THE INTERIOR
The interior is not the inside of a fragment.
When a piece of The Black enters the liquid state, the depth is not fixed. A probe lowered into the surface descends beyond the fragment's measured dimensions. This has been documented in every recorded liquefaction event. It is a confirmed property of the material. It is recorded in the case files without interpretation.
The Lapidary has descended into the surface. This was not done with a probe. It was done with a person.
What the descent established is the following. The liquid state does not open onto the inside of the fragment that is liquefying. It opens onto a single space. Every fragment, when it transitions, opens onto the same space — regardless of which fragment is the entrance. The fragments are entrances. The interior is the destination.
The Lapidary believes — and this is hypothesis, not confirmed finding — that the interior is the inside of what the object was before it fragmented. The fragments are pieces. The interior is the whole, entered from a piece. This has not been confirmed. It is the only account consistent with the observations the Lapidary holds. It is filed as the working model.
This account is consistent with three things otherwise unexplained:
- Instrument depth exceeds fragment depth in all documented events.
- Fragments separated by several thousand kilometres respond to one another during events. They connect to the same interior.
- Objects of uncertain provenance have been recovered from inside. They did not enter through any opening the Lapidary has identified.
THE BODY
The registered fragments — OB-01 through OB-09 — are stone-sized. They can be held. They cannot be entered.
THE BODY is different in kind. It is the largest known piece of The Black, held under Lapidary custodianship at an undisclosed location. Its dimensions are classified. What is recorded here: when THE BODY enters the liquid state, the opening is large enough for a person to descend through with equipment.
THE BODY is not designated OB-anything. The OB designation applies to fragments. THE BODY predates the registry. It was the specimen that made the registry necessary.
The expeditions descend through THE BODY. They arrive in the same interior every fragment opens onto. This has been confirmed: a presence recorded at depth during an OB-07 event was encountered by an expedition team that had descended through THE BODY. The two were not in the same place. The interior is the same place.
THE LAPIDARY UNIT (LU)
1 LU = 0.74 metres
Standard surveying equipment behaved unreliably from the moment of the first entry. Distances did not hold. The lead researcher of the first expedition measured distance by stride. Their average interior stride was 0.74 metres. This was recorded and standardised after the first expedition.
The Lapidary has not converted the interior record to metric. To do so would require a conversion note on every existing document. The Lapidary considers this worse than the non-standard unit. The LU persists.
| LU | Metres | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.74 m | one stride |
| 10 | 7.4 m | a short corridor |
| 100 | 74 m | a city block |
| 200 | 148 m | the Shallows boundary |
| 847 | 626.78 m | the deepest mapped point |
THE FOUR AXES
X — entry-east / entry-west East is defined as the direction the lead researcher of the first expedition was facing upon entry. Not magnetic east. Entry-east. It is fixed for all subsequent expeditions. Positive X is entry-east; negative X is entry-west. Mapped range: −340 to +412 LU.
Y — entry-north / entry-south Entry-north is ninety degrees counterclockwise from entry-east. It was established during the second expedition, after the first team's field notes disagreed with one another in a manner that could not be attributed to memory error. Two weeks of reconciliation followed. Positive Y is entry-north; negative Y is entry-south. Mapped range: −298 to +361 LU.
Z — depth Z:0 is the entry surface. Positive Z is downward. There is no negative Z. The Lapidary notes that it does not know what a negative Z would describe, and that the question has been raised by expedition members and left open. Mapped range: 0 to 847 LU.
W — the fourth coordinate W is present in all coordinate designations. It is listed as INDETERMINATE for every mapped coordinate.
The distinction the Lapidary maintains: INDETERMINATE means W was measured and the result could not be interpreted. UNKNOWN means the Lapidary does not yet know how to attempt the measurement.
A device was developed after the second expedition for the specific purpose of measuring W. It returned readings. The readings have not been interpreted. The existence of W as a variable phenomenon is therefore CONFIRMED. Its unit has not been established. It remains INDETERMINATE.
The Lapidary notes that a fourth coordinate is not required to describe a location in the interior. The interior can be navigated using X, Y, and Z. W describes something else. The Lapidary records W on every coordinate because W is present on every coordinate. It does not record what W measures, because it does not know.
COORDINATE NOTATION
INTERIOR / X:[±value] / Y:[±value] / Z:[+value] / W:INDETERMINATE
Example:
INTERIOR / X:+047 / Y:-023 / Z:+112 / W:INDETERMINATE
34.78 metres entry-east. 17.02 metres entry-south. 82.88 metres below the entry surface. The fourth coordinate of this location has not been determined.
A coordinate designates a point. A claim designates a volume. The standard claim is a 10 LU cube centred on the designated coordinate. The extended claim is a 50 LU cube. The primary claim is a 100 LU cube.
THE THREE ZONES
THE SHALLOWS — Z: 0 to 200 LU Mapped with reasonable confidence. Teams have entered and returned without incident. Conditions: cold, with the source of the cold in the interior rather than the environment; light behaves correctly but surfaces absorb rather than reflect, producing pools of visibility rather than a reflected environment; sound echoes at intervals the instruments record as incorrect, suggesting a geometry the instruments cannot fully capture. Navigation is possible. Compass bearings are not reliable and are not used.
THE MARGIN — Z: 200 to 847 LU Partially mapped. Instruments begin returning values outside their calibrated ranges. These are not errors. They are values the instruments were not designed to display, displayed anyway. Expedition members report a change in perceptual quality at the margin that varies between individuals and cannot be measured. Two teams have reached the margin and returned with accounts that agree. One team reached the margin and returned with accounts that contradict one another in a manner that cannot be attributed to memory error. Both records are kept.
THE DEPTH — Z: 847 and beyond Unmapped. One team has descended past Z:847. The team returned. Their accounts are held at a classification not disclosed in this document. The Lapidary confirms that something exists at depth. The Lapidary has confirmed this since the relevant field report was filed. The expeditions have not resolved what it is. They have confirmed that it is there, and that it is aware of being observed.
THE ARTEFACT REGISTRY
Every object recovered by an expedition team is logged with the coordinate at which it was found. The artefact registry is a living document. Objects are added after each expedition.
The origin of the objects is unknown. The Lapidary notes that the distribution of objects across interior coordinates is not uniform. The Lapidary has not concluded anything from this. It is filed.
The Lapidary further notes — and records this as hypothesis, not finding — that the interior artefact log contains objects whose appearance in the interior coincides with their disappearance elsewhere. The correspondence has been observed. The mechanism has not been identified. The Lapidary records the correspondence without concluding from it.