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Tom Woods « Rabenschwinges Cavern blog

Posts Tagged ‘Tom Woods’

Maintainer work

Today Tom Woods showed me the maintainer outpost we had visited months ago and what work they have done while I was away. They´ve managed to get most of the systems working again. Two heavy suits, around a dozen medium suits and over 30 light suits are ready to use.

The expedition has made three visits to ages of unknown security status (read: ages without a maintainer stamp), and so far everything went fine.
They followed security protocols set up by the original maintainers (which were quite cautious) and managed to define the status of the three ages they visited to “relatively safe”.

One of the ages is especially interesting: the linking book seems to link to the bottom of a sea, so visiting it without the most hardy suits would be suicide. These are able to resist the immense pressure of that environment.

We aren´t sure if these bulky, heavy suits are made of Nara, Deretheni or some other durable kind of D’ni stone, personally, I suspect it to be Deretheni (Nara would be too heavy, I suppose.)

If you have no idea what I´m talking about: You can find more information about the different D’ni stones at the guild of archivists website: http://www.dpwr.net.

Of course, there is a lot more information at this site, I recommend to everyone to read the excellent articles there!

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.

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.

Breakthrough

We did a lot of work on Afelahn during the last days. With the help of a Toosha (I´m calling him “Tubby”) we managed to link a medium excavator into Afelahn and started to excavate (surprise, surprise) first a rectangular opening which will become a door – I´m planning to use a big, stable gate – and then a big, rectangular room, an entry room into my future home base so to speak. I think, I´ll call it “the garage”.

With the help of Tom Woods, I planned the overall layout of my home base – complete with an office, labors, storage rooms… and of course a “link in room” for visitors comfort.

I don´t plan any recreational facilities yet – it will solely be a working space, maybe with presentation of my findings from various ages to give visitors an overview.

While we were working with the excavator, I saw the “lobsterpede” again (from “lobster” and “centipede”). It was as ugly as ever, and as dumb as ever: it hid under the same rock as last time.
Maybe it has a nest there?

I visited Tufolehn again, and took a boat with me this time. I couldn´t resist my curiosity – the second island is only a few meters away, and so I row there.
It surely was worth it. The second island is approximately double the size of the first, and there is much more to see: on the beach, beyond some medium sized rocks, there are some strange organisms growing on some smaller rocks, above the water line. They belong to different species – most of them are quite colorful. I don´t even know, if they are plants or animals (or something else(tm)), but I really like watching them. Between the motionless ones, there are some creatures creeping and slithering around – I guess, they could be some kind of sea cucumber or conches. Will have to ask Peter Chang.

I watched them for a while (from a safe distance, beyond the medium rocks) and decided to take some KI-shots (I tend to forget to do this, so I haven´t got a lot of them yet.)
Before I post them publicly, I want to do some research. (And let some other guys from the expedition do some research for me :) )

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.

Success!

It´s done! My very first age has been written!
On Sunday I wrote the last gahrohevtee into my kor´nea – and seconds later, the linking panel changed on the first page. It was a bright view of a rocky surface with some grass and other small plants, my first age!

I had already decided before to use the name of the destroyed description book I had found, Afelahn.

I still couldn´t believe it… the link to another world, which no D´ni nor human ever has visited. I felt like Columbus or Neill Armstrong – I would be the first to venture into this age!
On the same day, I don my maintainer suit – had to check everything twice, no, trice, because my hands where shaking like if I had fever.
I put my hand on the linking panel, and instantly materialized on this rocky surface I had seen through it.
I looked around. It was a small valley, filled with a little pond. Grass and small bushes everywhere.
The suits microphones received birds singing and wind noise. I looked onto my suits scales and devices, and it seemed that the atmosphere was clean of any poisonous gas and breathable.
I decided to take some samples – the usual ones, atmosphere, water, soil, and some plants – and returned to my Relto.
I brought them to Asheten mansion to have them analyzed.

When I went to bed that night, I couldn´t sleep for hours… in my mind I tried to remember every single detail, every rock and every grass halm.

The next day, Monday, I instantly run down to the laboratories to get the results. As I had expected, there wasn´t any sign of poisonous or hazardous matter, neither in the atmosphere, nor in soil or water.

I asked B.P. and Alex to join me when I visited the age for the second time.
We arrived there at night – I couldn´t figure out the day-night cycle of the age yet, will have to stay there for some time before I can determine the day length.
It was pretty cool – around 15 degrees Celsius – and the wind was blowing intensely. There are surprisingly few stars in the night sky, and no moon can be seen. B.P. said, maybe the planet is in a outer part of its home galaxy.

We stayed there for a while, enjoying the night. Finally, I decided to put off my helmet. I know, it´s not best idea, but the tests hadn´t shown anything harmful.
The air was fresh, cool and clean.
I think, I´m in love with my own age :)

B.P. said, the rock seems hard and durable. It could be possible to carve some rooms into it… maybe some kind of home base for me, finally!
I will talk to Kennett and Tom Woods about that, one of our engineers. They have done some tremendous work on Asheten mansion and the Kurat neighborhood, maybe they can help me out with some equipment and manpower.