[An excerpt from the scholarly tome An Attempted History of the World]
The Crystal of the Floating Isle
Many have claimed that it was the retrieval, sometime called the Theft, of the Warp Crystal from the Floating Isle which triggered the Incursion. Fewer have claimed to have substantive knowledge of it.
As for the Isle itself, it appears on many pre-Incursion maps, but rarely in the same place32-35. It is said to have maintained an altitude of one thousand to five thousand feet, so perhaps it was blown about by the wind. Most maps describe it as roughly circular, three miles in diameter, with a pair of rivers emerging from a central spring and pouring off opposite sides, dividing the Isle in two. Whether the water then fell to Earth as a torrent is unclear. Perhaps it spread in the air and turned to mist. Some waterfalls have been observed to do that.
Most geologists believe the Anabaric Andesite Flats are what remain of the Isle36,37. The shape is reasonable; there is no other explanation for so much andesite so far from a volcano, and the rock layers beneath show signs of impact trauma.
As for the theft, even less is known. One councilwoman who commissioned the operation commented shortly afterwards:
We knew Sig Mar had sent at least one vampire to retrieve the thing, so we hired the only exalted mercenaries we could find. Both were Tzeentchians. We weren't happy about that, but what else could we do? We hoped the two of them would keep an eye on each other. Even in hindsight, I'm not sure there was a better way. We couldn't let the lich get something like that, could we?38
Sig Mar has refused to comment on the matter.
The identity of the vampire has not been determined, but the vampire historian Negletee quotes him as saying “Tigers here don't have stripes. Just one side black; one side orange. Huh.”39 Negletee fails to cite his source, or even explain how this text fragment survives, but instead speculates on how this is a sign that even then the Crystal was fundamentally a force of Order rather than Chaos.
Negletee has also not responded to my correspondence. Let us take a moment to condemn his inadequate attributions.
There also exists a lengthy description of the gem's demiplane in the pre-incursion physics textbook Introduction to Planar Manipulation Using Tensor Calculus and Lie Groups, Seventh Edition. It is credited to “a witness”:
Where the gem should have been there was a glowing golden ring, nearly two meters in diameter. It rotated slowly about its vertical axis and shot a firehose of water straight up. When we passed through the ring, we found a room nearly a hundred meters across, completely packed with warp demons. I don't know how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but a terrifyingly large crowd of demons can dance in a demiplane that doesn't technically consume space. They were all dancing disco. It seemed to be the only thing they cared about. They may have literally been incarnations of the desire to disco.
The gem floated above the dance floor. A series of pipes poured a constant stream of water on it. Where they got the water wasn't clear. Once the water interacted with the gem, it shot straight up in the air and then faded as it crossed the demiplane boundary. I think being constantly immersed in water dampened the gem's effects.40
There is one more text that may bear on the subject, albeit at a remove. This from the organizer of a magic conference shortly after fifth-level spells began to fail:
He was an Alteran, so I figured that had to be worth something. But his understanding of magical theory was weak at best. He tried to impress me with the Goo Conjuration spell he'd invented. Told me about a time when he'd specified “Grows when frozen” and “Freezes a little below room temperature” as properties, and used that to pry open rock. Which seemed clever, if not particularly relevant. Then I asked him when and where he'd done it and he got real quiet.
And I started thinking: how many Alterans can there be alive today? This must be one of The Thieves, describing how he got The Gem. Well we don't want him at our conference. He's caused enough trouble.41
As evidence of the speaker's identity, this is hardly conclusive. And even if that was indeed the case, his own honesty is far from established. Still, with the paucity of surviving sources, it is necessary to include it.
If we accept this account as genuine, we must conclude the ring was underground, and protected by a considerable quantity of solid rock. That it was buried in rock may account for how it cause the Isle to float in the first place, but this is far from clear.
Particularly lacking in these limited surviving accounts is any description of the Crystal's color. Without that, we cannot say for certain that it was the same Crystal that was delivered to Patient Zero.
The argument that it was rests mainly on the timing, with the Theft occurring less than two weeks before the delivery. Even this argument is dependent upon somewhat controversial claims regarding the pre-Incursion calendar....