SHARN, BRELAND | 18 SYPHEROS, 998 YK

A Soarsled Has Appeared in Hubei.

House Sivis Faces a Communications Crisis.

Boats Are Falling From the Sky.

Three developments in the expanding artificery trade. Two dragonmarked houses implicated. One manifest zone unaccounted for.

THE SOARSLED AFFAIR

Self-Taught Artificer Crosses Gorge on Unauthorized Flight Platform

BADONG COUNTY, HUBEI. A young artificer named Song Xingyu has successfully flown across a gorge while standing on a disk of his own construction.

The flight took place October 6 in the Baren River scenic area, where Song departed from an open area near the visitor reception centre and landed on a platform inside the gorge. Local staff confirmed the demonstration, which covered more than 300 meters in approximately two minutes.

Song has also reported flights across sections of the Yangtze River and over his hometown during the recent holiday period.

The apparatus has caused considerable discussion among Sharn's transportation guilds, chiefly because it appears to be a soarsled.

A soarsled, as readers know, is a crystalline disk capable of carrying a standing rider through the air. Within Sharn's Syranian manifest zone, the standard model travels at considerable speed and responds directly to its operator's thoughts.

Song's vehicle takes a different approach.

It has ten brushless electric propulsion assemblies, each reportedly capable of generating more than thirty kilograms of thrust. Peak electrical current is estimated at approximately 2,000 amperes. Its throttle is mounted on a finger ring.

The entire machine is controlled by a man standing atop it.

This arrangement has attracted particular interest from local magewrights who previously believed that the main difficulty with constructing a soarsled was enchanting the disk.

It turns out that preventing the rider from falling off is also important.

Earlier Prototype Caught Fire

Song originally constructed a version powered by five miniature jet engines.

Each engine functioned independently. When operated together, the assembly caught fire, destroying its electrical and fuel systems.

Song later supplied the test data to a thinking machine, which identified a possible mechanism: hot exhaust striking the ground and recirculating into the closely spaced engine intakes.

The artificer subsequently abandoned the flame engines and constructed the present design, which harnesses the power of lightning instead.

The replacement encountered another problem. Small changes in the rider's posture could destabilize the entire craft.

Song addressed this using two mobile computing devices. One scrys the board's movement, while another is worn by the rider. A voice system supplies balance corrections through a speaking stone in the ear.

The pilot receives instructions to move his weight or bend a knee. The artifact assists his control of the craft. Song still performs the balancing and makes the flight decisions himself.

After more than ten days of training, he was able to sustain hovering and controlled forward flight.

Our sponsors would like us to note that a standard soarsled does not require its operator to wear two speaking devices and receive a continuous stream of posture instructions.

Further, the standard soarsled costs just 38,000 gold pieces.

Syranian Manifest Zone Investigation

The principal outstanding question concerns the source of this craft's flight capabilities.

Soarsleds are most effective inside Sharn because of the city's connection to Syrania, the Azure Sky. The manifest zone enhances levitation and flight, permitting aerial transportation systems that would otherwise be considerably more difficult to sustain.

Initial speculation therefore suggested that the Baren River Gorge might contain a previously undocumented Syranian manifestation.

However, an examination of existing soarsled specifications has complicated the investigation.

Although performance declines beyond Sharn's manifest zone, the traditional soarsled remains capable of limited flight outside it.

The standard model permits three flights per day, each lasting approximately six minutes.

Song's demonstration lasted two minutes.

The evidence therefore does not establish the existence of a new manifest zone.

The Cartography Department is disappointed. It had already prepared an expedition.

The Department will proceed with its survey of the gorge regardless on the grounds that the flight platform's lightning propulsion system might represent an entirely separate method of achieving the same result.

House Cannith has not been shown to have supplied Song with any item schema. Indeed, the inventor's publicly documented history points toward years of independent mechanical experimentation, beginning in a rural woodworking shed.

That may be the more significant development. A hedge artificer has built a soarsled-approximate flying machine without a dragonmark, a bound elemental, or any demonstrated dependence on Syranian influence.

Its current safety and reliability remain far from established. The engine fire, subsequent crash injuries, and limited public flight demonstrations give ample reason for caution.

Nevertheless, the apparatus flies.

We advise residents of Skyway to keep their windows closed until the question of import licensing is settled.

FEATHER FALL AND FOLDING BOAT COMBINED

Singapore Artificers Drop Autonomous Vessel From 150 Meters

SINGAPORE. Researchers at the Singapore University of Technology and Design have demonstrated a remarkable new approach to deploying small vessels into remote waters.

The device falls out of the sky, lands on the water, rights itself, and sails away.

It is called ALBATROSS, an abbreviation for Airborne Lander with Buoyant AuToROtating Sailing Sensor.

Initial examination suggests an attempt to combine a Feather Fall Token with the functions of a Folding Boat.

The designers have achieved this without either of the conventional enchantments.

Instead, the apparatus uses a pair of rigid wings.

While descending, these wings rotate in the airflow, producing an effect similar to the falling seed of a bronzewood tree. The rotation slows and stabilizes the craft before it reaches the water.

Once afloat, the same wings become sails.

A low centre of gravity allows the vessel to right itself, while a rudder inspired by an aboleth's tail provides steering and additional propulsion under difficult wind conditions.

The arrangement requires but three actuators and three navigation scryers.

This is particularly interesting to Sharn's engineering community because most efforts to combine aerial transport with maritime equipment have involved adding one complete mechanism to another.

The Singapore team instead gave the same physical structure two jobs. The wings that make the fall survivable are the wings that carry the vessel afterward.

Flight and Sailing Trials

The research team, led by Shane Kyi Hla Win and Professor Shaohui Foong with their collaborators, reported its results in Science Robotics on September 30.

A smaller ALBATROSS prototype was released from a height of 150 meters. It descended through controlled autorotation, landed on water, and righted itself without assistance.

A larger experimental variant demonstrated autonomous sailing between navigation points during reservoir tests in Singapore.

The larger version reached a peak sailing speed just under one kilometer per hour and operated for approximately three hours while collecting environmental measurements.

The two trials involved different prototype variants. The investigators have not claimed that one small vessel completed the entire 150-meter-drop-to-three-hour-monitoring sequence. This distinction has been entered into the guild registers; such a trial may be required for masterwork consideration.

The research team also investigated reinforcement-learning control for the sailing platform. In the reported experiments, it did not outperform the simpler rule-based controller.

Several of Sharn's more expensive enchanted items face the same problem.

An Unusual Folding Boat

There is one unresolved question concerning the item's classification.

The vessel does not actually fold.

Traditional Folding Boats compress into small wooden boxes and expand into seaworthy craft upon the appropriate command words.

ALBATROSS is a rigid, dual-purpose machine. It changes function without undergoing that sort of physical transformation.

The Feather Fall correspondence is similarly functional. Rather than activating a protective spell, the rotating wings extract aerodynamic support from the falling motion. This distinction is important for any prospective customer expecting to pack the vessel into a coat pocket.

The experimental design nevertheless accomplishes something a combination of enchanted safety equipment and conventional boats might also accomplish: rapid access to water that would otherwise require a lengthy voyage.

Its intended role is environmental sensing, including remote monitoring of water and atmospheric conditions.

Long-term open-sea operation remains unproven. Current tests have taken place in sheltered reservoir conditions, and future versions will require greater resistance to waves, currents, and severe weather.

Cliffside's harbour operators have expressed no formal interest in having unattended experimental sailing vessels dropped into the Dagger River.

We at Astral Quest Ethics consider this an encouraging development.

HOUSE SIVIS FACES UNEXPECTED COMPETITION

Independent Artificers Discover Speaking-Stone Capabilities in Common Household Components

SHARN, BRELAND. The Speakers Guild may wish to inspect its current business arrangements.

A group of independent experimenters on the Earth side of the incursion has discovered that inexpensive communication chips already contain much of the physical apparatus needed for a programmable radio system.

The discovery concerns the ESP32 family of wireless microcontrollers, which are widely used in small electronic devices.

Ordinarily, their built-in radios are configured for specified wireless communication protocols.

However, independent experimenters identified undocumented access to the underlying radio hardware.

The resulting work allows software to receive raw radio signal information before the chip's ordinary communication circuitry interprets it.

This turns compatible chips into experimental software-defined radio receivers.

Within days, other experimenters developed transmission capabilities as well.

This is causing considerable difficulty for House Sivis.

The Speaking Stone Problem

As every citizen of Sharn knows, House Sivis maintains a network of speaking stones through its Speakers Guild.

Each station contains a specially prepared stone incorporating a Siberys dragonshard. An operator bearing the Mark of Scribing can use the stone to transmit a message to another designated station.

The network supports communication over enormous distances and is one of the essential services connecting the settlements of Khorvaire.

The Earthside apparatus operates through entirely different means. It sends and receives electromagnetic signals.

The central discovery was access to the radio's raw signal samples, known to Earthside as in-phase and quadrature data. By controlling this underlying signal representation, experimenters can use the same hardware for purposes beyond its original design.

The first public reports of the discovery appeared in early October, with independent work credited to craftsmen including Espargos and h0m3us3r.

By October 13, an experimenter known as marble had demonstrated transmission using modified firmware, communicating between two different ESP32 boards using a specialized text-transmission mode. Others, including jochenhammes and z1000biker, were pursuing related transmission capabilities.

By October 14, another project had demonstrated that an ESP32-C3 could transmit a digital video signal using the DVB-S2 format. The signal remained within the chip's approximate 2.4-gigahertz radio capabilities. No actual orbital satellite was required.

On October 17, Hackaday reported the wider emergence of experimental voice, digital television, and other communication applications.

The discovery does not mean that every ESP32 device is capable of transmitting any desired signal. Different chip variants support different hardware capabilities, and the new systems remain experimental. But it does mean that a large amount of usable radio functionality was already present inside inexpensive commercial devices.

The artificers needed to learn how to reach it.

Is This a Speaking Stone?

No.

A speaking stone uses dragonmarked magic and a prepared network of receiving stations. Its reach and behavior differ from radio communication.

Earthside radios require lightning, appropriate frequencies, compatible receivers, and a usable signal path. Distance, interference, antennas, and the physical environment affect performance.

An experimental radio transmitter cannot automatically substitute for a Sivis message station connecting distant nations.

The distinction has offered some comfort to the Speakers Guild. Unfortunately, it has not offered much comfort concerning the local communications trade.

The new work suggests that ordinary devices can be repurposed to send messages through the air without a designated message station, a trained stonespeaker, or a Siberys dragonshard.

The chips themselves are inexpensive.

The expertise is increasingly public.

Some experimenters have also published their modifications and designs openly, permitting others to test and improve them.

This is an unusual business environment for an industry accustomed to controlling both its equipment and much of the expertise required to operate it.

House Sivis retains considerable advantages. Its established network provides organized delivery, professional transcription, specialized language services, and trusted documentation. Those functions do not vanish because a small transmitter can broadcast a message.

However, the discovery raises an uncomfortable question.

How much of the Guild's business depends on the service it provides, and how much depends on the difficulty of obtaining alternatives?

Our reporter submitted that question to the nearest Sivis message station. The clerk requested payment before transmitting it.

We decided to publish instead.

FROM THE EDITORS

The Artificers Are Getting Along Without Us

This week's developments have produced three exceptionally interesting machines. A self-taught inventor in Hubei has constructed a platform capable of carrying him through the sky without the established magical conditions that make such transportation commonplace in Sharn. Researchers in Singapore have combined two modes of transportation by using the same wings to survive an aerial descent and sail across water. Independent experimenters have discovered that inexpensive communication constructs can be made to perform functions previously inaccessible.

None of these devices reproduces its closest magical counterpart completely. The lightning soarsled requires enormous power, active balancing, and an operator willing to stand above several rapidly spinning propellers. The combined Feather Fall and Folding Boat remains an experimental research platform. It neither folds, fits in a pocket, nor guarantees safe ocean travel. The new speaking stone substitutes cannot yet provide all the invaluable services of the Sivis network. These are substantial limitations, and they belong in the record.

Still, the available field has changed. The mechanisms are material, inspectable, and increasingly reproducible. No dragonmarked house has demonstrated exclusive title to any of them. House Cannith may still manufacture superior flying equipment. House Lyrandar may still provide reliable aerial transport. House Sivis may still maintain the best communication network on the continent.

What they cannot reasonably demand is that the rest of reality refrain from discovering other ways to perform the same functions.

The Earth incursion continues.

The Artificers' Extra will return next week, assuming House Sivis delivers our correspondence and nobody drops another boat through the printing office.

Astral Quest Ethics

Printed in Sharn, Breland.

Earthside source register

Soarsled: JiMu News, Li Bo, October 18, 2026, independent interviews with Song Xingyu and local staff. Reporting and demonstration.

Feather Fall/Folding Boat: Singapore University of Technology and Design, September 30, 2026. University announcement, methods, and flight trials. Original research: Science Robotics, DOI 10.1126/scirobotics.aed1423.

Speaking stones: Hackaday, October 3, original ESP32 receiver discovery; October 13, transmission breakthrough; October 14, video transmission; October 17, experimental-radio roundup.

Arcane specifications: Sharn: City of Towers (2004); Eberron Campaign Setting (2004); Dungeon Master's Guide, 3.5 edition, Folding Boat.