The Wlak Detector

The profession of SandBending is illegal and carries the death penalty. However, the SandBenders were notorious, and almost always avoided capture. No one knew what to do about them until the Wlak Detector was invented. This piece of technology, though now of not much use, helped the Hunters of the SandBenders deal with the threat and resulted in the almost complete eradication of SandBenders. Though some people still follow the profession, the numbers are not like before. The Desert Police are ignorant about it.

Utility

The Wlak Detectors detect the metal Lanhaf, which SandBenders use to make pendants and daggers. It was considered a sin to remove such a pendant. Only SandBenders wore them, and only they knew how to make the metallic alloy. So, if you pressed the button on the detector, it would detect any Lanhaf in a radius of 20 kilometres. It was mainly used to find SandBender bases, where the sensors go haywire, and SandBender spies.

Manufacturing

The detectors were hand-crafted, since there was no machinery at the time that dealt with Lanhaf-related technologies. They were hand-crafted by a specific group of scientists headed by Andrea. It took about 25 days to manufacture one detector, which was why there were so few. Only one detector survived till present times, and is on display at the Museum of History in Generoasis.

Inventor(s)

Andrea Hortis Wlak (then Chief Scientist of the Desert Kingdom)

Access & Availability

The device was freely available to any person in the Hunters of the SandBenders (now the Desert Police Department ). However, these detectors were hand-crafted and hence were made slowly. This led to huge delays in receiving the detectors.

Complexity

The device was not complex to use: it required no charging (since it was solar-powered) and to get a reading, you simply had to push a button. However, you had to be trained to understand its readings.

Discovery

The Wlak Detector, named after its creator, Andrea Wlak, was invented by her in 989. It was made for the detection of Lanhaf, a metal used exclusively by SandBenders. Only they knew how to make it. SandBenders used this metal to create their pendants and daggers. It was considered a sin for a SandBender to remove his/her pendant, and Wlak used this to her advantage when inventing the device. The device was invented after a confession of a SandBender under questioning. He revealed the secrets of the metal, how to make it, and what it was used for.