Yumatch

Yumatch is a particularly rare mineral found exclusively in the desert sands of the Verestik Valley of Thalume. Specifically, it is located just on the periphery of Gorga-Riahn. The first Riahns to discover the material did so by noticing how the sand further from the Font than its immediate radius (but closer than Valley sand) seemed to glisten with an almost crystallized effect. It wasn't for many decades that scientists determined that the material was unlike anything known at the time.

Yumatch is definitively a byproduct of the water that flows from the Font and seeps into the sand on the outskirts of the oasis. But considering that it coats the sand as an almost protective layer around the particles, it would be impossible to describe it as water, otherwise, it would have surely melted. Scientists have yet been unable to explain how something like water could exist in solid form but not melt under the intense Valley heat. The best hypothesis is some chemical process under the desert transforms the essential properties of Font water.

Experimentation on the material is strictly controlled. When the first Riahns were able to extract yumatch from the sand particles, their manipulation of the material lead to amazing and terrifying results. When heating to a boiling point, yumatch can be used as an injected drug. Users reported feeling stronger, lighter, and with immense energy.

When electrically charged at high voltage, yumatch does not so much burn as it explodes. In small amounts, the material crackles. The energy that comes from the exploding yumatch is far greater than dirul. Unfortunately, it seems to render the material radioactive. The first experimenters of electrically charged yumatch received, at best, third-degree burns, and worst died of full-body cancer.