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Mutable Crystal - Research into Unconventional Alchemy XXXIV

Journal of Conrad Azohi - Day 1,374 after embarking

As advanced as this society may be, they have not yet isolated raw vitae and mors. However, they do have a type of crystal that hold vitae and mors in a matrix of metals.

This is another type of precursor material, and I must note here that it, like all other materials this chemist works with, is highly volatile. It seems as though only the crystal precursor and the final produce are the only truly stable materials in the chemist's work flow. I've already mentioned that he uses molten stablized iron in a variety of ways, and the sweating stone I've detailed in the last three entries has a tendency to decay in only a few hours.

This crystal matrix is derived from the crystal precursor. The chemist places the precursor into a pressure-control vessel and reduces the pressure inside to a very specific level, and then leave it there for several days, regularly checking to ensure that the pressure is being maintained. This low pressure induces a very slow reaction in the precursor, clumping molecules together in such a way that they expand, filling up the space.

For reasons that are currently beyond me, the expansion process turns pairs of air in the crystal into pairs of vitae and mors. I can clearly detect them into the resultant crystal, when they are not present in the original material. It is as though the reaction is emulating the function of a glyph of animismus, but there is no mechanism I know which could justify that alteration. This process bears further study that I cannot give here. In fact, this might be a discovery beyond me to explain.

The crystal itself is chaotic. Molecules react to their environment readily, shifting color and even planes of cleavage to fit with their environment. When he first showed me the crystal product, he even made a show of every form that it can take. It is prone to decaying, however, and when it decays it released mors-lead gas, and so it is usually kept in the pressure vessel until it is needed. Since pressure vessels need to be used for other processes in the chemist's tree of reactions, he only makes this mutable crystal when he knows he will need it.

As fascinating as this discovery is, it is not the noteworthy discovery I mentioned previously, but it is important enough to warrant being noted. I will include two uses for this crystal in the following entries.