Warning: Parameter 1 to wp_default_scripts() expected to be a reference, value given in /www/htdocs/w00cfc41/blog/wordpress/wp-includes/plugin.php on line 580
guild of maintainers « Rabenschwinges Cavern blog

Posts Tagged ‘guild of maintainers’

More about Critters

This is the first time I´m posting twice a day. The reason for this is, that quite a lot happened today:

The upgrade of Critter 2 is done – the guys worked restlessly for hours, and managed to get it ready only a few hours ago.

So, now we are preparing everything for our little guys mission.
The maintainer outpost is running and ready, critter 2 is polished and eagerly awaits his… well, you get the idea.

I managed to draw a sketch – as always, please remember, this is not meant to be 100% accurate. I´m a beginner in sketching.

As mentioned, the new encasement is made of deretheni, a light but resistant artificial D’ni stone.

B.P. will link in with his mighty maintainer suit, with critter 2 in his hands. Then he will put it down, and link out again immediately.
The risk is high, and we discussed it a lot – is it worth it? What, if anybody is hurt? The gas is extremely dangerous – will the data be worth it?

Shane Kennett has designed a small receiver, that translates KI signals from other ages into ordinary radio signals, to steer the small vehicle through the age.
Because the KI signal reaches so deep into another age, we can steer it much farther than we could on earth – the small range of the radio receiver can be neglected, it is only centimetres (or inches) away from the KI-receiver.
The only concern are possible interferences from electromagnetic fields in the age itself.

Jack Rowe will steer critter 2 from a control room in Asheten mansion, while a team will take care of B.P. and his suit in the maintainer facility.

Everything is prepared… only 2 hours until we start. I will keep you updated. We should know more tomorrow.

Critter 3 to the rescue!

Do you remember? Critter 2 had been stuck in a crack after a unfortunate exploration attempt, unable to move forward nor backward.

Now, we finally have managed to get it out of there, with the help of the more powerful Critter 3 and a small grappling hook.

Of course, Critter 2 is a little bit damaged now and has to be repaired, but at least we have it back :)

Today, I´ll tell you a bit about Unknown age 03. We found it in the mantainer facility I´ve written about some dozen posts ago, on a pile of ages that we suspect were to be examined by the maintainers, shortly before the fall. As we know, they never got to finish this pile, so the age lacks any maintainers stamp. The linking book we found had no name on its cover, nor did we find any books of commentary.

So, we used extreme caution when visiting the age. Tom Woods, Alex Rebman-Bartos and B.P. Forberg were the first three members of the expedition to link through, wearing maintainer suits.

B.P. wanted to try out one of the biggest, heaviest suits we have, so we helped him putting it on.
After the three linked, we waited for some seconds, till they reappeared in the facility.

As soon as they materialized, green fumes appeared, having attached themselves on the suits. At once, an alarm started to sound – chemical alert! We ran out of the linking chamber, and the doors shut automatically behind us. The three remained in there, when the ventilation system ran up and sucked the greenish haze out of the chamber.

The sensors showed, that it was a rather corrosive, highly toxic gas – hadn´t we reacted so fast, who knows what had happened!
The ventilation system worked flawless, and soon there was no more sign of the gas in the linking chamber.

The door opened again, and we helped the three out of their suits.
“It is a whole mess. The place is absolutely unsafe”, were B.P.s first words when we lifted the heavy helmet part of his suit.
It seems, that the age is covered not only in this gas, but also in kneedeep dust composed of the same corrosive material, in a chemical compound with other matter.

We decided to put the age under quarantine immediately – it is much too unsafe to let anyone go there, at least without the proper security measures.

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!

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!

Ashetens fate

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 :P
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!