Synopsis: Shards of Dust

Nexus City is a subtropical melting-pot of culture, magic and technology. Spirit-shrines and wizard schools are found alongside machine shops and aerodromes. The city supports an uneasy mix of urban mysticism and modern steam-powered industry.

Nineteen-year-old Jaylia is a distrustful street-wizard determined to re-write her past. After three years in the city, she still feels like a stranger to it. She wistfully imagines her dedicated study eventually taking her far away from here. One day she will be whole: a powerful wizard worthy of fear and awe. One day he will be proud of her.

While attempting to infiltrate a long-abandoned archmage's laboratory, Jaylia meets an unlikely group of liberationists, determined to reform the treatment of mentally and magically afflicted individuals. As she becomes unwittingly involved in their adventures, Jaylia discovers the darker side of their apparent good intentions, and sees the potential for using their new asylum for her own selfish interests.

Ultimately, she risks her sanity, and the good opinion of those around her, to manipulate forces of life and death and set right her perceived personal injustices.

'Shards of Dust' is a story of how loss can transform someone, and explores concepts of alienation and redemption.