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Crystal Precursor - Research into Unconventional Alchemy XXIX

Journal of Conrad Azohi - Day 1,337 after embarking

Exiting Atro took less time than it did to originally find the oasis, which implies we were closer to the mountains that I knew. Only four days of traveling across oil-caked wastes, we exited the dark landscape. However, upon exiting, we were met with a stone wall, dotted regularly with short towers, around the edge of Atro. We couldn't climb it, so we traveled alongside it, looking for a way in, until we came across a spot of disrepair. The wall extended for great distances, through the hilly, dry landscape.

On the other side was a thicket of greenery. Broadleaf trees blocked our path. It took us a day just to make it through, but when we emerged on the other side, we found ourselves quickly accosted by denizens of the mountain.

We weren't able to understand their language, but we were able to communicate in rudimentary ways that we had come from Atro. This seemed to have distressed them a good deal, and they wouldn't not let us leave. This was two days ago. We have been being held in a town at the top of a hill even since.

The natives of this land have highly developed architecture. They all live in houses constructed, at least partly, from smoothly cut slabs of stone. The structures are beautiful, all polished to a mirror-bright sheen, but I am bewildered by the presence of the stone. Even with the small amount they use, it would amount to a great weight to transport to the hill town where we are being held, and the stone of the nearby hills do not match the quality of the walls.

The denizens seem unnerved by us, and don't generally approach. However, while I was admiring one of the walls, he approached me holding a small vial of powder, motioning back and forth from it to the wall. I took this to mean that the stone was somehow crafted from the powder. After some investigation, I was able to find that the powder was a suspension of quicksilver in some crystalline lead-air compound. I am unsure how it is meant to function, but until I gather more information, I am terming it as a "crystal precursor."

I am including instructions on how to synthesize this powder.