oakharbor

Excerpt from a Lecture by Tanar Nataliya LeCompte, Venerable Master with Accolades of the Invisible Arts And now, students, we begin to speak on the nature of Shards. As Mystics, many of you are able to call up Spirit Shards from the ether. These shards can be used to help ease the cost of returning upon the Bridge, as I am sure you know. But why do they do that? What power do we call upon without understanding what it is? In short, Spirit Shards are Shards of Umbra. Shards of memory and emotion. Moments, brief and inexplicable. Umbra is made up by the shared memories of the spirits that inhabit it, and Shards are bits of that. Some of these float throughout Evren and can be collected by Mystics. These are the fragments that remain from the constant death and rebirth. If not collected by Mystics, these fragments will return to Umbra. While in Umbra, shards are created out of the Essence of Umbra by beings called simply Keepers. Little is known about the Keepers other than they call forth Shards from the essence of Umbra and give them to Mystics. Few Mystics even realize that these are the beings from whom they draw forth their Shards, and do so without thought. Keepers obviously do not mind. Little is known about Keepers, and what purpose they serve beyond the creation of Shards. So what happens once the Shards are collected by a Mystic? Remember that they are crystalilzed shards of memory, and their natural state is to be returned to Umbra. This is why it is so hard to keep a Shard for more than a moon. There is only so long we can keep the pieces of Umbra from where they belong. And, of course, there are the Shards of a Gatekeeper’s Emissary. How do those differ from the normal shards? Clearly they are different, but how? The answer is that an Emissary can imbue their Shards with fragments of their own memory, such that the Gatekeeper will recognise that the shard comes from them. This loss is negligible to the Emissary, but makes the Shard have that much more weight to the Gatekeeper. This is why the signature placed upon Emissary Shards is always individual. As individual as their memories. Which I suppose brings me to the next phase of the a Shard’s existence, being returned to the Gatekeeper. What does a Gatekeeper do with the Shards? They process them, listen to them, see what the shard of memory was. They collect that bit of essence and return it to the larger pool that is the makeup of Umbra. In a way, the Shards are but symbolism to the Gatekeepers, a promise that there are Mystics out there collecting these wayward shards and employing them to bolster the Spirits of those they protect. This duty is so sacred that even Vigor respects it. And thus, one way or another, the Shards are returned to Umbra, beginning their cycle anew. Any questions?