Wrinkle nods, and considers that. Then considers it some more. And then some more.

Eventually Sandy is able to explain, "<Wrinkle thinks that, given there's a only a finite amount of energy pulling on the vortex towards any given gravitational body, that as long as it doesn't gain or lose more than about 100 kilocalories of gravitational energy, it should remain stable. That does also depend on the mass of the vortex as well as its minor radius, which is related to its volume and vortex-flux, which can in turn be engineered, if a larger energy-band seems practical.>" 

"I'll need to see your math on that and probably have someone else check it over but that's enough to get started with." Slate continues with various questions about timelines and how much material they think will be needed for this project. They'll get into how much Sandy and Wrinkle will be paid during this discussion if asked. The answer in effect is more than enough to pay for a few years of food and housing after a few months of work.

Indeed, the maths will be expounded upon and revised, materials proposed, considered, discarded, and iterated on. Wrinkle isn't all that concerned about the details of how much they're paid, but Sandy appreciates that it will certainly be enough to afford their room and board for the foreseeable future, while Mischief grumbles internally over this job turning out to have nothing for her to do, which Sandy retorts might change quickly if they do end up needing to delve this Dark Bramble place.

Regardless, now they've got plans for the near-term at least. Time passes, things happen...

With the help of Slate and various other engineers and scientists they can make progress towards a first prototype. In the meantime, the Hearthians also offer up everything they know about Dark Bramble.

The Bramble is filled with a relatively thin fog that nevertheless obstructs vision. Each inner area of the Bramble seems roughly spherical and enclosed in a thick shell of wood that gets denser as you cut through it until it eclipses the abilities of their tools.

Each sphere has a single entrance which corresponds to one or more external seeds with a single seed always being dominant. If you go through the portals in the surface of a seed you find yourself at the entrance. If you back up through the entrance you emerge through one of the portals on the dominant seed. Every sphere they've found has at least one seed inside it and usually at least five.

The fog is mostly inhabited by very small creatures that aren't visible to the naked eye but there's also a range of other largely unthreatening creature ranging up to about the size of a Hearthian.

The exception to this is the massive angler fish that represent the main threat within the Bramble. Angler fish are a couple feet across when hatched but they can grow to be the size of a small building big enough to eat small space ships whole and seriously damage larger ones.

The Anglers hunt based on sound which is inconvenient given that Hearthian engines are quite loud. Still The Heathians have managed to at least embark on a mapping project mostly using remote probes and they've identified a few dozen different spheres including one with a dominant seed outside their solar system.

They've been blocked from in depth exploration due to not wanting to send people somewhere with no way back but further development of teleportation tech is expected to help with this.

Well, especially with Mischief's help the party is certainly very good at moving quietly. Depending on how exactly that fog inhibits sight it's possible that she, Sandy, and maybe even Wrinkle have means of perception that might pierce its obscurity.

Mischief is also curious, given that Anglers evidently hatch, whether they also die, and thus whether there's any information on what sort of vulnerabilities they have (or at least, methods of defense against them that they are not already known to overcome), for sake of know what options to prepare (or forgo preparing) in case some self-defense turns out to be necessary.

The party's main concern, at the moment, is that they would, indeed, like a way to get back out of the Bramble, since it seems unlikely that they'll find a way home on the first try, but once Wrinkle, Slate, and the others have worked out something on that front, it's looking like delving the Bramble might not be too bad. Plausible less bad than when the delved the Dungeon, even if that bar is subterranean.

They have found a few different Angler skeletons but the information they have isn't that promising the majority of them don't have any easy clues as to their cause of death. The Nomai found one that appears to have starved to Death on Ember Twin and there's one that got killed by a bramble seed it swallowed after the seed grew out through its body.

As for return trips they do have prototypes for a mobile version of something like the Nomai teleporters but they're pretty unwieldy. They have also considered repurposing one of the Nomai shuttles but those are large and their engines have a fairly limited capacity so they'd basically need to drag the shuttle along with them and they're pretty big and heavy.

Sandy can haul some pretty heavy stuff, if he has access to the calories needed. The main worries for him are whether either of those options can reasonably be maneuvered through the Bramble, since it seems like it'd be rather tight quarters for such equipment even if there weren't also apparently giant fish swimming around the fog as well.

Mischief's also curious whether the angler skeletons are as tough as living anglers appear to be, or if the durability seems to be vital in some way?

And, if they are durable, whether they have any samples they'd be okay with her doing some destructive tests of various sorts on?

The Heathians seem confused by the question. Living Anglers are strong but spaceships aren't actually that durable they're optimized for particular stress patterns and Angler attacks put stress on them in places they aren't built to handle. And they haven't really considered trying to kill the Anglers preemptively.

They haven't...considered killing the animals that are attacking them before they can attack? Okay...

Regardless of that, she'd still like to know if they have any bits of Angler bone they are okay with potentially not getting back.

Oh sure, one of their forward bases in the Bramble is built inside a large angler skeleton and they can afford to lose a lot from that.

Right. So that's not available until the party actually goes inside (or at least, until some teleporter infrastructure gets set-up there)?

Correct, it's not something they've brought back samples of.

She'll be on the lookout for that, then.

Mischief's hobby of collecting new anomalous abilities aside, it sounds like the primary thing they're waiting on is a practical method of getting back to Timber Hearth from inside the Bramble.

Wrinkle does think that he could manage a much more compact teleportation terminal. It'll only be operable by the party (or, really, by him and maybe Mischief in a pinch if she prepares beforehand, since Sandy and Ounu simply do not have the necessary spellcraft conditioning), and he'll need to fabricate a new crystal dowel, probably out of a gravity-crystal derivative, and get it charged at the black hole forge.

Once that's all done, though, and once Wrinkle's used the new dowel to set the return point for the teleportation (which Sandy will then set up a little cordon around, since it would be unpleasant for everyone involved if someone were wandering through the space when they teleported back), they should be ready to catch the next shuttle to Dark Bramble.

If he wants to try they'll be happy to provide the materials. Cores aren't that expensive.

Given the timing it might be a little tight with respect to the next window for getting to the Bramble but they can try to make it work and if not there will be more chances.

He's not all that worried about actually catching the literal next shuttle. He's certainly not going to skip testing to see whether this spell actually works, first.

Once that's figured out (and once he's made some tweaks after experiencing this third new hybrid version of teleportation, and tested it again post-tweaks), then they'll start queuing for the actual next shuttle.

The shuttles leave relatively frequently the next one is going to depart from Giant's Deep which is one of the shorter trips. Though they should know that it has stronger gravity then here. About three times higher. Will all of them be okay with that?

Triple gravity might be a bit of a strain on Wrinkle in particular. How long would they be waiting there? If it's more than maybe an hour then he'll skip casting levitate on himself and just ask for Sandy to carry him while he lays flat.

It'll probably be a couple hours but most of that time they'll be sitting down in a ship waiting for the next tornado.

Sitting is better than standing but he'll make sure to let people know ahead of time that he might get light-headed and need to lay down as time goes on.

And with that forewarning given, it seems like they're more or less ready to set out!

As they were warned the gravity on Giant's Deep is indeed three times higher. The force of that hits them immediately after the teleport finishes.

A new Hearthian is waiting for them in a space suit at the edge of the platform. "Hi! Usually we'd have people walk down to the landing platform but since you said the gravity would be hard for you I brought my ship pretty close. Do you need any help?"

Sandy has Wrinkle draped across his back like a humanoid cape, held on with dreamflesh bands forming a sort of harness. "<He's alright for now,>" Sandy answers, while Wrinkle smiles a bit woozily and raises hand with his fingers and thumb bent into a circle in some manner of simple hand-sign.