Neville Baste was not a man of the people. He was a man of the gods. His interpretation of history was the following. Less than two short millenia ago, the gods of the Volcaryn Pantheon had generated human life on the centrum continent. They had done so not by the whimsical powers of ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’, and they had not done so out of the kindness of their hearts. They had run a comprehensive simulation of expedited terran evolution, and built the resultant products. The original purpose of the human being was to cultivate a world down to which the Volcaryn would one day descend. Neville did not love the gods. He did not love people either. He did, however, love the understanding he felt for his own existence. Every decision he made, he made for his gods. It was the only reasonable thing a person could do.

Neville also happened to be a very intelligent man. Had he been classically educated by his own race, he would have risen to the highest of academic stations. For better or for worse, he had been educated by a thing far wiser than any professor in any human institution. He had been educated by one of the gods themselves - a volcaryn astral called Quarius - God of the Deep. Quarius had made Neville into a powerful scryptor and wielder of thyrean magic. He had also made Neville into a resourceful scientific. Because of this, Neville had been tasked with the investigation of the Aetheric Wall. He stood before it with all of his tools and experience, and felt very out of his league. Here is what little he knew.

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Firstly, the barrier was perfectly endothermic. The aether out of which it had been made cycled its own matter with such efficiency effects of heat, force, and arcane coloration seemed immediately to disappear. Secondly, it bent light like viscous liquid. Through comparison of diffraction angles, Neville was able to discover an irregularity in aether density in the portion of the wall directly overhead. This confirmed his suspicions that the wall was in fact not only a wall, but also a dome. Lastly, Neville investigated the only substance able to pass through the barrier - water. Whomever had created the barrier had clearly done so to preserve the life inside.

The greatest discovery of Neville’s long day of testing came just before sunset. The barrier was opaque at ground level, but the sun had been visible in the sky all day long. Neville wove a thyrean scrypt to lift his body from the earth, and discovered that even when viewed from high in the sky, the barrier was still opaque. Perhaps, the reasoned, the setting sun was not really there all. It must be, it seemed to him, a radiant projection on the dome’s ceiling. Neville was sure he was missing something. He fretted on his failure to understand with such intensity that he did not notice the messenger calling to him from the ground.