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.
I really don’t want to be the wet blanket, but… make sure you’re careful. Your description of this group raises a whole bunch of red flags. They contacted you out of the blue and immediately mentioned giving you access to large amounts of money; when you met someone, he was hanging back away from the main group and got you into a secluded area almost immediately; there is no indication that they tried to find or contact more than one Writer, or talk to you for more than a few hours at most, before deciding you were the one for the (lucrative, and therefore expensive for them) job; googling for “Risoahl” turns up nothing and “Kurat” is apparently a Russian-language racial slur for Estonians; as far as I can tell, you haven’t met any of the supposedly 40+ members besides this one person.
This sounds very interesting and worthwhile if it’s on the level. I suggest you proceed with caution: take a friend with you when you go to meet the staff, and make sure you know where your Relto book is.
You are right, I´m going to be careful. It´s quite tempting to accept such an offer, especially with all those aparent benefits.
To be clear, though, they didn´t offer me any payment (I should have mentioned that in my posts) but an opportunity to use their ressources (manpower, material, scientific research and so on) for my own work – so I wouldn´t work FOR them, but instead WITH them restoring areas and ages of the D´ni, and writing my own ages, which they in return would help me to restore and research.
Yesterday evening I was invited to visit their headquarters, where I indeed met some other guys from said group. They seem to be legitimate, but on the other hand, who can tell
I will post more about that visit later today.
Anyways, I will seriously take your advice and be careful – and my Relto book always goes with me. I don´t want to risk an incident like that tumbling wall. (see my former post “Unpleasant trip”).