Editing Spheres

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</pre>
                                                                           
Command 'spheres' will display you the current status of lens network of each sphere. A 'sphere' is a shorthand for a celestial body - be it a moon or a planet. We know currently of seven celestial bodies: The Sun, Infernus, Aegic, Aythzilla, Lhundaer, Sorcerus and Chto.

As it turns out, ours was not the first civilization. Those who were before us, are nowhere to be found, and we know of them only from what they have left behind. 

The first evidence comes with the discovery of countless tunnels constructed under the surface of each sphere, each individual network of tunnels being powered by a single artifact made of mysterious silvery metal, which is hidden deep underground and some of them are guarded by legions of powerful undead we haven't seen on Aegic before. 

We call these precursory artifacts 'lenses'. Each individual network of tunnels is home to a single lens. This assembly of networks of tunnels spans across the entire sphere to form a protective casing of an inhuman scale, by extracting and focusing the raw elemental power from the corresponding celestial body's core, into a cohesive, protective and complete energy shielding around the sphere.

Unfortunately this protective shielding has a side effect: It is dirty, and radiates elemental energy to outside of the sphere. While other spheres than Aegic have the system described above, to absorb this energy, Aegic doesn't.

These networks of lenses are responsible for producing a phenomenon we now know as Magic Weather. The effects of Magic Weather are global and while they are sometimes useful, they are as often harmful.

We now know that once an individual lens on any sphere is destroyed, it will cause this protective shielding of the corresponding sphere to lose some amount of its focus. By destroying multiple lenses in a manner that leads below a certain threshold, will result in a catastrophic collapse of the entire shielding, which will collapse Magic Weather for that specific element everywhere.

However, the builders of this system were not stupid. It was clear to them that future civilizations will attempt to destroy this system, one way or another. Therefore, the legions of undead, like ants in an ant nest, have been cursed to keep this system operational, and they will keep re-building any destroyed lenses. Even if the undead are killed, they will eventually crawl back together, piece by piece, to fix what is damaged and make sure the lens of their 'home' network will be re-activated as quickly as possible.

This means any downtime of Magic Weather is just for a period of weeks - until these dark denizens have re-built enough lenses to re-establish their precursory protection.

Realize also these networks are ancient. Some of them have collapsed so badly the lens cannot be found anymore because access to it has been severed off by a permanently collapsed corridor. These tunnel networks are called dead ends. There are always some amount of dead ends on any given sphere, but they are a minority. For example, if the sphere has e.g. ten tunnel networks, maybe two of them are dead ends.

Should you wind up in a dead end network, there are no warnings. It is not told to you as disclaimer before you enter the tunnel network. The realization will eventually creep on you as things are not advancing anywhere. At some point you have to decide whether you keep trying or declare a dead end, turn back and head back to surface. You can still accomplish your task but you need to select a different lens installation.

However, even in case of dead end networks, the undead will, with time, repair their home. But this process could take weeks if not months.

[[ Category:Commands ]]