Hour Marks

Hour Marks go into the Dawn and Dusk Pillars, the Winding Key and the Dead Dial of the Great Pendulum, and the Full Moon Mark into the Full-Moon Apple; two different marks at the Desk play the Hour Check technique: the next lock and aqueduct on the board cost no notes. Once you study this entry, the Loupe learns to catch the hour: raise it to the open sky at its hour and hold it as when reading — with a sheet of paper in your inventory, it writes a mark. You need not wait for the hour every time: a mark you already have is copied at the Flux Workbench.

TempoGleam

The hours of the day: dawn while the sun rises, noon when it stands highest, dusk while it sets, midnight in the dead of night; each hour's window lasts under two minutes. All night the Loupe also writes the Moon — full, waning, new or waxing, whichever is in the sky; at midnight two marks come out at once. Each mark is written once a day: the same sky will not give it twice. The line under the Loupe's sight says which hour is open, how long until the next one and whether it is written today.

An hour exists only under a sky where days pass: under a roof or underground the Loupe reads the place, not the hour; in the Nether and the End no mark comes out, and the Stillness stands in the still hour — marks for its Pendulum are brought from the ordinary world. The Reckoners measured Tempo by the sky: their Gauge Stones struck the hours by these same marks, and village gaugers still buy Noon Marks.

Copying a mark: at the Flux Workbench, lay a mark over a sheet of paper — the same mark comes out, and the original stays in the grid; it spends the sheet and 6 flux, the sun's hours ask for Ember in the place, midnight and the Moon for Tide. With Shift you get one copy per sheet. A copy is as good as a caught mark: recipes, the Dead Dial and the Hour Check take it. The first mark of each kind still has to be caught in the sky.