PREFATORY NOTE
This report is filed in two accounts because the two members who descended returned with descriptions of the same descent that do not agree, and the disagreement cannot be attributed to memory error. The Lapidary has not resolved which account is correct. The Lapidary has concluded that both accounts must be kept, because the alternative is to discard a record on the basis of a preference the Lapidary cannot justify.
The two members were roped together for the entire descent. They were never more than four LU apart. This is recorded in advance of the accounts because it bears on how the accounts should be read.
ON THE MARGIN
The margin begins at Z:200. The transition is not marked by anything visible. It is marked by the instruments. Below Z:200 the instruments begin returning values outside their calibrated ranges — not failures, but readings the instruments were not built to express, expressed regardless. The first member's recorder logged a temperature the device's documentation states it cannot display. The reading is in the log. It is filed without interpretation.
Both members report a change in perceptual quality beginning at the margin. Both report that the change was real and that it could not be measured. Beyond this shared report, the two accounts separate.
ACCOUNT A
I led the descent. We reached Z:340 and I recorded the coordinate where the instruments first failed their calibration. We continued to Z:512. The second member was behind me on the rope the entire time. When I spoke, the second member answered. When I stopped, the rope went slack at the correct interval. We surveyed the volume recorded in the closing block and we ascended together.
I was aware of the second member for the entire descent. I want this recorded plainly. I do not have an account of absence. The second member was there.
ACCOUNT B
I followed. We reached the margin and the instruments began to disagree with themselves. Somewhere below Z:300 — I cannot give the exact depth, and I have tried — I became aware that I was alone on the rope.
The rope was taut. It was anchored to the first member at the far end. I pulled the agreed signal twice and received the agreed response twice. I am recording that the responses came. I am also recording that I was alone, that there was no one between me and the anchor, and that these two facts were both true at the same time and I held them both for the duration of the descent.
When we ascended past Z:200 the first member was on the rope ahead of me again. I do not know when this changed. I do not believe it changed. I believe both states were the case. I am aware this is not possible. I am filing it anyway, because the Lapidary asked me to file what I observed and this is what I observed.
RELEASE OF SURVEYED VOLUME
The margin volume surveyed during this descent is recorded below and entered into the registry as claimable coordinates. The margin is rarer than the Shallows. Two teams have reached it and returned with accounts that agree; this is the team that returned with accounts that do not. Both records are kept. A coordinate in this volume is conveyed with the margin's conditions noted as a feature of the volume, not a defect in the survey.
EXP-0002 / Lapidary of the Interior / Office of the Primary Record
"Both states were the case. I am aware this is not possible."
— second expedition member, on the rope
the record is kept here.