Below is the official written version of the veil opening lecture, issued to all prospective essence workers after their introductory courses in glyph design and rune etching. This document is restricted to master essence workers authorized to instruct trainees.
Unauthorized possession will result in reduction of housing allotment and restrictions on luxury purchases. Return it to the Records Hall in the Municipal Zone immediately.
Before the lecture begins, please verify the following materials are on display for demonstration:
A veil opener, stored in accordance with protocol.
An inactive glyph designed for heating an area. This is is a torrid glyph with a spherical expulsion rune.
Take your seats.
Repeat until all students have taken their seats. Refer to disciplinary measures if students are not organized by the third attempt.
Welcome to your fourth lecture on the introduction to essence work. All of you have made it this far due to proficiencies in etching runes and understanding the flow of essence. So far, the source of the power that supports runes has not been explained. This is on purpose.
What is discussed in this lecture is not be shared with those who fail out of essence work training.
Some of you take the method in which Sankhurst has survived for the last twenty decades for granted. This is a mistake, and it will cost you your and other's lives if you do not fix it. Essence is a volatile, dangerous force, and that we are so reliant on it is a dangerous fact of life.
That said, you will not be capable essence workers if you are unable to activate a single glyph. To start, raise your hand if you know where essence comes from.
If a hand is raised, call on them. If they are able to accurately name the source of essence, file a report with Records in the Municipal zone. This is an information breach. Otherwise, correct them and follow the explanation below.
From what we know, essence is stored in a version of the world that is completely empty aside from it. It is stopped from entering our world due to the veil blocking the physical world, the one we are in, to the plane essence resides in. If essence stayed there, we would be unable to power any glyphs.
This is where the veil opener is used. Before I show you how to use it, you must know how to retrieve it and store it. This is vital. If you cannot demonstrate effective storage of the veil opener by the end of our time today, you will fail this program.
Demonstrate the following as you speak the next four sections of text.
- Pulling open the drawstring of the hazardous materials bag.
- Retrieving the bundle of cloth inside it, slowly.
- Carefully unwrapping the bundle of cloth.
- Retrieving the veil opener without sliding the refined tip of essence stone along any solid surface.
To start, all of you will receive this bag. This is the hazardous materials containment bag, shown by this triangular emblem here. When you receive your own bag, make sure this emblem is present. If it isn't, bring it up immediately. This is what lets everyone know that this is a dangerous piece of equipment.
Next to the hazardous materials emblem is the veil opener emblem. This circular emblem should have a scar down the middle: if it does not, bring it up immediately.
I would hope you all know how to open a bag: loosen the drawstring so you can retrieve the cloth wrappings inside. This contains the veil opener.
Target one of the students to answer one of the following:
- What is the hazardous materials emblem?
- What is the veil opener emblem?
- What should you do if the emblem is gone, misshapen, or otherwise unrecognizable?
If they don't answer correctly, fail them. Go over the above section again, picking a different student.
Now, unwrap the cloth. This can be time consuming: the most common method is to tuck the cloth under a wrapping to make sure it stays wound around the veil opener, but finding this can be hard. Better to be slow and careful.
Now that you've unwrapped it, carefully remove the veil opener, making sure not to drag it along the cloth or any other solid surface.
Some of you may be wondering: why the high level of caution and security? There is a very simple reason for this.
How many of you are familiar with uncontrolled essence expulsions? You may not know the specific term: if any of you have been on the Docks and looked out over the ocean, you've seen the eruption of lights and the boiling of the surface of the waves.
If you've ever looked up at the sky during a cloudy day outside the city and seen the clouds darken rapidly, sending chunks of ice to the ground, that's an unrestrained essence expulsion.
If you know someone who transports raw materials back to Sankhurst's processing facilities, they've definitely encountered the kinetic variation. The ground will erupt, firing chunks of earth into the air.
There are two things these events have in common. The first is that they happen along a surface. This is where the veil can be pierced. In recorded history, essence can only flow out of a solid surface. This is why you will never see an uncontrolled essence expulsion in open air.
The second is that they are all incredibly destructive. Sled drivers undergo rigorous reaction training to be able to dodge the debris from a kinetic-aligned uncontrolled essence expulsion event. Those who travel on the ocean to fish have to take extreme precautions to avoid being swallowed up by the ocean when the surface boils off or freezes.
The veil opener allows you to puncture the veil. This is a controlled essence expulsion, and it will be how you activate glyphs. Making sure the controlled essence expulsions are controlled and not accidental is the reason behind the caution and security.
When a veil opener is used against the surface of an etched intake rune, the essence that is expelled through the opening in the veil is taken in by the intake rune. This powers the glyph, allowing it to convert the essence and expel it into a form that is not inherently destructive.
To reiterate: what you have just learned is restricted information. Do not share this with anyone who is not a trained essence worker.
Before any of you will touch a veil opener, you must know these rules.
Do not, under any circumstances, make a cut with a veil opener along any surface that is not a prepared glyph.
The larger the cut you make, the more essence flows through the opening you've created. Do not, under any circumstances, make a cut too large for the glyph you've prepared to handle. A rule of thumb is to never cut larger than the intake rune that is etched. This can leak essence into the environment, turning it into an uncontrolled essence expulsion. Do not let this happen. Your family and Sankhurst appreciate you more alive than dead.
Always store your veil opener properly.
Never toy with the veil opener. It is an excessively dangerous tool that can kill you and others you care about if you handle it incorrectly.
Quiz the students on these rules. You may use discretion for how to present the questions and how to interpret the answers. Pauses longer than five seconds for recall must be marked as a failure. If whether the student has answered correctly is in doubt, fail them.
Now that you know the rules, you may see me use the veil opener to activate this glyph. Pay attention.
Have the students gather close to you, and place the glyph on the desk. Make an incision into the veil using the veil opener.
The glyph should emanate heat, warming you and the students. Leave the glyph there and direct the students back to their seats.
This is all for the lecture portion of this class.
Direct the students to the training hall. This should be reserved ahead of time for the class. Fail any students that incorrectly open the veil for the practice glyphs, if they survive the error.
If any of these students fail in their duties, the fault is with you. Do not train essence workers to falter.