"Please do."

"PHLOX: I’m curious: Is sending a being’s memories back in time the same as sending the being itself back in time?
PHLOX: As an example, if we were to send my memories back in time, is that the same as sending “me” back in time (not my physical body, but my essence)?
DAZ: I imagine they’re two different actions.
CASSAVA: Wouldn’t both actions be effectively the same?
DAZ: Suppose that time was being rewritten. I believe this is different than receiving memories from what is effectively the future.
CASSAVA: But isn’t the end result identical in either case?"

Syl lets that sit for a few seconds. "I'll grab the scroll it was written on so we can reference it later but we still haven't been up the stairs. There might be something important written there."

Syl jets down from the higher platform and makes for the stairs. They'll pass by Marin if Marin doesn't start moving first."

She’s not concerned with the philosophical implications if they’re saving the world. If the stakes were lower, perhaps she’d given the question more consideration (certainly, her brother would be happy to debate the issue), but they had urgent priorities. Such as: stairs. Marin casts a spell on Syl to improve their speed, since it’s more important that one of them gets a chance to explore than that she personally sees everything.

Marin follows behind at her normal pace, taking care to observe their environment (the sky, the air, etc.) in case new clues about this catastrophe present themselves.

Syl quickly reaches another wall of text and begins to read. "RAMIE: I’ve installed the masks inside the Ash Twin Project, Phlox. They look beautiful (although I do feel as though I’m being observed!).
RAMIE: It’s comforting to know the statues will not pair until the project succeeds. Otherwise, I imagine the experience would be hard to endure!
PHLOX: Ideally, they’ll only need to activate once the project succeeds; as a safety measure, however, the statues will also activate in the event of equipment failure.
RAMIE: They will? Why is that?
PHLOX: If anything goes wrong with the Ash Twin Project, the statues (and their masks) will make us aware of the situation and enable us to fix it. Otherwise, it would be possible for us to remain permanently unaware of the problem.
RAMIE: I hadn’t thought of that! What a profoundly horrific fate that would be."

Just after Syl finishes speaking the sky above them goes dark, then it flashes then it goes dark again.

"This is the end isn't it?"

Nod.

"See you again soon."

Marin still plans to conserve her magic for use in more powerful spells, but it still goes against her instincts to do nothing as the world falls apart a second time.

Syl starts to say something but there's no time.

And Marin's memories of the last loop play in reverse until she's once more at the beginning.

On her way to the observatory to talk with Hornfels...and this time, when Syl rushes past?

Syl rushes up. "Sorry we should have planned for this loop last time. I can help you carry your suit. You should be fine to put it on in the rocket. Should we keep investigating Giant's deep or try a different planet? I know you wanted to look into the Ash Twin project so we could go to the Ash Twin and see what we can find there."

"I'll trust your instincts on prioritization, but I do want to investigate Ash Twin, it seems...unique...compared to anything I would expect in my world."

"The Ash Twin project seems connected to the time loop. It might be covered in sand at the moment though. I'll call Chert once we get to the ship to ask. If the towers are exposed we can go there and otherwise we can go to Giants Deep."

Nod.

"I'll prepare some spells for general toughness; making us hardier."

And she does that. It's not likely to be immediately helpful, but she wants to make sure she's free to cast in case they end up in immediate danger.

Syl keeps walking and soon they're back at the ship. They lift off and Syl sends a radio message to Chert. "Chert says the towers are buried so I think we should at least start on Giants Deep, either with the Station in orbit or trying to see if one of the other islands has useful information."

"What would be the merits of both options? My looming concern at this point is that there are a finite number of loops and we could somehow accelerate through them too quickly if we don't take the right precautions."

"The station always fires at the beginning of the loop so I think it might be connected somehow. As for the other islands I don't know what we might find. There's at least five of them that we know of and any of them might have clues though I think our best chance would be the Nomai facility with a grav ring. In order the other four are the one we already visited, there's parts of it we didn't check yet. The iceberg with bits from Dark Bramble, the tower at the north pole and the final island where Gabbro is based. I don't think there's anything important on that last one but maybe Gabbro would have other ideas we could use."

"Let's visit the Nomai facility. If we have time, then we go to the station. If not, we hope there's another loop to save us."

"Sounds good." Sylvite finishes putting on their suit and gets back in the pilots chair. Shortly afterwards the autopilot finishes and Syl brings them into the atmosphere. It takes another minute or so for Syl to find the island in question and set them down. After disembarking they find themselves on a platform that's empty aside from a staircase. Walking down the staircase yields this view:

Is that Nomai writing on the wall up ahead? Worth investigating.

"We should read what's on the wall. What else do you know about this facility so far?"

She approaches the wall, casting a spell to hasten their movement; they can both move at about twice the speed they normally could, although it doesn't help with speaking or thinking speed.

"It's one of the larger facilities we've found. That model over there looks like the station in orbit so we theorized that this is where it was built. Our incomplete translations suggested the same."

Syl gets out their translator and begins to read:

"CASSAVA: This is it: We’ve finished building the final Orbital Probe Cannon module and are ready to send it into orbit around Giant’s Deep for assembly!
CASSAVA: To all my friends here at the Construction Yard, my gratitude for your tireless work. I had given up hope, but I truly believe this cannon may actually succeed where many other attempts have not.
DAZ: Are you going gelatinous on us, love? I’m delighted by your words, but they’re atypical for you!
CASSAVA: If I’m ever half as gooey as Mallow and Avens behave together, Daz, you may launch me from the Orbital Probe Cannon.
CASSAVA: Our next step will be to send Privet up to the Orbital Probe Cannon to install the probe tracking system.
DAZ: If I know my brother, Avens (and his spouse) will want to launch the probe with as much power as possible. I’m worried the cannon would break under the strain.

DAZ: I propose we give Avens and Mallow a slightly lower maximum power setting than the absolute maximum possible to create room for their enthusiasm."

"Could the station have broken, the way they worried about? This could be a piece of it. That by itself doesn't explain recent changes, but Gabbro's statue might be sufficient explain that. If this is a piece of the station...would re-attaching it be a worthy aim?"

It's most likely heavy, but with the right combination of magic, Marin thinks she could do it. She reminds herself that her supply may be limited. Perhaps not.

"We found this place a long time ago. It's not part of the station. And yes, considering that the station, what the text called the orbital probe cannon, broke after firing it sounds like what happened is exactly what Daz and Cassava were worried about."

"My theory is perhaps over-complicating the issue, but I believe this piece could be a piece of the station, somehow displaced through time. Most Nomai tech so far seems to connect to these loops, somehow. Perhaps it is simply an abandoned, failed attempt at creating a station, that would be far simpler. But- the time loop we are a part of seems connected to the station breaking, and maybe it's unwise to rely on symbolism, but- the sand shifting between the two Hourglass Twins seems suggestive of timekeeping. Perhaps more aptly named than you realized. I wonder if the Nomai intended to control the flow of time. If so, we could be looking at several failed experiments."

"Interesting... it does seem like they have the technology to manipulate time so it's possible that some of their facilities are displaced in time. I really don't think this was part of the station though. That model over there is a perfect match to how it looked before the time loop started and I don't see any obvious attachment points."

"I'll trust you on that much, I barely understand the construction of these strange objects. If it's been here the whole time, I won't worry about it. I do wonder if there's anything we can learn from this place...do you have any scientific ways of examining it?"

While Syl works on that, Marin takes the opportunity to check for any traps- it uses very little power. This normally works at home, but the traps there are human-constructed bits of wood and metal or disturbances to nature, so she's not sure the spell can even identify what dangers might exist here.

"We've found this gravity plating several places and analyzed samples. That doesn't really explain how they built things here though. If there is an important device to analyze we don't know where it is, maybe the Nomai could control the gravity plating somehow and make it do more things. Reverse engineering takes a really long time so I expect if there's more to learn in a small number of loops it's from finding more text. Let's keep going." Syl walks over to the right down a small set of stairs and steps onto the wall covered in grav plating.

Her spell doesn't detect any traps.