that he feels much differently, I cannot swear to it, after all." The heart will go on feeling whatever it feels, and the mind will follow after it. Such deep-held resentment will not disappear so easily.

[primordialice]

"Sigewinne..." Okay, she had made a few overtures toward him. She'd also drugged his tea. He'd eventually realized her motives were probably harmless, but that was the reason he'd taken his chances with the deeper fortress rather than the quicker route of ducking into her clinic that fateful day. "I can see that, I guess."

Wriothesley shrugs. "Being dissolved in the Sea wouldn't have been so bad a fate, you know. Maybe not everyone's choice, but for a lonely teenager?" He looks wistful, even two decades or more later. "I could feel it all around me, warmth and acceptance and... unity. But it wasn't for me." The Sea had been gentle, but it had still rejected him.

"It's not like this is a discussion I can have with him." He smiles, hanging his Vision back up on his coat. "I doubt I'd be allowed to maintain both of my positions, after all, and I might complain about the workload but I actually enjoy my work. Someone needs to look after the Fortress, and I'm better at it than anyone else."

[highjustice]

"You may be surprised. As I said, I do not consider the Tsaritsa's objectives and my own to be entirely disaligned." He gives the Wriothesley before him a serious, considering look, and then finally adds, "And unless you have been administering the Fortress vastly differently from your counterpart, then I cannot imagine that that other myself is anything but complimentary about it. The system as Egeria designed it is..."

He sighs, and says, "Ultimately, the product of a god who tried to understand humanity and failed. My understanding is, I'm certain, equally flawed, but I would hope at least flawed differently. It is clear to me that the Fortress under your counterpart is on the right track; it is the question of where to begin with the changes that are under my purview that eludes me."

It's not directly a request for input, but it's left hanging open. Neuvillette is a person who is rarely driven to push, especially upon strangers, but he does leave the door open.

[primordialice]

"The Iudex has never expressed any dissatisfaction with my methods, though we don't get a lot of face time." Wriothesley's very good at avoiding meetings when he wants to be, and he doesn't see that he and the Iudex have much to talk about. "He's not really aware of how many recruits I send to Snezhnaya, though - nobody's tracking prisoners once they reach Meropide. The administration of their sentences and their release is entirely in my hands."

He considers. "Actually, that might be something to consider updating. Social supports for ex-convicts are incredibly lacking, that's one reason it's so easy for me to recruit for the Fatui. A lot of those who are sent down into Meropide don't have anything to look forward to after. I offer them a steady job and a purpose and they're mine in a snap. Fontaine's welfare organizations could use a serious overhaul in general, but that might be a place to start, if things in our world are similar."

[highjustice]

Clearly, he has underestimated such things. Neuvillette, at least, doesn't entirely disguise his grimace. "My focus of late has been towards children's welfare," he says. "Given that your counterpart has made some quite well-thought suggestions on the matter of those who have served their sentences, and permitted those who wish it to remain there indefinitely, it is Fontaine's orphans who have a tendency to be siphoned off by the Fatui. Though I would still prefer them at the House of the Hearth than I would in other situations, at least in this last decade since Arlecchino replaced the previous Knave."

Situations like yours, he doesn't say, but he's sure it will be heard clearly none-the-less. And indeed, the previous Knave is... not a woman he particularly laments.

"There is also the issue of how much housing was destroyed in the flood... Though that may be a solution in itself to the problem of jobs for those leaving the Fortress, at least for a time. There's certainly no shortage of repair work."

[primordialice]

"Glad the other me's putting in the work, though allowing people to stay at the Fortress indefinitely... doesn't seem like something that'll work for long. The logistics aren't there to support an actual growing population. It might be better than sending them back to the streets, but it's going to create its own problems. Which I'm sure he knows." He won't discredit his own intelligence, even if it's another version of him.

"Hah. Arlecchino's an improvement on Crucabena, but that's about all I can say for her. Training children into weapons..." He fights down an expression of disgust. "Until she stops that practice, I've got no time for her."

He nods. "As long as they actually get houses to live in when they're done, and fair payment for their work, that'd be a great start."

[highjustice]

"Up until now, there was a cap on such a population due to the fact that the only children who could be born in the Fortress were those whose mothers brought them in unawares, or if by happenstance two people who were both not of Fontaine had relations," Neuvillette says. "In both cases, a rarity. Unfortunately, reproduction for native Fontainians no longer requires a visit to the Fountain of Lucine, and given the culture in the Fortress surrounding such matters..."

For a flicker, he makes a somewhat un-Neuvillette-like face that explains nothing and everything. "Suffice it to say, I've asked Sigewinne to keep me apprised of any such cases, and while she hasn't informed me of any yet, it's only a matter of time. But at the same time, I cannot very well tell the people who have made a home in the Fortress that they can no longer reside there, even if they begin to have children within its walls, and neither can he." It would be quite hypocritical of Wriothesley to kick anyone else out, which is a thing the man as Neuvillette knows him strives to avoid.

"So there may well be a great deal of work put into the development of housing in Fontaine in the near future, even after the restoration of the nation after the flood is complete." And there's the repairs of the Callas line to consider...

[primordialice]

"Those who've chosen to stay in the Fortress of Meropide may change their minds if they start having kids in it. It's still a prison - raising a kid there's different from living there as an adult. I wouldn't do it." But then, Wriothesley has pretty high standards for the steps he'd take to raise a child in safety and happiness.

"So the Fountain of Lucine thing is real - was real? I always figured that was a folk superstition, but I guess it makes sense. Fontaineans have that unusual constitution..." He doesn't actually know why they'd dissolve and he wouldn't, just that it's the case. Dottore was eager to run experiments on him, but only an idiot would take that offer (yes, that does include Mezzetino).

[highjustice]

"Unfortunately, even among parents who try, many are imperfect," Neuvilette replies. "To say nothing of those who might become parents while serving their sentences, rather than after." A mother who is living in the Fortress by choice can leave; less so one who lives there by sentence, at least under the current system.

A headache he hopes to put off at least a few months longer, but certainly can't avoid forever.

"Many superstitions have some root in the truth, but that one more than most," Neuvillette says. "If the flood has not yet occurred in your Fontaine, then it is still in effect; it was only through the restoration of my Authority that the people of Fontaine could become true humans, no different from the people of other nations. Prior to that, they were children of the seas - self-deceiving Oceanids given human shape through Egeria's power, a miracle which perpetuated itself through the Fountain even after her death." He doesn't feel nearly as concerned with revealing this as he does the difference between 'Focalors' and 'Furina' - it is not knowledge that will jeopardize the former's plans. "Exposure to Primordial Seawater causes that deception, if one were to call it that, to unravel, and the person in question to become inert water. Those from other nations are true humans already; that is why they are unaffected."

[primordialice]

"That... explains a lot." Why he wasn't allowed to dissolve. Why the Sea pushed him back out. As a true human, he didn't have an Oceanid form to return to - it wasn't a won't, it was a can't. That makes him feel... better, actually. "Not entirely unaffected. If immersed for long enough they might turn into me," Brighella notes dryly. "Not that it's a likely outcome. I don't really know how long I was in there - a few days, at least, and there aren't many accessible springs that lead into the Sea. I sealed the one I fell into, naturally."

[highjustice]

"Aside from the one under seal in the Fortress, there is one other major rent in it now, between the Opera Epiclese and Poisson on the lake floor," Neuvillette says. "Unlike the ones of which you speak, it can hardly be called a 'spring' - the seawater does not filter into the rest from beneath the ground."

He tips his head slightly, and says, "Under normal circumstances, one might dig for miles beneath Fontaine and never reach the Primordial Sea. It is not entirely inside of Teyvat in the physical plane - it is similar to the Abyss in that one regard. In that vein, I am not entirely certain that time flows in the same way as it does for the outside world."

Certainly, it didn't do so within the pocket Focalors made for herself, overlooking it. That instant was only an instant for everyone else, a moment in which the storm surged even as the flood rose in counterpoint, but for Neuvillette... Well, his heart will never truly know how long it was, but it was certainly no instant.