Touchstone 1 - Stray

Tare.
    KOTIS - An acronym for the “Agency for Ionoth Research and Protection”.
    Kuna - Supplementary memory provided by the interface.
    Lahanti - Leaders of the cities of Tare – an equivalent to a ‘mayor’ of a city-state.
    Lantarens - The ruling class of Muina before the disaster. Powerful psychics.
    Litara - One of the ships KOTIS uses to travel between Tare and Kolar.
    Massives - Ionoth of unusually large dimensions.
    Muina - A world abandoned after a disaster brought about by the Lantaren psychics.
    Nanites - A machine or robot on a microscopic scale.
    Near-space - The envelope of Ena immediately surrounding a world, full of reflections of the world as it currently is – and it’s most recent nightmares.
    Noob - A new gamer who does not fully understand how to play.
    Not happy, Jan - A popular phrase taken from an Australian television commercial for Yellow Pages.
    NPCs - Non-player characters – a gaming term for characters in a game which you are not expected to fight.
    OMGWTF - Oh my god, what the fuck?!
    Pandora - First Taren settlement on Muina.
    Path Sight - A talent for location.
    Pippin - A small animal of excessive cuteness.
    Public Space - Virtual décor visible to all interface users/anything accessible to all interface users.
    PVP - Combat in online games where players fight other players rather than computer-controlled opponents.
    Rotation - Setari missions in the Ena designed to cover Ionoth respawn near Taren cities.
    Rotational space - A space in the Ena which moves so that its gates regularly align and move out of alignment.
    Sa/Tsa - An honorific for academics.
    Schoolies - Australian highschool graduates celebrating the end of school during “Schoolies Week”. Primarily located around the Gold Coast in Queensland.
    Second level monitoring - A safety/security interface setting causing all sights and sounds experienced by the monitored person to be retained in a secure log which can be accessed under exceptional circumstances.
    Setari - Psychic combat ‘Specialists’ trained since childhood to combat Ionoth.
    Sf&f - Science fiction and fantasy.
    Shared Space - The interface equivalent of a conference call.
    Spaces - A concept used in multiple contexts on Tare, covering ‘world’, ‘dimension’, ‘area’, ‘region of the interface’, and many others, but most particularly ‘a bubble containing a fragment of a world remembered and reproduced by the Ena’.
    Stilt - A spindly-legged deep-space Ionoth.
    Stray - A person who walked through a wormhole through the Ena to another planet.
    Swoops - A variety of deep-space Ionoth resembling a pterodactyl.
    Tairo - A kick-ass ball sport.
    Talent - A psychic ability.
    Tanty - Tantrum.
    Tanz - Taren air transport.
    Tarani - A many-legged deep-space Ionoth reminiscent of a caterpillar.
    Tare - A harsh, storm-wracked world settled by Muinan refugees. The highly technologically advanced inhabitants live crammed into massive whitestone cities.
    Taren year - One third of an Earth year.
    Third level monitoring - Active observation of everything a subject sees and hears.
    tl;dr - Too long; didn’t read.
    Tola - A classification of Ionoth which have little physical substance.
    Toolies - Adults preying on teenagers during Schoolies Week/pretending to be a Schoolie.
    Touchstone - The subject of the story.
    True-space - The world, not the Ena.
    Tsa - A general honorific similar to Mr/Ms.
    Tsaile - Commander.
    Tsee - Setari Squad Captain.
    Tsur - Director.
    Tyu - A zither-like musical instrument.
    Unara - The largest city on Tare, located on the island of Wehana.
    Unco - Uncoordinated.
    Unstable rotation - A rotation where the spaces are more likely to change and bring unexpected situations.
    Wehana - The largest island on Tare, almost entirely covered by the city of Unara.
    Whitestone - A building substance formed with nanites.
    Zelkasse - A quarter of a kasse.

Character List

    Squads

    First Squad
    Maze Surion (m)
    Zee Annan (f)
    Lohn Kettara (m)
    Mara Senez (f)
    Alay Gainer (f)
    Ketzaren Spel (f)

    Second Squad
    Grif Regan (m)
    Jeh Omai (f)
    Nils Sayate (m)
    Keer Charal (m)
    Enma Dolan (f)
    Bree Tcho (f)

    Third Squad
    Meer Taarel (f)
    Della Meht (f)
    Eeli Bata (f)
    Tol Sefen (m)
    Geo Chise (m)
    Rite Orla (f)

    Fourth Squad
    Kaoren Ruuel (m)
    Fiar Sonn (f)
    Par Auron (m)
    Glade Ferus (m)
    Charan Halla (f)
    Mori Eyse (f)

    Fifth Squad
    Hast Kajal (m)
    Dorey Nise (m)
    Faver Elwes (f)
    Kire Palanty (m)
    Tralest Seet (m)
    Seyen Rax (m)

    Sixth