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Alitnee « Rabenschwinges Cavern blog

Posts Tagged ‘Alitnee’

Poachers?

Today, Clint Spano and Noemi Moots went to Yateesh again to hunt some royalopes and smaller antilopes for food supply.

When they ventured a little deeper into the forests, they suddenly found the small carcass of an antilope.
First they didn´t suspect anything unusual, the age is teeming with wild life, including some really nasty predators.

But then they saw, that someone – someone with a knife – had skinned  and disembowled the animal.
So that means, that someone else also has access to Yateesh, and uses it as a hunting ground, just like we do.
Could these be the same people who stole from us before?

Tubby, my Toosha, is sick since he ate some berries in Risoahl.
He had been used to pull down some of the most sturdy giant bamboos when it happened. I really hope, they were not venomous …
We don´t have a veterinarian with us yet, so I asked Dr. Shingler, one of our zoologists, to look after him.

As I looked through my supplies and tools, I stumbled over a small crate with the Alitnee eggs I had gathered and prepared months ago.
I decided to put them into my home base, for everyone to see.

Because Afelahn will still need some work before the grand opening, here are some KI-shots of the eggs.
I might add some information about the different species the eggs are from in the future.

In Afelahn, we excavated two more rooms: the aforementioned control room, and a huge room I plan to … well, I guess, this one will stay secret for the moment :) I think, you will really like this one, and so I won’t spoil it for you.

The second thing to mention about Afelahn is, that I made a decision regarding harboring other people in the base. I will add living quarters and all the other stuff needed – the base is growing still, and I have a lot of ideas for future expansions. If the base really is going to be as big as I imagine, there will be plenty of room for other people to do research.
I am amazed to see what Afelahn has become until now, and I think, there will be a lot more.

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The bad news: What we found there is not to be published (yet).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.

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 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.

New ages

When I was ill, work didn´t end for the Forberg expedition. Due to the new guys who had joined some months ago, they have managed to start work on half a dozen additional ages, mostly from linking books they found in Resehren.

One of the most interesting ages is Dasharen, a kind of a residential area, built into a underground cavern system. The age itself is an arid, hot environment, mostly consisting of desert and rock formations. Dasharen is similar to a small town, built for around 100 to 150 residents. There were no remains of D´ni found there, so either the plague has not reached the place, or the residents fled beforehand.
Near the caverns, on the outside, there is a rather expanded cemetary. Our historians speculate, that this community was mostly self sufficient, for unknown reasons, so they buried their dead here instead of one of the usual burial ages.

Alitnee is another new age. It is cold and windy, but with a bright sun. The only place we are able to reach is the top of a high pinnacle with constructions made of metal that appear to be viewing platforms.
The place is full of flying creatures of various kinds and sizes, some of which are breeding their youth at the rocky walls of the pinnacles. It is a great place for bird watchers, although the winds are sometimes really uncomfortable.

B.P. promised me to show me more ages over the next weeks. Looking forward to those!