[h2]Sunset upon the Set Stage I[/h2] ♦ Everglow The bells of mourning for a dead goddess were the ring of opportunity for many in Badja Kiri, although now it encompassed more universalist learning, it once was merely an outpost meant to explore and exploit the nearby maelite, and many still held similar curiosity, only held back by the fact it was foreign land under a different goddess to their own. That changed, and as soon as the news of Monica's fall arrived, many of the most ambitious and less careful scholars started to prepare a great westward trek to claim some of that land for themselves, other did it out of fear of the council in Eunomia getting a true monopoly on umbrium, an element most essential for alchemy. The previous invention of magical masks helped to keep MOST of the harmful effects of the Maelite away, but, the most essential of alchemists made sure they wore the actual harder to get the protection that truly made them fully safe. [img]https://i.imgur.com/hVj0VLqm.jpg[/img] The Everglow Hall, as it would be called for foreigners, was the ultimate result of such a trek, born out of necessity of a base... and out of fear that going back to Badja Kiri without a lot of results would result in all alchemists and scholars demoted. Given the news of how scandalized most were at their harsh and sudden move as well as the amount of sick workers and explorers whose simple glowing masks didn't stop some level of maelite poisoning, mainly resulting in blindness. The building itself was quite charming, made by ambitious alchemist scholars, both protecting the people and housing them on over 800 rooms as well as offering a beacon of everglowing color in the dark of the Maelite, the latter attracted people like moths to a lamp, a city started to spread despite the Hall itself being so close to an abyssal fissure, alchemical metal and stone giving people the courage to even settle the cliffside of said abyss. Ironically, what people sought there wasn't the flow of umbrium, but the structures they had built to house those who did, soon the workers and even the lower scholars found themselves moving out of the halls, while the building itself became filled with dusklander tourists interested in the complete darkness of the maelite and outsider tourists aiming for one of the least regulated dusklander cities. [img]https://i.imgur.com/kt4Dzifl.png[/img] ♦ Magnum Opus The silver sands dunes of node 9 were a desolate land, lunar rabbit farmers had their homes here and there, as the demand of dusklanders and foreigners for the fur was beyond this world, and hunters on horseback did at times try their luck against the local wyrms. Otherwise, one could walk for days without meeting a person. So it was notable to all when fleets of boats started to traverse the liquid nitrogen lakes, even without the lack of people, there would be a second notable aspect, because so far nobody had managed to navigate these 'waters', the creeping freeze of the liquid would climb up the wooden boats and turn man, wood and sail alike into a crystal. These ships however were made of metal, and with a faint blue glow floated 'above' the waters, levitating across their path using magical powers. A closer inspection and one would notice the design was not that dissimilar from a daman chariot. Their destination was the second great forge. If the Deep Cinnabar Forge was one of extreme excess and violence, with giant hammers and magmatic fire forcefully opening the path to the materials needed, then the Silver Forge, the Celestial Forge, was the antithesis of it. The Tower and The Forge were a place of gentle and delicate crafts. A cold forge where not a single fire was lit. Instead of hammering, the blacksmiths would work with small drills and silent diamond-bladed brushes. Instead of flowing lava, it was home to still ponds of acidic materials being lightly charged with electricity. Minerals were not extracted from the ground by grinding and crushing but were raised from the rock over months and years in the form of crystals. Bodies were not exhausted and sweaty, but minds were constantly challenged as trained alchemists manipulated electrical and magnetic formulas to shape the metal. [img]https://i.imgur.com/gd8KCWIl.jpg[/img] The Sparkdriver was the first invention of this forge. Synthesizing lightning was always a Dusklander dream, but even their electricity was 'harvested' from atmospheric and telluric currents, not self-made. The discovery the body produced such celestial energies was shocking to them, but to the wiser, such as Nyoriko, it was the last piece of the puzzle, their minds went directly to the false bodies of the Daman and the power to draw energy from the soul. Soon, with only minimal cases of fatal poisoning while they tried to master the use of mercury-ambrosia tattoos to better gather and filter the energies from the body, they had managed it. The Sparkdrive was both a set of gloves and tattoos on the body, as well as what alchemists called a 'filter' but most would simply call a rifle, given how the soul glass pipe attached to a metallic device looked, and acted, similar to a musket. These lightining muskets took a place in the dusklander armies, but it never overtook the crossbows, which fired faster, were easier to produce and had also been enhanced by the celestial forge, as they had synthesized umbrium into a obsidian like crystal, often called maelite glass. It did have much less piercing power than metal and shattered upon impact, but the material was light, sharp and most importantly, poisonous. Another invention was Stella-Steel, a metal that while not as sharp as the dark steel from the cinnabar forge, did have a useful feature, the metal was uniform and flawless, made in a porous manner that did not influence the durability of the material. When poured with flaming oil not only would the blade be deeply imbued and therefore last longer, but it also would not lose its edge and consistency with the increased heat. Yet no work of the celestial forge would gain more fame than Mithril. From Mitsi Taralle, Magnum Opus in Dusklander. One of the first synthesized materials of the forge, an all-metal meant to be made of paradoxical aspects, it was for a long time unusable, possible to create but impossible to work down, as it resisted all pressure on it until a breaking point, at which point it would quickly collapse into useless dust. [img]https://i.imgur.com/eOds6VAl.jpg[/img] It was Nyoriko with her studies of godly power and her many samples of whatever she could get, mostly Dzallitsunya's blood, that found the solution. After many deep and genial mathematical theorems, the master engineer gave up as it was too paradoxical, senseless and beyond mortal understanding, this led to the absurd idea of perhaps trying to use blood, especially godly blood, into the recipe of the amalgam of metals, after all, blood did carry and dissolve certain metals, and a metal this paradoxical needed an equally paradoxical solvent. To her surprise, it did work, and the first mithril plates were created. Visually, the metal is already striking, with a gradient of colors from gold to magenta to cyan, and with the light reflecting in a way similar to what it does on water. The texture is absurdly smooth, once again, reminding one more of gels and glass rather than metal, but cold and hardness of the material gives no doubt about its metallic nature. In action, it was a light metal, a strong metal, a flexible metal and an unyielding metal, used to make bound plates on the armor of the most elite of all soldiers. As if they were clad in molten mirrors reflecting the pink twilight sky. When struck the material will not only go unscratched, but, one will feel as if the momentum of the impact was lost upon touching it, once again being analogue to water and soft gels which disperse the energy of what moves against it, but in a material unpierceable and hard like a metal plate. Should the mithril ever be scratched, however, one will be surprised at how quickly it falls apart. The blood made it malleable to make armor out of, but the nature of the material continued the same, it resists all force until a breaking point, even if it is merely a small imperfection or scratch, it results in the total annihilation of the material, the whole plate shattering into minuscule dust. [hider=summary] There is a fancy glowing hotel named Everglow in the Maelite There is a second fancy forge, the celestial forge Dusklanders have sparkly guns Dusklanders have mithril Might summary 1 might = Everglow 4 might = Celestial Forge [/hider]