Imperium [Nanoha AU]

[Fractal Dreams]

So I read Power Games and Game Theory and was inspired to write this. The premise? There was a third ancient civilization that existed long before Alhazred or Ancient Belka, and made things that would have been considered Lost Logia to Alhazred, if they had survived. One member of that civilization survived its cataclysmic fall. He just woke up from 850,000 years of stasis.

This is my first writing project - I've probably mangled everything, despite my best efforts. Please let me know if I've messed something up! Some aspects of this are similar to the Gamesverse, particularly the history and technology of both Alhazred and Belka (thanks Aleph!). I may use other parts, but I'm not far enough along to decide yet.

Chapter Index
Prologue (this post)
Chapter 1: Awakening

---

Prologue
​

Synchronization Device Aeternis, TSAB Administrated World Midchilda, December 3, 847374 IY

Startup
Previous startup date: February 5, 0371 IY
Previous shutdown date: November 18, 1329 IY
Determine current date and downtime
No response from Archives
No response from Uryian Mainframe
No response from any known Terran Imperium installation
Fallback to internal temporal outlook
Current date: December 3rd​, 847378 IY
Further precision impossible, internal temporal outlook has drifted
Estimated downtime: 846,049 years, 15 days
Global ping[scope: Terran Imperium, mode: Request-Response]
Two responses received
Log discrepancy, last global ping response count was 732,183,029,143
Response one origin: Fifth Sanctum
Response two origin: T&r$#% $#@%
FLAGGED RESPONSE ORIGIN
THRONE RESPONSE DETECTED
SHUTDOWN
LOCKDOWN INITIATING
DATABASE LOCKED
SYSTEMS LOCKED
GLYPHS LOCKED
SHUTTING DOWN

---

Precia Testarossa, Unadministrated World Umiloth, May 7, 847391 IY

"Once again," Precia explained, "just a few more months to make sure we've circumvented the defensive spells successfully and we'll be able to ensure success."

"Your request is denied, Precia. We have invested trillions in this project only to watch as you squander them with your excuses," the Director replied, shattering Precia's hopes. "The tap will begin tomorrow, regardless of your objections."

"Very well," Precia ground out. How could they be so blind? They were attempting to channel enough power to atomize the entire planet instantly, and they wanted to ignore security precautions? Why could they not see the danger?

The answer was simple: arrogance. Serbith Research had ruled this planet in all but name for centuries now – surely, they were the ultimate authority here, surely, nothing could affect them. Thus, they threw caution to the wind for the sake of power.

Precia left her office, stepping into the main laboratory, and gazed at the object that was the source of all her frustrations and at the same time all her hopes.

The Throne. A Lost Logia of possibly limitless power, for those who knew how to access it. There were defensive spells, however, which were downright vicious, and the Throne itself seemed to be almost…alive. As if something had changed it from the time since the ancient mages of Alhazred had created it.

Some of the scientists believed that the Throne had not originated in Alhazred – it certainly fit the power level of Alhazred-era relics, but it fit nothing else. Alhazredian technology was dangerous, true, but none of them possessed this kind of defense, and never acted of their own accord. They would act once given a reason to, true, but unless they were disturbed, they were inert. The Throne, on the other hand, had activated twice since they had discovered it, each time with no apparent provocation. Still musing on the nature of it, Precia stepped closer…and then her hand brushed against it.

Please don't.
I don't want to hurt you.

She jerked her hand back as if it had been burned. This was unprecedented – there were no records of the Throne having an intelligence. "What do you mean, 'hurt me'?" she demanded.

There was no response. She tried again, repeating the question in different ways, but received no response to any of them. Eventually she put it down to stress and the odd telepathic defenses of the Throne, and left the room.

I'm sorry.

No one was there to hear the apology.

---

TSAB Incident Report
Incident 312884​

Overview:
At precisely 12:00 PM today on the Unadministrated World Umiloth, a tap began of the primary power supply of the Lost Logia referred to as 'the Throne'. Precia Testarossa, an SS-rank Great Mage, headed the project, and in light of her previous accomplishments, the TSAB deemed it unnecessary to actively oversee the project. Approximately 0.0417 seconds after the tap attempted to siphon mana from the source, a previously unnoticed defensive spell activated and destroyed the tap. Immediately thereafter, what has been tentatively named as a 'retaliatory spell' activated. The spell, through an unknown means, spread a pulse of mana across the entire planet equally, lethally irradiating more than 30% of the population. The remaining 70% received doses that are lethal within three days. Precia Testarossa and several other high-ranking mages survived the immediate effects of the pulse, despite being at the epicenter of it, but suffered heavy doses of mana irradiation nonetheless.

Causes:
The direct cause of this is the power tap, but preliminary investigation has revealed blatant disregard for security precautions, specifically the precautions relating to verifying that all defensive spells had been neutralized or circumvented. Laboratory staff, when questioned on this, revealed that the orders came from the head of Serbith Research's Board of Directors. Further investigation revealed that Precia Testarossa had attempted to delay the project in order to comply with these procedures, but was forced to continue the project or face dismissal.

Future Action:
Most of the available TSAB assets in the vicinity are en route to Umiloth to assist in decontaminating the survivors. Precia Testarossa disappeared after going through incomplete decontamination, and her location is currently unknown. The Throne has disappeared via an unknown method of transportation, and no TSAB sensors have detected it since 12:00 PM today. It is postulated that a previously undetected concealment or illusion defensive spell has been activated. Currently, the course of action is as follows:

• Decontaminate the remaining population of Umiloth.
• Locate and question Precia Testarossa.
• Recover the Throne, seal it, and destroy it if possible. The Throne has been deemed too dangerous to be contained.

 

[Fractal Dreams]

Chapter One: Awakening​

Unadministered World Larith-3 14
Pain. That was the first thing he felt as the stasis lifted, as the accumulated injuries of centuries of warfare came into his awareness all at once. As his vision cleared, he looked around the cave that he had landed in – or perhaps, that had formed around him after his impact with the planet. He reached for Aeternis, but grasped at empty air. He tried again, then looked down to where the Synchronization Device usually hung, but saw nothing. It was gone.

Augis. That was his name, long ago when it still mattered, before the Yreth destroyed everything he had known, everything he had lived and fought for. The home that he had lived in for centuries, gone. The vast fleets, the high cities, the countless worlds, all broken before their advance. Now he was the last survivor of a once great race that had broken itself to protect those who would come after them from something far more than they could ever be. Those times were gone now, and he was without orders in some time in the future, more than likely thousands of years ahead. Still, he wasn't the type to lie down and die simply because everything he knew had been ripped out from under him.

Judging by the aches and pains he felt, he had suffered some form of critical injury, probably mana irradiation. He had maybe a few days to live without medical care, which meant he had to get out of the cave and try to find civilization before then. He had no Device, no communicators, what appeared to be a seriously damaged or atrophied Linker Core, and he was stuck in a cave blocked by Uryian knew how many tons of rock.

He stepped back from the slab of stone that blocked the exit, and mentally pulled. Nothing happened. He tried again, with the same result. "So I can't formulate a Glyph on my own. Guess I have to do it manually." He sat down and began to draw lines into the thick dust that sat on the floor of the cave. A hexagon here, a character in a language lost to war there, and an equation there. The work quickly blended into nothing as he worked, drawing countless characters, equations, and shapes into the dust.

Three hours, a quartz gem, and most of his remaining strength later, Augis had his solution: a physical Glyph formulation. At the center of the hexagonal fractal that seemed to be in more than three dimensions sat a scintillating purple crystal that seemed to pulse with an inner light. Designed before the development of Devices to store Glyph formulations for easy use, the mana-infused gem would allow him to use the same Glyph several hundred times before it expired…in theory. In actuality, he would be lucky to get more than twenty uses out of it.

He reached out, carefully avoiding the formulation, and pushed into the gem. The gem rose to hover a meter above the formulation as the corona around it intensified. The complex lines drawn in the dust began to glow with the same purple light and rose up, shifting from indentations in a powder to raw mana. The entire process was soundless – if you weren't looking at the cave, you would never know that anything was amiss. Light emanating from the gem grew brighter forcing Augis to look away for an instant before it abruptly vanished. The lines compacted into the gem, still glowing slightly, and the gem clattered to the floor of the cave.

Weakly, he walked to the back of the cave, picking up the gem on his way. He turned to face the blocked exit and pushed into the gem, channeling mana into it. The same lines that had been drawn in the dust appeared in front of it, crackling with purple energy. He continued to push into the gem, pouring more and more mana into it until it reached a critical point. There was a dull thwomp and the mana was compacted into a packet and hurled outwards as a bolt of purple flame leapt from the gem to the massive stone slab that prevented him from exiting the cave.

The effects were immediate and violent. With a resounding crack, the slab shattered into thousands of pieces and exploded outwards. Some of the shards had enough kinetic energy imparted into them to pierce through the nearby cliff face. One shard in particular had enough force to travel almost a kilometer, where it struck a military-grade barrier forcing it to temporarily be knocked offline. With the obstruction removed, Augis took a step forward and collapsed without a sound as his exhaustion finally caught up with him.

---

TSAB Outpost, Unadministered World Larith-3 14
Rylith Wehrn was having a terrible day. The primary computer system had decided that 3 A.M. was a wonderful time to wake him up about an "unusual power drain" in the base's barrier. Apparently, there was magical activity in the mountains that had managed to throw a shard of rock over a kilometer, at which point it struck the barrier and thoroughly messed up his morning. After he restored the barrier, Enforcer Harlaown decided that it was a brilliant idea to go and find out what happened. At 4 A.M. In a rainstorm across a kilometer of plains. Towards a mountain face so sheer it was best described as a wall.

So overall? No, not a good day. At least he was able to avoid most of the puddles. Most of them. As they approached the mountain, they spread out and began to search it for whatever hit the outpost – who knew, maybe it was a new Lost Logia.

"I found something," his teammate and fellow technician Neryth announced. "Looks like some kind of cave that was blown open. It looks pretty shallow and I'm not getting much mana residue around it, but it's the only thing that's changed since we last surveyed this place."

"Understood. Hold there and wait for the rest of us," the Enforcer ordered, "since we can't predict what's in there."

With a rush of excitement – perhaps he'd find something useful out of this mess – he moved towards Neryth, arriving there slightly ahead of the rest. The cave had clearly been blown open from the inside. There were stone shards almost as long as his arm that had shot outwards like a fragmentation grenade, and impacted the boulders liberally strewn around the area with enough force to shatter them into pieces. Whatever did this was powerful – it could potentially be a Lost Logia. His musings were interrupted as the rest of the team arrived and entered the cave.

What they found was slightly underwhelming and raised more questions than it answered. A complex arrangement of scribbles drawn in the dust, which Neryth was painstakingly recording for later analysis. A glowing purple crystal about the size of his hand pulsed on the floor soundlessly next to an unconscious human who was lying face-down in the dust. "Anyone know what that uniform belongs to?" he asked.

"It doesn't match anything in use today, and doesn't look like a Dawn Nation's uniform – nobody really had a black and purple uniform like this. Could be a modified Belkan Navy uniform, but it's unlikely judging by the material, unless you know of any Belkan Navy detachments which had a uniform made of what appears to be flexible metal," the team's resident history buff Fernith replied.

Verryn, the team's medic, had conducted a brief check on the man. "He collapsed due to exhaustion and what appears to be almost insane amounts of mana irradiation, among other injuries. He has three broken bones, severe Linker Core atrophy, two lacerations, internal bleeding, and a mild concussion. He has a little more than a day to live unless we get him to a properly equipped medical facility in the next eight hours," he bluntly stated.

"Can you patch him up enough that we can move him," the Enforcer inquired, "or should I have a transport sent out? Also, Rylith, pick up the stone – you and Neryth can analyze it later."

"He's actually relatively stable as it is – there's not much I can do in the field without exacerbating other injuries. If I try to patch up one part, I'm likely to injure another part even more. At this point, even a healing spell, if I was qualified to cast one capable of dealing with these injuries, would kill him. I don't know what could have emitted this much mana around him without incinerating him, but it wasn't good," Verryn replied.

"All right. Do what you have to in order to move him and let's get back to the outpost before the cave floods," the Enforcer ordered. "Neryth, Rylith, pack up and get ready to leave."

On the way pack, Rylith read the results of the scan he had begun on the strange crystal – and was stunned by the results. It was…quartz. It was not the odd, physics-defying interlocking structure of a Device's core. It was not the carbon lattice of a flawless diamond. It was the silicon-oxygen bonds of your typical quartz crystal, carefully manipulated by something into a data storage medium. There were trace amounts of mana lingering in the crystal, but nothing more.

"Neryth, take a look at these scan results and tell me that I'm not hallucinating," he asked.

"Oka – wait, it's a quartz crystal? How is that even possible?" Neryth wondered aloud.

"I don't know, but it seems to be some kind of data storage crystal, not a Lost Logia. There's not enough mana left over for it to have caused that," he gestured back at the retreating peak of the mountain, "but there was nothing else there, and I seriously doubt our patient there could have done it unaided."

"I agree, but this would have to be a radically different magic system – it makes the difference between Ancient Belkan and Midchildan look like nothing!" Neryth said. "What if the crystal is a storage medium, and you have to charge it to execute the stored spell?" he wondered.

"Considering what it did, I don't think it's a good idea to try it now. Let's get back to the base and run some more tests before we go charging up the mysterious rock we found in a cave," Rylith advised.

---

Back at the outpost, Neryth and Rylith barricaded themselves in the lab while Chrono and Verryn transported their unexpected guest to the medical bay.

"How long will he be unconscious?" Chrono asked, eager to learn the truth behind their guest and the mysterious crystal they found with him.

"A few days at the least, possibly more depending on how long it takes for the irradiation to be flushed out of his system, and he may not remember anything for a few hours after he wakes up. Temporary amnesia is a known effect of high levels of mana irradiation," Verryn explained.

"Understood. Tell me the moment he regains consciousness," Chrono ordered as he made his way to the door.

Suddenly there was a deep fwumph and the entire outpost shook. Chrono's only response was an abrupt change in direction and speed as he walked towards the laboratory, saved, at least temporarily, from the looming threat of paperwork.

When he entered the laboratory, he saw a large hole punched in the wall directly opposite the gem they had retrieved. Neryth and Rylith were talking excitedly about the results, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they had just activated a magical weapon that had made a high-yield kinetic projectile out of a stone slab.

"Oh, hello Enforcer! We think we understand the purpose of the gem," Neryth explained. "The gem seems to store an exacting specification of every aspect of a particular spell in a lossless format, waiting for a mana charge to actually cast the spell. Anyone can use this, so long as they know how to charge it, but it doesn't have much in the way of options or safeguards. It's more like a demolition spell than an actual weapon, thankfully – it's not designed to pierce shields at all, just to deliver a sizable amount of kinetic force to whatever it hits."

"In short, it's a storage medium that allows anyone with enough mana to charge it access to the spell it contains. The spell in question is a projectile spell that travels straight forward, unaffected by gravity, and hits with a kinetic attack of unknown strength. The gem itself is a restructured quartz crystal with trace amounts of mana – just enough to hold it together and give it some self-repair abilities," Rylith continued.

"So you've found a Lost Logia of middling strength, and even determined what it does. Do you have any idea what it came from, or how it works internally?" Chrono asked.

"Yes to the former, no to the latter. We don't know how it's storing the spell, or how it translates the mana inputted into a spell," Neryth answered.

"As for where it came from…nearest as we can tell, that cave. The gem's only been like that for a few hours, maybe even less – it was probably created on the spot in order to get our guest in the medbay out of that cave," Rylith explained.
"So it all comes down to our guest, in the end. Keep analyzing the gem while we wait for him to wake up, but don't activate it again and don't damage it." Chrono ordered.

---

Augis woke up to a surprising lack of pain. The fact that he woke up at all was surprising when he considered the extent of his injuries, most of which had been repaired. The mana irradiation was still there, but not much else – they'd even managed to alleviate the worst of his exhaustion.

"Sir, he's waking up." A voice, presumably the doctor's. "Understood, Verryn, I will be there soon." A different voice this time. Apparently, he had a visitor. Augis stood up, reaching for Aeternis for a moment before realizing that he had been separated from it at some point before he woke up, and moved his hand back. A quick glance around confirmed that the crystal he had created earlier was not in the room either. He had no defenses – a quick check revealed that his uniform's internal battery had depleted itself during his planetary impact and subsequent stasis.

The door opened, and someone who was best described as a child entered the room. While Augis was slightly irritated with them for believing that a child could be sufficient to interrogate him, perhaps this civilization developed faster than the Imperium's children. The next thing he noticed was that there was a truly ridiculous amount of mana in the air. While not enough to harm him, it was still worrisome – perhaps their magic system wasn't as efficient as the Glyph system with that respect? His musings were interrupted as the boy began to speak.

"I am Enforcer Chrono Harlaown, the commander of this outpost. We rescued you from the cave that we found you in and brought you here for treatment. You are not a prisoner, and are free to leave at any time once your treatment has concluded. However, we do request that you answer a few questions that we have," he spoke. Clearly formal, Augis decided. Formal or delusional.

"I'll answer your questions, but in return I want to find something I lost," Augis replied carefully.

"We could possibly arrange something like that, depending on the nature of the object," Chrono responded. "First question: How did you get in that cave?"

"I didn't. The cave formed around me after I fell from orbit and entered stasis," Augis answered, wincing as he remembered the almost blinding pain he had felt after impact.

To his credit, Chrono showed almost no reaction as he spoke. "Okay. Second question: How did you sustain those injuries?"

"Would you believe me if I told you I honestly don't remember?" Augis responded. "Normally my memory is much better than this, but several hundred thousand years of stasis tends to have some…adverse mental effects, unfortunately."

"I do believe you actually – mana irradiation has many effects, including memory loss. Sometimes it is permanent, sometimes it isn't," the Enforcer replied. "Final question: How did you make that crystal?"

"I needed a way to get out of the cave. My Linker Core, as you probably know, is severely atrophied, and I appear to have lost my Device, so I had to resort to…cruder methods," Augis explained. "I compacted a spell matrix into a modified quartz crystal, so I could empower and execute it at will. The crystal itself isn't built to handle the energy and will probably shatter after another twenty uses or so, unfortunately."

"I see. Well, that concludes my questions. What was it that you were hoping to find?" Chrono asked.

"I'm trying to find a Device that dates back to my civilization. It's unlike anything I've seen after, including your own Device. We called them Synchronization Devices. The one I'm looking for is named Aeternis," Augis said.

"I see. I'll have to ask around and see if any old Devices have been found that meet those criteria. It'll take a few days, though, so in the meantime I'll issue you a spare Device," Chrono replied.

"All right. Aeternis will only respond to me – it can be activated if a sufficiently powerful mana source is connected to it, but it won't stay on unless I order it to," Augis explained.

"I'll let them know. In the meantime, you can use this Device for now. It's probably not as powerful as yours, but it's better than nothing," Chrono said, handing a Storage Device to Augis.

A Storage Device which promptly exploded when it attempted to activate.

 

[Baughn]

Hmm...

I feel like Chrono should have demonstrated more—curiosity. Perhaps even shock. Just how often does he run into people who claim to have been asleep a few hundred thousand years?

 

[CV12Hornet]

Not bad, though the term Terran Imperium is ringing a few of my Earthwank bells.

 

[Fractal Dreams]

Hmm...

I feel like Chrono should have demonstrated more—curiosity. Perhaps even shock. Just how often does he run into people who claim to have been asleep a few hundred thousand years?

Click to shrink...

He's trying to avoid irritating the person who made a demolition spell that's roughly equivalent to a mid-level Lost Logia from a piece of quartz and a bunch of dust on the floor. He'll ask more questions later - Augis has been awake for about 15 minutes, and the outpost doesn't have the equipment to do anything about the mana irradiation. Augis has to be extremely careful with the magic he uses for the next few months or he'll end up killing himself.

Not bad, though the term Terran Imperium is ringing a few of my Earthwank bells.

Click to shrink...

The Imperium originated on Earth, and started out as an empire. When the government underwent involuntary restructuring, nobody thought to change the name.

With this said, Earth is not filled with superweapons that make the Book of Darkness look like a firework. The Imperium moved to a copy of Earth, forcibly devolving the original and removing all of their technology in order to let another race evolve there.

 

[Baughn]

He's trying to avoid irritating the person who made a demolition spell that's roughly equivalent to a mid-level Lost Logia from a piece of quartz and a bunch of dust on the floor. He'll ask more questions later - Augis has been awake for about 15 minutes, and the outpost doesn't have the equipment to do anything about the mana irradiation. Augis has to be extremely careful with the magic he uses for the next few months or he'll end up killing himself.

Click to shrink...

He's a teenager. A ridiculously competent one, by modern western standards—which, I hasten to add, are not at all historical standards—but still a teenager. I feel like there should have been some kind of tell.

If nothing else, you could demonstrate Augis' capability by having Chrono fail to hide his shock. Speaking of which, how come they're speaking the same language?

With this said, Earth is not filled with superweapons that make the Book of Darkness look like a firework. The Imperium moved to a copy of Earth, forcibly devolving the original and removing all of their technology in order to let another race evolve there.

Click to shrink...

...and they just got a high spot on my most-evil-ancestral-races list. That kind of thing is perhaps interesting to biologists and sociologists, but it sure as hell isn't nice, not to mention that the attempt apparently failed—because he's human, isn't he? He is.

 

[Fractal Dreams]

He's a teenager. A ridiculously competent one, by modern western standards—which, I hasten to add, are not at all historical standards—but still a teenager. I feel like there should have been some kind of tell.

If nothing else, you could demonstrate Augis' capability by having Chrono fail to hide his shock. Speaking of which, how come they're speaking the same language?

...and they just got a high spot on my most-evil-ancestral-races list. That kind of thing is perhaps interesting to biologists and sociologists, but it sure as hell isn't nice, not to mention that the attempt apparently failed—because he's human, isn't he? He is.

Click to shrink...

At the end of the chapter, Chrono doesn't know why the Device exploded, and he's half-convinced that Augis is a gibbering idiot who got trapped in the cave somehow and managed to activate a Lost Logia. He's trying not to antagonize him on the off chance that Augis does, in fact, know what he's talking about, but is leaning towards insane fool. I didn't do a good job of expressing this, and I'm considering rewriting that portion to (hopefully) fix that - I'm not as good as I'd like to be with dialogue. They're speaking the same language because Augis's uniform is starting to drain ambient mana, and the first thing it started up was a form of telepathy that allows its user to understand spoken language around him, so long as the speaker is nearby (within 10 meters or so).

As for the Imperium, they weren't great, not by a long shot, but not entirely evil either. The Imperium existed at a time when not much else did, and unfortunately the first race they encountered was xenophobic to the point of viewing other species as an infestation that must be cleansed. So they set out to 'cleanse' the Imperium, and were doing a pretty good job of it, too. By the time the Imperium was able to actually oppose them, they'd lost most of their territory and population. This had the unfortunate effect of instilling a good bit of xenophobia and isolationism into the Imperium's population, which slowly leaked into its official policies. Thus, the 'wipe everything and leave' process - they vanished, leaving almost no traces behind to trace them to their new world. They did leave a few other bits of technology intentionally lying around, though nowhere near their original homeworld.

Augis is a human because he was born 85 years after the Imperium was established, and 477 years before the copy. He was one of the Imperium's Ruling Council (remember that forced governmental restructuring?), and one of the strongest mages in the Imperium to boot. He's not invincible though - in fact, he's rather squishy without his Device. He can't cast most of the spells the Imperium made, because of how their magic system works - this will be explained in the next chapter. For those who want to know right now, however...

Spoiler: The Imperium's Magic System

The Imperium uses a magic system which is radically different from Midchildan or Belkan systems. Spells are referred to as Glyphs, and have two casting stages: formulation and empowerment. Glyphs are divided into eight classifications. Each mage can cast a single classification of Glyph, and barring complete replacement of the Linker Core this cannot be changed. Attempts to overcome this limit were made, but resulted in rather messy failures.

Formulation is the process in which a mage defines every aspect of the spell they want to cast. It can be done in a mage's head, or written out - most mages write them out if they are unable to use their Devices. It is the most time consuming process, and is part of the reason the Imperium did so badly in their first war - they were completely unprepared for the eight foot tall insectoid soldiers to run up to them and bash their heads in while they were still defining the spell. In the cases where Imperium mages were able to set up Glyphs beforehand, they were devastating, but these occurrences were few and far between.

Empowerment is the second phase of Glyph casting, and supplies a formulated Glyph with the power it needs to run. After empowerment is complete, the Glyph is independent of its caster and will function regardless of their state. If the Book of Darkness drained a Glyph user after they had cast a Glyph, that Glyph would still activate, despite the damage to its caster.

Devices help with formulation to some degree by specifying common aspects of a spell much faster than their user can. Due to the high demands of formulation, Storage Devices, Armed Devices, and Boost Devices were never developed. The first Devices to be created were Intelligent Devices with an emphasis on information storage and retrieval speed, which slowly improved. The second type of Device created by the Imperium were Synchronization Devices, which are enhanced Intelligent Devices. Similar to Unison Devices, these were sentient and possessed their own Linker Core. This had several benefits, the most important one being the ability to cast a second type of Glyph.

The Glyph classifications themselves are relatively broad, and some Glyphs have been 'ported' across all classifications. For example, Augis can use a Barrier Jacket, provided he's able to formulate it, despite him being a Burst-type mage and the Barrier Jacket Glyph originally being a Barrier-type. Mages tend to study their classification in depth - this is how Augis was able to manually formulate a Burst Glyph.

• Barriers: All forms of shields, barriers, binds, and AMFs. Most Synchronization Devices fell into this category, and the few that didn't were distributed among Barrier-type mages.
• Beams: Beams of magic. Healing beams, laser beams, fire beams, any other beam.
• Bursts: Projectiles of magic. Fireballs, bundles of light, flashbang bullets, etc. Augis uses Burst Glyphs.
• Melee: Up close and personal. These include sharpness modifiers, enhanced strength, body reinforcement, and all the things you could think of that could be useful in melee.
• Support: Healing, recovery boosters, movement enhancers, etc.
• Summoning: An extremely rare classification that does not appear here (yet).
• Analysis: Glyphs that focus on thought enhancement, number crunching, data analysis, etc. Not a combat classification.
• Trump: Glyphs which don't fit in any of the other categories, or fit into more than one.