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August « 2010 « Rabenschwinges Cavern blog

Archive for August, 2010

Asheten mansion

Continuing my report about what happened yesterday:

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?

Opportunities

Today I was sitting in my Relto, shivering (I got me a cold, it´s really not the best place to work…) and writing into my first kor´nea. My gahrohevtee become better, but my progress is slow.

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.

First trip

Just came back from my first trip to Tufolehn. Well, it is an interesting age, at the same time it is very minimalist.
If I understood the book of commentary correctly, this is the typical style which Anesh wrote in, and it was appreciated by many (including Tumak).
I put on my maintainer suit (don´t ask me, where I got it from) and laid my hand on the linking panel.
The area I linked in to was a small, flat island amidst a vast, green ocean. The sky and the sun looked quite similar to those on earth.

In the shallow water around the island, there were strange, round creatures – maybe invertebrates – formed like little, green balls with red spots in various sizes. At least think those are animals, can´t tell for sure. Other than that, I didn´t see any animals or plant life. I heard no other sounds than the ocean surf.

There is another, bigger island in the near vicinity of the first one, but I chose not to swim over to it before the basic tests – maybe the water is acidic or poisonous, I´d rather find that out the comfortable way.

I´ve taken some samples of soil and water and plan on coming back soon. For now, I´ve got a lot of preparations to make for my first book, my first age.

(edited to give more details on my visit)

Tufolehn

I´ve returned to the general area where I´d found the book of commentary. The house, where it had laid in, was in good condition, and so I searched it inch for inch.

I found some notebooks, appearantly written by Tumak, so I suppose, the house must have belonged to him.

I quickly read through the notebooks – most of the stuff was not very interesting – but then I found a part, where Tumak mentioned a secret room, where he had the descriptive books he had researched! I suddenly felt exhilarated, and looked for an entrance.

Finally, after two hours of examination, I found a secret lever, which opened a door behind a bookshelf. There I found the aforementioned secret book room – and a leatherbound tome, with the name “Tufolehn” written on it in D´ni letters.
A descriptive book!
My hands trembled, when I took the book from the place it had rested for hundreds of years.

I opened it slowly, and there it was, the linking panel, showing a bright, amazing panorama.

Now I´ll have to visit this age – see it for myself!

Writing vs. Restoring

I´m just a single person. Obviously, I know, but that is what came into my mind today, when I thought about restoring places written or built by the D´ni.

It´s a great task to do all the restoration work – I´m not very good in handcraft, technology or translation. So when it comes to tidy up a place, so that explorers can visit it without a wall collapsing on them (there, I told you I would bear that in my mind for some time!), I feel overstrained with all the work needed to accomplish that.

So I fear, I´ll have to stick to writing my own, new ages until I have a solution for that.
On the opposite, I won´t be able to do much restoration on my own ages as well, if needed… this is really concerning me. How could I open an area, which I couldn´t make safe enough for people not getting hurt?

I´ll have to think this over.

Ink breakthrough!

Finally! Today I made another trip to the city proper (still a little dizzy, so I took it slow).

I tried my luck in a district which is in a much better state than the other ones I´d visited before.
After a short time looking around, I found a house with the symbol of the guild of ink makers over the door – jackpot!
It seems to have been a storage for this guild. The door, which was very big and made of a heavy, stable stone (maybe even nara?) was broken, probably during the fall.

I went inside, always looking for falling walls (I´ll do that for some time, I fear …), and found a room filled with shelves. On each shelve there were dozens of big vessels, sealed, each with the symbol of the guild of ink makers on the front.

I decided to open one – and it was filled with a dark liquid – ink! And not any ink, if I´m right, but relehm!

Some of the seals of the vessels were broken, and the ink dried, some of the vessels were empty – but nevertheless I´ve now a really big supply for my work.

The doctor said: no stress

I´ve been at a doctor today, and guess what he told me: I´ve a slight concussion. Well, that explains the headaches and why I´m feeling dizzy sometimes.
He looked at me very sternly and said: “No stress!”

As if he knew I wouldn´t take his advice. Well, call me unreasonable, but I don´t have time to waste laying around in my bed and recovering.
Just have to make sure I don´t climb or jump when being dizzy.
Don´t tell my mother.

I sat in my Relto in the morning and counted my kortee´nea, my blank books. I have 14 of them, enough for the time being, I suppose.

Then I started to translate the book of commentary on my own (still don´t have a translator yet).

Progress is really slow, my D´ni isn´t very good, and many words I don´t know.

I´ve managed to find out the name of the age the book was written about, though: Tufolehn.
The book is quite interesting: not only did the author – a member of the guild of writers, but not the writer of the age itself – write about the age itself, but also – and this is even more interesting – how it was written. This is more valuable then I´ve first thought!

The name of the writer of the age seems to have been Anesh, and the way the other guy, Tumak, writes about him, makes me think, he was quite respected in the writers guild.

Unpleasant trip …

Well, the trip to city proper didn´t go well. On my search for ink I stumbled into a house which was quite unstable… I didn´t see it coming, until a whole wall came down on me.

Fortunately I´m always wearing a hard hat when venturing into ruined districts… otherwise this could have ended badly for me. A big chunk of wall hit me on the head – it chopped a big scratch into my helmet. Another one touched on my arm, but only lightly.

I´m not hurt badly, except for a biiig headache… maybe I should see a doctor, just to be sure.

Besides from the headache, I brought nothing of value with me… the place is very much devastated. Not much left there.

After that I went to my Relto and once again examined the burnt linking book. From the looks of it, I more and more come to think it IS a descriptive book – so this age, Afelahn, is essentially defunct now. (or at least the link to it.)

I think, I´ll stay with the name for my own, very first written age – if all goes well, I´d like to set up a “base camp” or an office or something like that in the age … Relto is a nice place, but space is limited, and it can be quite cold sometimes, even with the fireplace activated.

But… without ink, I´m not even ready to start writing, which is really annoying right now.

If someone knows a place, where one can find ink, please let me know!

No ink yet … but something else

I still didn´t manage to get ink… the few houses of ink makers I found (only 2, in one of the higher districts) were empty, no signs of “relehm” there.

But I found another thing which will hopefully help me a lot learning the Art: a book of commentary, 200+ pages, all written in D´ni, of course. The age it belongs to I couldn´t find, though.

I´ll need the help of a really skilled translator now – any volunteers? No payment, but the warm feeling of having helped a promising young writer?

I´ll go for another “treasure hunt” today in the afternoon. If anyone looks for me, I´ll be in the city proper.

Dabbling in the Art

Ever since I heard the first explorers were able to learn how to use the Art, I´ve been eager to do so myself.

Now, after months of reading, learning, watching, I think, I´m ready to try and write my first age.

Last week I had ventured into one of the more devastated districts of the city proper. On this little expedition, I broke into… err, entered a house, that seems to once have belonged to a member of the original guild of writers. I searched the house for anything helpful, and actually found a pile of kortee´nea, blank books, waiting for someone to write into them!

The second discovery I made was the burnt remain of a linking book. On the cover, barely noticable, a D´ni word was written.

I managed to transcribe it, and it says “Afelahn”. I guess, this was the name of the age. The book has no maintainers stamp (at least, as far as I can tell, it really is badly burnt) and of course has ceased to work. If this is a descriptive book, then it seems to have been rejected by the maintainers… a failed work of the late owner of this house perhaps?

I´ve tinkered with the idea of using the name for my first age… would this be appropriate?