A cavitator can serve as the repository of a single Mind. It is approximately the size of a grapefruit, but is a platonic solid polyhedron, usually cubical. If a mind is trapped inside of it, it is not particularly aware of time passing by, unless it interacts with other minds (either mentally or by attaching the cavitator to a sensory apparatus). Putting a mind into a cavitator is always difficult, and usually involves the death of the body housing the mind. As demons are actually just minds adrift in space who form bodies out of the magical and mental energies present on their location of manifestation, they are particularly well-suited for storage in cavitators. If nothing else, this may serve as an effective way to imprison particularly difficult demons - destroying the body of a demon merely throws it back into the void between the stars, from which it can return after it recovers its strength, but trapping it locally in a cavitator might keep it forever bound. Halflings perfected the art of storing minds in a cavitator and using a cavitator to impress a particular mind on an emptied body - if a cavitator is used to impress minds into an unwilling body, a struggle ensues and the cavitated mind usually loses (but not always). With the right equipment, a single cavitator can impress thoughts on many bodies, effectively making copies. This equipment, however, has been lost with time (and was only ever really tuned for halfling minds anyway, but the possibility remains...) There was some Duvan'ku research into using partial cavitators as communication devices. It was discovered that cavitators in shapes other than platonic solids could somehow pick up on the minds of nearby creatures. Different shapes ended up attuning to different creatures (sidebar on a frog that had lots of little robot mice jumping to its beat). Presumably, this technique was rediscovered by Ti'x'nis and helped form the automaton base. Later automata that were disassembled by Bob could find these long fibrous wires spread throughout the entire body of the automaton (the pieces wind around the blue quartz elemental transmission system, and in fact cavitators are made from the same base material as blue quartz, simply refined). A creature powered by a cavitator has a health score related to hit points, but called Mind Points (this is in addition to the HP of its body). If the MP of the cavitator is reduced to zero, the mind is destroyed and the cavitator becomes empty - neutral and able to be refilled. Different cavitators have different weaknesses to emanation (e.g., armor rating), but there is research on building all sorts of mental disruptors. Some of them work on regular minds as well as cavitators . The Duvan'ku were working on a way to more reliably use cavitators to override the minds of host creatures during the Stop and in subsequent decades. The research facility was abandoned approximately 70 years post-stop when an earthquake resulted in the collapse of the main living quarters into previously-unknown caves below. ---------------------------------------- The Duvan'ku studied the Veil since the Halflings built the mechanism for it. The Veil was the cause of the Duvan'ku split - some members had wanted the demons to invade all along, whereas some had not known this would happen. The Duvan'ku were founded (remember) ages before the Elven Rise, and their origins are lost in time. They originally sought freedom from domination by the Gods. This redoubt was staffed by the "true Duvan'ku", those who supported the veil. There was a veil conflux here at the Institute for Mind Studies, likely one reason it was originally built here (the veil seems to be thinnest in areas where magic was most labile in the pre-veil days). There are likely places where the veil itself does not even exist (destructive nodes of interference), and researchers are concerned with locating those places and stocking them with warriors to fight off the likely demon assaults. The Veil itself seems to block all forms of magical transmission within and around it. Preventing teleportation magic was a foreseeable, but unforeseen consequence of the Veil being erected. Magical energy no longer can move through other geometries now that the veil is in place, limiting the scope of large-scale magical works. Where in the past large ritual castings could effect many square miles, now everything is limited to a few yards of effect and line of sight for range. Still, the veil's effects on these other geometries has some interesting other side-effects. Magical energy no longer dissipates in the way it used to, once used to power a spell. It slowly spreads out over the local area, but repeated casting in a small space has a chance to overload all spells in the area. Furthermore, the low-quality variations in magical energy show some possibility as a secondary power source. Regular magic still generates excellent potential differences between actualities, but these fluctuations could be harvested and converted into more focused power types (probably along elementalist lines). Using residuals in this fashion actually decreases the likelihood of over-concentration, and is therefore not just safe, but improves the safety of other magical castings. Another part here - we have measured a small, but definite, increase in the overall background magical energy levels across all regions we have been able to study here. This is not a concern yet, and if growth is linear should not be a concern for well over a million years. If, on the other hand, growth is not linear or there is a large influx of magical energy from outside the veil, this may be of concern. Lowering the veil to vent magic into other realms might be necessary, and consultation with the Halflings is necessary in order to determine whether this is feasible with their veil technology. ---------------------------------------- largely torn by weapons and scarring ... areas where magic is strongest ... dead must have corpses ... blue quartz ... death as dream so maybe not e ... find the breath ...