Time Fortress

The Time Fortress is a large, ruined structure inside the realm of Panaton.

Background
The Time Fortress, like many other ruins and artifacts found throughout Panaton, was built by a dead race of people who called themselves time adepts. Despite the lofty title, they didn't prove adept at avoiding an unrecorded temporal catastrophe that wiped them all from existence. All that remains of them are entities known as time wraiths.

Characters can locate the Time Fortress if they're venturing through Panaton, if they discover a portal that drops them into it randomly, or because they're looking for a device called the Anthelid. The Anthelid is rumored to have the ability to send travelers either forward or backward through time millions or even billions of years.

The Time Fortress exists mostly underground, though a single roseate crystal spire pointing skyward stands on the surface. Within the fortress lies crystal rooms and corridors in various states of disrepair. Much of the fortress appears to be collapsed. Dim, roseate light illuminates most of the interior.

Arrival
If the character's discovery of the Time Fortress coincides with their arrival on Panaton, it takes only a few rounds before they fall into alternate time states.

Pool of Following
This chamber has collapsed crystal and stone walls. Here and there, bits of battered and broken devices are visible. Spending 20 minutes picking through the chamber will yield a cypher and 2d10 shins.

A pool of clear fluid ripples in a crystal basin at the chamber's center. Touching the crystal basin reveals a subtle vibration, rich with coded information. A successful difficulty 5 Intellect task to understand will allow a character to trigger the fluid, which rises upward into a human shape composed of fluid without any features of any kind. The level 3 liquid entity exits the basin and will follow the character that triggered it, never speaking. If attacked, it drains, only to return later. The next time that a character is subjected to a negative temporal effect, the construct will instead take the effect, then it will expire. It can then be reactivated again in an hour.

Crystal Spire
If the characters come from outside the structure, they'll see a single, roseate crystal spire reaching approximately 200 ft. into the sky. The spire stands midway up a rocky hillside. Doorways aren't immediately obvious. Touching the crystal reveals a subtle vibration, rich with coded information. A successful difficulty 5 Intellect task allows a character to selectively phase through the wall and into the spire's interior.

The interior will contain a visual distortion in space that looks something like a whirlpool in the air, swirling around the spire's center. The vanished time adepts called this a dimensional eddy. If characters arrived t the Time Fortress by stepping through a gate from some other dimension, they step out through the dimensional eddy. If the characters can measure it, the eddy will give off copious amounts of transdimensional energy. Stepping through it will send them either back whence they came or to some other dimension.

Mraran Lair
The once-much-larger chamber is now a cavern, whose walls are composed of collapsed crystal and stone. The resulting space is rough and uneven. Bits of battered and broken devices are visible. Spending 20 minutes picking through the chamber will yield 2 cyphers and 2d10 shins.

Hall of Stopped Time
Crystal pillars run along the center of this 160 ft. long hall. Also visible, still as statues, are 3 creatures standing at various distances along the passage. The variable nature of time in Panaton is focused more strongly in the hall. A defensive function of the Time Fortress is active, and it attempts to trap anyone moving along the hallway in stopped time. Any intruders will need to succeed on a difficulty 3 Intellect defense roll for every 20 ft. that they move down the hallway. On a failure, the target's time state will become even slower than stopped - it becomes "frozen." Unlike in other parts of Panaton, ripples that reassign time states don't happen here. A frozen character's only hope would be help from someone else.ref>Cordell, Bruce, “Panaton.” Into the Outside, Monte Cook Games, LLP, 2018, pp. 76. Numenera. ISBN 978-1-939979-47-6

Casement
This otherwise-blank crystal chamber will hod a black synth square about 3 ft on each side. If prodded, the square unfolds to reveal a 9 ft. frame into a window that looks out on the exterior of the Time Fortress from a vantage point 300 ft in the air. It seems possible to climb out of the window (if one wished) to exit the fortress. Further study reveals distant humanoids moving through the city surrounding the crystal spire. This may confuse the characters if they had previously investigated the abandoned exterior of the Time Fortress.

Anthelid Chamber
A crystal hoop filled with a bizarre visual distortion stands upright in this chamber. Touching it will reveal a subtle vibration, rich with coded information. successful difficulty 5 Intellect task will inform the character that the hoop is actually a time gate. However, a component is missing in order for it to safely function - a crystal key. Depending upon why the characters are here, they might already have said key, in which case they could use the gate to travel to a specified point in time to any dimension they know to exist.

Anthelid Key Chamber
An otherwise-blank crystal chamber will hold a black synth square of about 3 ft. on each side. If prodded, it will unfold to reveal a 9 ft. frame into a window that looks into a extradimensional space. The crystal component required to activate the Anthelid might be "inside". If not, it's possible that someone else might've beaten the characters to it already.