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Afelahn « Rabenschwinges Cavern blog

Posts Tagged ‘Afelahn’

Powermarble – solution

We finally have found a working solution to our powermarble safety problem. If you haven´t followed my previous posts: to set up an energy source for Afelahn, we have experimented with the so called D’ni powermarbles, equipment related to fire marbles, which store a lot of energy and release it much faster.

We had big security concerns, because an explosion could be fatal to anyone present in the complex. Now we have deduced, that a containment case formed like a drop would suit it best. It will be built out of different layers of D’ni materials, the outermost of which will consist of Nara. On the upside of the case, there will be a pressure control valve, that leads any possible kinetic energy of an explosion outwards of the complex.

We think, that these security measures finally are sufficient to guarantee everyones safety and health while visiting Afelahn.

I promised you to post about the “unknown ages” – here you are, information about “Unknown age 01″:
It is a wet, foggy place, covered by a huge swamp. The fog is so dense, you can´t see very far – animals call in the distance, we weren´t able to see them yet, but they sound scary enough. It is one of the approved ages of the D’ni, so we assume it is safe, but will have to do more research on it before allowing people to visit.

And – as a small bonus for you, because you had to wait for so long for another post – a small riddle:
The first to answer it correctly will get an entry on a new subpage.

What am I:
I am not sad, but crying silently all my life, I have no feet but stand, until one day I’ll fall.

Update on Nifehrehn

After two more days of searching the vicinity of the Nifehrehn outpost, we´ve come to the conclusion, that Quaxo hasn´t visited the age yet. We didn´t find anything – no footprints, no cloth, no scientific equipment. So I guess, he is busy at the moment, and not in danger. We will stop our searches for now, until we have more information. Hope, we are right.

The other big news is what we call “The Big Blast of Dasharen”. Well, I´ve reported about the powermarble experiment in Dasharen, and how well it went… seems that I was too optimistic. Two days ago, a major explosion destroyed not only the powermarble, but the encasement as well. The sensors Tom Woods had installed to monitor the marble recorded an extreme energy peak shortly before the explosion, then they too ceased to work (and to exist…)

If this explosion would have happened in Afelahn, I think the base would be rubble by now. The powermarbles are even more dangerous than I´ve feared… how can we make the power room safe enough?

Someone asked: “You wrote about “Unknown age 07″, what about 01 to 06? Any information on them?”
Yeah, there is information on them. I´ll gather it over the next days and give you summaries about what we know.

Classified

I have two news, one good, one bad.
The good news: we have managed to open the jammed door in “Unknown age 07″.
The bad news: What we found there is not to be published (yet). The expeditions leaders agreed to classify any further information about the age and what we found there – I disagree, but I respect the decision. Believe me, when I say, that they didn´t take the matter easy.

Work in Afelahn is progressing – we now have some interesting designs for the power marble-generator, and for the room containing the generator (I´m calling it a “power room” – I know, it´s not elegant english, but it fits my needs best.). We plan to do the excavation work during the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, I´ve finished my Alitnee egg-project. The eggs I´ve prepared will be displayed in Afelahn, there are some beautiful eggshells waiting to be seen!
Added signs to the doorways in Afelahn, so orientiation shouldn´t be a problem for future visitors.

By the way: I´m planning the release of Afelahn – still work to do, but I think, I can let people in approximately in one or two months. The age will change frequently, so I guess, sooner is better than later.

Still no news from Quaxo regarding the Nifehrehn project. I´m honestly concerned now, didn´t read anything from him since weeks – I think, we should look for him in Nifehrehn. Hope he´s allright.

Dasharen desert plant

While determining the details of Afelahn power supply, I brought some plant samples to the age. One of the most interesting ones is a desert plant growing on Dasharens surface. I planted some into my big plant patch in Lab II, and they seem to be fine.

As you can see on the KI-shot, it has no leafs, so our guess is it doesn´t need any photosynthesis to grow. I called it a “plant”, but it could be a fungus, too, or something else entirely. Future examination will be necessary.

What we know is, that it stores a lot of water (like many desert organisms do) in its bulbous stem (or fruiting body).
If anyone would like to do some research on this plant/fungus/thingymabob, you´re welcome!

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.

Energy sources

Tom Woods and I are working on powering Afelahn properly. At the moment, the only energy sources are the few firemarbles for the light, and a small generator for electricity. But it won´t be long, that I will need much more energy for different purposes.
So we sat together the other day, and discussed, what to do. The most promising variant of power source would be a D’ni power marble.
These are, according to DPWR, “a special type of firemarble which explode when struck, releasing all of their energy at once, rather than glowing softly like normal firemarbles do. They were invented by the D’ni as a way to power heavy machinery”.
Other sources, like geothermal, water or wind energy aren´t feasible in the age or would be difficult to install.
So, I will likely have to cut out a “generator room” for a D’ni power device.
The only problem with power marbles is, that they are rather dangerous. They store so much energy, that they can easily explode… So we´ll have to take serious precautions to prevent my working space from annihilation. Maybe some heavy door for the generator room? And I had the idea of making the generator room higher than normal, so that possible kinetic energy from an explosion would have more room to disperse.
Will have to sort that out.

Another topic:
I started to gather eggs from Alitnee. Learned to empty and clean them BEFORE bringing them to Afelahn (the foul stench of the first batch still is smellable – Yuck!)

They come in various sizes, from a centimeter to double the size of a chickens egg. And the colors are rather beautiful. I plan to install some kind of display case to show the prettiest ones.

A promise fulfilled

Now, behold: The first KI-shot of Afelahn ever officially posted.
This is what you´ll see, when you link in. (well, not exactly, the link in point is a little bit more to the right side.)

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.

Stability issues

While I was adding furniture and lamps to the existing rooms in Afelahn, Tom Woods and his team worked on Lab II, the big room adjacent to the “garage”. When they caved out more space to make the room higher, parts of the roof suddenly collapsed. No one was hurt, fortunately, but we decided to close access to the room for the moment until we can secure it more properly.
It raises questions about the whole place – how safe is it? I´ve read reports of other explorers, who have repeatedly lost whole complexes because of geological instabilities… don´t want that to happen in Afelahn! We´ve spent so much work… it would be a shame to loose it.

Maybe it would be a bit of a distraction to do some work on other ages…

Oh, and by the way: I started researching two of the strange species of Tufolehn: the already mentioned “sea urchin”, and one of the various sea snail-species. I brought a sea snail and two living sea urchins, and also some dead ones as well.

I guess, it´s about time to post some KI-shots here on the blog. I plan to do that this weekend.

Er’Nirah

As reported, we´ve visited two caterer ages two weeks ago. The one I want to write about this time is Er’Nirah. The whole place is covered by a thick, soft layer of a species of lichen, with a dark red hue, that gives the age a strange, but somewhat appealing color. Nearly every inch of the ground is covered, the few places where it isn´t, I could see barren rock. There seem to be various other lichen, fungi and animals who depend strongly on the red lichen, either by nourishing from it, or seeking shelter in it, or just growing on it.

B.P. gave me some information about the age. As you´ll already have guessed by the name “Er’Nirah”, it was an age of the guild of caterers. And if we aren´t mistaken, the D’ni harvested the red lichen for food – there are some species of lichen here on earth which are edible (but not very tasteful, as far as I´ve read). I´m really curious how it tastes, but first we´ll have to thoroughfully analyze it.

In Afelahn, I did a lot of work the last days. Although the place isn´t quite ready yet, I brought some specimen, so I can start doing my first projects. I`d like to post some of them at the Zoologist-Forum (D’ni Zoological society), so we can do some research on lifeforms together.

And then, I managed (with some help) to design my first lamps for Afelahn (until now, it was lit by makeshift lights). Although I don´t plan the age to be highly aesthetic, they clearly help it in a visual way.