For decades after the Split Bell, the Order protected Stillmere’s crystal workings and guarded the ruins at Withers Pass. It won public favor by keeping the lake roads open during the winter of White Smoke, when a crystal storm grounded ordinary boats and left several settlements isolated. The Order’s engineers made a floating beacon line that guided rescue craft through the haze. Over time, its protection became administration: the Order set crystal prices, licensed researchers, and built a network of forts across the kingdom. Its greatest triumph was the first aether-sailed airship, which crossed the mountain barrier without a conventional engine. Its defining setback was the disappearance of the old scholar city into the void. The city had shared research with Stillmere, and King Magnus’s circle had urged experiments in controlled spatial folding. When the city vanished, the Order sealed its correspondence and blamed Drexler. The public accepted that account. Years later, sightings of distorted towers and voices from the void convinced Magnus that Drexler survived and that the city could be reclaimed. The Order now stands at a crossroads: guardian of a kingdom, instrument of its king, and heir to a science that may have caused the very threat it seeks to defeat.

A fortress and research complex built around the original crystal lantern above Stillmere. Its lower halls are cut into pale bedrock, while gold-plated galleries and aether conduits rise above the water. Airship docks hang from its upper towers. The oldest sealed chamber still contains the cracked signal bell.