Time on Tempax
"Of course, none of this makes any sense," the sage finished, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "What do you mean? Does the world work this way or not?" one of the young nobles asked. "Well of course it does, young master, but it shouldn't," the tutor responded. "We know from the occasional visitors from other worlds and our own mathematical processes that we must live on a round world, and other facts about our celestial neighbors in the sky, but the timing of it all makes no sense whatsoever."
Time passes on Tempax at the same rate as for anywhere else, of course; the universe couldn't function without the binding agent of time. But the physical world of Tempax is almost certainly artificially maintained through some process or caretaker mortals have yet to become aware of. There are occasional visitors to the world from other places... and other times. They take part in events here, then almost invariably find a way home again. As amazing as these events are, the most intriguing aspect of the situation is that time has not passed for them when they return to their places of origin. Of course, this is only known because the deity who oversees time always seems to appear at the moment of their leaving to reassure them of exactly that. While that could be attributed to the current deity's level of activity, legends passed down among various cultures suggest this has always been the case. What calls a god's attention at such moments, and why she bothers to make an appearance merely to deliver a few reassuring sentences, are mysteries that have yet to be solved. A still greater mystery remains, however. Time on Tempax is evenly divided. This is not due to mere arbitrary measurement by the mortals doing the measuring: time on tempax passes in a specifically-measurable amount. How we came to measure sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour, and twenty-four hours in a day is unknown, yet these are categorically the exact measurements of a day on our world. There are exactly four hundred days in a year, every year, and these measurements occur without variation. By things told to us from Otherworlders and confirmed through our own observations and mathematics, this is completely unnatural; other worlds experience at least a change in the hours of daylight in a day season by season and must adjust calendars year by year. So it should be on Tempax, yet there are ten hours of full daylight every day of any season. Even the unusually-talkative deity of death and time refuses to elaborate on what keeps time thus on Tempax, yet there is one instance where she spoke briefly with a scholar of stars on the topic. The only near-useful phrase to be gleaned from her even then was, "That's up to you to find out, isn't it?" Is the strangeness of time on Tempax some form of test, a puzzle for mortals to solve? Are we truly meant to solve it, if so, or is it merely a teasing reward to keep us questioning and questing for some other objective? We may never know, for few are the scholars who take up mantles of adventure and discovery; it is surely in those realms of activity that such answers may one day be found.
Time passes on Tempax at the same rate as for anywhere else, of course; the universe couldn't function without the binding agent of time. But the physical world of Tempax is almost certainly artificially maintained through some process or caretaker mortals have yet to become aware of. There are occasional visitors to the world from other places... and other times. They take part in events here, then almost invariably find a way home again. As amazing as these events are, the most intriguing aspect of the situation is that time has not passed for them when they return to their places of origin. Of course, this is only known because the deity who oversees time always seems to appear at the moment of their leaving to reassure them of exactly that. While that could be attributed to the current deity's level of activity, legends passed down among various cultures suggest this has always been the case. What calls a god's attention at such moments, and why she bothers to make an appearance merely to deliver a few reassuring sentences, are mysteries that have yet to be solved. A still greater mystery remains, however. Time on Tempax is evenly divided. This is not due to mere arbitrary measurement by the mortals doing the measuring: time on tempax passes in a specifically-measurable amount. How we came to measure sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour, and twenty-four hours in a day is unknown, yet these are categorically the exact measurements of a day on our world. There are exactly four hundred days in a year, every year, and these measurements occur without variation. By things told to us from Otherworlders and confirmed through our own observations and mathematics, this is completely unnatural; other worlds experience at least a change in the hours of daylight in a day season by season and must adjust calendars year by year. So it should be on Tempax, yet there are ten hours of full daylight every day of any season. Even the unusually-talkative deity of death and time refuses to elaborate on what keeps time thus on Tempax, yet there is one instance where she spoke briefly with a scholar of stars on the topic. The only near-useful phrase to be gleaned from her even then was, "That's up to you to find out, isn't it?" Is the strangeness of time on Tempax some form of test, a puzzle for mortals to solve? Are we truly meant to solve it, if so, or is it merely a teasing reward to keep us questioning and questing for some other objective? We may never know, for few are the scholars who take up mantles of adventure and discovery; it is surely in those realms of activity that such answers may one day be found.
Type
Metaphysical, Astral
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