Afelahn « Rabenschwinges Cavern blog

Posts Tagged ‘Afelahn’

Catering ages

Posted by Rabenschwinge - Friday, April 22nd, 2011

Since the Forberg expedition consists of more and more people, we´ve had a meeting about new food resources and how to acquire them. B.P. told us, that one of the Resehren-ages and another age found in J’taeri had been ages of the guild of caterers. We agreed to visit these ages this weekend – maybe we can obtain some of our food directly from there!

In Afelahn, Tom Woods and I set up lights in most of the rooms in my home base. They are simple and not very pretty, but they´ll do.
Although the age is not complete yet, I´ve decided to start using the base. At first, there´ll be only limited access, for expedition personnel.

I brought a crate full of firemarbles from Dasharen to Afelahn, I´m planning to design some lamp variants for my ages with them.

Tags: Afelahn, age, B.P., Dasharen, Forberg, guild of caterers, J'Taeri, Resehren, Tom Woods
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Interior decoration

Posted by Rabenschwinge - Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

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.

Tags: Afelahn, age, Ahnoto, Bahro, cavern, DRC, kiri, lobsterpede, Negilahn, reepah, rehziksehv, Resehren, Shane Kennett, Tom Woods, Tufolehn
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Return to duty

Posted by Rabenschwinge - Thursday, April 7th, 2011

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!

Tags: Afelahn, cavern, D´ni, Forberg, guild of maintainers, inspection, Shane Kennett
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Forecast: stormy, with heavy rains

Posted by Rabenschwinge - Friday, November 19th, 2010

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.)

Tags: Afelahn, age, Ahnoto, B.P., D´ni, guilds, linking book, Resehren, Ri'tehraf, Shane Kennett
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Work, work, work…

Posted by Rabenschwinge - Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

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.

Tags: Afelahn, age, Ahnoto, B.P., descriptive book, D´ni, link in spot, linking book, Resehren, Shane Kennett, Tom Woods, Toosha, Tubby
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Breakthrough

Posted by Rabenschwinge - Thursday, November 4th, 2010

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 )

Tags: Afelahn, age, excavator, KI-shot, link in room, lobsterpede, Peter Chang, Something else, Tom Woods, Toosha, Tubby, Tufolehn
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More Afelahn

Posted by Rabenschwinge - Thursday, October 14th, 2010

Yesterday Noemi and Clint climbed a ridge and took KI-shots from the surrounding areas.
I watched them from the valley for more than an hour – it was fascinating, how they used every ledge to their advantage.
When they finally had come down, they showed me the KI-shots. They showed an extensive mountain region. To the west, great plains can be seen, far in the distance. All other directions only show mountains, all to the horizon.
It seems, the region of Afelahn we link to is quite isolated – it would be very difficult and time consuming to climb down to the western plains.

I wonder, if I should start naming landmarks – basically, I´m the discoverer of whole new worlds, continents, seas, lakes… so I guess, it´s my right to name them *smile*

By the way, our work on the cave are finished. The next logical step would be excavating deeper into the rock, cutting rooms out of it. But at the moment, everyone is busy, and I´ve not yet thought of a good explanation for the Yagi to borrow me one or two Toosha.

Our diving team made its first trip to Ahnoto. They kindly anchored a colorful buoy at the link in spot, so any visitor can find it easily.
Their first dive lasted for an hour, and they shot a lot of pictures of the lake bed and of some fish. They didn´t encounter the huge creature I had seen before – grateful for that, I don´t want anyone munched on in one of my ages…

They brought back some samples of soil and water, to be analyzed in Asheten mansion.

I didn´t go to Ahnoto since my last visit – I have no real concept for now how to proceed with it. One of the first steps will be to anchor a boat in there, but I came to the conclusion, that it has to be more stable than an inflatable one. If a storm would occur, an inflatable boat could easily be destroyed by the wind or the heavy waves, or at least blown away, even despite being anchored. But I have to think that one over for a while, I´m pretty unsure yet.

Tags: Afelahn, Ahnoto, Asheten mansion, Clint Spano, KI-shot, Noemi Moots, Toosha, Yagi
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Ashetens fate

Posted by Rabenschwinge - Monday, October 4th, 2010

Today B.P. told us a little about Asheten and his life. He had been a wealthy and influental guild master of the guild of writers.
The expedition has found three ages, that had been in his possession. (One of them beeing Risoahl.)
There is an interesting bit about Asheten: He once had been married to a woman named Naila, who had suddenly gotten ill, and, after some years, had succumbed to the illness. Rumors had gone wild in D’ni about her, some claimed, Asheten had been very jealous about her and accused him of having killed her. There seems to have been an investigation by the maintainers, but they couldn´t find any evidence to proof this accusations.
Asheten had not married again, and died like many other D’ni in the Fall. The expedition had found his remains in what happens to have been his study, and some other remains (maybe his servants) in various other rooms of the mansion.
He had been 298 hahrtee old on the day of the Fall.
Though he had been a writer, no ages written by him are known yet. But if one might speculate – as influential as he was, surely he was a skilled writer.
Coincidentally, Asheten seems to have befriended another fellow guild member with a familiar name – Anesh.
Since they lived both at the same time – the late D’ni era before the fall – and they both were influential guild masters of the same guild, this is only logical.

Another topic: We have succeeded to prepare the cave on Afelahn to the state, where we just could go on with excavating, if, only if we had a bigger excavator in the age.
I think, I should talk to Alex and Noelle. Maybe the Yagi can be convinced to “borrow” us one or two Toosha.
The problem is: We can´t tell them, were we´ll take the Toosha, of course. So, how do we explain this?

And another topic: I think, I´ll keep the watery age I initially was so disappointed with. Yeah, sure, I don´t know what to do with it yet, but it is stable, it is mine, and I wrote it
So, with the help of the Linguists (Link: http://linguists.bahro.com), I made up a name for it: Ahnoto, which literally means “water place”. It´s not a very elegant translation, I know, but I like the sound of it, and it fits. So, this is the second age written by me
If any of you, who read my blog, have ideas, what could be done with an age consisting of a big lake with no shores in vicinity, tell me, I´d be interested to hear (or read) your opinions!

Tags: Afelahn, age, Ahnoto, Alex, Anesh, Asheten, B.P., D´ni, guild master, guild of maintainers, guild of writers, hahrtee, linguists, Naila, Noelle Belfiore, the fall, Toosha, Yagi
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Writing failures, Part II

Posted by Rabenschwinge - Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

Wasted another kor’nea. Remember the one I was confident to finish last week? Well, I didn´t.

Well… that´s not entirely true. I DID finish the age – but it seems, I overdid it a little with moisture… when I linked into that age – and DON´T you dare to laugh! – I materialized some 10 feet above a sheet of water. It felt like standing still in the air for a heartbeat (of course I didn´t, but it seemed so), then gravity had me, and I fell. It was very unpleasant, I got wet all over (fortunately the Relto book seems to be waterprove). For a moment, I thought I would sink to the bottom, I had my maintainer suit on – but it seems, they were built to handle such situations.

Now I swam there, looking around – no landmass is visible from the link in spot, as far as I can tell. And so, though the age is stable as far as I can tell, I consider this a failure. What would one do with an age, were there only is water?
It seems to be fresh water, if the displayed informations were correct.
I stayed a little, swimming around a bit, but then I thought about what might swim beneath me, down there, in the dark depths of that lake or whatever it is … suddenly I imagined big fish with long teeth, or big, maritime reptiles like in our earths past – needless to say I linked out very quickly.
There I stood on Relto, soaking wet and really disappointed.

At first, I wanted to burn the book. But then… it IS stable, after all. Maybe it is of any use. I will keep it for now, and think it over.

I visited Afelahn to distract me a little. Kennett has brought me another D’ni excavation-machine – don´t know, what it is called – which can be used to level a rocky floor. I worked for some hours in the cave we had discovered before, and managed to get rid of the most annoying bumps.
By the way: the “clams” I had noticed, are not clams, but tiny crustaceans with clam-like shells. They dig through the soil, like worms on earth. They are approx. 1 to 3 mm long (can´t recall, what this is in inches, sorry)
And I saw another, much bigger creature, at least 3 feet long – it seemed like a really big (and ugly) centipede, but with long, spiny legs and a hard shell, like a lobster. It moved rather quickly, when it saw me, and hid beyond a huge boulder. I didn´t want to follow it – might be poisonous, after all.

Why do I always get ugly, dangerous creatures in the ages I visit? Why not a Squee or something like that?

Tags: Afelahn, age, D´ni, excavator, kor´nea, maintainer suit, Relto, Relto book, Shane Kennett, Squee
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Sounding

Posted by Rabenschwinge - Thursday, September 23rd, 2010

Kennett brought a D’ni sounding device with him last time he visited me in Afelahn. He determined, that there was a rather large cavern behind one of the rock walls of the valley. The wall was rather thin, and the surrounding parts of it stable enough to try and bore a hole into it.

When the dust had settled, we looked through the hole in what appeared to be a cavern, that had been enclosed by rocks always until that time. It is stable, so we can bring some bigger equipment into it and start drilling or excavating from there on. There still is the problem with the bigger machines, though…
I talked to Kennett, and he said, he wouldn´t take those machines apart. He isn´t even sure, if they CAN be dismantled, because some parts of it look like they are fused together – there are no screws, bolts or stuff like that visible. They are much to big to carry them with us… the only other option would be some kind of beast of burden. I don´t think, we´ll be able to make an elephant walk down to D`ni… that would the only beast of burden on earth I could imagine that would be strong enough to pull one of the bigger excavators.

While having a break from all the work in Afelahn, I began to write another age. This time I want an age with a little more humidity and warmth – Afelahn is quite cool, dry and windy, and I want a more comfortable place, maybe even something like a garden age.
I started the second age some days ago, and I´m confident to finish it this week already… it will be nothing to complicated. (Well, sweet and simple did work for Anesh, so why not for me?)

Tags: Afelahn, age, D´ni, excavator, Shane Kennett, sounding
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