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.

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.

I was one of the few who remained – mainly working on my own ages, but sometimes I managed to pay a visit to ages like Risoahl, Resehren or even Yoshonah.

Then came the darkest day of the year 2013. On 20th of September, a small expedition, consisting of Shane Kennett, Alex, Noelle, Jack Rowe and myself, went to Nifehrehn.
We wore our maintainer suits to protect ourselves from the extremely harsh cold of the age.
When we left the abandoned D’ni outpost, we almost immediately got lost due to our compasses spinning around maniacally, which had happened never before in Nifehrehn.
As we were trying to find the way back, one of the apex predators of the age attacked us out of the blue – or rather, out of the white – and quickly locked jaws onto Jacks suit, ripping it open.
It would surely have killed him, if not for Shane, who had a D’ni stun gun with him. He stabbed the thing with the gun, and it shrieked terribly, rearing up and starting to run away. Some 20 meters (approx. 60 feet) away, it collapsed and – as we found out later – died. It seems, these creatures are extremely vulnerable to this kind of stunning device.

Jack lost a lot of blood, and the cold started to take a heavy toll on him. Fortunately, our combined efforts helped us to rescue him just in time, and then leaving quickly with our emergency books that led us back to D’ni.
Jack had to undergo massive medical treatment, but after a few weeks, he fully recovered from his wounds.
We decided not to go out into Nifehrehns dangerous environment until we would be able to protect us better.

After the accident, we played it safe – stayed in a few secure ages mostly, doing a lot of harmless research.
Alex and Noelle decided to leave the cavern shortly after the incident and wouldn´t come back until much later.

All these things happened from July to October in 2013.

The strange lack of data the seismographs did record – or, in fact, DIDN’T record – puzzled us all. But when Tom Woods, Shane Kennett and Carla Mastrelli used some of their equipment – don´t ask me, they explained it to me, but I didn´t understand more than “electromagnetic” and “field” and stuff – they found out, that there indeed are unusual electromagnetic energy flux thingymabobs (I`m sorry for the gibberish), which means, that Dasharens magnetic field is unstable and fluctuating in a strange manner.

That´s what caused the errors in our seismographs – overloaded their circuits, and so they stopped working.

I´ve heard that it was comparable to an electromagnetic pulse…

That makes Dasharen an age with:

• earthquakes
• electromagnetic – things
• dust storms
• arid desertlike environment

No wonder, the community of D’ni in this age didn´t stay there.

The status of Nifehrehn is devastating. The frost has destroyed much of the equipment, and most of the data about the age is lost. Fortunately, we had copied most of it and stored it in our computers.
Whoever did this vile act of sabotage, he or she managed to undo work of months.
It is really upsetting and unsettling to know there is someone out there wanting to harm us, or at least our work…

On the green smoke in Afelahn: When I searched the complex, I found a small D’ni device behind some crates in storage  I. I think it was this thing, that emitted the smoke somehow – I´ve given it to Shanes team. Hopefully they can determine what purpose it has.

Yesterday I finally had time to finish the measurements for the new rooms. I´ve plans for Afelahn – GREAT plans. It will be expanded greatly. One of the new parts will be the residental area I´ve talked about – some private rooms for myself, and when it is determined how many people will join me in Afelahn, I’ll add more facilities for them.

Then there will be an atrium, with stairs and light and a fountain – or an artpiece, I´ve not yet decided that.

And some more labs will be necessary.
Well, a lot of work for the next weeks.

Now, we are exploring the first part of the age. It seems to be a medium sized area, shaped like the generic “hole in the ground” garden age.

The first image data sent by critter 2 didn´t show much, besides green mist and the greenish, sandy ground. A dark rock came into our field of vision when Jack slowly drove the critter forward.

Nothing interesting up to that point – but when the vehicle drove around the rock, the first amazing find. An elongate, whitish object protruded out of the sand. After a small moment we realized it was a bone…

What we then found was more than we had anticipated. The whole area is cluttered with bones of different creatures. Some look vaguely like bones of bovine creatures, others like predatory animals. And a few – as gruesome as it is – seem to be of humanoid origin. We don´t know, if they belong to D’ni or other humanoids.

We will continue to explore the area… whoever lies there, we hopefully will find out more about them.

The expedition council approved my proposal regarding Ahnoto, and they promised me supplies, interns and tools for my work on the age.

Meanwhile, I´ve started to write my third age. I plan it to be a garden age, this time hopefully not too dry and not too moist …
My gahrohevtee become better and better. After my previous mistakes, I´m confident to at least bring the age to a successful end, so at least the book should work. What awaits me after linking in, I can only guess – the branches of the great tree are limitless, after all.

The upgrade of Critter 2 is done – the guys worked restlessly for hours, and managed to get it ready only a few hours ago.

So, now we are preparing everything for our little guys mission.
The maintainer outpost is running and ready, critter 2 is polished and eagerly awaits his… well, you get the idea.

I managed to draw a sketch – as always, please remember, this is not meant to be 100% accurate. I´m a beginner in sketching.

As mentioned, the new encasement is made of deretheni, a light but resistant artificial D’ni stone.

B.P. will link in with his mighty maintainer suit, with critter 2 in his hands. Then he will put it down, and link out again immediately.
The risk is high, and we discussed it a lot – is it worth it? What, if anybody is hurt? The gas is extremely dangerous – will the data be worth it?

Shane Kennett has designed a small receiver, that translates KI signals from other ages into ordinary radio signals, to steer the small vehicle through the age.
Because the KI signal reaches so deep into another age, we can steer it much farther than we could on earth – the small range of the radio receiver can be neglected, it is only centimetres (or inches) away from the KI-receiver.
The only concern are possible interferences from electromagnetic fields in the age itself.

Jack Rowe will steer critter 2 from a control room in Asheten mansion, while a team will take care of B.P. and his suit in the maintainer facility.

Everything is prepared… only 2 hours until we start. I will keep you updated. We should know more tomorrow.

Someone suggested to modify one of our “critters” – someone could link in with it, put it on the ground and link out quickly, while the critter could gather data without anyone being endangered unnecessarily.

Of course, the critter almost certainly will be destroyed over time – the aggressive corrosive gas will destroy most materials we know.

Interestingly, the suits materials seem not to be bothered by the gas – on the other side, if the depicted events in the “Book of D’ni” really happened that way, one of the explorers, an averonese, even stepped into a nova while wearing one of the suits – and survived, though he was badly hurt. So the suits should withstand any possible dangers, even the deadliest ones.

Maybe we can apply D’ni materials, for example, deretheni (see the DPWR-Article about this kind of stone) to the critter… we don´t really like the idea of losing one of them.

Yeah, it´s somewhat pathetic, but we grew to like these little fellows.

By the way, I think, I can show you one of my sketches, depicting Critter 01 – bear in mind, however, that my scribbling abilities are somewhat – minor. Don´t expect too much realism

Samples our scientists took from the gas sucked into the ventilation system suggest that this is a kind of chemical compound previously unknown on earth. They aren´t even sure, what elements this consists of – not really surprising, it is another age, another dimension after all.
We had had a theoretical discussion some months ago about ages and the astonishing similarities between the elements abundant there – but we also came to the conclusion, that it only was a matter of time, when we would encounter previously unknown matter that doesn´t exist in other ages. This stuff seems to be such matter.
It lost its corrosive capacity after some minutes, and is deemed rather harmless now – but we wouldn´t take a chance, it was sealed in a vacuum vessel (of D’ni origin) and brought to Resehren. In case it breaks and is contaminating its surroundings, the age can be quarantined.

It is the highest room at the moment, reaching up to the surface of Afelahn, to lead any kinetic energy of a possible explosion outwards.

Tom Woods, Shane Kennett and Carla Mastrelli led a team that installed the power marble in its encasement. The inner part is covered by nara, the hardest  artificial stone the D’ni have invented. On the outside a massive concrete layer has been added for additional safety.

The room will have a heavy blast door, as planned.

Now, all that’s left to power the base, are the wirings and control computers.

It´s amazing, what they were able to accomplish – a neat mixture of surface and D’ni technology. I do hope, it doesn’t blow up, though.

I have some more KI-shots for you. The first two are of lamp designs I used in the garage:

They are rather huge, as you can see.

Then, I added some artwork to make the base a little bit more friendly – it’s not a Picasso, but for a first try on canvas it´s not that bad imho:

There was another, big earthquake in Dasharen. Nobody of the expedition was there, but the seismographs recorded it.
Maybe the quakes are the reason, Dasharen was deserted and left alone – maybe the D’ni who lived there had enough of the constant danger and went to live in a more – convenient age.

Ah, and I forgot: two nights ago, someone again tried to break into one of the sheds at Asheten mansion. But this time, the lock – one of the secure ones we installed after the last incident – didn’t give way. So they – whoever they were – gave up and left.

Unfortunately, the video data isn’t good, you can only see dark silhouettes. But now we know, they are humans, not Bahro. They wore boots and trousers of surface design, so they aren’t D’ni either (unless D’ni trying to fool us by dressing like us… unlikely, yes, but possible.)

The question is – are they other explorers? Members of our own expedition? Looters?

I suggested to let guards patrol the area – without weapons of course, the only guns we have are the hunting rifles Noemi and Clint brought, and we don´t want to start a war down here.
But whoever they are, they won’t be successful again.

The council met immediately after the theft was detected. Teams searched the near vicinity of the mansion, but no clues were found.

This is really disturbing – until now, we hadn’t had any problems with other groups or individuals in D’ni. The list of suspects is long – from surviving D’ni over begrudging explorers to evil Bahro, everyone could have done it. Even our own expedition members could be involved.

For now, the council decided to improve security – cameras  around the mansion, and safer locks will be installed.

I’m thinking of increasing security in Afelahn as well.. at least take the linking book to a safer place. If the culprits are Bahro, of course everything we can do is in vain.

Nevertheless, there are positive news as well.

I’ve brought some samples from other ages to Afelahn, to finally start to work in my new home base, though it still isn’t complete yet.

I’d like to show you some of those samples on KI-shots:

The first image shows a “Star fruit” from Yagee Mohts. It is quite big – approximately the size of a medium pumpkin – and tastes sweet and sour. This one has been primed (right english word?) to last without rotting.

On the second shot you can see a crystal from Eder Kamonee. Do you remember our first, disastrous expedition to that age? If not, I recommend reading the old posts on this blog.

To give you a summary: The crystals of Eder Kamonee are very fragile and sensitive to vibrations – as we found out the hard way, when someone accidently hit one of them, and – well, you could say, hell broke loose on us. Luckily, most of us were only injured lightly, and the age as since been closed for anyone.

Some weeks ago, a small group of expedition members went there in medium maintainer suits, though, and took some samples. After sealing one of the crystals with some kind of artificial wax (forgot, how they called it), Tom Woods gave me this sample for my studies in Afelahn. The wax keeps the crystal from imploding or hurting anyone.

On the third picture you can see a vase we found in one of D’nis lower districts, in a devastated pottery shop. It was one of the only undamaged pieces – not interesting scientifically, but a nice example of D’ni craftsmanship. So I took it to Afelahn and put it into my lab.

Oh, by the way – I nearly forgot to mention the earthquake in Dasharen.

I wasn’t there when it struck, but Alex was. She told us, that it scared them quite a lot, and that one of the hallways broke down, fortunately without injuring anyone. It wasn’t a major quake, but still did some damage.

Keira Bracetty and her team will try to secure the structure in case of more quakes.

B.P. suggested bringing one or two seismographs to the age so we can record the frequency and intensity of future quakes. Might help us to understand the geological status of Dasharen better.