Shard of Ayra Majon

Ayra Majon – Masters of the Sky

Ancient Roots & Evolving Identity

• Xer’Fas – The ancient name of the region, believed to mean “Broken Foundation” or “First Fracture”. A reference to a cataclysm that shattered the land and sent it adrift.

• Ayrmaji – The people of the Shard, also known as Skyfolk or Air-born Ones. Survivors, engineers, and pioneers who adapted to life among the floating isles.

• Ayra Majon – Masters of the Sky. This reflects the Ayrmaji's dominance of aerial navigation, flightcraft, and the Drift.
  
  

Geography & Environment

• Shattered Shardscape – The landmass of Ayra Majon is a scattered cluster of floating islands, suspended in the atmosphere by massive airborne jellyfish.

• Flight Culture – Though Ayrmaji Grounders lack the innate flight of the Skyborn, they’ve built a society around it through wing suits, airships, gliders, and gravity-defying engineering. The Skyborn are from Awakened houses and have abilities that allow them to fly via light and darkness manipulation—not through wings, but by shaping forces around themselves.

Society & Technology

• Engineers of the Drift – Originally the engineers of the vanished Pioneers, the Ayrmaji took up the mantle of navigators after the disappearance of their forerunners. Through salvaged Pioneer tech and relentless innovation, they became master Trailblazers and Dusters. Ayra Majon is now one of the Expanse’s primary sources of navigation equipment, drift-charts, and atmospheric vehicles.

• Children Separated at Birth: The moon determines which Dawn you are and what your Brand will be, but if you are born under a Moon that is not that of your parents, your parents have to give you up and either give you to professional parents, swap with another couple, or give you up to the church. All regular church members are a result of this with the very top leadership being exempt and just being from the Sky

The Nebulith Drum and the Rhythms of the Shard

Each morning, the Master Rhythmbringer strikes the Nebulith Drum, playing from an ancient Score to set the pulse for the day. Across the Shard, other Rhythmbringers attune to this beat, echoing it through every settlement. These Scores are far more than metronomes—they are living, layered rhythms that shape the flow of daily life.

On the Ground, workers time their strikes, welds, and craftwork to the beat. To work outside the rhythm is considered not only unlucky but verging on heresy. Children learn the daily rhythms before they learn to speak, and even those untrained can instinctively fall into step when the drums begin.

Above, in the Sky, many see the tradition as primitive—an echo of a forgotten age. Yet the Conclave upholds the Rhythms as sacred, believing the Shard’s harmony depends on them. Out of reverence, the Sky continues to support the practice, even if few truly understand its purpose.

The Nebulith Drum itself is a relic of immense power—discovered long ago within the crystalline core of the Shard. Its extraction, though successful, left a small fracture in the world’s structure. The Shard has held firm ever since, but the faint crack remains—a silent reminder of the beat that binds all life together.

Spiritual & Elemental Beliefs

• The Dawns

  • First Dawn: Light and Darkness — primal forces believed to predate form and time. Those in this Dawn are the ruling class of society as they are seen to be the closest to the nature of space and spirit and are seen as the shapers of cosmic essence and will.

  • Second Dawn: Fire, Air, Earth, and Water — elemental affinities through which Ayrmaji channel purpose and identity. Those in this Dawn are in a lower caste than those of the First and are treated as a lesser class of citizen.

• Celestial Alignment – The Ayrmaji believe the moon of one’s birth strongly influences one’s temperament as well as which elemental path an individual will manifest in adulthood. This has shaped a deeply ingrained spiritual caste structure centered on the three moons.

• Karami Anima - In Ayra Majon, they are often called “The Remembered”, or Sha'jari, meaning “those who refused to fall.”

The Ground

Home of the Ahn’krah Union and the Hands That Hold Up the Sky

Overview

Beneath Ayra Majon’s high spires lies The Ground, a sprawling patchwork of forges, wingsuit docks, communal halls, and gardens suspended in mist. The ever-present condensation from the Shard’s atmospheric currents coats every surface, creating a greenhouse effect that turns rusted scaffolds into trellises and rooftops into hanging gardens.

Here, industry and nature intertwine: engines are cooled by moss, grav-anchors wrapped in ivy, launch catapults cushioned by flowering vines.

While The Sky dreams, The Ground creates — invention is the pulse of Grounder culture. The Sky send down visions and designs, but it is the Grounders who give them form, fusing technology with resourcefulness, spirit, and the subtle beauty of the living world.

Architecture & Atmosphere

• Patchwork Eclecticism: Homes, workshops, and plazas are built from scavenged materials — ship hulls, Aerthite plates, driftwood, old gliders — each building unique to the family that shaped it.

• Green-Wrapped Industry: Plants grow everywhere — moss cooling hot engines, vines climbing supports, bioluminescent fungi glowing in misty alleys. Technology is not apart from nature, but blended into it. The greenery also serves to function to clean the toxins and putrid air that comes from the more industrial heavy areas. Every block maintains a shared garden, where crops grow in Aerthite soil beds, and fruiting vines climb welded scaffolds. Work breaks are often spent tending plants together

• Misted Light: Sunlight filters down through Sky platforms above, refracted by drifting moisture. The whole undercity shimmers like a vast, living terrarium.
  
  

Culture & Identity

• Builders of the Shard: The Grounders are the builders, craftsmen, and engineers of Ayra Majon. Where The Sky charts routes and dreams inventions, the Ground gives them reality.

• Communal Pride: Families live and work together, with guild-halls doubling as communal dining halls, invention labs, and greenhouses.\

• The Line: A chain-haul system transporting goods (not usually people) between The Ground and The Sky. Massive containers of materials rise and fall along thick anchor-chains that groan like leviathans. Workers who travel upward require special permits and purification rites, as the Conclave teaches that only those in harmony with the Dawns can withstand the purity of The Sky. Despite doctrine, many in The Sky secretly admire The Ground’s artistry and emotional freedom.

The Wards of the Ground

The Ground is composed of twelve Wards, each a living community that forms part of the great rhythm of Ayra Majon.
Every Ward follows the same measured pulse that sustains the Shard, yet no two look alike.
Each is a reflection of its people: a collage of metals and moss, geometry and growth, shaped by centuries of work and worship.
Though their crafts differ, all Wards share the same core components, each essential to the balance of life below the Sky.

Cindrel – The Flameheart
From Cindra, the Ember Daughter. The Cindrel is the living furnace of each Ward, where raw moon-metals and Dust composites are refined in the roaring light of sacred flame. The air tastes of ozone and iron, and the heat hums like a deep drumbeat beneath the floor.

Maker’s Cradles – The Birth of Invention
These communal workshops are where design becomes reality. The Cradles thrum with rhythmic noise: hammerfalls, percussion, and the chanting of apprentices who keep time with the Nebulith Drum.

Temple – The Moons’ Convergence
The Temple stands as the sacred and civic heart of each Ward, where the flames of Cindra, the breath of Velyss, and the balance of Reth meet in living harmony. Every Temple resonates with the same celestial rhythm, yet their forms are wildly diverse. Some rise as spiraling towers of bronze and glass, others bloom as vine-draped sanctuaries or cavernous halls lit by Aerthite veins.

Hearth – The Living Home
The Hearth is a cluster of circular dwellings built around shared warmth vents and light wells. It is more than residence; it is the pulse of family, mentorship, and memory.

Nah’lum – The Breathgarden
The Nah’lum are terraces of moss and vine that purify the air and sustain life. They serve as both lungs and sanctuaries, blending cultivation with worship.

Kor’ah – The Market of Voices
The Kor’ah is the heart of public life, a place filled with trade, art, and debate. Its name derives from kor, meaning “voice,” and ah, meaning “many.” To stand in the Kor’ah is to feel the Ward’s soul in motion.

The Ahn’krah Union

The Ahn’krah Union is the great working collective of the Grounder people, the caste born to labor and endurance. Dwelling in The Ground, Ayra Majon’s mist-soaked undercity, they are known as the Hands That Anchor the World.

For generations, the Grounders have sustained Ayra Majon by shaping the Shard’s most vital resource: the metals of the moons. Where the upper city dreams and charts visions, the Grounders mine, refine, and craft. Their forges pulse with Aerthite light, their hands scarred by Cindrakar heat, their memories carried on Velyssar’s resonance. Though confined to the Second Dawn caste, the Grounders take pride in their work. Their scars are sacred. Their labor is worship. Their creations form the backbone of the Shard.

Emblem & Motto

Emblem: A scarred Aerthite handprint, glowing green and bronze dust, pressed onto pylons, workshops, and garden walls.

Motto: “We hold, so they may rise.”

Culture & Daily Life

Communal Living: Families share space in neighborhoods that combine homes, forges, and greenhouse-plazas. Each district builds itself from scrap and salvage, softened by vines and moss nurtured by constant mist.

Rites of Hands: The Handprint Rite marks a worker’s first day among the forges. Palms pressed into Aerthite dust leave glowing scars on walls, stone, or skin, a sign of lifelong commitment.

Place in Society

Indispensable, Yet Dismissed: The Union provides the Shard with its metals, its engines, and its wings, yet their station keeps them bound below.

Limited Access: Goods travel upward on the chain-haul system called The Line, but people must rely on wingsuits and catapults to reach the upper city. Permits and caste law restrict who can go above.

The Breakers

Hands That Tear Down

The Breakers are the radical offshoot of the Ahn’krah Union, born from anger, grief, and years of quiet endurance. Where the elders of the Union say, “We hold, so they may rise,” the Breakers roar, “We will not hold up, we will tear down!”

They see the caste system not as divine order, but as a lie built on Grounder submission. Their goal is simple and uncompromising: overthrow the Sky, shatter its hierarchy, and claim the freedom to rise.

Symbol & Identity

Symbol: A clenched fist of red Cindrakar dust— direct defiance of the Union’s open hand emblem.

Culture: The Breakers glorify destruction as rebirth. They see sabotage, violence, and fear as necessary tools to break the old world so a new one can emerge.

Methods & Actions

The Breakers are not subtle. Their tactics include:

Bombings & Sabotage: Collapsing lift cradles, overloading stabilizer cores, and striking at supply routes.

Flight Raids: Launching wingsuit assaults into Sky districts, striking with improvised explosives and flame-rigs.

Moon-Metal Seizures: Hijacking shipments of Cindrakar and Aerthite to weaponize against the upper city.

Perception

The Sky: Condemns them as anarchists and butchers, using their attacks to justify harsher laws on The Ground.

The Union Elders: Mourn them as lost children, whose rage betrays generations of dignity.

The Grounder Youth: Secretly admire them — even when they fear them. They are proof that the oppressed can strike back.

The Sky

“We dream so the world may rise.”

The Sky is the upper city of Ayra Majon, a gleaming marble citadel suspended above the mist and the glow of The Ground. To the Ayrmaji people, it represents the divine order of the Dawns — a place where vision, faith, and invention intertwine.

It is a world of radiant ambition and structured grace, its towers reaching toward the Drift and its foundations anchored by massive golden chains to the city below. From afar, it appears as a floating halo — half temple, half machine — shimmering in the light reflected off of Ayra Majon’s three moons.

The Sky is pristine and ordered. Its people live by charts, measurements, and the geometry of belief. It is a city that prays through design — where the Nav’gan Assembly charts their celestial dreams, and the Or’ven Conclave sanctifies them as divine.

Architecture & Environment

Material Splendor: The Sky is built from white and black marble quarried from ancient Pioneer ruins, inlaid with veins of gold and Aerthite. The stone is etched with script-like resonance markings that hum faintly in the moonlight.

Celestial Design: Structures are arranged in sacred geometry that aligns with the positions of the moons — every spire, bridge, and dome contributing to a vast architectural prayer.

The Lightflow: Channels of purified Aerthite energy run through the city like rivers of light. These flows power everything like an electrical grid would.

Faith in Form: Beauty and function are one. Architecture, navigation, and even personal attire are considered sacred expressions of devotion. The Sky believes that order itself honors the gods.

Culture & Society

Caste & Clarity: The Sky is home to the First Dawns — those born under Reth — The Bronze Mother and possess power over Light and Darkness. They are believed to be closest to divinity. Divine Laborers from the Second Dawn also frequent the halls of the Sky in their elevated positions.  Each cycle, one worker is elevated for “exemplary service” — proof that diligence can transcend caste. The caste system is considered sacred balance. The Sky dreams, The Ground builds. Each serves a role ordained by the Dawns.

The Dreamwrights: Inventors and navigators who work under the Nav’gan Assembly, interpreting the visions of the moons into blueprints and machinery. To dream wrongly is heresy; to innovate is holy.

Faith & Philosophy

The Gods in the Sky: The Or’ven Conclave teaches that the gods died but left their essence in the stars and moons. The three moons above especially are parts of the bodies of gods. To study the heavens is to commune with their remnants.

The Cycle of Ascension: The Sky views progress — both spiritual and technological — as ascension. Each invention, each breakthrough, is a step closer to divine perfection.

The Sky’s Relationship with The Ground

Dependency: The Sky relies on The Ground’s labor, technology, and innovation to sustain its infrastructure. Yet it rarely acknowledges that dependency — referring to The Ground as “The Hands Below.”

Trade Through The Line: A massive chain-haul transport system connects the two cities, sending goods up and decrees down.

The Nav’gan Assembly

Dreamers of the First Dawn

The Nav’gan Assembly is the ruling caste of Ayra Majon, descended from those born under the First Dawn of Light and Darkness. They see themselves as the rightful heirs to the vanished Pioneers — the first visionaries who unlocked the Drift and built the engines that carried travelers across the Expanse.

Yet when the Pioneers disappeared, they left no complete designs behind. The Nav’gan inherited only fragments and the weight of expectation. For centuries, they have pursued the impossible: to recover what was lost and to prove themselves worthy successors.

Their response has been relentless iteration — endless prototypes, endless failures, endless demand for new concepts. To fuel this dream, the Ahn’krah Union was tasked with building their visions as quickly as possible. The Nav’gan are celebrated across the Expanse as philosopher-pilots, radiant navigators, architects of the impossible. But to those below, they are a caste that claims the glory of invention while bearing none of its scars.

Identity

Emblem: A star-compass split into light and shadow, its points extending toward a stylized horizon.

Motto: “Their dream endures in us.”

Belief: The Pioneers were the First Dreamers. To continue their work is both sacred duty and proof of their divine station.

Role in Society

Explorers: Travel the Drift in search of anomalies, alignments, and lost fragments of Pioneer craft.

Vision-Crafters: Draft designs for ships, wingsuits, resonance engines, and architectural wonders, then send them to The Ground for realization.

Archivists of Failure: Maintain vast libraries of abandoned blueprints, test logs, and half-completed charts — convinced that each failure brings them closer to rediscovery.

Cultural Architects: Serve as the public face of Ayra Majon, celebrated as thinkers and wayfarers whose words and visions define the Shard’s destiny.

Culture of the Nav’gan

Haunted by Legacy: Nav’gan children grow up with stories of the Pioneers. Every success is measured against impossible ancestors; every failure feels like a betrayal of destiny. Every failed design is meticulously cataloged in The Vision Archive. These libraries of failure are considered sacred — each misstep treated as one more stepping stone toward rediscovery.

The Convocation of Horizons: Regular gatherings where Nav’gan orators present theories, maps, and designs. Half scholarly debate, half spectacle, these events are where reputations are made or ruined.

The Or’ven Conclave

Voices of the First Dawn

The Or’ven Conclave is Ayra Majon’s spiritual order, claiming to speak for the long-departed gods whose essence still endures in the Moons, and Dawns. They teach that every act of labor, invention, and exploration is worship — sacred work that honors the divine remnants written into the sky.

The Conclave is unique among Ayra Majon’s powers in that it exists in both The Sky and The Ground. Temples, shrines, and chanting halls can be found beside Nav’gan charting chambers or within Ahn’krah forge-gardens. Their priests guide invention and bless engines, ensuring that the pursuit of knowledge and the burden of toil are both framed as acts of devotion.

Membership spans both Dawns — First and Second. Many Unawakened serve as temple keepers and community priests. But ultimate authority rests with the High Conclave, whose leaders are exclusively First Dawns. From their elevated sanctuaries, these figures declare doctrine, interpret celestial signs, and decide which visions or inventions are divinely sanctioned.

Identity and Role in Society

Emblem: Three interlocking crescents (the Moons) encircling a radiant core (the Suns).

Motto: “In order, divinity. In discovery, glory.”

Belief: The gods are dead, yet their essence endures in the heavens. The Awakened are chosen to interpret their will. The Unawakened serve by laboring toward that will. Together, they bring glory by uncovering the universe’s secrets.

Role in Society

In The Sky: Provide divine legitimacy to the Nav’gan Assembly’s visions, blessing their expeditions and declaring which designs are holy and which are “dissonant.”

In The Ground: Sanctify the Union’s labor, preaching that every scar and every forged tool is a hymn to the gods. Priests there are closer to the people, but still reinforce caste order.

Cosmic Interpreters: Read stars and Moons for omens, shaping policy and quotas with religious authority.

Keepers of Scores: Guard sacred Scores, claiming them to be fragments of the gods’ last voices.

Culture of the Or’ven

The Vision Archive: Every invention is blessed before entering the Conclave’s archives, where it becomes both scientific record and sacred scripture.

The Litany of Remnants: Daily prayer recited in both Sky spires and Ground plazas — “The Sun shine with their breath, the Moons turn with their hands, the Dawns blaze with their eyes. The gods endure in us.”

Enginesong: New engines and devices are ritually “sung awake” with Scores, believed to harmonize the divine essence within the metals.

The Expanse Vanguard on Ayra Majon

The EVs justify their presence on Ayra Majon as “stewards of stability.” They claim to:

Prevent catastrophic resonance events from unchecked moon-metal experiments.

Protect Drift routes vital to the wider Expanse, since Ayra Majon supplies navigation charts, engines, and pilots.

Maintain order in The Ground, ensuring Breaker terrorism doesn’t spill outward.

On paper, they are peacekeepers. In practice, they are enforcers, auditors, and watchdogs planted in the middle of an already stratified society.

Presence on the Shard

Base of Operations: The Bastion, a massive floating platform tethered high in the mist between The Sky and The Ground. Once a mobile warship, it now functions as a checkpoint, fortress, and political embassy. Its position is symbolic: literally between the castes, policing both.

Inspection Regime: EV inspectors are embedded in Nav’gan laboratories and Ahn’krah workshops alike. Any new design must pass Vanguard review before being exported.

How They’re Seen

The Nav’gan Assembly: Resent the EVs for limiting their vision, but tolerate them because Expanse trade depends on it. Secretly, the Assembly bribes or manipulates EV officials to smuggle experimental projects past their oversight.

The Or’ven Conclave: Treat the Vanguard as necessary allies — their authority lends legitimacy to Conclave decrees. Some even frame the EVs as “divinely appointed guardians” sent by the wider Expanse.

The Ahn’krah Union: Distrust and resent them. To the Union, the EVs are just another layer of control, another set of outsiders profiting from their labor.

The Breakers: See the EVs as the ultimate enemy — not just overseers of Ayra Majon, but symbols of inter-shard oppression. Breaker raids often target EV patrols.

The Three Moons of Ayra Majon

“Three hands hold the heavens — Sister, Daughter, and Mother. The tide, the flame, and the light that binds all things.”

The Ayrmaji revere the three moons — Velyss, Cindra, and Reth — as the Triune Harmony, celestial echoes of the divine elements that shaped creation.

 Each Moon embodies one aspect of existence — memory, will, and life — and resonates with the elemental forces of the Dawns.

Cindra, the Ember Daughter: Earth and Fire — the forge and the flame, will and transformation.

Reth, the Bronze Mother: Light and Darkness — unity, vision, and rebirth.

Their light governs both the spiritual and physical balance of Ayra Majon, shaping everything from the Shard’s weather to the faith that guides its people.

Velyss — The Azure Sister

The Moon of Memory and Movement

Elements: Air and Water - The Breath and the Tide

Metal: Velyssar

A resonance alloy that absorbs and stores vibration and sonic frequency.

Used in memory cores, navigation matrices, and sonic recorders that “remember” sound and motion.

Appearance

Deep cobalt-blue streaked with silver and cyan veins that shimmer softly in the Drift.

Appears to hum faintly — resonance waves visibly ripple across its face, as though alive with sound.

During certain alignments, its auroras spiral across the Shard’s skies, coloring the mists of dust in blue and white halos.

Symbolism & Faith

The Azure Sister embodies Air and Water — the breath that moves, the tide that remembers. To the Or’ven Conclave, she represents the pursuit of understanding — the act of learning through observation, through stillness, through the rippling of thought.

Cindra — The Ember Daughter

The Moon of Fire and Will

Elements: Earth and Fire — The Forge and the Flame

Metal: Cindrakar

A volatile conductor that stores and releases heat and motion in explosive bursts.

Used in the beating heart of Drift engines, resonance forges, and propulsion reactors.

Appearance

Surface Color: Blackened stone veined with molten gold and red, pulsing like veins of living magma. Occasionally brightens, casting flaring gold-orange light across Ayra Majon’s drifting isles.

Symbolism & Faith

The Ember Daughter embodies Earth and Fire — the steady stone and the consuming flame of rebirth.

She is the spirit of creation through destruction, the goddess-smith who reforged the world from ash.

The Festival of Sparks, held during her closest approach, marks the end of the old year and beginning of the new year; every Ayrmaji lights a flame in her honor.

Reth — The Bronze Mother

The Moon of Life and Endurance

 Elements: Light and Darkness — Balance and Becoming

Metal: Aerthite

A dense yet buoyant metal that harmonizes with Drift energy, resisting gravity.

Forms the foundation of Ayra Majon’s floating isles, the stabilizing hearts of jellyfish cores, and the anchors of gravity platforms.

Every fragment hums faintly in sync with Reth’s orbit — the Shard’s heartbeat.

Appearance

Surface Color: Warm bronze-gold streaked with green crystal inclusions.

Constantly sheds fine metallic dust into the Drift, caught by the jellyfish-fauna of the skies, glowing like pollen in the dark.

Its slow, steady pulse can be measured across the Shard — the rhythmic vibration known as the Mother’s Breath.

Symbolism & Faith

The Bronze Mother is the oldest and kindest of the Three — the keeper of Light and Darkness, the union of opposites.

It is said she caught the fragments of Xer-Fas as it fell and lifted them into the sky, becoming the first to hold the heavens. The Ahn’krah Union calls her the Matron of Hands, believing their work mirrors her eternal burden — holding up the world so others may rise.

She is the eternal balance between motion and rest, the embodiment of patience, protection, and compassion.

When her dust brightens in the air, Ayra Majon enters the Breath of Reth — a season of harmony where machines run smooth and crops thrive.

The Triune Harmony

The Ayrmaji teach that the Three Moons are a song in three notes — Air and Water, Earth and Fire, Light and Darkness. Their resonance keeps Ayra Majon alive, both physically and spiritually. When they align, their lights merge into a single, prismatic halo — the Convergence of Dawns.

During the Convergence:

Resonance waves intensify, empowering the machines.

The air hums with harmonic tones that no living voice can imitate.

The Conclave teaches that this is the moment when the Sister remembers, the Daughter creates, and the Mother endures — divine communion reborn.

Vignettes

A Vision of Keth'ora Station

347 Years ago:

Ta’shan Ba’liri looked up from his very important work of mopping the floor of Keth’ora Station, the recently completed pride and joy of the Aryamaji people. On the walkways above, all manner of dustologists, driftologists, harmonologists, and other classifications of inventors and scientists he couldn’t pronounce scrambled around like a hornets nest that had been kicked up. The air was positively electric today. He looked up at the large count down timer on a floating platform above that he had long since begun to ignore and realized that the number was at 0. He wandered over to the control center, nobody paying him any mind as he leaned against a wall and took in the view. The severed head of a strange massive ensouled sat in the center of the room, cables and tubes all running into it and out in a massive network towards the outer shell of the room where 100 of the finest Driftweavers all sat in a circle, instruments in hands, but no Scores in front of them. Cables ran to each of the instruments and sparks and dust occasionally shot off of them. A door opened and Master Rhythmbringer Syn’ian Yhondar strode in, a gorgeous black drum in her hands, holding it like a holy relic. So the rumors were true then, after all. They did find it down there, all the way at the center of the Shard.

Ta’shan watched with interest as hundreds of the Shard’s most brilliant assembled at their respective stations, all controlling or monitoring one thing or another. The Master reached the center of the room and sat calmly in a chair waiting for her, positioned just a few feet from the strange head, and attached a cable and tube set to her own drum. She then began to call out to each department in kind:

“Aptitude?”

“Check”

“Alignment?”

“Check”

“Harmonics Stabilization?”

“Check”

“Essence Transference?”

“Check”

“We are all green across the board, Master Rhythmbringer. Upon your lead. All crew and staff, brace for impact. Commencing test 127”

A loud alert sounded throughout the entire facility and everyone not on the command deck stopped moving. Ta’shan’s boots hummed and clicked and he felt his feet anchor to the floor as beams shot out from the floor for him to hold onto and his helmet automatically sealed. 

Ugh, here we go again. Another waste of time test only so brilliant in how much it wasted so much time and resources to pull off. Still, though, it was somehow always fascinating to watch.

The Master at the center of the room held up a hand and the room silenced. She took a deep breath and activated something on her chest and then something on her drum and the rest of the musicians did the same. Then, she closed her eyes and hit the drum. Then again. Then again. It didn’t sound particularly musical. Then she paused, tilted her head as if hearing something and began to play. Actually, play. The rest of the musicians followed suit and also began to play as well and… dust in my sail, it was actual void-touched music. It was so shocking to Ta’shan that it took him a few moments to notice that he felt like he was floating, but he was still anchored to the ground. He felt something tugging on him, pulling him up and towards the music, a music that was becoming all consuming. The station vibrated and shook, items not locked down flying free and tumbling around. The music got louder and louder and he looked down and saw a crack appear on the floor and it snaked all the way across the station. He looked around at the command deck and everyone was transfixed. No, not just transfixed, static. Two of the scientists in the back and mostly out of sight suddenly exploded in a colorful wave of particles that froze in the air and then started arcing in towards the head at the center of the room.

They didn’t know. He had to tell them, stop them. He frantically tried to unlatch his boots from the floor and he just managed to do so when a sound like no other filled the space. The eyes on the head opened, glowing galaxies in their skull. Its mouth made a noise that shook his bones, his muscles, his very soul. A sound like a man screaming as he is torn in two, but if that man were a whole Shard. What have we done? What have we done! He managed to get his feet free and he took one giant step towards the emergency power shut off switch and the person next to him exploded in a shower of light and color. He felt a thumping in his head, a paralysis gripping his bones and he leapt at the large switch and yanked down…hard…and then everything exploded, or more accurately, everything to ether dust and was gone. He was gone. In its place, only darkness and deathly, eternal silence.