Shane Kennett managed to activate a holografic interface, and we got access to a big amount of scientific records, made by the D’ni explorers of old.
There is much information stored in here about the age. It seems, that the age, despite being a frozen wasteland, has a lot of local fauna and even flora, adapted to the extreme climate.
I will dig into this information and post some of the more interesting bits later.
Tom Woods, another of our engineers, has made some progress in Risoahl, the age with the giant bamboo forests. He found a D’ni sawing machine, made to cut big trees, and brought it to the age – with the help of a Toosha.
I didn´t mention it before, but we now have an agreement with the Yagi – they borrow us one or two Toosha from time to time, and we deliver them food and wood from other ages (of course, we don´t tell them, were the stuff came from). We do this with care, and only after every single bit of biological matter was tested for poisons, bacteria or other dangerous stuff. We don´t want to import diseases from other ages to Yagee Mohts, after all.
The Toosha have become invaluable to us. They are capable of pulling cartloads up to two and a half metrical tons (How much is that in pounds? Sorry, too lazy to convert this right now :P).
Their calm and lethargic behaviour makes them perfect beasts of burden, even an untrained person can easily direct them.
I watched them from the valley for more than an hour – it was fascinating, how they used every ledge to their advantage.
When they finally had come down, they showed me the KI-shots. They showed an extensive mountain region. To the west, great plains can be seen, far in the distance. All other directions only show mountains, all to the horizon.
It seems, the region of Afelahn we link to is quite isolated – it would be very difficult and time consuming to climb down to the western plains.
I wonder, if I should start naming landmarks – basically, I´m the discoverer of whole new worlds, continents, seas, lakes… so I guess, it´s my right to name them *smile*
By the way, our work on the cave are finished. The next logical step would be excavating deeper into the rock, cutting rooms out of it. But at the moment, everyone is busy, and I´ve not yet thought of a good explanation for the Yagi to borrow me one or two Toosha.
Our diving team made its first trip to Ahnoto. They kindly anchored a colorful buoy at the link in spot, so any visitor can find it easily.
Their first dive lasted for an hour, and they shot a lot of pictures of the lake bed and of some fish. They didn´t encounter the huge creature I had seen before – grateful for that, I don´t want anyone munched on in one of my ages…
They brought back some samples of soil and water, to be analyzed in Asheten mansion.
I didn´t go to Ahnoto since my last visit – I have no real concept for now how to proceed with it. One of the first steps will be to anchor a boat in there, but I came to the conclusion, that it has to be more stable than an inflatable one. If a storm would occur, an inflatable boat could easily be destroyed by the wind or the heavy waves, or at least blown away, even despite being anchored. But I have to think that one over for a while, I´m pretty unsure yet.
]]>The expedition has found three ages, that had been in his possession. (One of them beeing Risoahl.)
There is an interesting bit about Asheten: He once had been married to a woman named Naila, who had suddenly gotten ill, and, after some years, had succumbed to the illness. Rumors had gone wild in D’ni about her, some claimed, Asheten had been very jealous about her and accused him of having killed her. There seems to have been an investigation by the maintainers, but they couldn´t find any evidence to proof this accusations.
Asheten had not married again, and died like many other D’ni in the Fall. The expedition had found his remains in what happens to have been his study, and some other remains (maybe his servants) in various other rooms of the mansion.
He had been 298 hahrtee old on the day of the Fall.
Though he had been a writer, no ages written by him are known yet. But if one might speculate – as influential as he was, surely he was a skilled writer.
Coincidentally, Asheten seems to have befriended another fellow guild member with a familiar name – Anesh.
Since they lived both at the same time – the late D’ni era before the fall – and they both were influential guild masters of the same guild, this is only logical.
Another topic: We have succeeded to prepare the cave on Afelahn to the state, where we just could go on with excavating, if, only if we had a bigger excavator in the age.
I think, I should talk to Alex and Noelle. Maybe the Yagi can be convinced to “borrow” us one or two Toosha.
The problem is: We can´t tell them, were we´ll take the Toosha, of course. So, how do we explain this?
And another topic: I think, I´ll keep the watery age I initially was so disappointed with. Yeah, sure, I don´t know what to do with it yet, but it is stable, it is mine, and I wrote it 
So, with the help of the Linguists (Link: http://linguists.bahro.com), I made up a name for it: Ahnoto, which literally means “water place”. It´s not a very elegant translation, I know, but I like the sound of it, and it fits. So, this is the second age written by me 
If any of you, who read my blog, have ideas, what could be done with an age consisting of a big lake with no shores in vicinity, tell me, I´d be interested to hear (or read) your opinions!
So we linked there last saturday.
I was surprised, how cool (fresh) the age was – I had expected a tropical climate. There were pine trees on the islands, a lot of long grass, and ferns of various sizes.
The village we visited lies on a rather big island, adjacent to a small bay. We were joyfully welcomed by nearly the whole village population. The Yagi are clearly humanoid, and quite similar to us. But there are some differences: They are smaller and broader built, and their heads are rounder. Their language is strange, they seem to speak very fast (I couldn´t make out any single word) and add many snarling and hissing sounds.
They are a very friendly and peaceful people. Noelle and Alex are already well known, but I was eyed curiously. Some of them touched my hands and my arms, as if they hadn´t seen something like them before (but their arms and hands are nearly identical to ours, so I guess it´s some kind of greeting gesture).
Noelle is quite fluent in their language by now, and she translated.
I got to observe the fishing techniques of the Yagi – I think, I´ve seen this techniques in TV on our own earth. They stand in a semi cycle in the shallow water and slowly direct the fish between them into the direction they want: A gap in the circle, where another group of Yagi waits patiently with big nets. When the fish have been driven into the nets, the Yagi enwrap them quickly. This technique works surprisingly well, and we were invited to a opulent fish meal that evening.
The most intriguing fact about the Yagi are their domestic animals: They have tamed a huge species of herbivore, which they call “Toosha”. They are bigger than a Rhino, but very calm and imperturbable.
They are really strong – Onsha, one of our hosts, showed us a Toosha pulling a big tree down – it didn´t seem to strain itself a lot.
I wonder, if the Yagi might borrow us one or two of these formidable beasts – they could easily pull a medium excavator!
We left the Yagi late at night. They first wouldn´t let us go, and always brought more food. Very hospitable.
That visit will stay in my mind for a while, what a great day!
And, of course, the Toosha.
Yesterday we went on with our work in Risoahl, and it was worse than the last time. We only managed to fell five of that giant bamboo stems, and it was really hard. I cut my hands open, despite wearing thick leather gloves.
Fortunately we decided to break off for the day. Shane Kennett, who led our little working crew, said he would try to find some D´ni equipment – maybe they have some faster, less exhaustive means of doing this.
I used the break to become familiar with other members of the “Forberg expedition” (it really needs an official name, one which can be abbreviated, like the DRC or SR, or TTP, or all the other cool names.)
I had a nice conversation with Alex and another woman, Noelle Belfiore, who is the expeditions linguist. They told me more about the Yagi, the first – and yet only – people of “ahrotahntee”, the expedition has encountered until now.
They seem to be a simple, but spiritual fishing community, living in the age of Yagee Mohts. They aren´t aware of the art, of the D´ni or of the terokh jeruth, and it is official policy of the expedition to not telling them if possible. I agree. It would be a cultural shock to them.
Alex and Noelle have visited them several times – they said, they came from far away (which, from a certain point of view, is true). They did research on the culture, religious believes and the language of the Yagi.
Alex again invited me to join them on their next visit, which is planned for the next week. I´m looking forward to that!
And I was able to meet B.P. and ask him about a place to sleep… told him about my problems with Relto. He assigned a room on the second floor to me. It´s small, but sufficient for me. And it is rather quiet, so I can work on my age.
]]>Then there was an elderly woman, Dr. Krista Haugaard from Danmark, who is a botanist, and Alex, whom I had met before, the red haired woman. Her full name is Dr. Alexandra Rebman-Bartos, and she´s an anthropologist.
First of all, Forberg asked me to just call him B.P., like everyone else did. Then the others made their reports of the week. Kennett explained his progress on some energy conduct in Asheten mansion and some computer problems.
Dr. Haugaard reported her newest findings about the plants of Risoahl – didn´t understand much, but one thing that stayed in my mind was, that the giant bamboo of that age (which we were right sitting in at the time) were unusual in some ways (other than the size). For example, they were extremly adaptable to conditions like a high concentration of salts – the water of Risoahl seems to be quite brackish – and standing right in the deep water of the lake filling most of the area doesn´t harm them either.
Alex told us some interesting stuff about the Yagi people they had met on one of the ages they had found. I haven´t met any non-humans except some Bahro yet, so I´m especially excited about them. I asked Alex, if I could join her next time she visits them, and she agreed.
Then the reports were done, and B.P. turned to me. He asked me, if I would like to help to do restoration work in Risoahl – especially tidying up the place a bit, cutting a path through the giant bamboo-forest and such things. I happily agreed – doesn´t sound to hard to do for me, no special skills needed
B.P. told me about their plans for the age – they would like to use it as an example and as a test in restoration. As I´ve posted before, they usually just do their research. Restoration is something new for them.
Their ultimate goal is to open the age for all explorers – but there is a lot of work to do first. ]]>