How does attrition work in the downtime rules?

Question

According to the downtime rules, each day there is an upkeep phase, which contains a step called "Determine Capital Attrition".

Step 3—Determine Capital Attrition: For every 7 days you were away from the settlement (whether downtime days or normal days), reduce your Goods, Influence, Labor, and Magic by 1 each (minimum 0). This decrease represents spoilage, theft, allies moving on or having higher priorities, workers finding other employment, and so on.

Does that mean that every week away from the settlement all my capitals will be reduced by 1? Or does it mean that I will loose 1 capital of each on the 7th day, one on the 8th day... one on the 13th day, 2 on the 14th day... etc?

Answer 1

Attrition is applied once, based on your time away

For every 7 days you were away, you lose 1 of each Capital one time, during the Upkeep Phase of Downtime which is only processed when you perform Downtime activities. You do not dynamically lose Capital while away, you only do so when you return to work and 'take inventory', essentially.

So if you adventured for a week, you lose 1 of each Capital when you return to do Downtime. If you were gone for a month in an exploration effort, you lose 4 Capital when you start your Downtime activities, in the Upkeep Phase.