Suppressant M-R7

The coordinates had been carved into a fragment of obsidian found among the possessions of a mad cartographer in Cairo - numbers that led Seeker Dravendir to the edge of the Sahara, where the great desert met a landscape of broken stone and wind-carved canyons. Here, where no caravan routes had ever passed and no Bedouin camps had ever sheltered, he found what could only be described as an impossibility.

The cave entrance was too perfect, too deliberately carved to be natural. Its walls bore no tool marks, yet curved in mathematical precision that spoke of intelligence beyond human understanding. The passage descended at exactly fifteen degrees, widening into a chamber whose dimensions seemed to shift subtly when observed from different angles.

At the chamber’s center sat the machine.

Dravendir had seen many wonders in his expeditions - relics of forgotten civilizations, artifacts that hummed with ancient power, treasures that defied conventional understanding. But this was different. The device before him seemed to actively resist comprehension, its form sliding away from his perception like water through fingers.

It was roughly the size of a wine barrel, but its shape was neither cylindrical nor spherical - something between and beyond both. Its surface appeared metallic yet gave off no reflection, seemed solid yet occasionally flickered as if not entirely present in this dimension. Most unsettling was the receptacle near its base: a circular opening that pulsed with soft light in colors that had no names.

For three hours, Dravendir attempted every technique in his considerable arsenal. He traced sigils of revelation in the air, spoke words in lost languages but all seemed to be in vain. The machine remained utterly inert, unresponsive to any form of mystical interaction.

His instruments were equally useless. His vials of alchemical reagents showed no reaction. Nothing could be gleaned nothing beyond the machine’s maddeningly elusive physical presence.

Frustrated and beginning to doubt his own perception, Dravendir was preparing to leave when the machine suddenly hummed - not audibly, but in a way he felt in his bones. The pulsing receptacle brightened, and with no ceremony whatsoever, a perfectly round metal container materialized from empty air and dropped into the opening with a soft chime.

The container was warm to the touch and bore no markings or inscriptions. Inside, a clear liquid sloshed gently, odorless and seemingly ordinary. As Dravendir lifted the container to examine it more closely, he heard a sound like reality tearing, and when he looked back, the machine was gone. Not faded, not collapsed, not moved - simply absent, as if it had never existed at all.

Only the disturbed dust where it had sat suggested it had been there at all.

The journey back to the Umberglow Atelier was filled with puzzling thoughts. The container seemed to mock him with its mundane appearance, offering no clues to its origin or purpose. When he slept, he dreamed of vast spaces between stars and intelligences that moved through dimensions as easily as he walked through doorways.

At the Atelier, the master artisans were as baffled as their most accomplished Seeker. Every test they performed yielded contradictory results. The liquid appeared to be simple water under some examinations, while others suggested molecular structures that shouldn’t exist. It was both inert and reactive, natural and artificial, terrestrial and utterly alien.

It was a young Apprentice who first volunteered to test its effects. A single drop on her tongue produced an immediate sensation - not of satiation, but of contentment with less. Her next meal left her satisfied after only a few bites. The effect lasted for days, with no apparent side effects save a peculiar sense of balance she had never experienced before.

Word spread quickly through Veylins - The substance, which the Atelier came to call “Supressant M-R7,” proved remarkably effective for those seeking to reduce their physical appetites. Unlike crude appetite suppressants, it seemed to work on a deeper level, helping individuals find satisfaction in smaller portions while maintaining perfect health and energy.

But for Seeker Dravendir, the success of their new discovery brought no satisfaction. He spent long nights pacing, trying to reconcile what he had experienced with everything he understood about the world. The machine’s complete immunity to his abilities suggested technologies - or perhaps magics - beyond his understanding.

More troubling were the implications. If such devices existed, casually dispensing solutions to human problems, what did that say about this world in which he now stood? Perhaps there are more worlds than what he thought possible.

The obsidian fragment that had led him to the cave now sat on his desk, its surface reflecting candlelight in patterns that seemed almost like star charts. Sometimes, in the deep of night, Dravendir thought he could see new coordinates forming in its dark depths—addresses for phenomena that defied not just explanation, but the very categories by which he had always understood reality.

Dravendir cast a glance at the key to Vault V that lay on his desk.

In his journal that night, Dravendir wrote only: “What watches us? What guides us? And what other gifts await in caves that should not exist? Is it connected to... Could it be..? I need to find out, for both our sakes."

The questions persisted, even as the Atelier’s latest success brought relief to countless seekers of physical harmony throughout the known world.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​