The economy of the falling-down place runs on memories. While some memories coalesce into pearls as they pass into the plane, most memories are harvested from newcomers. Wherever the planar fabric wears thin, scavengers gather to glean loose memories and catch incoming goods and people. Raiding parties might slip through under the guidance of a particularly potent captain, to grab anything or anyone they can reach and slip back with their cargo.

Newcomers are often taken to pearl houses for processing. There, skilled appraisers called pearl divers peruse the subjects’ memories to determine their value, and remove choice items and memory pearls for separate sale. The remaining individuals are then sold into slavery or, if there are no interested parties, rendered into pearls and sand. Anyone looking for servants, interesting news from terra firma, or fine memories will frequent the finest pearl houses.

While any drifter can peruse and extract memories from a non-native, pearl divers are the masters of the arts of memory. Some specialize in reconstruction, using the subject’s own memories as building blocks to create better servants, allies, and assistants. The finest among them twist and recombine memories with such finesse that they can create custom memories. Such manipulations produce an awful lot of sand, particularly among less-skilled divers.

Part slave trader, part information broker, part fence, pearl divers are among the most influential denizens of the plane of entropy.