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300 years ago, the Al Menas civilization fell.

In part due to the Great Catastrophe, many great magitech works and knowledge regarding the creation of such were lost to the widespread destruction. What follows is what is currently known about magitech on Terastier.

Airship Magicores

Airships, while still incredibly rare, have been rebuilt from the remains of older Al Menas airships. Despite their rarity, these airships represent a significant amount of power and money to the general public, as only the wealthy and powerful are able to put together the expeditions to find and recover airship wreckages. The manufacturing method of the magicores that power these flying marvels has been lost, so most of the expeditions are to find older wrecks, recover the magicore if it is still there, then rebuild a hull around the magicore to create a new airship.

What is known about the magicores is that they are mostly made of a metal called "manatite", an ore in which it appears that mana itself has crystallized inside the metal, then both crystal and metal have been compressed under immense pressure. Manatite is a rather hard metal, harder than steel, yet almost weightless. For obvious reasons, manatite is an excellent conductor of magical energy, and it also has the fairly unique property of repelling gravity.

A magicore itself is a small sphere or cylinder, little more than the size of an adult's hand, with a number of thin plates of high-purity manatite layered inside. These plates are skillfully designed to interfere with each other's magical fields in such a way as to generate an incredible amount of lift.

Currently, the methodology and skill of smelting manatite has been lost, and if there were any machines designed to help in this process they have been either destroyed by the Barbarous or lost to time. Because of this impossibility to recreate such high-purity manatite in the current day, functioning magicores have been known to fetch prices of 1 million Gamels, and even higher, to the right buyer.

Swords of Protection

Many Swords of Protection were created during the Al Menas period, though at that time they seemed more like semi-permanent magical items. However, because of the various raids of the Barbarous, quite a few of these Swords have been destroyed, to the point where the current number of known Swords of Protection cannot feasibly protect the entirety of the civilized races. To make matters worse, the protection granted by these Swords is waning, and needs to be maintained through the collection and usage of Sword Shards.

Barrier Maintenance Ritual

In many cities and larger towns, with the assistance of both the temples as well as the Institute of Magitechnology, rituals are held just about once each week in order to maintain the protective barrier granted through the Swords of Protection.

In most cases, this ritual is a day's work, lasting from dawn to dusk. Certain procedures need to be followed, rituals and spells cast in particular orders, and crushed Sword Shards applied to the Swords of Protection in a specific manner. During this ritual, the Sword will lose all power to drive off the Barbarous and undead. For cities with multiple Swords of Protection, these rituals are staggered over a couple of days, rotating from one sword to another, so as to not put the entire city at risk of an attack. Smaller towns, with but a single Sword of Protection, are not as lucky.

Additionally, without enough Sword Shards to fuel the ritual, the protection provided may cease suddenly during the week. There are more than enough examples of border town ruins, places where the protection from the Swords ran out too early and the Barbarous overwhelmed the locals.

Distribution of Swords of Protection

No doubt these Swords of Protection are quite useful in civilized lands, but they can also be considered archaeological treasures as well, and as such will tend to congregate around cities and areas where there are large communities that can deal with archaeology and the treasures found. Thus, larger cities will tend to have one of these Swords per 2,000 permanent residents, where smaller towns and villages will have 1 Sword for every 10,000 residents (or more). Almost ironically, the larger the city, the more protection it will have between walls, guards, and such, and the less protection it will need from a recovered Sword. Each sword also varies in power somewhat, but in general each ritual to restore a Sword of Protection will erect a barrier about 1km in diameter, which will diminish over the course of the week as the Sword slowly loses power.

Barrier Resistance

Passed down among the Barbarous are items that allow them to bypass the barrier from a Sword of Protection. Such items are quite rare and valuable, and so taking even one of these into battle is a show of power from the Barbarous that does so. Often taking the form of a ring, bracelet, or other armband, these items block the protection from a Sword of Protection for a limited time, usually around an hour or so before losing all durability and crumbling away. Occasionally, a leader of a large group of Barbarous will have multiple bands, and will be able to not only break through the protective barrier, but stay within the radius of the Sword of Protection for a significant period of time, much longer than the usual hour or so. This is often seen as a sign of a much larger Barbarous invasion looming.

Teleporters

One of the most amazing ways the Al Menas society was prospering was through the various methods of transportation. Various vehicles and motorbikes took to the ground, fleets of boats sailed across the waters of Raxia, and airships flew through the clear skies.

And the most powerful of these was the teleporter.

A teleporter required a massive location specifically designed for its use, allowing anything and anyone to be moved across the planet instantly. These teleporters allowed massive quantities of food, materials and workers to travel to the exact location where they were needed in order to keep everything maintained. During the heyday of the Al Menas civilization, these teleporters were even used by civilians, allowing someone to travel halfway across the planet to another of a number of facilities without a second thought.

Nowadays, there are a few teleports still able to be used, but nothing near to the extent during the Al Menas days. A massive magical circle inside of a closed room is a fairly good indicator of an old teleporter, though activation may be locked behind old passwords and lost rituals. Even then, teleports will fail to work if even one side is unsafe, though as time has continued on these failsafes may not always function as intended. Teleporter facilities were undoubtedly important facilities, and many may still be heavily guarded by magitech automatons.