Apart from this minor destructions, all went well. We excavated a corridor downwards, and then a huge room, which will be our “atrium” for the residential wing of the base.
Shane also used a smaller D’ni machine, which is able to cut stairs out of the rock to add an amazing stone staircase downwards to the atrium.
From this place, we will be able to dig deep into the rock and establish all the rooms necessary to live here for a longer time.

The number of expediton members is now equal to before all went down some years ago.
Most members have returned and/or rejoined the expedition now.
Some of those who stay away might have been involved with the destruction of Asheten mansion…
Since nobody on the surface officially knows about the cavern, we can´t really do anything against them – at least not legally. They are at least banned from any age or area we are researching and/or rebuilding – they cost us a lot, not only money, but also time and ressources.
Now, we have to depend on the ressources of D’ni and its ages mostly – we gather food from the ages, use more and more D’ni tools and machines, and many of us have made a home down here in the caverns on a permanent basis.

As I am writing this, Yeeshas words from her last visit at K’veer come into my mind: “Find a way, make a home!”
Well, I guess that´s exactly what we are doing.

Maybe we together, explorers, scientists, visitors – not only of the Forberg expedition, but the whole number of people down here in the caverns and in D’ni can find a solution to the big conflict that might still be going on out there…

I´ll repost the information I gave back then about this age:

“It seems to have been some kind of submarine science station erected by the old D’ni. It is some kind of pod – but a different one than those we know from “Reziksehv” – with some observation cupolas. The marine life in this age is very different from what we know – there are no fish, but some strange, ribbonlike animals, which are slowly moving through the water.
The temperature seems to be quite hot – the pod is heavily insulated, but there are D’ni scales that show temperatures about 176° Fahrenheit (80° Celsius).
How these creatures can survive this hellish environment, is one of the goals of our research there.
Our interns have dubbed them “Hadesfish”, after the greek underworld.”

Now, some years later, we know the name of the age, because we found some books of commentary about it.

Its writer, a D’ni named Furash, who was well known for having an unique and strange style of writing ages, called it “Pohiresh”.

It wasn´t open to the general public back when D’ni thrived, but only to a few selected guildsmen who did extensive research on the strange creatures of this ages ocean.

These studies have proven very useful for us and helped us understand some of the strange characteristics of the “Hadesfish” and other creatures which are similarily adapted to this hot biotope.

We even managed to bring some of these creatures to Afelahn, where we put them in one of the aquariums we installed some months ago.

The aquarium is constantly kept on 81 ° Celsius and refilled regularly with water from the Pohiresh ocean.

Unfortunately, we couldn´t transfer Hadesfish from the age alive – they died within minutes when put into transport vessels.
But we managed to catch some of the strange, red creatures we call “Red orbs”, which are round with an abrasive, scaly shell. They float around in the oceans, pushed by the currents, and tend to stick together to form huge colonies, literally being adhered to each another.
The D’ni didn´t leave a lot of information about these strange animals, and so they are a target of momentarily intense research by our expedition teams.

I plan on opening the age to the public in 2015, I know, I have announced this a few times already, but this time the age is in a state I can predict to be safe and interesting in only a couple of months, maybe even earlier.
I also will post KI-shots over the next weeks to show you how far the age has developed, and what you can expect to see.
My home base has come a long way. It started with a cavern in the rock, and now has grown to almost 20 rooms.
Looking forward to hear opinions on Afelahn soon!

By the way, the expedition also has almost regrown to its old numbers, most of our former members are back and already working again on various projects.
Yesterday, Shane Kennett, Carla Mastrelli and Keira Bracetty presented their plans of rebuilding at least part of old Asheten mansion, our former headquarters until its destruction in the year 2012.

The next big projects after Afelahn to restore to a level, where the ages can be visited by the general public, will be Ahnoto and Risoahl.

Stay tuned over the next months!

The following happened in September 2014, in my first age of Afelahn.

Since our last expedition some years ago, we hadn´t went far from the valley where my home base is situated – or better, near the mountain, were the base is in.
But on 20th of september, Clint Spano, Noemi Moots, Alex – who had returned to the cavern only one week earlier – and myself went on a hike up the valley, into the mountain range.

It was almost evening, when we finally came to a small brook, which after some hundred meters disappeared underground.
We took water samples and returned to the base.

Some days later, Alex told me, she wanted to explore the lower side of the valley, to look for the exact spot, where the brook came out of the mountain again.
I had some work to do on another of my projects, and so Noemi went with her.

When they returned, they brought some really good KI-shots with them – they indeed had found the brook again, only now it was a river, more than 5 meters wide and at least 2 meters deep.

When we sat in my office, discussing their findings and examining the pictures on our KIs, I came up with an idea.

I dont know, if you, dear readers, remember my old posts about the so called critters, our small, remote controlled vessels, some on wheels, some flying – and some floating on water.
One of the latter, critter 4, is stable enough to withstand the currents of a fast flowing river – and so we decided, to give it a try and explore the river downwards by letting poor little critter 4 be carried away by the water.

We realized, that we almost certainly wouldn´t be able to retrieve the small vessel, but at least we´d get a lot of interesting shots from the downhill part of the mountain range.
And so we did.

The camera that was built into the critter showed us, that beyond the part of the river that we could see there was a section with dangerous rapids – the critter was flung from one side to the other very fast and violently, but miraculously, it survived the harsh voyage, until it reached calmer, slower currents. It was not until then that we saw the rocks part way to let us watch in astounishment, as we saw a huge, lush forest with big trees, long, green vines and big, almost three meter high ferns. A little bit it reminded me of Yagee Mohts, but it was even cooler, and even more moist.
We hadn´t expected such vegetation after having experienced only the harsh, cool and barren mountain range.

Critter 4 finally came to a halt, when it hit a big root, that grew into the water in a big arch. We tried to get loose, but to no avail.

We decided to shut down Critter 4, to spare some battery power for later.

All these pictures and film material will need some time for examination – we still aren´t done with it five months later!

Chances were that in a few weeks nobody would be around any more.
I had big doubts myself about staying down in the caverns, but I had invested so much work and time, that I decided to stay, whatever happened around me.
Then, in march 2014, surface issues forced me to abandon my team for some weeks, spending a lot of time in my home country of Austria to sort things out.
I finally returned to Afelahn in June, only to find the age deserted. Everyone had left. I tried to contact some of the other groups, but no one answered. It was as if D’ni had once again died.

From my previous experience, I was sure, that D’ni finally would revive again, like it had again and again – still, a dark spot of doubt lay on my soul. What if nobody ever would return? What if D’ni was done for good this time?

I lost motivation. Many of my projects came to an abrupt halt. I locked away the books I still had, with the exception of Afelahn, which I visited sporadically.

Then, in september 2014, when I once again browsed some of the explorers forums, I read an announcement by some former team members of the Forberg expedition. Funding had been secured again, scientists, workers and explorers from the former team returned at a fast pace, and projects were restarted, continued and begun.

Euphorically, I packed my stuff, told the surface goodbye once again, and returned to D’ni.

It wasn´t for the first time, but it felt different – hope, and a feeling of determination were stronger and more urgent than ever before.

Work in Risoahl is nearly finished – the age will stay private for the time being, though. The expedition has decided we need a refuge, a recreation age only accessible by us.

My personal opinion? I don´t think, areas and ages should be claimed by individuals or organisations – they should be open to all, if they are safe enough. But the council has decided, and I can´t argue with that.

My own ages, Afelahn, Ahnoto and the third age I´m writing (without a name yet), will be open to all, that´s for sure.

Again, we found traces of strangers in some of our ages. Someone has access to at least seven ages. They stole equipment, food, and even sabotaged some of our projects. Who are they? Why are they interfering with our work?

All we´ve found out, that they are humans, surface dwellers from our very own earth. Their motivation is still shrouded in mystery.

So, thanks, guys, it was a real pleasure!

Didn´t expect it, my birthday was over a week ago – they managed to keep it a secret, even when they congratulated me.

Well, back to work. I still have unknown ages for you to present, plus a bunch of new ages we found over the last months.

I will gather informations and post more about them the next days and weeks.

We´ve decided to take countermeasures – using mouse traps didn´t work, so we used rat poison, but they seem to be to smart to take the baits we used.

So we did it the hard way – cornering and catching them with nets and brailers (? right word?).

Managed to catch two dozens of them, but judging from the chirping sounds all over the place, there are much more.

I guess, I will spend the next weeks like this…

In the meantime, the council decided to close Dasharen for everyone. The age is deemed too dangerous to stay there for longer than a few minutes. This means, our research of the age has come to a sudden hold.

In Nifehrehn, we are making progress again, albeit slowly. The sabotage had destroyed much of the equipment. Shane and Tom Woods managed to replace and substitute some of it with similar devices from other ages, but some of them can´t be replaced.

The rodents in Afelahn have spawned quickly – at first, there were one or two – now, I estimate their number about a dozen – and they are EVERYWHERE. Had to bring my empty books to Asheten mansion – they nibbled on them and destroyed three.  I´ve instructed the expedition personnel to be careful when visiting Afelahn, so the “plague” doesn´t spread to other ages. We´ve set up mouse traps, but to no avail as of yet … it seems, they are too cautious (or too smart?) to get caught.

We´ve started work on various new ages – most of them are in a very early state of being surveyed, but maybe I can provide some information over the next days and weeks.

Dasharen has proven to be one of the most unstable ages we have access to. Earth quakes have happened a lot over the last weeks, and one time our team was barely able to leave the age without being hurt.

The council will decide tomorrow, if Dasharen will be deemed “unsafe” or not. B.P. is for it, while others are strongly against it… they say, there is so much to learn in this age, that the risks are worth it… I´m not so sure. Is anything worth risking anyones life?

I´ve been busy with a lot of things, and finally found time again to keep you updated.

One of the worst things that happened was the theft of one of our Dasharen linking books. It happened two weeks ago, when B.P. brought some linking books to a conference. When he packed together after it had ended, he found the book missing.

So, someone who has access to our conferences must have taken it – unfortunately, nearly all of the expedition members took part in this particular presentation.

Further investigations pending.

About Dasharen: Tom Woods and Shane Kennett have devised a theory about the “big blast” that happened some months ago, when our powermarble experiment exploded rather spectacularly. They suspect the strange electromagnetic fields to be responsible for the energy fluctuation that caused the explosion. So, we  have to be careful with bringing energy devices to this age in the future…

Ah, by the way: I´ve brought some unexpected guests to Afelahn without even noticing.

We were watching animal life in Risoahl, our giant bamboo age, and somehow they must have gotten into one of the bags I had my equipment in.

When I had returned to Afelahn, I heard some chirping sounds – at first, I thought the source of the noise to be outside of the base. But when I moved, I could make out it actually was inside… an unsettling feeling, you know, especially because the creatures in Afelahn I´ve met yet are not very pretty or pleasant. (e.g. the lobsterpede).

Only after I found bite marks on a sandwich I had left on my desk in my office, I knew it had to be some kind of rodent.

Now, I´ve searched through the whole base, but didn´t find anything, albeit hearing these noises from time to time. A least it seems to be smaller than a rat, according to the bite marks… maybe some kind of mouse? Where could it be hiding?