Sending stones

This is a pair of smooth, roughly oval-shaped, flat pebbles, about 2″ across. Each has a silvery glyph inset into it (and the glyphs on a pair of such stones always match).

Once per day, the bearer of a sending stone may touch the glyph on his stone and speak the word “open”; when this is done, the glyph begins to pulsate with a gentle white light. At the same time, the glyph upon the matching stone also starts to pulsate, at twice the pitch of the other. The bearer of the matching stone may then perform the same action, whereupon the glyphs on both stones glow with a steady white light. Each stone may then send a message to the other, of up to twenty-five words, as with a sending spell. When both messages have been sent, or else when the bearer of either stone touches the glyph on his end and speaks the word “close”, contact is broken. Each stone can send only one such message per day.

If either stone of the pair is destroyed, the other becomes useless.