SHARDSTONES #4: Artifice & Radiance
Let us now speak of the practical uses of shardstones; uses that have turned Tarnak into a weirdling half-utopia wherein in many ills are overcome by the ingenuity of artisans, bloodcutters, bronzesmiths, all of which you may call artificers.
Tarnaki have long since been experimenting with how shardstones could enhance Akaran engineering. The first method of doing so was discovered by Zangh, a forgetful Tarnaki jeweler who, one moon-witnessed evening, left his shardstones in a windowless space near his clothing. When Zangh came down into his workshop the next day, he found his cape now radiating a soft vermillion glow. It burned to the touch, and too it called to Zangh for attunement.
Some may have called young Zangh a fool for what he did, attuning to something he had no idea nor business at the time understanding. Attuned he did, though, and when he did so, he found he could manipulate his cape, unravel it at the threads and remake it with naught but his force of will. Too he found that, despite the texture and softness remaining, the cape was hard as bronze, untearable when faced with any weapon.
Zangh kept his secret close, and so experimented with shardstones for the remainder of the year. When he finally unveiled his collection of irradiated artifacts the following holiday season, so did three other nascent artificers too. These four individuals together showed that shardlight could be used to awaken the hyper-dimensional within objects or places by bathing them incessantly and offering little in the way of other light. Soon the Ruminators descended upon all this and deciphered that it was the will of they attuned to the shardstones that “carved,” or better yet, bloodcut the object itself into its new state. This was conceptualization taken to the next level
Once bloodcutting became a more common practice, the Tarnaki found themselves able to test an idea many had had but none attempted. By wedding a bloodcut shardstone to an object, perhaps more potent effects could be created, much in the same vein as those Zenith Artifacts pulled out of the World Torn Apart. This style of shardwork artifice was fruitful; while the first artifacts were simple, those that came after involved complex bloodcut shard matrices with many different kinds of shardstones powering them. Within the half-century that passed, the term apparatuses was used to describe these wonders, and many unique and incredible things were made indeed.
Now that artifacts of all these various types have entered into Tarnaki culture, the city-state has changed significantly. In the Old District, walled from the rest of the city, there are bronze rods fitted with shardstones that create vivid red light at night, dying the Old District in hyper-dimensional lumes and creating a night life just as vibrant. Utilitarians use their artifacts to lower the woes of sojourners in any way they can, whilst their contemporaries instead cement their power through artifice. Criminals who somehow get their hands on these powers find themselves transformed into dangerous things, and thus the public image of shardscience is always held in delicate balance, leaning towards fearful to hopeful and swapping seemingly every other day.
Still, artifice continues to grow ever more developed. Tarnak’s lower class, let alone the Cataclysm’s refugees, have no say in the matter and must endure the terrifying possibilities of the hyper-dimensional now around them. Some would argue, We need not tools that curse us! We need not tools that will damn us sure as the Great Dying! To which others reply, There are no curses. There is only progress. If we are to survive this Cataclysm, it will be the progress of shardstones that lights our road. And so the debate rages on.
The use of radiance — or shardlight, as it is also called — would later trigger a more extreme revolution in the realms of shardscience. In our next and penultimate post in this series, we will discuss the Radiant Geniuses, and how shardlight warp-scars have been turned by the Akarans from horrid bane to bittersweet boon.
SHARDSCIENCE GLOSSARY
This glossary will expand with each blog post!
Apparatus — A complex matrix of shardstones combined with an object in order to give it significant and sophisticated hyper-dimensional powers. There are both Bloodcut Apparatuses and Mystical Apparatuses.
Artifice — A unique hyper-dimensional object made possible by shardlight or shardstones. Zenith Artifacts hold powers far beyond Akran artifacts.
Artificer — A worker of artifice. Usually trained to elitehood in artisanship, bronzesmithing, and jeweling.
Attunement — The act of bonding to a shardstone, which calls to Akarans until one grabs it. A turn of a sandglass later and the bond is cemented.
Beyond — The realm of the stars perceived through liquid starlight, outside of time and space, where all knowledge gathers; the World Torn Apart and the various universes contained within the inert Monoliths littering Torn.
Bloodcutting — The art of drawing your own blood with tools designed for gem cutting. Requires too deep imagination and creativity, for you must perfectly picture what you wish this shardstone to invoke. Master Bloodcutters can make shards with multiple powers.
Force of Will — One’s own internal willpower, which is the fuel for invocations. When drained, you can no longer invoke until you rest and meditate.
Hyper-Dimensional — A power, effect, or quality that is outside of time and space, and thus native to the beyond; the supernatural, magical, or sublime; the powers of shardstones or other Torn-native phenomena.
Invocation — The art of drawing upon shardstones that have been bloodcut with purpose, and how hyper-dimensional effects are created with them.
Invoker — A scavenger who is too primarily a worker of invocation.
Mysticism — Collections of rituals and ceremonies designed to pass down information and establish agency over Akara. Modern-day mysticism uses shardstones to facilitate this process.
Radiance — Another term for shardlight. Something bathed in radiance and no other light will eventually take on hyper-dimensional properties. The longer the bathing, the more potent the properties.
Shardstone Cults — Cults dedicated to esoteric ideas that are made reality through mystical shardsciences.
Shardwork — An umbrella term representing all manners of shardscience, craft, artifice, and so on.
Sin — Selfish actions that endanger not only your life but everyone else’s life too.
Virtue — The opposite of sin; actions and beliefs that will better foster your survival, and the survival of those you care about as well.
