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!

Of course, I took one, and already tried it out in my small basin in Lab I.

I put my Tufolehn sea urchins and a conch in, and took some shots.

The quality is comparable to KI-shots – those cameras should do a good job when mounted on our underwater critters.

Our critter in Unknown age 03 has brought a lot of new data. Mostly, it confirmed what we knew already: the green gas is highly corrosive and poisionous, and there are lots of remains of animals in the area we´ve explored yet.
Fortunately, the bones we thought to be of humanoid origins seem to be animal bones as well.

We don´t know anything about the origin yet – is it natural or artificial? Even a weapon? We have no clue. Further research will be necessary.

When they ventured a little deeper into the forests, they suddenly found the small carcass of an antilope.
First they didn´t suspect anything unusual, the age is teeming with wild life, including some really nasty predators.

But then they saw, that someone – someone with a knife – had skinned  and disembowled the animal.
So that means, that someone else also has access to Yateesh, and uses it as a hunting ground, just like we do.
Could these be the same people who stole from us before?

Tubby, my Toosha, is sick since he ate some berries in Risoahl.
He had been used to pull down some of the most sturdy giant bamboos when it happened. I really hope, they were not venomous …
We don´t have a veterinarian with us yet, so I asked Dr. Shingler, one of our zoologists, to look after him.

As I looked through my supplies and tools, I stumbled over a small crate with the Alitnee eggs I had gathered and prepared months ago.
I decided to put them into my home base, for everyone to see.

Because Afelahn will still need some work before the grand opening, here are some KI-shots of the eggs.
I might add some information about the different species the eggs are from in the future.

In Afelahn, we excavated two more rooms: the aforementioned control room, and a huge room I plan to … well, I guess, this one will stay secret for the moment I think, you will really like this one, and so I won’t spoil it for you.

The second thing to mention about Afelahn is, that I made a decision regarding harboring other people in the base. I will add living quarters and all the other stuff needed – the base is growing still, and I have a lot of ideas for future expansions. If the base really is going to be as big as I imagine, there will be plenty of room for other people to do research.
I am amazed to see what Afelahn has become until now, and I think, there will be a lot more.

They are badly needed, we work on various ages already, and our teams are far-scattered.

Now the expedition consists of more than 80 people.
B.P. held a little speech yesterday in front of the staff in Kurat hood, and suggested, that maybe it was time to move to another, bigger place – Asheten mansion is big, but there isn’t infinite space.

Surprisingly, he approached me after the speech and asked, if I could house some of the expedition members in my base in Afelahn.

I told him, that I haven’t planned it to have bedrooms, kitchens or bath rooms, it is planned to be a working place, not a place for living, after all.
He asked me to think over it.

I’m not sure… the layout of the home base doesn’t allow much comfort.
On the other hand, it would be nice to have company here while working on different projects – and even a bedroom of my own. We’ll see.

Speaking of Afelahn – work has speeded up amazingly. We are almost done with the power room, and have added three more rooms, all of them in one day.
The first is a staircase that leads to a first floor, through a door in Lab I.
Shouldn’t have brought the artwork here so soon, it’s covered in dust right now…

I think, wooden stairs would fit best here.
The second room, at the first floor, is a “waiting room”. Here people can wait and relax, while I’m working in my office (the third room, connected to the waiting room with a small stairway.)
I plan to have some couches, carpets and plants here.

And my office – this will be my own, personal space for writing and stuff. I’ve thought of breaking through the floor and adding a glass floor, so I can watch the garage from up here – not so sure about that, though, because I’m suffering from vertigo, and I don’t know if I could ever be fully relaxed while sitting on a see-through floor…

Maybe I’ll use the idea for a different room.

I plan to excavate another room near the power room – some kind of control room, where I – or someone who is keen with engineering – can control and adjust the machinery and power grid system of the base.

The powermarble is a enormously powerful energy source, that opens a lot of possibilites for future additions to the base.

I’m so amazed to see it all come to fruition – all the work, all the planning and learning – now everyone can see our accomplishments!
Well, not everyone, yet. I’ve decided to postpone the opening of Afelahn to the public – there is a lot of work still to be done, and I want to be sure everyone enjoys the stay (and is safe from any dangers).

Gosh, I just realized I haven’t provided any KI-shot yet… let me see, what I can show you.

There, another of my lamp designs, used for example in the link-in (or entry) room:

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.

First, I´d like to show you a sketch of the lobsterpede I did, when I had the opportunity to watch it again. This time it didn´t see me for a while, so I had time to sketch it.
This creature seems to be some kind of crustacean or insect – it is land-dwelling and breathes air. I estimate its length about 3 feet (roughly 1 meter). It seems to be harmless, albeit ugly, and living near the cave which leads to my home base, under a big rock.

I´m not very good in drawing, so this sketch isn´t 100% accurate. But I think, you can get a nice impression of the creature, and why I´m keeping my distance when I meet it

Next, I´ll show you some overview shots of my home base.

First, the link-in or as I call it, “Entry room”.

If you remember the shot I showed on this blog some months ago, you will recognize the changes. I installed a new lamp, with a simpler but more appealing design, added some carpets (to welcome my guests), and some signs and information.

The following shot shows “Lab I”, which also serves as a room for a small exhibit of my research and accomplishments.

This is the “Garage”, at the moment the biggest room of my home base. It has a huge door that leads to the outside of the age (not seen in this pic). As you see, it is also meant to provide space for big specimens to be researched – the tree is a species of pine tree from Yagee Mohts, brought to Afelahn with the help of a couple of Toosha. The lamp in the left corner is a design I did with a little help from Tom Woods. Did I mention that I enjoy designing lamps?

This is “Storage I”, a – storage room. You can see the door leading to it in the former picture (to the right of the lamp.) It is currently not used, most of my equipment ist stored in Asheten mansion still, until the age is ready.

This is Lab II, primary used for experiments with bigger plants.

At the moment, there is only one species here – the Dasharan desert plant I´ve mentioned some months ago. I´ve changed the soil since then, because the plant didn´t do well with the former variant. Now it is more desertlike, and the plant seems to enjoy it.

The last KI-shot I´d like to share with you is the huge door I mentioned before, with me standing besides it for size comparison.

It needed a lot of work to install this door, I tell ya…

Hope, you enjoyed the KI-shots – there will be some more incoming in the next days.

It is a very beautiful and relaxing place – but beware, if you ever visit it, don´t forget your sunblock. It can be quite hot sometimes, especially when both suns are visible at the same time.

Well, since nobody cared to solve the riddle I wrote last time, I guess we can call this experiment a failure.
For those interested in the solution, here it is:

The riddle was: “I am not sad, but crying silently all my life, I have no feet but stand, until one day I’ll fall.”

The solution: A weeping willow.

Now to something completely different…

Work on Afelahn has come to a halt recently, because we are waiting for some tools being prepared since months. These are ancient D’ni tools, mainly for excavating small openings for pipes, energy conduits and data cables. Until we have these tools, we can´t finish the important installations in the home base.

I´ve thought about letting people in already, but it is still a place under heavy construction, so I think, it wouldn´t be too satisfying for people to visit. Maybe I can provide some KI-shots for you, so at least you can see some more details of my home base.

As you can see on the KI-shot, it has no leafs, so our guess is it doesn´t need any photosynthesis to grow. I called it a “plant”, but it could be a fungus, too, or something else entirely. Future examination will be necessary.

What we know is, that it stores a lot of water (like many desert organisms do) in its bulbous stem (or fruiting body).
If anyone would like to do some research on this plant/fungus/thingymabob, you´re welcome!