After I had made my preparations, I linked back to the Kurat neighborhood and met with Dr. Forberg. He had an interesting, portable D´ni-device with him: some kind of KI-encoder/decoder. He told me to put my hand with my KI into the device, programmed it, and it loaded a new Nexus-link into my KI (better said: the clearance for a new area.)
We then moved on to the Nexus, and from there to the expedition´s headquarters, a mansion at a lower part of city proper, which lies directly at the lakeshore.

By the way: In the meantime I´ve asked Dr. Forberg about the name “Kurat” meaning derogative things in some languages, and he answered, this was purely coincidental, as it was a D´ni name. So, all Estonians who read this, this name is not meant as an offense to you

It was quite impressive. The mansion was in exceptional good condition, and Dr. Forberg told me later, that they had been cleaning up and restoring it for nearly 2 years now. It once had belonged to a D´ni guildmaster namend Asheten, who had been a rich and influential individual.
The three ages that had been in Ashetens possession now are in the hands of the expedition, Risoahl being one of them.

I was introduced to some members of the expedition, was given a tour through the mansion – the architecture of that place is astounding – and then we sat down in the dining room with four other people to discuss things out.
A redhaired young woman, wo intruced herself as Alex, a certain Dr. Stejskal, two guys whos names I can´t remember, and another, curly haired, bulky man, who nearly squashed my hand when shaking it. We had a long, interesting conversation about the goals of the expedition and their achievements of the past two years, and of my possible role.
I found out, that the main purpose of Dr. Forbergs expedition was research, not restoration, though they of course had to do some cleaning up to be able to do their work.
After talking a lot, Dr. Forberg asked me, what I thought about the offer. I said, I had to think it over – but if I would work with them, then not as a part of the expedition, but as an outsider – but with full access to their ressources and manpower.
Dr. Forberg smiled, and after giving me a thoughtfull look, agreed.
In return, he said, the expedition would like to have the right to examine and research each of the ages, I would write. I stated, that I would allow that, but only on my terms. If anyone did something with/ in my ages, I didn´t like, I would withdraw my allowance at once.
We talked at least two hours more, and then said goodbye to each other.

After the meeting, a lot of thoughts went through my head, and I decided to make another visit in Tufolehn. It is a calm, peaceful place, and really good if you need some time for yourself.

I had brought a backpack with me, with my kor´nea I had begun to write in. When I was slowly walking along the beach of my small island, I watched the greenish sea, and suddenly saw something, aproximately twenty meters away from the shore, in the sea. It drift closer to the beach, and I recognized it being some sort of big jellyfish, two meters in diameter, with long, thin tentacles. It was shining in dark blue and bright red – it seems, that many of the creatures in Tufolehn are quite colorful.
It was washed to the beach finally, by the surf. I stayed away from it – didn´t know, if the nettles were dangerous – and admired it´s beautiful colors.
I think, I will have to name the creatures I discover – I don´t have a good name for this one, maybe one of my blog readers can help me out with that?

Anyway, so I was sitting there, writing, when I suddenly got a KI-mail. It was from a guy who called himself Dr. Forberg. He wrote, he was the leader of an independent expedition, and had heard of my projects from a fellow explorer. He asked for a meeting to discuss my possible involvement with said expedition. He mentioned their capacious funds and the possibilities resulting from those.

I was suspicious at first, but my curiosity made me writing back almost instantly. I agreed to meet him, and asked where and when. He answered quickly, and we agreed to meet in Ae´Gura, in front of the guild hall.

When I arrived there, a bunch of people were standing around and talking, as usual – and one guy stood a little backwards, looking around, as if he waited for someone. I approached him, and it was said Dr. Forberg. We talked a little, and then he asked me to come to a more secluded place so we could talk in privacy. He lead me through the Nexus into a hood named Kurat (which had a very interesting design, by the way – never saw anything like that in other neighbourhoods). There we used a linking book, and stood in an age Dr. Forberg called Risoahl. It was warm and damp, and a lot of birds sang. We stood inmidst a forest of giant bamboo – up to six feet in diameter, and dozens of meters high.

We talked for nearly two hours. Dr. Forberg told me a lot about their expedition, that it was privately financed by an explorer who wanted to stay anonymous and that there were more than 40 people involved, most of them scientists of different fields.

The more I heard about this group, the more I got interested – they would provide solutions to a lot of my concerns about not being able to restore or at least secure my ages and areas – they had the means which I hadn´t.
The next thing that came into my mind was – why would they need me?
Dr. Forberg seemed to know what I was thinking and told me, that they had no one able to write, at least until now. They did not find enough information on age writing, and hoped to learn it from someone, who knew it already. I told him, I was only beginning, but he seemed to be satisfied with that. If I would like to come with him, he would introduce me to the rest of the staff. I agreed, just said I had to prepare some things.
We agreed to meet some hours later in said ´hood, and I linked to my Relto.