Palisade

The Palisade is an arcane barrier that protects the city of Kanara and the surrounding farmland from the sea. It was erected by the mages of Moonblossom Academy and the Ozymandias Institute in the 2370s, between seasons 5 and 6, when the entire island began to shift and sink, resulting in the city resting hundreds of feet below the ocean's surface.

## Structural Specifications

The Palisade consists of two layers: the original arcane barrier on the interior, and living slime shielding on the exterior.

The interior layer is a semi-permeable force field of similar construction to a *Tiny Hut*. It has an approximate radius of 5 miles, though it's much shorter than it is wide, being only a few hundred feet tall at its highest, with its sides nearly vertical, giving it more an appearance of a squat cylinder than a hemisphere. It produces light in 6-hour cycles, for a 12-hour "day," a pattern originally established to prevent the interior temperature from dropping too far in the night. Many citizens have adopted a biphasic sleeping schedule as a result.

The exterior layer is composed of a metallic slime colony specifically engineered for the purpose. The colony subsists on excess energy from the arcane barrier, and the vast majority of the colony remains dormant. An area near the city's port is kept permeable via careful temperature manipulation.

## Arcane Interactions

With both the slime shielding having inherited the arcane-related properties of the mirrored slime and the absorption of the arcane-hungry living current, the Palisade is only semi-permeable by arcane influence. Though such effect wasn't intentional, it's generally considered a positive effect as an additional defense of the city.

### Affected Magics

Well-established magics, such as permanent teleportation circles and the teleportation enchantments on the Adventurers' Guild tavern, function as normal except under extreme circumstances. Minor magics, such as individual *Sending* spells, experience some interference. Moderate magics, such as low-capacity teleportation without a circle, experience regular interference to the point they're considered a waste of resources to attempt except in emergency situations. Major, unestablished magics are generally blocked in their entirety, their power consumed by the Palisade.

## History

### Initial Development

When the island began to sink, it was unclear when it would settle. Some fled to higher ground, hoping it would remain free of the waves, while others abandoned the island entirely, but a great many remained where they were out of either necessity or belief that a solution would be found in time.

Standard classes were all but halted at Moonblossom and Ozymandias as students and faculty alike turned their attention to research. While many initially sought methods of halting and even reversing the island's descent, the few methods that showed promise required far too great an investment of power to be in any way feasible, and focus gradually shifted to more reactive measures.

It was a small group at Moonblossom who initially suggested that the arcane shield that had protected the city from magical attack before the Battle for Kanara might provide a starting point for a new shield that could protect them from the sea. The project quickly grew beyond this, combining theories of evocation and abjuration alongside wide-scale application and maintenance as they sought to protect not only the city but much of the surrounding farmlands from the rising seas.

The initial form took the entirety of the magical population's resources to maintain, and was completely impermeable by both physical matter and magical influence, cutting off all contact with the outside world. Within a few months, however, the Palisade's efficiency was greatly improved, and it was modified to allow magical influence to pass through it, allowing for teleportation and arcane messages to be sent in and out of the city. It was perhaps a year before the first physically semi-permeable modifications were made, allowing undersea ships to enter the port directly.

### Persisting Issues

#### Light

As the island sank deeper, less and less sunlight ever reached it, impacting daily life and threatening the longevity of the remaining farms. In the city, more streetlamps were added, the Light of Pelor lighthouse was modified to provide light to the entirety of the Temple District, existing streetlamps were enchanted to never go out, various bioluminescent plants were brought in, particularly from the continent, and it became commonplace to see magical lights of all colors decorating streets and windows. For the farmlands, various experiments were rolled out in hurried fashion, until eventually an overpowered *Daylight* spell was able to be worked into the construction of the Palisade itself, and from there, the Palisade mages were able to recreate a day/night cycle.

#### Temperature

Although the lighting modifications did a good deal to counteract the low temperatures of the surrounding environment, temperatures still plummeted in the night. Various solutions were attempted, though it was clear that maintaining the light for longer wasn't feasible due to the sheer amount of power involved. A temporary solution was settled on, to split the day/night cycle into 6-hour phases of light versus dark, rather than the initial 12-hour phases. As time went on, the people grew used to this, even to prefer it, and it became permanent.

#### Permeability

The implementation of physical semi-impermeability was not without issue of its own. While it was all but required to maintain full contact with the outside world, due to the costs involved with relying solely on magical transportation through the Palisade, it was difficult to properly cause only one section of the Palisade to be semi-permeable without the rest of it following suit, and the occasional curious sea creature managed to push its way through, often falling to its death and occasionally causing property damage along the way.

#### Environmental Effects

Due to the Palisade's translucence, much of the light produced escaped into the surrounding waters, severely disrupting the ecosystems at such depths. The full effects remain unknown, as it was a secondary concern by far until long after it was established, but strong theories were proposed that some life migrated away while other life was attracted to the light.

### Slime Shielding

#### Conception

Kai/Kaya Evers, a researcher at Moonblossom Academy working on a dissertation on metallic adaptive slimes, realized their research could have novel application in addressing many of the Palisade's issues. Their primary research included work with a quicksilver-based mirrored slime (Shimmer) and a mixed-metal liquid steel slime (Lola). Shimmer's high heat reactivity resulted in solidifying and entering a state of dormancy at low temperatures, which led Evers to theorize it might be used to coat the external surface of the Palisade, creating a solid, opaque barrier that would solve the issues of permeability to sea life and light pollution. Meanwhile, manual temperature regulation near the port could maintain the permeability to ships.

#### Research and Development

Maintaining the slime through its dormancy proposed the first issue, but they had already shown an appetite for the arcane in their original discovery, where they had consumed an unknown amount of magical liquids, and Evers eventually discovered a method of sustaining it with raw arcane energy without breaking breaking its dormancy.

Sai'a Markin, a promising student pursuing Palisade research, joined Evers in testing experimental applications of the slime shielding in late 2380, at the start of season 6. The first iteration took the form of an animated shield made purely of a dormant mirrored slime, which Markin tested in the field, with mixed results. It took a massive amount of energy to sustain, but a good deal of this was required to maintain its form and low temperature, which wouldn't be needed in the eventual shielding. It maintained its properties of arcane reflection, which could interfere with arcane influence passing through the Palisade, though this was a secondary concern. The primary concern was that its poisonous properties remained dangerous, should its temperature ever fluctuate.

Upon further review, it was posited that both the physical and arcane reflection could in fact be beneficial to the Palisade's maintenance. First, the light that would otherwise escape into the surrounding waters would instead be reflected back into the dome, thus decreasing the needed energy expenditure to maintain the same levels of light. Second, such a blatant interaction with externally sourced arcane influence showed promise of allowing the slime to passively feed on the energy used to maintain the Palisade's other functions. Even with adding the slime's appetite to the Palisade's energy cost, it still promised to drastically reduce the overall cost due to the light reflection.

Further tests of moderating the poisonous properties by combining aspects of the liquid steel slime were successful, and a small group of adventurers-turned-researchers, led by Markin, completed environmental tests of the shielding in early spring of 2381. Soon after, Evers presented the research to the council, and the project was approved for installation.

The installation process presented its own difficulties, primarily in the external threat of a living current, an elemental of leviathan proportions doubtlessly animated by the continent's wild magic that was drawn to the well of arcane power that maintained the Palisade, but was eventually successfully completed by the end of 2381, some months after the conclusion of season 6.

## Myths

### Spirits

Ever since the absorption of the living current, an aurora borealis-type effect can occasionally be seen on the interior of the Palisade during its off cycles. This is rumored to be the remnants of those who died so that Kanara could continue, especially during the city's descent and its aftermath, and to be strongest on the Day of Spirits.

From a more scientific perspective, the effect is likely a result of the occasionally uneven flow of power within the Palisade due to it functioning mostly on its own organic power instead of a steady external supply, as was true before the current's absorption. Any differences on the Day of Spirits are similarly theorized to be a result of the different pattern of power usage (12-hour light cycles instead of 6) in addition to the phenomenon being more likely to be noticed with a greater number of people awake and paying attention to such things. Rumors persist.