From the Ether Lexicon:

  What is the Ether Lexicon?

  The ever-expanding, constantly-updating source of all Fae knowledge and advice. Consider it the Fae equivalent of the world-wide web, unlimited by distance or the barriers between dimensions of reality and the many realms. [See: entry on realms, Fae and Human, as well as Dungeon and Nightmare dimensions] This is also the residing place of the Ether Orchestra, where the music is influenced by the mood and physical condition of the listener. Quite often without their consent or cooperation.

  [Large portion of material redacted here to spare the brains of uninitiated Human readers from imploding from the sheer philosophical and rhetorical weight of history and theory and the Fae equivalent of physics necessary to explore the history of the Ether.]

  The simple explanation is that the Ether is energy. Actions and words involve energy, and energy is not destroyed. This is the first of the google-plex of Fae laws of thermodynamics. Whatever is done and said is preserved, because it's energy. Magic not only uses energy, but when it is performed properly, it generates energy.

  The buildup of that energy over the centuries and then millennia created the multiple, interwoven bandwidths that form the foundation of the Ether. This energy, however, remained ephemeral and out of the grasp of all but the oldest and most powerful Fae, the original possessors of eclipse-level magic [see: entry on eclipse-level magic and the drawbacks and limitations and requirements for taming it].

  Out of the grasp of 99.9999% of the Fae population, until the accidental creation of the first doorway between realms. Those who stepped through the doorway to other realms experienced an adjustment to their magical sensitivity, in effect clearing the gunk out of their magical eyes, ears, noses, fingers and tongues, allowing them to see, hear, etc. in infra-magic. [See entry on infra-magic] Once that was accomplished, the ability to sense and tap into the Ether became fourth nature for most Fae. [Note: several generations of experimentation and theorizing and practice were required before this ability became third nature and then second nature.]

  The first doorway between realms was a blessing, because enough careless idiots among the Fae had made enough mistakes or caused enough trouble through badly-woven magic that Humans had decided the Fae race wasn't just odd, but dangerous. The Fae needed a place to flee to and hide, when they didn't have enough illusion magic at their fingertips to hide their pointed ears and other giveaways of magical abilities, such as sneezing or blushing in multiple colors, or giving off sparks when excited or furious or afraid.

  Most Fae communication passes through the Ether, but because of numerous accidents with magic over the millennia, and the habit of storing large amounts of personal material in the Ether [what Humans quaintly refer to as N-space] while traveling or simply to keep Fae homes uncluttered, transmitters and receivers are required to ensure clarity of signal and control. Talking directly into the Ether allows anyone and everyone tapping into the Ether to hear what is being said or shared. Scry globes are the technology of choice for ensuring privacy and no warping or loss of data.

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  Badly woven spells continue to bounce around the Ether, interrupting transmission and even travel. The Ministry of Ether Cleanliness and Readjustment was instituted during the reign of Queen Floviannella XVI to reduce the accidents that occurred when travelers in the Ether encountered various magical trash.

  The Ether Lexicon came into being when the Fae Ultra-Dimensional University was established and the many instructors found it easier to store their vast libraries and trunks of personal journals recording their magical studies in the Ether. To encourage sharing of information and hopefully avoid the many mistakes that beginning practitioners of magic have a tendency of repeating generation after generation, all these volumes of memoirs and data and guidebooks and maps and other means of storing academic research were compressed into one volume and anchored in the Ether. Then when the committee had rested several months and recovered their strength, they wove an impenetrable and unbreakable spell allowing full access to that information. That spell, of course, had to be modified almost immediately, when the first several people who accessed the newly formed Lexicon narrowly escaped being crushed by the thousands of books and scrolls and tables emergiong from the Ether into their studies or workrooms. While the scholars escaped death, they couldn't escape serious physical harm and the utter destruction from within of their homes and large swaths of the surrounding neighborhood. Fortunately, Fae have always had a tendency to build enormous houses surrounded by vast tracks of land filled with gardens and ponds and orchards and mystical forests. Neighbors lived so far apart that only one neighbor's home was destroyed in the resulting destruction, and this resolved an ongoing feud, several decades old, regarding the boundary line between the two properties.

  Also, once the creators of the Lexicon had time to think, they realized that there would come a point in time when some Fae would commit actions that,, if not evil, were unwise, and they would need to be denied access to the unlimited knowledge stored in the Ether Lexicon , most likely to help them escape their punishment, in whatever form. [See: records of the punishment and exile and shrinkage of Maurice of the House of Perendraecia, when he was exiled to the Human Realm for two years with limited magic and shrunk down to five inches tall. See: Divine's Emporium and the companion entry: Angela, proprietress of Divine's Emporium, and entries on the odd Human town of Neighborlee.]

  The interwoven spells governing the physical aspect of the Ether Lexicon and access to its stored knowledge was rewritten, and over the following centuries, refined as different circumstances demonstrated the need for tweaks and adjustments. Currently, the Ether Lexicon can appear as small as a mass market paperback or as large as several volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica stacked on top of each other, depending on the strength and skill of the person summoning the Lexicon and the amount of knowledge being accessed.