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Shane Kennett « Rabenschwinges Cavern blog

Posts Tagged ‘Shane Kennett’

Expedition news

A little status update about our work.

One of our teams has done extensive work in Nifehrehn, since Quaxo still hasn´t reported in. The age is deemed to dangerous for the moment, so we can´t let anybody in – and still, some of the equipment isn´t working yet – the frost of centuries has left some damage.

Tom Woods and Shane Kennett have made some small vehicles of spare parts of model cars, boats and airplanes, and equipped them with small cameras.
They affectionally call them the “Critters”. Critters 1 to 3 are land-based, with wheels or crawler tracks, Critters 4 to 6 are waterborne, 7 and 8 are airborne – and 9 is a small, floating thingy, similar to a balloon.
They will be used to explore hazardous or inaccessible areas.

Their first mission will be the research of a small ice cave in Nifehrehn. Our scientists suspect some creatures living in there.

I still owe you information about the other “unknown ages”.
Today, behold Unknown age 02:
It seems to have been some kind of submarine science station erected by the old D’ni. It is some kind of pod – but a different one than those we know from “Reziksehv” – with some observation cupolas. The marine life in this age is very different from what we know – there are no fish, but some strange, ribbonlike animals, which are slowly moving through the water.
The temperature seems to be quite hot – the pod is heavily insulated, but there are D’ni scales that show temperatures about 176° Fahrenheit (80° Celsius).
How these creatures can survive this hellish environment, is one of the goals of our research there.
Our interns have dubbed them “Hadesfish”, after the greek underworld.

Again spent some time in Shashodahl, this time for researches. The islands the resort is situated on are surrounded by a light blue, almost turquoise ocean, with abundant marine life.
There seems to be the wreck of a rather big ship in the vicinity of one of the minor islands – we haven´t been able to visit it yet, but our diving team (the guys from New Zealand, remember?) are planning to get there soon. I´m thinking about joining them – the water isn´t deep there, and even I as a absolute beginner in diving should be able to manage this.
And if Shane will have Critters 10 and 11 ready, the planned submarine-camera platforms, we´ll even have nice shots of the wreckage.
Looking forward to that!

Nifehrehn search

We did a thorough search in Nifehrehn, to look for any signs of Quaxo. The age did everything it could to kill us… it was extremely cold, with stormy weather and heavy snowfall. We searched in teams, in a radius of about 2 miles around the outpost. Didn´t find anything or anybody. I really hope, he is just on vacation or something… wouldn´t have survived for a long time out there.
It´s scary, how people vanish in this age… first the three D’ni survivors whose journals we had found, now this.

For the first time, we watched one of the huge predators of the age. A mammal with long, white fur, four legs, and a long beak with razor sharp teeth. It didn´t see us, just walked around in some distance, sniffing around on the ground.
I definetly recommend carrying a gun when visiting the age, at least when you plan to leave the outpost.

Meanwhile, Tom Woods and Shane Kennett have built a prototype power device, based on the power marble technology used by the D’ni.
They brought the parts to Dasharens surface, assembled them and activated the device.
We had decided to test it in Dasharen, because there is not much to be damaged, at least on the surface – mostly deserted area.
The power device worked flawlessly for some time – further tests will be necessary, but we are cautiously optimistic.

Stability issues resolved

After thoroughly examining the stability of Lab II, Tom Woods said that he now thinks, it is safe. It seems, that there only was a small, unstable cavity which we accidently hit while enlarging the room.
Lab II is deemed safe for working on it again, and we´ve already done a lot. One of the greatest additions to the room is a big patch for plants to seed, much bigger than my plant experiment-table in Lab I. I plan to plant trees, bushes and other bigger plants here to observe and research them.

Additionaly, now every room is properly lighted.
I added two new lamp designs to the garage, done all by myself. They are rather big and standing instead of hanging from the roof – I like to think of them not only as lighting source, but also some kind of decorative art, some kind of sculptures.
I redid the big lamp in Lab I, too. It was too heavy and I had feared it would endanger the stability of the roof there. Now, after making it lighter, I think, it will work great.
We plan to excavate more of the planned rooms over the next days – maybe starting with the “power room” would be a good idea.
Tom Woods, Shane Kennett and I discussed it a lot, and we still think, a power marble is the best choice for getting energy on in Afelahn.
We´ll have to add some extra security measures, though, to prevent some worst case scenarios – mainly, the power marble exploding, letting the whole complex collapse on itself (and everyone in it.).
One of the measures will be the already mentioned altered height of the room (maybe even with an opening to the outside of the age, so that an explosion could be led outwards instead of inwards.) Another thing we plan is to add a massive, blast resistant door.
Any other suggestions are welcome, as always!

Because of all the work, I had to postpone my studies of the Alitnee eggs, but I definitely will continue the project.

A broken promise

I´m sorry, I didn´t find time last weekend to provide the KI-shots I promised. I´ll post them as soon as I can!

Work on Afelahn has been stopped for the moment, until we can sort out the stability issues with Lab II. The big lamp in Lab I worries me a little, too… it is very heavy, and I don´t know, if the ceiling is stable enough to support it. I´ll ask Shane Kennett to do a test on that, too.

Did some research on the Tufolehn sea urchins. They have no spines like our earths sea urchins, but rather microscopical nettles. I suspect, they use the nettles to catch their food and pull it into small, microscopical openings. To call those “mouths” would be greatly exaggerating.

The sea snail, on the other hand, seems to nourish from a) the nettles, or b) the prey the nettles catches, before these can pull it into the sea urchin. Although the nettles are slightly poisonous (and hurt, as I found out), the sea snail seems not to be bothered.
On the other hand, the snails don´t harm the sea urchin, they eat very slowly and not much.
On Tufolehn, I watched some bigger, predatory sea snails trying to eat one of the small, orange ones which I´m researching. When the big snail approached a smaller one, sitting next to a sea urchin, it suddenly buckled, as if feeling pain, and hurried away (well, if you can call 30 cm per minute to “hurry”.)

I spent some time on Alitnee, as well. Before our teams arrived, the birds there had nests not only on the rocks, but also on the metallic platforms the D’ni built to watch them. After we came there, most of these close nests have been abandoned, and the eggs sadly decayed. I plan to gather some of the eggs, empty them from their ruined content, and study their different sizes and colors.

Interior decoration

The last days, we began to bring equipment to the rooms in Afelahn. Shane and Tom Woods helped me to install a small water basin for experiments (I´m thinking of the creatures in Tufolehn). Besides a couple of shelves made of wood we brought to the age, I used a machine found in one of the Resehren-ages to mold a stone table, and another table with a different design and a cavity for plant experiments.

I saw the lobsterpede again, crawling under the same rock as before. Now I´m convinced it has a nest there. Maybe I should watch the place for some time and write down my observations?
I´m not even sure if it is a crustacean or an insect, or maybe a arachnoid-like creature… it has characteristics of all of these.

To relax a little, I made visits to some of the ages we got from the DRC. Spent an hour or so in Negilahn. The reepahs are shouting again (at least I think it´s them), but besides a swarm of kiri I didn´t see any creatures there. I wonder, if the animals of “rehziksehv” have recovered from the unfortunate events back at the beginning of the Bahro incidents…

In the next days, I plan to intensify my work in Afelahn, and maybe making some preparations in Ahnoto and Tufolehn, as well. Now that the cavern is getting more and more active and populated, it would be nice to have something to contribute. But no promises or actual dates yet, sorry.

Return to duty

After my long absence from the cavern I´ve finally returned. Health issues kept me from doing any work on my projects in D’ni.

The Forberg expedition has made a lot of progress in the meantime – I will gather intelligence about all the new stuff over the next weeks.

As I returned to the maintainer website, I saw, that many posts have vanished due to a technical problem – I will have to repost all of my inspections. Due to this, I will proofread them once again, and try to adapt to the new style the maintainers seem to use since some time.

Work in Afelahn has been stopped while I was ill, but Shane Kennett told me they are ready to resume as soon as I want them to. Great!

High expectations

As I wrote on my last entry, I had the honorable task of introducing the “newbies” to the expedition. B.P. had talked of a dozen people – in fact, there were more than twenty who came to Zandis property, up there in New Mexico. We let them sign a NDA (just to be on the safer side) and then introduced them. Alex was with me, which was greatly relieving for me. I´m not comfortable with speaking to a large group all by myself.

There were some interesting people there – scientists, students, explorers, interns…
We gave them a tour through some major parts of D’ni – Ae’Gura, Great Tree Pub, some hoods… and then led them to Risoahl (which is quite tidied up now.)

It was entertaining to watch how they reacted to all that stuff… I can very well remember how it was for me, linking for the first time, standing there, watching in awe about all those wonders…

B.P. took over after that, and explained to them, what kind of help we need, what tasks there are to do, and so on.

So, after this, our staff has increased greatly – and the work on the new ages and areas we found can finally begin!

The other day, in our spare time, Tom Woods, Shane Kennett and myself visited an old maintainer facility in one of the outlying districts. It was in good shape, and there was plenty of interesting equipment there. The most interesting parts were the maintainer suits. Not only the newest ones, like in Gahreesen, but also some older models – some looking like a kind of insect, and some – the oldest ones – huge and bulky, and extremly tough looking. I guess, these would be suitable even for the harshest ages.

Shane said, he thought about using this maintainer outpost for the same purpose it was used back then, by the D’ni – as a starting point for expeditions to new ages. With all the new areas, we could make good use of all that equipment.

Forecast: stormy, with heavy rains

So, what we feared to happen, happened to happen. (Sorry for the pun.)

In Ahnoto, a huge storm flushed away not only our boat, but also the buoy at the linking spot. Both anchor ropes were riven – we didn´t watch the storm, but it must have been enormous.

I talked to Shane Kennett and B.P., and they agree, that at the moment no one should visit Ahnoto – we have no means of forecasting the weather in Ahnoto by now, and it would be too dangerous to link into the middle of a lake while a hurricane (or something like that) is raging there.

In Afelahn, we carved two more rooms into the rock. A medium sized one, which will become Lab I, and a small one, which will become the “entry room”, where the link in spot will be.

I already started to write a linking book to that place, so that visitors will be able to come to Afelahn in a convenient way.

Shane told me, they had found more D’ni engineering equipment in one of Ri’tehrafs ages, including machines, that generate furniture out of stone.
It works like a printer – you enter the plans of what you want to design, and the machines does it for you. It is able to cast, but also to cut stone into the desired mold.

That will make many things so much easier! I think, I will get to do some interior decoration :)

In Resehren, some of Ri’tehrafs journals have been translated. It seems, that he was neither mad nor scientist – he did some chemical research on ages given to him by other guilds, but more of an engineering , than of a scientific kind. So he didn´t steal any of the linking books either – I´m sorry to have suspected you, Ri’tehraf! :)

B.P. told me, he managed to hire another dozen guys for all the work in the new ages and areas we have found – they will arrive this weekend. He asked me to introduce them to the expedition, tell them a little about D’ni, the expedition and so on. Gosh, why me? I´m not fond of giving speeches in public! (I hope I won´t stutter too much.)

Work, work, work…

The last days we were really busy. First, we carved out two more rooms in Afelahn – everything is going as planned, and I´m happy to see the advancements. These rooms will be a storage room, and lab II, (lab I has yet to be done) when my “home base” will be ready.

With the help of my toosha, Tubby, we brought a heavy metal door to the age. Tom Woods, Shane Kennett and a bunch of guys with muscles managed to build it into the opening between the “garage” and the cave, so that the inner area is now secured against at least the strongest wind.

Shane told me, he would insulate the rooms when they are ready and that he had found a sprayer with some kind of D’ni material (stone?) that had been used by them for that purpose.

In Ahnoto, we have anchored a boat – a bigger, wooden one, not an inflatable – at the link in spot. It will stay there for the moment, so that we can bring material there, when we have time for that.

B.P. updated us about the Resehren books at the last meeting. They´ve found 23 of them. Unfortunately, four of them ceased to work, out of unknown reasons – maybe the descriptive books have been destroyed.
The other ones link to different ages and locations – 9 ages and 7 city locations altogether (some of the books link to the same places as others).
At the moment, we don´t have the personnel, nor the time to explore this new places, though we really would love to.
B.P. hinted, that he is actually trying to recruit more people for the expedition.

Turning on Nifehrehn

Kennett managed to find the energy source of the outpost in Nifehrehn. As suspected, it is a geothermal thing (don´t ask me, how it works, I´m a lame duck in engineering). He put it on, and suddenly the outpost is quite a cosy place, warm and dry. The equipment is slowly freed from the frost. Kennett thinks, most of it made it intact through the “frosty times”, and so we are looking forward to reactivate them.

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.