Skeins

A skein is flux in its pure form, a store that refills itself: currents are drawn from it by siphon and vial, the Conduit takes a dry chunk's shortfall from it, and the Flux Workbench counts its threads as currents of the place. Where the streams of several chunks meet and have nowhere to spread, they twine around one another like yarn on the fingers and wind into a skein — a ball of living light. Each current lies in it as its own thread and does not set.

Halo

A skein winds by itself: all its threads slowly grow — those it was born with (its native threads) and those tied onto it — the thinnest first. A share every ten seconds while the chunk is full, every twenty as the flux ebbs; a share takes flux from the chunk while it has some to spare, and in a drained chunk the skein winds on its own without touching the bed — it never stands still. However many skeins hang in one chunk, one share winds every ten seconds. The Loupe shows which thread winds next and how often.

A skein can be drawn from: a siphon at its side or below it, a vial, a Confluence Heart within twelve blocks. A thread unwinds no faster than two shares a second, and no one takes the last share of a native thread — with one share left, the thread winds again. Threads can be tied onto a skein: a siphon above it, a vial. Any currents can be tied on, all forty-two even, while there is room — and tied threads wind just like native ones.

Opposite Springs in one skein chafe each other, and the skein turns turbulent: the smaller thread of the pair slowly goes to murk, twice as fast with a thread of Fray. Lattice holds the threads steady: a pair does not chafe while the Lattice thread is no smaller than the lesser of the two.

TideEmberLattice

A lucent skein also clears the murk of its chunk. A murky skein is a blight: it slowly clouds its chunk until the murk reaches two thirds of the bed, tina around it grows twice as fast, and now and then a Murky Glint comes out of it; it winds Murk instead of its native threads, and each native share drawn from it clouds the chunk. Clear the chunk below a sixth of the bed and it turns steady; Halo tied onto it burns the Murk away, and a Purifier nearby holds it and speeds the cure. A greedy skein gives nothing: it drinks the flux around it and swallows things lying on the ground — feed it full, and it becomes a steady skein with the threads you fed it.

A greedy skein is dangerous — the more so the hungrier it is, and there is one answer: feed it. A vial, a siphon above it, a thing thrown to it — every third of its capacity calms it by a step, and full, it is sated and turns steady. A starving one, more than two thirds empty, pulls creatures, people and things on the ground toward it from nine blocks away: weakly at the edge, and so hard by the void itself that only a sprint gets you out; crouch on the ground and you brace yourself — it pulls a third as hard. A hungry one pulls from six blocks, a nearly sated one weakly and up close. The Loupe names the step and how much more to feed it.

Hollow

Whoever the void reaches — within five blocks of a starving one, three of a nearly sated one — a dark thread reaches for, and the void dissolves them past their armor and drinks their strength: at the very edge a starving one takes a heart in a little over a second, a hungry one half as fast, a nearly sated one half a heart every few seconds. The edges of your sight darken while it pulls. It crumbles the ground around it: a starving one every few seconds, a nearly sated one every half a minute; what it eats goes into the void without a trace. Things that reach the void it swallows, and their currents go into its threads; it leaves a fallen player's things alone. It does not eat chests or devices.

A Conduit in a dry chunk takes what it lacks from a skein within six blocks — and casts at full strength, without murk. A Flux Workbench sees the threads of a nearby skein as currents of the place: a Spring the place lacks but the skein holds counts, and costs the skein two shares.

Skeins are rare: a free one hangs above the ground tens of chunks apart, more often by rivers and in swamps, less often in dry lands. The surest search is for an Elder Lumenash — a lumenash that has stood in one place for centuries: it is taller and thicker than the whole forest, glowing catkins hang from its crown, and its heartwood has wound a lucent skein from the flux of the place. The skein sleeps in the hollow of every such tree, and the slit in the trunk glows at night. Wind it out, and the hollow stays empty. Next: "The Spindle".