Myth Tech Device #4: The Read Screen

Myth Tech Device #4:

The Read Screen

Ah, cellphones. What would we do without them? They’re simultaneously an essential need and possibly a death knell to the human attention span. Twitter scrolling takes up far to much of my time - time I could spend writing or making more Myth Tech devices. What you see above is Kisharia’s answer to the cellphone: a Read Screen. I designed it to take the form of a scroll in the interest of having it blend well with TWO’s High Fantasy theme, but the functionalities are similar. Those little crystals, called ‘Wonder Crystals’ (these are everywhere, practically), are essentially arcane divination crystals. You can think of it as like enchanted quartz - which in traditional magic has many divine qualities. Arcane Sorcerers, who belong to the Mind Magic domain, use these smaller crystals to create an illusion that functions similarly to a cellphone. The illusion is called ‘S.M.A.R.T.’: the ‘Social Market and Recall Telecommunicator Illusion’. This is a minimally invasive illusion that is casted into the minds of pretty much anyone who interacts with these screens, allowing them to almost ‘psychically’ connect to someone via the screen. The illusion is further circulated by what are called ‘Staff Lines’ (power line equivalents). These Staff Lines transmute the many variations of the illusion, as well as other illusions, through an established circuit around any given settled area. You can’t see someone’s face or ‘facetime’, as it were (that’s another device that will be featured in either Book 3 or Book 4 - I haven’t decided yet), but twisting the crystals alters the illusion slightly, allowing you to message someone like a good ole fashioned text, access the market (fantasy Amazon), get a map-wide layout of your general location, and access the Town Square: a forum for citizens to participate in collectively (social media). These are its basic functionalities.

For those wondering, you write on the screen by either scribbling on it with your finger, or closing the handlebars closer together and using your thumbs (texting!). The screen itself has a slight warp effect to it, which is generated by the metal bars as magic circulates through it. If you had this screen in front of you, and touched it lightly, it would ‘bend’ around your finger, slightly, making it easier to write on. You can, however, stick your hand through it as well, and it won’t really affect it, since it’s still technically an illusion (if you want to use the term hologram, go for it, but that’s a little more science-fiction. Holographic is a very accurate descriptor of what it would be like to interact with one of these).

One last thing. You may be wondering: who’s casting the illusion? How is it maintained? And while I’d love to give you the answer, now, that unfortunately will be explained by another Myth Tech device in the future.

I’ll give you a hint: they’re spheres.

This is one of my favorite Myth Tech devices. It actually was the very first Myth Tech device I ever made (almost 8 years ago now), and the first I also understood in its totality.