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age « Rabenschwinges Cavern blog

Posts Tagged ‘age’

Apologies

Sorry for not posting for so long – a lot going on in the last month, work on the surface, work in the caverns …

The rodents in Afelahn have spawned quickly – at first, there were one or two – now, I estimate their number about a dozen – and they are EVERYWHERE. Had to bring my empty books to Asheten mansion – they nibbled on them and destroyed three.  I´ve instructed the expedition personnel to be careful when visiting Afelahn, so the “plague” doesn´t spread to other ages. We´ve set up mouse traps, but to no avail as of yet … it seems, they are too cautious (or too smart?) to get caught.

We´ve started work on various new ages – most of them are in a very early state of being surveyed, but maybe I can provide some information over the next days and weeks.

Dasharen has proven to be one of the most unstable ages we have access to. Earth quakes have happened a lot over the last weeks, and one time our team was barely able to leave the age without being hurt.

The council will decide tomorrow, if Dasharen will be deemed “unsafe” or not. B.P. is for it, while others are strongly against it… they say, there is so much to learn in this age, that the risks are worth it… I´m not so sure. Is anything worth risking anyones life?

Twenty days

Twenty days since my last post.

I´ve been busy with a lot of things, and finally found time again to keep you updated.

One of the worst things that happened was the theft of one of our Dasharen linking books. It happened two weeks ago, when B.P. brought some linking books to a conference. When he packed together after it had ended, he found the book missing.

So, someone who has access to our conferences must have taken it – unfortunately, nearly all of the expedition members took part in this particular presentation.

Further investigations pending.

About Dasharen: Tom Woods and Shane Kennett have devised a theory about the “big blast” that happened some months ago, when our powermarble experiment exploded rather spectacularly. They suspect the strange electromagnetic fields to be responsible for the energy fluctuation that caused the explosion. So, we  have to be careful with bringing energy devices to this age in the future…

Ah, by the way: I´ve brought some unexpected guests to Afelahn without even noticing.

We were watching animal life in Risoahl, our giant bamboo age, and somehow they must have gotten into one of the bags I had my equipment in.

When I had returned to Afelahn, I heard some chirping sounds – at first, I thought the source of the noise to be outside of the base. But when I moved, I could make out it actually was inside… an unsettling feeling, you know, especially because the creatures in Afelahn I´ve met yet are not very pretty or pleasant. (e.g. the lobsterpede).

Only after I found bite marks on a sandwich I had left on my desk in my office, I knew it had to be some kind of rodent.

Now, I´ve searched through the whole base, but didn´t find anything, albeit hearing these noises from time to time. A least it seems to be smaller than a rat, according to the bite marks… maybe some kind of mouse? Where could it be hiding?

Strange happenings

Today, some strange things happened in several of our ages.

First, we visited Nifehrehn after a break of over one week. When we linked in, we almost immediately recognized it was terribly cold. We linked out again and returned with our maintainer suits on.

Somebody had opened the airlock – letting the cold air from the outside into the complex! Work of months has been destroyed, many instruments and scales again are deeply frozen. Who did that? Who has access to Nifehrehn besides us? The books have been kept safe, nobody inside the expedition could have gone there without anyone noticing. So who was it?

The second strange thing that happened: When I linked to Afelahn today to take measure for the new living quarters I plan to add, the whole place was covered in greenish fog! Panicking, I linked out, fearing the worst. But as my skin didn´t dissolve and I didn´t feel any pain, I returned with a suit. The fog was gone again, and no residue was found.
Whatever it was, it seems to have been harmless – who might play such a sick prank on me? I´ve been scared to death!

The third thing that happened – and this one is REALLY weird – was told by B.P. He and a team had done research in Dasharen, when a huge quake hit. Well, that´s the normal part, at least in this age. But then they looked on the print-outs of the seismographs – and the instruments recorded NOTHING! As if nothing bad had happened.

Could all this phenomena have been caused by Bahro? Who else could have done that?
We are puzzled, and concerned. Trying to keep you updated.

First data received!

All went well! No one was hurt, and critter 2 was successfully delivered.

Now, we are exploring the first part of the age. It seems to be a medium sized area, shaped like the generic “hole in the ground” garden age.

The first image data sent by critter 2 didn´t show much, besides green mist and the greenish, sandy ground. A dark rock came into our field of vision when Jack slowly drove the critter forward.

Nothing interesting up to that point – but when the vehicle drove around the rock, the first amazing find. An elongate, whitish object protruded out of the sand. After a small moment we realized it was a bone…

What we then found was more than we had anticipated. The whole area is cluttered with bones of different creatures. Some look vaguely like bones of bovine creatures, others like predatory animals. And a few – as gruesome as it is – seem to be of humanoid origin. We don´t know, if they belong to D’ni or other humanoids.

We will continue to explore the area… whoever lies there, we hopefully will find out more about them.

The expedition council approved my proposal regarding Ahnoto, and they promised me supplies, interns and tools for my work on the age.

Meanwhile, I´ve started to write my third age. I plan it to be a garden age, this time hopefully not too dry and not too moist …
My gahrohevtee become better and better. After my previous mistakes, I´m confident to at least bring the age to a successful end, so at least the book should work. What awaits me after linking in, I can only guess – the branches of the great tree are limitless, after all. :)

Critter upgrade

As I posted in my last post, we are planning an unmanned vehicle, one of our “critters”, to visit Unknown age 03, which is clouded in toxic, corrosive clouds of a green gas.

Because Critter 2 had been damaged in a little accident in a rocky crack, Shane Kennett, Jack Rowe and Tom Woods agreed to use it for this purpose.

It will be upgraded with a deretheni shell, new engines for more power, and its crawler tracks will be changed to small, balllike wheels.

We hope to gather more data about the age, to answer some of the questions that arose.

On another, long postponed project: Ahnoto.
If you remember – it is the second age I´ve written by myself. The book links into the middle of a vast freshwater lake, the shorelines can´t be seen from the link in point.
We´ve anchored a buy and a raft at the position, but weren´t sure what to do with the age.

Now I´ve devised a plan: I´m thinking of a big, floating structure, like a huge raft, made of wood, we could walk around on and use as a platform for scientific research and observations. The plan is in a pretty early stage, but I´m confident it will work out nicely.

Maybe I will begin to write another age – it´s been some time that I used my writing skills, might improve them a little more.

News on Unknown Age 03

Right after I posted my previous post, B.P. came to Afelahn and told me about their discussion about another visit.

Someone suggested to modify one of our “critters” – someone could link in with it, put it on the ground and link out quickly, while the critter could gather data without anyone being endangered unnecessarily.

Of course, the critter almost certainly will be destroyed over time – the aggressive corrosive gas will destroy most materials we know.

Interestingly, the suits materials seem not to be bothered by the gas – on the other side, if the depicted events in the “Book of D’ni” really happened that way, one of the explorers, an averonese, even stepped into a nova while wearing one of the suits – and survived, though he was badly hurt. So the suits should withstand any possible dangers, even the deadliest ones.

Maybe we can apply D’ni materials, for example, deretheni (see the DPWR-Article about this kind of stone) to the critter… we don´t really like the idea of losing one of them.

Yeah, it´s somewhat pathetic, but we grew to like these little fellows.

By the way, I think, I can show you one of my sketches, depicting Critter 01 – bear in mind, however, that my scribbling abilities are somewhat – minor. Don´t expect too much realism :)

Samples our scientists took from the gas sucked into the ventilation system suggest that this is a kind of chemical compound previously unknown on earth. They aren´t even sure, what elements this consists of – not really surprising, it is another age, another dimension after all.
We had had a theoretical discussion some months ago about ages and the astonishing similarities between the elements abundant there – but we also came to the conclusion, that it only was a matter of time, when we would encounter previously unknown matter that doesn´t exist in other ages. This stuff seems to be such matter.
It lost its corrosive capacity after some minutes, and is deemed rather harmless now – but we wouldn´t take a chance, it was sealed in a vacuum vessel (of D’ni origin) and brought to Resehren. In case it breaks and is contaminating its surroundings, the age can be quarantined.

Critter 3 to the rescue!

Do you remember? Critter 2 had been stuck in a crack after a unfortunate exploration attempt, unable to move forward nor backward.

Now, we finally have managed to get it out of there, with the help of the more powerful Critter 3 and a small grappling hook.

Of course, Critter 2 is a little bit damaged now and has to be repaired, but at least we have it back :)

Today, I´ll tell you a bit about Unknown age 03. We found it in the mantainer facility I´ve written about some dozen posts ago, on a pile of ages that we suspect were to be examined by the maintainers, shortly before the fall. As we know, they never got to finish this pile, so the age lacks any maintainers stamp. The linking book we found had no name on its cover, nor did we find any books of commentary.

So, we used extreme caution when visiting the age. Tom Woods, Alex Rebman-Bartos and B.P. Forberg were the first three members of the expedition to link through, wearing maintainer suits.

B.P. wanted to try out one of the biggest, heaviest suits we have, so we helped him putting it on.
After the three linked, we waited for some seconds, till they reappeared in the facility.

As soon as they materialized, green fumes appeared, having attached themselves on the suits. At once, an alarm started to sound – chemical alert! We ran out of the linking chamber, and the doors shut automatically behind us. The three remained in there, when the ventilation system ran up and sucked the greenish haze out of the chamber.

The sensors showed, that it was a rather corrosive, highly toxic gas – hadn´t we reacted so fast, who knows what had happened!
The ventilation system worked flawless, and soon there was no more sign of the gas in the linking chamber.

The door opened again, and we helped the three out of their suits.
“It is a whole mess. The place is absolutely unsafe”, were B.P.s first words when we lifted the heavy helmet part of his suit.
It seems, that the age is covered not only in this gas, but also in kneedeep dust composed of the same corrosive material, in a chemical compound with other matter.

We decided to put the age under quarantine immediately – it is much too unsafe to let anyone go there, at least without the proper security measures.

Oh, how time flies…

It’s just two days I made my previous post, and so much has happened! The same day, another bunch of new expedition members arrived, more than 25 people eager to work with us.

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:

Afelahn – KI shots and stuff.

I had promised to show some KI-shots of Afelahn (in August… *cough*), so here you are.
The age still is in the works, it will need some more wiring to be safe enough for everyone to visit it.

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.

Goodbye, Critter 2…

Yesterday we lost our first “critter”. If you want to know, what that is, read the previous post :)

I asked Shane (Kennett) to borrow me one of the small guys to explore a crack in a rock wall near my home base in Afelahn. The crack is too narrow for a human to enter it (maybe besides a small child). So Shane and two of our interns (Jack Rowe and Sally LaCroix from Canada) visited me in my age.
We carefully positioned Critter 2 in front of the crack, and Jack, who is an avid model maker, steered it into the dark at slow pace.

The camera worked fine, we could see the image data on a laptop screen. It was a strange feeling… like this robot, that has explored one of the shafts in the Cheops pyramide some years ago, Critter 2 crawled forward on its crawler tracks.

The crack wasn’t all too interesting … mostly rock, and some moss growing on it.
We recorded the data anyway, might have overseen something of interest – maybe our geologists will be satisfied with what we have.

Then it happened. When we arrived – or better, when Critter 2 arrived – at the end of the crack, we decided to turn it around and go back outwards.
The ground there was littered with small pebble stones, and somehow our little friend managed to slide sideways – maybe Jack turned it too fast – and got itself stuck on a small rock ledge.
Jack tried to move forward and backward to break free, but to no avail.
Critter 2 is fully functional still, but it can´t move – we fear, it could be impossible to get it out there.

Shane plans to devise a plan to rescue it – maybe with Critter 3, which has a significantly stronger “engine”, or “more power”, so to speak.
Until then, Critter 2 is gone.

Well, to better news:
The harvesting of the Er’Nirah lichen is going well, we already have a great stock in one of the storage houses in the city. Dr. Haugaard, one of our botanists, says they can be stored for some time and still be edible – maybe we can reactivate one of the industrial plants of the D’ni to dry the lichen, so that they are storable even longer.

Of course, the lichen isn´t the only food we have at our disposal. Fruits from Yagee Mohts, Fish from Shashodahl and even some game from Yateesh.
We surely won´t starve for the next months.

Another project of mine I’m focusing right now is the restoration of Tufolehn – or better, the setup. There are no visible D’ni buildings in this age, so I guess, it wasn´t officially used by them. But I´d like to provide means for our fellow explorers to visit it – the strange, Cambrium or Ordovicium-like fauna really is an eye-catcher.
I plan to connect the two islands with some kind of bridge or catwalk to provide easy access.