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~~Christmas Day Special - (page 19 of 24)~~

As he pressed himself more deeply into the Forge, he had to be careful. Getting a good, clear look at the ardor therein was the goal, but that was also where the temptation lay. Go too fast, stretch too far, lose concentration, and this slumbering beast would swallow him whole before he even realized what had happened.

Or at least, that was how Dolf had described it. Abbas wasn't terribly keen to find out how accurate that had been.

The ardor was there. Just at the edge of sight. If it was possible to squint with one's mind's eye, then that was what he was doing now. Strain to see. To understand.

What was your name, damn you? If you recalled that much, then there was a fair chance that you were still operational. If not, then... well, this was going to get a lot more complicated.

He lost time. Hours, maybe. There was a moderate chance that time was simply flowing differently in this strange space. If he hadn't been relying on his own body as a tether back to reality, he would have known even less. Days or even months could have transpired without his knowledge. Years. Decades.

Time might've become little more than an illusion in this place. Hell, for all he knew, it could've started going in circles.

It was confounding, to be sure. But the distortion of time was almost certainly a factor in how objects like these were able to keep memories within them, Abbas knew. Such fleeting pieces of information would normally be lost to time's arrow. But here, it could be preserved. The steady march of entropy could be held at bay. For a while, at least.

How long that "while" might be--well, that was anybody's guess. How long could a Forge last before eroding to dust? If left alone, perhaps these things had the potential to outlast humanity. Ardor was the fuel of the planet, after all. The relevant time scale could have been approaching the cosmic for these bad boys.

Shame they usually ended up obliterated long before nature could run its course.