Editing Shattered Sun (section)

===The City of Eternal Shardlight===
A legendary City that was rapidly growing in size and power, claiming an ever growing region and attaining ever greater feats of engineering and science. It had lasted intact for hundreds of years when a stray Shard, unnoticed by even the City’s finest Astronomers, crashed into its Stream, sending down a rain of Shards unto it. It burns in the resulting inferno even today.

====''A City of Shards''====
The City of Eternal Shardlight. It is a household name in most of the Cities beneath the Shardstreams. To most, it is an allegory for the lesson of moderating power. Too much power in your possession and you become blinded to what most would see as obvious.  The tale is a tragic one of a City’s rise and fall, prosperity and destruction.

For some enterprising minds however, the City is a treasure trove waiting to be pilfered through: according to the tales, a rain of Shards fell upon the metropolis upon its end. Technology even exists now which make it possible to retrieve fallen Shards and extract their Light to a degree. While this would lead many to the conclusion of a massive opportunity waiting to be taken advantage of, there is only one thing in the way.

Fire, and lots of it.

The City was engulfed in a ferocious blaze defying all reason and logic upon the Shards’ fall. While no one can accurately put a date upon the catastrophe itself, it is widely known that the fires have been burning unabated for quite a long time. Even as most of the City itself has been reduced to its bones and ash, the fires still burn forth from the fallen Shards within the ruins. This discovery has led to a variety of theories as to how to actually get in the City to claim its riches.

====''The Burning Question''====
There is always the possibility of digging beneath the City to evade the inferno above. However, early attempts at this solution led to the finding of the City being founded upon an incredibly hard layer of rock, thwarting even the most sophisticated tools around. With advances in digging technology quite some time away, the Alchemists of Terec have been trying to come up with a way to neutralize – or at least dramatically lessen – the scathing heat of the Shard-borne fires long enough for an expeditionary team to go into the City.

The best they can come up thus far with is an armored suit made with a Stardust-metallic alloy designed to ward off the worst of the fires from its wearer. The resonance of the Stardust within the suit is calibrated specifically to work counter with that of the Shards in the City. In theory, at least – the latest test subject was burned to a crisp within the suit, although the suit itself brushed the bright flames at the perimeter of the City right off of it. More research seems to be required to deal with the issue of the heat.

The suggestion of imbuing the Strobers’ Rite of Phoenix’s Blood upon a team has risen on occasion. Many see it as pursuing an unproven legend in lieu of a more scientific solution. Others who are more familiar with the Rite cite the dangers of too much Stardust within a person’s skin, which can cause extreme hallucinations for the subject, not to mention the possibility of a most violent and spontaneous combustion before even entering the City. Furthermore, it is nigh impossible to calibrate the resonance of the Stardust when it is in someone’s skin as opposed to when it is in a non-living metal.

Then there’s the possibility of entering the City from above. As the rumors of Daedalus Workshops’ flying machine percolating in the Cities, some believe that such a device can help spot exactly where the Shards lie within the City. Furthermore, supplemental machinery can be inserted from above to retrieve the Shards within, all without putting human life at significant risk. However, some scholars studying the technology of the old world beneath the Cerulean Heavens have noted the wind-generating effects of such intense fire and heat, which would make such a solution dangerous at best.

As elusive as entry into the City may be, such a facet of the City urges on further innovations and ideas from the greatest minds under the Shardstreams. Perhaps you will be the one who comes up with the idea that actually works.