The chronicles speak of Aethelgard, not as a queen, but as a ‘Collector of Echoes.’ She didn't rule with iron, but with a subtle resonance, a manipulation of the residual energies left behind by moments of profound emotion. Orthodiazin, the substance she sought, wasn’t a mineral, not precisely. It was the crystallized memory of sensation - joy, sorrow, terror, even the fleeting awareness of a dying star. The nomadic tribes of the Silver Wastes revered her, believing her to have mastered the art of extracting these echoes and weaving them into protective wards, into weapons that tasted of regret, and, occasionally, of overwhelming peace.
“The sand remembers more than we do. Aethelgard merely learned to listen.” - The Scrolls of Veridian
The process of extraction was… unsettling. It involved instruments crafted from obsidian and electrum, shaped into intricate lattices designed to amplify and focus the psychic residue. The ‘Harvesters,’ as they were known, would enter locations saturated with intense emotion – battlefields, abandoned temples, the sites of natural disasters – and, through a ritualistic chanting coupled with the activation of the lattices, draw out the echoes. The sound, described as a shimmering dissonance, was said to induce vivid hallucinations, fragments of the past bleeding into the present. Master Harvesters could even imprint their own emotions onto the echoes, creating ‘resonant shells’ capable of replicating the original experience - a warrior’s fury, a lover’s despair.
“To touch the echo is to become it. But beware the echoes of others.” - Master Lyra of the Silent Hand
But Orthodiazin, like all echoes, was susceptible to decay. Without constant ‘tuning’ – a process involving the re-imprinting of fresh emotions – it fragmented, becoming unstable, prone to unpredictable surges of energy. The Silver Wastes, perpetually ravaged by sandstorms, proved particularly hostile to its preservation. The storms weren’t merely weather; they were a constant flux, a chaotic rearrangement of the past, actively disrupting the resonant structures. Legend holds that Aethelgard’s final act was to deliberately unleash a ‘storm of sorrow’ upon her fortress, attempting to stabilize the Orthodiazin with a concentrated dose of grief, a tragically flawed solution.
“The sands consume all, even the echoes of what was.” - The Fragmented Journal of Aethelgard