Oh, I see now that they're just clumpy accretions of random, rusty minerals that happen to store magic, kind of like discarded iron slag, or something I'd dig up in my garden, with nasty bugs and worms living under it, instead of rare and beautiful jewels the size of pigeon's eggs, lovingly cut by master craftersmen, glowing with an inner fire of their own, and filling the very air with a magical light that makes the world a better place to live in, and inviting even the dullest spartan to covet them.
I get it now, and having gotten it, I am somehow... diminished
