Foregone Fables Dust Guide - Glass

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. The fundamental constructs of the world exist everywhere, and so is the Dust created by ancient cultures to control them. Magic to control fire, ice and lightning exists in other magic containers, such as the Seasonal Maidens. But controlling such trivial materials wasn't enough. Humanity kept on going and creating. Other, rarer types of Dust exist across the world, some of them have specialized abilities beyond the Maidens, others appear to be byproducts or failed experiments that were cast aside.

Crystal Dust is perhaps the most esoteric type of Dust existing in the world, but is powerful of its own right. It is less common than other types of Dust and usually appears as fluid. Glass Dust crystals are rare, for obvious reasons, but much like with Water Dust, they still exist. Glass Dust is most frequently used in decoration, and due to its relative rarity, is considered a luxury among middle-class citizens.

Much like Earth Dust, Glass Dust expands into large, pure glass crystals when triggered. Similar to Water Dust, solid Crystal Dust crystals simply expand into much larger quantity. Due to glass' natural fragility, more often than not triggering the Dust causes the glass produced to shatter while it's still being created, resulting in blasts of sharp fragments. A Glass Dust bullet is able to expand into shrapnel inside a target's body, tearing it to shreds from the inside out.

Injecting Glass Dust into one's body causes it to become transparent, and as a result, nearly invisible. It also makes the body more fragile, and as a result less durable, but damaging the body in this state produces sharp fragments that are deadly to unprotected enemies. The user is able to produce such shrapnel from their body, firing them as projectiles or making their body spiked.

Glass Dust used in controlled forms, such as weapons and devices, can change the shape and color of the glass, similar to Light Dust, and create constructs such as mirrors. This Dust can be used to create glass projectiles and create objects and weapons from glass, as well as a spinning wheel of glass that can be used for transportation. The use can be extended to creating armor and barriers from glass, trapping enemies in a crystal, summoning sharp pillars and spikes of glass, creating a barrier around a target that closes in and crushes them, and creating powerful tendrils and thorns from glass. The most mastery of Glass Dust can be accumulated to creating glass mannequins in various shapes, such as humans or dragons, to use as weak but numerous foot soldiers that can endlessly regenerate.

Ironically, a rather common usage of Glass Dust, in comparison to other usages, is to create two Dust Fusions, which themselves aren't among the more popular: Obsidian Dust and Diamond Dust. Both of these are similar in function to Glass Dust, but are more specialized in different fields.

Glass Dust is uncommon, but the cultural view of it is even more scarce. Glass Dust is, like glass itself, transparent. Just as glass is invisible to sight, this Dust is rarely mentioned or referred to by anyone; People almost never talk or even think about it. Who cares about glass, after all, what is glass to fire, or even earth?

Perhaps the Crystal Dust's greatest strength is exactly that: the degree to which it's underestimated. Most people, even huntsmen, don't know it even exists. The amount of power it has, although not great, is highly useful when you have the surprise element.