Text Messaging

Instant messaging via text has, without a doubt, saved lives. It allows communication between ships of a fleet, between ships and land, between loved ones far away. It's a wonder of contemporary life, and I hesitate to think what we would ever do without it.

— Shiv Moonsong

Across Argentii, instant text messaging is made possible by tele-paper and tele-ink, both made from the bioluminescent sap and rugged fibers of Lumikelp. This form of communication is known as text messaging, and the special paper and ink that are needed are referred to, collectively, as tellink.

Manufacturing

While it is common to find lumikelp washed up on any beach, such is never used for the making of tellink. In order for the subtle enchantment to work, all of the paper must be made from the same plant. Because of this, the agromancers skilled in making tellink harvest the lumikelp from as close to the root of the stem as possible. (Of course, a number of clippings are taken from the surface for the making of tellink meant to be shared between one party and one other party, only.)

The harvested lumikelp is processed, and the resulting pulp is pressed, releasing all of the glowing sap and leaving a fiberous mess behind. This mess is then rehydrated, and made into paper. Each sheet made from the leftover biomass of one single plant is imprinted with a serial number. Only sheets with matching numbers can communicate with each other, because a single plant can only communicate with itself.

The remaining sap is then processed. The sugar is boiled releasing the glowing oil, which is then distilled, leaving lumikelp syrup (which is a popular and readily available sweetener that many people enjoy in their tea) and lumikelp oil, which is mixed with a thinning agent to create tele-ink.

Tele-ink can be used on any paper, regardless of whether it is tele-paper or some other form of writing surface such as parchment, vellum, papyrus, bamboo paper, cotton paper, wood pulp paper, or even silk paper. When used on regular papers (that is, not tele-paper), it dries to its hue, but with a lasting shimmer that makes for particularly beautiful illuminations and illustrations. Furthermore, it continues to retain some of its glowing properties. These can be reactivated by expsing the dried tele-ink to bright sunlight for a time, and then viewing it in a darkened space.

For distance communication, however, tele-ink can only be used with tele-paper. When the ink is laid out, it is absorbed by the paper, and then, appears across all matching pieces of paper in that plant's batch, that is, each page bearing the matching serial number.

Access & Availability

Lumikelp is ridiculously easy to find, and often just washes up on shore. Children will eat it raw -- it has a sweet-salty taste from the sugary, glowing sap and the saltwater-drenched leaves -- and chase each other around with ghastly, glowing grins pretending to be ghosts. And, it is featured in at least one famous ghost story about Threebl's Inspiration, where a courrier ship thwarted a ship that was hunting them by painting themselves with lumikelp to appear as a ghost ship!

Related Species

• Lumikelp