The Palace (magical university)

The Palace is a big, fancy but ruined palace which was built between 720 and 730. The construction of the palace was a joint venture from the most intelligent mages from all over the world. It is now floating around in space inside a magical field supporting life. There used to be a gateway through which visitors could walk and be teleported to the palace, but nowadays it can only be visited through attuned teleportation.

Construction
The palace was filled with small special channels for liquid mana which ran through the entire structure. These channels powered all kinds of magical systems like gateways, force fields and experiments. This liquid mana also maintains the magical field around the structure.

After construction, the palace was fully powered up and teleported to outer space. A gateway was left behind in the elven city of Manabel, Thaferius, which teleports anyone walking through it to the front gate of The Palace.

The mages chose to put the palace in space becacuse it would be more magically neutral there, making the magic practiced more pure.

Mana channels
The entire palace is lined with small channels most often with a diameter of about 3 centimeters. They are carved into the stones of the building about 1.5 centimeters deep. All the channels are polished and rubbed down with manaroot to make them unreactive to the mana running through them. This process also makes mana stick to it, allowing the channels to run up walls and even along ceilings. (for more information, see mana physics). ''[Meta After creation of the channels, they are hallowed with a Sanctifico Documentum spell, this spell keeps the magic properties in them and in turn keeps the channels functional. Without this spell the channels fail within minutes of creation. End Meta]''

The channels are used to distribute mana throughout the palace and power miscellaneous enchanted mechanics and devices. One of the mechanics powered through the channels, for example, is the magical field generator.

The mana channels all originate from the center hall where a big pond of mana is located.

Some channels in the palace are not linked to the central supply, these are often connected to devices that shouldn't be in constant use. These channels source mana from a small bowl carved in the stone. These bowls have a diameter of about 5 cm and are sunk into the stone half of that.

Mana channels like these are a product of the combined genious of several mages who constructed the palace. They are currently not fully understood and have rarely been replicated on Varel because of the rarity of pure enough mana for this purpose.

For more information about mana channels, see Mana dynamics

The gateway
The gateway was built in Manabel, Thaferius. It was made from the same stone and has an iron gate. It has a small bowl receptacle for pure mana and an intricate design around the arch. The mana channel carved in the gateway structure also includes a golden plate with a special pattern engraved into it to attune the transmitted mana to the same properties as the mana being transmitted by the gateway in the palace. If these properties match, the gateways connect and create a passage.

The golden attunement plate is the main component making the gateway work and is therefor extremely important and valuable. To obscure its value and mechanics, the plate was turned with its channel side to the stone and the other side was tarnished to make it look like an inferior metal not worth salvaging.

History
The palace was built between 720 and 730.

During the western war manabel was severely damaged, including the gateway to the palace which was completely destroyed. The mages, not being able to return to Varel, died within weeks after the destruction of the gateway due to a lack of food and water. To preserve the pure mana, the mages had closed off the main channels.

The palace started to deteriorate over the years, much of the stone crumbling away because it had become accustomed to the presence of mana.

Around 1300, knowledge about the palace resurfaced and efforts were made to return to the palace. In 1339, the golden plate of the Manabel gateway was recovered and brought to the high magical council of Martaforë. Four years later, they were able to reform a connection with the palace. Only a year later, they were able to teleport a mage to the palace. Mages need to be attuned to the plate and master channeling inner mana to perform a teleport using only the plate.

The palace is now partly in ruins. Outside parts of the palace are most weathered but most inside parts are quite intact, some parts are nearly pristine even. Some high mages occasionally roam the palace to research the mechanics and its previous purpose more thoroughly. Most interest is in the mana channels and how such an intricate network of channels is managed.