The Shard of Ocroven

The Shard of Ocroven is a peculiar and unique gemstone which was produced by the high arcane energies deployed during the battle known as the Eviction.   In the aftermath, soldiers of the Thaumatic Army reported strange phenomena in the air above the crater site at Ocroven: light that pooled in hollows, silence that behaved like shadow, time that fluttered backward for the briefest moment like a moth in a storm.   At the epicenter, buried in melted glass and fused steel, a single jewel was found. Irregular, roughly triangular, dark as old blood but veined with drifting gold and a blue so deep it hurt the eye, it was eventually named the Shard of Ocroven.   Its nature was uncertain. Some said it was solidified boundary-force, a piece of the metaphysical seam that holds one universe apart from another. Others said it was a fragment of a Limit Prince's throne-consciousness, one of the sensory nodes through which they perceived possibility itself. It was clearly an object of great power, whatever it was.   With great care, the shard was transported to Ralsimoor, where the Institute of Magical Analytics housed it in an eleven-fold containment reliquary in the Vaults Beneath. The Shard emitted no measurable power, but mages who meditated near it spoke of dreams in which they are other versions of themselves, locked in alternate pasts, futures, or timelines that never were.   It was forbidden to touch it since it was not clear who, or what, would be touching whom.