Table of Contents Introduction ......... Page Two Fusion of Essence .... Page Three Foreword ............. Page Four Lab A Results ........ Page Five Lab B Results ........ Page Six Lab C Results ........ Page Seven Conclusion ........... Page Eight Introduction: This study examined the effects of the various essences from the elemental and ethereal planes. It also examined the interactions of essences among each other. Essence was infused within differently sized objects after which the reaction were observed. Within this study, three different sizes were used. All objects were measures at their widest point. Small objects are anything between zero and four inches longer. Medium objects are anything between four and ten inches long and large objects are anything longer than ten inches. The sheets of metal were rectangular in shape. The gemstones are spherical in shape, where size length is the diameter. and the plant life used was non-curative herbs and flowers. The experiments were divided among three labs to prevent the corruption of data. All objects were tested in each lab. The first lab had only one type of essence within it at a time, while the other two had more than one type of essence at a time. Within the first lab is where the essence were fused with the objects to test the reaction. The second lab is where a single essence were fused with an object while other essences are within the room. The third lab is where there was the fusing of two or more essences within an object. The labs were labeled A, B, and C, representing the first, second and third labs respectively. The following objects were used during these experiments: Cloud Essence Fire Essence Light Essence Dark Essence Silver Essence Shadow Essence Containment jars Sheets of metal in small, medium, and large sizes Gold, Iron, Mercury, Platinum, Silver, Steel Gemstones in small, medium, and large sizes Amethyst, Beryl, Bloodstone, Coral, Diamond, Emerald, Garnet, Jade, Moonstone, Onyx, Opal, Pearl, Ruby, Sapphire, Turquoise Plant life (potted and pieces) --- Foreword: It should also be noted that Hallifaxian Servants were tasked with the gathering of essence, which they completed effectively with up most care and legality in their actions. Their handling of the essence did not seem to affect the outcome of any results in a measurable way. For the purpose of completeness, the essences can be paired in groups of two. These pairs are seen as opposites and they are as follows: Cloud and fire, light and dark, silver and shadow All testing actions were done within Aeromancer testing space. As such, any limitations of the space may have influenced the results. Should there be more restricted testing areas that this researcher does not have access for to use that includes equipment able of finer measurements, it is encouraged that these tests are repeated with that equipment to increase the knowledge base of the properties of essence. ---- The fusion process: Fusing an essence within an object proved to be a rather simplistic action. By placing the essence on the object in a way that the essence doesn't fall or roll of naturally, the essence will enter the object after a time of five to ten seconds has passed. The time is directly related to the size of the object. Upon fusing essence within an object, the essence is then unable to be removed. The essence however does fade over time. An interesting note: Once the essence enters the object, the presence of the essence can be measured evenly throughout the object with high readings within small objects and lower readings within the larger objects. Fusing motes of similar essence together is achieved by one of two ways. Both ways require an environmental aspect based on at least one of the essences in question. Fire essence requires a source of fire, cloud essence, requires a cloudy terrain, light essence requires a source of water, dark essence requires a source of dirt, silver essence requires a plant, and shadow essence requires the possible be done within the shadows of some object and so on. The actual fusion process for single motes of essence requires the motes to be thrown at each other, colliding within the environmental aspect. Fusing essence requires both pieces be of the same size. That is, a piece of essence that is the result of two motes of essence can only fuse with essence composed of that same number. There is no limit to the number of motes of essence that may be fused at a time, thus allowing for pieces of essence composed of any number of motes. The second way to fuse essence together is via the use of a simple machine that presses the motes together. This process, while requires less force is prone to a failure rate of ninety percent while the first method as a zero percent failure rate. It was observed that trying to fuse essences of different types is impossible. The fusion of different types of essence was tried one hundred times, which showed to have a hundred percent failure rate. Another interesting note: Upon fusing, the essence seems to lose its ability to generate power as well as be converted into other types of essence via the various converters that organizations have. The essence also gains protection from decay equal to the size in months. This protection appeared to reset each time the size is increased. ---- Lab A Procedure: The object was placed upon a marble testing table. The essence being tested then was placed on the object's center, as allowed by the object' shape. Lab A Results: Within Lab A, when using single motes of essence the results were mostly as expected given general knowledge of essence use within the Trades of the Basin. However, a few additional things were observed when pieces of two or more are used. Testing proved that objects did not have a limit that an object could hold. When using cloud essence, the object levitated for a period of time based on the size of the cloud essence when size of six to twenty is used. After twenty, the time remains the same. The time the effect lasts starts at two seconds and goes up to ten seconds (see chart 1). When using shadow essence, the object gained a slight cloaking attribute when observed with something besides the naked eye. This effect seems to be also be determined by a relation of the essence used starting at six and the time capping at twenty. This effect lasts between five and fifteen seconds Dark essence has the most damaging effect observed within Lab A. The effect of this essence decayed the object. With the metal, the piece rusted away. With gemstones, the structure cracked from within outward and the plants rotted into lifeless pieces. This effect is a determined by a function of the size of essence and the size of the object. The result of this function decides when the rapid decay starts. This effect starts at thirty seconds and goes down until one second. The decaying process, and the related function, of this starts at essences of size of ten. All other essences showed additional no effects up to size fifty essences. Sizes larger than fifty were deemed to not be worth the cost. In all cases, including those without other effects showed that the essence dissipated from the object after size of the piece of essence in minutes times three starting from the moment of fusing the essence to the object. Lab A Chart 1: +--------------+-------------------+ | Essence size | time (in seconds) | +--------------+-------------------+ | 6 | 2 | | 7 | 3 | | 8 | 3 | | 9 | 4 | | 10 | 4 | | 11 | 5 | | 12 | 5 | | 13 | 6 | | 14 | 7 | | 15 | 7 | | 16 | 8 | | 17 | 8 | | 18 | 9 | | 19 | 9 | | 20 | 10 | +--------------+-------------------+ ---- Lab B Procedure: The object was placed upon a marble testing table. One type of essence was placed on the object, centered as shaped allowed. Letting L be the length of the object, another type of essence was placed a with one L measurement of the testing object. In another test, essences was place at 2L and again at 3L. Lab B Results: Within Lab B, the reactions between an essence fused within an object and an essence sitting nearby were tested. Here, there seem to be no reaction unique to what was being tested. The object with the essence showed effects as outlined in the Lab A results. The essence sitting nearby did not show any signs of change. This is not surprising due to the nature of multiple essences often being next to each other in a non-testing environment for those who empower their nexus with essences. Lab B Hypothesis: While there showed no measurable effects, below are ways that may be able to influence effects to appear. Note that these ideas are beyond the equipment within the used labs or not authorized by the proper persons of higher status. 1) Adjusting the terrain of the testing location could produce results relating to opposite essences. The forces that oppose a specific essence could appear in large enough essence sizes. 2) The use of live creatures that hold essence. Perhaps there is something that appears when the essence is still within its host creature that should show with a fused essence object. This researcher does have a few hypothesis regarding these two ideas. On the first idea, it is suspected that it could show results if the essence was large enough size to start imposing its own terrain type. However, there is no cause for the belief that should such a size exists, that it would be able to go against a druid or mage meld. On the second idea, the taming of such currents would prove to be a case study it is own. Should such a thing be done and one managed to get such creatures into a controlled environment, there is no reason to believe the creatures would do anything besides just exist in place. All the creatures dropped the essence on death. One does not see essence naturally floating around within the Elemental and Ethereal Planes; it would not be unreasonable to think the creatures are born with essence inside them. However, this idea is also beyond the scope of this report and should be drafted in its own paper should it be pursued. ----- Lab C Procedure: The object was placed upon a marble testing table. The essences being tested were placed on the object equidistant from each other and the object's center. Lab C Results: Within Lab C, the reactions of the objects when two or more essence types were test. In all cases, the essences fought for control and dominance of the object, ending in one essence single, unmixed, type of essence. Essences of opposite types did not show any unique effects and just contested for control of the space. As such, these results are not noted below. In testing, it appears there is no limit to the amount an essence an object can hold here as well. More so, the effects were the same over all objects, not showing any difference in neither size nor material. The reactions of fire and cloud essence in sizes of REDACTED to REDACTED showed very surprising reactions. They showed and effect of temporal suspension. The objects showed that they did not age for a small amount of time as measured by the amount of time the objects had left on them before decaying. While this interaction only lasts faction of time that caps out at thirty seconds, it is an interesting one. It is suspected the cause of this is from reactions between Operation Crucible and Project Paradox during the Taint Wars that caused the temporal suspension of the cities of Hallifax and Gaudiguch. Furthermore, this effect seems non-exist in the sizes small than REDACTED. This would suggest the lasting effects on the Elemental Planes of the mentioned two cities is trivial and holds no military usefulness. Light and cloud essences produced a small mist like effect around the object as the sizes joined within the object. This mist stayed around the object even when the object was moved around. The amount of mist created appeared to be a constant regardless of essence size. Cloud and Dark essences proved to be the more destructive of two essence combinations. The cloud essence was quickly consumed in all but one case in which the cloud essence was five times larger than the dark essence. The object decayed just over three times as fast. Fire and silver essence created a burning smell from the object. While the object, including the flammable objects, did not show any signs of fire, smoke, or such burning they had a burnt smell to them. This effect lasted for three hours regardless of the size of essences used. A most interesting reaction occurred with group of shadowy, cloud and silver essence. As one might suspect, the shadowy and silver essence had hostile actions, both of essence destroying motes off the other while the cloud essence appeared to stay on the sidelines so to speak. In cases of the silver essence winning, it created an earthy feel to the object until the only had one essence type remained due to the constant fight for control as previously stated. In cases of the shadowy essence winning, a curious balance was seen. The cloud essence produced a fog like effect while the shadowy essence produced an underlying darkening effect that made it appear as the object was not there and it was just fog. Fire and Light essence produced a steaming effect from the object as if were hot coals. This effected proved to last time equal to the size of the smaller essence in days. Sizes up to fifty were tested. Uses for this reaction could prove useful on a personal scale to those who enjoy the sense of heat and steam against the skin. The temperature of the steam did not show hot enough to produce burns and thus the usefulness among combat settings is zero. Lastly, when combining all the essences of equal size up to size eight, the object showed aspects relating to all the essence types. The order in which each type was consumed and destroyed by the other essences appeared to be random each time. In sizes greater than eight, a chance of the object exploding goes up linearly with larger sizes. In all of these cases, there is a cracking sound is heard eleven seconds before the explosion. The level of explosion is minor in damage, causing the object to shatter out only one foot in diameter. ----- In conclusion, the process of fusing essence has provided a very low reward output. The loss of power production alone is enough to warrant that such fusion not be used. The effects of using essence in sizes larger than one also proved to be only useful to a small number of people. The reactions of two or more essences within an object did show some promise of understanding the uses for the essence beyond power generation and designs of mortal tradecraft. A few final thoughts on the results: Firstly, dark essence did the most damaging effects. This is not surprising due the connection it has with the Taint and the undead-state it creates when one embraces its power. Light, Silver, and cloud essence proved to be the most unchanging in their effects to the objects. Shadow essence showed to have the least noticeable effects. The effects darkening things like shadows to a minor degree that the naked eye may not see the change. Shadow essence also appeared to have a unity with the other essence effects, often concealing the effects of other essences or the object itself in the absence of light. This could suggest that the essence and the aspects it contains are rather mutable in nature. Farer research into the uses of single size motes of shadow essence may result in worthwhile rewards. Research into the purification, that is not direct conversion to another type of essence, of dark essence to essence that is less damaging may also prove to be a worthy topic of interest. It is in the view of this researcher that any use of such sizes would be too high to give reason to the creation of the essence size. The use of fused essence should not be ventured into until a process is discovered that not only allows the essence to retain its power generation attribute but also along with being able to be removed from objects that are not a created item. This study was a worthwhile look at the nature of essence and it is encouraged that others explore their own ideas that may arise to improve the use of essence.