Journal Log of Renath Frostseeker 04

June 3rd, 12295

Eldrin has been increasingly irritable lately, and I understand why: the time for the Embrite realm is running out. Once travelers enter, they typically have about three to four years to locate all the fragments. If they fail to do so, the Nexus won't have enough power to keep the conduit open. Eldrin believes that if we had even a small piece of the Embrite crystal here, we could carefully attach it to its plinth.

This could either extend the time or even reopen the realm if it has already closed. But right now, they've only have about six months left before it shuts. If they don't return, we're stuck here on Solaris, just as they'd be stuck in that realm. There are no spare crystals, no clever workarounds. The Nexus has to be complete with all thirteen crystals to jump from planet to planet.

More rumors are swirling, too, about people wanting to stop risking their loved ones in these crystal retrieval missions. The realms are incredibly dangerous. The fewest we've ever lost from a realm was ten, from Veridium. But Duskinite… that was the worst. Only five returned, and they refused to talk about what happened there. They now are leaders of the recovery teams, they are keeping everyone else safe and usually retrieving the most precarious fragments.