After the expedition fell apart, we – that is our small team of explorers, scientists and friends – continued to research, explore and write.
Our work was much more difficult – our ressources small, our time sparse.
And finally, even the few people left started to leave for the surface.
I was one of the few who remained – mainly working on my own ages, but sometimes I managed to pay a visit to ages like Risoahl, Resehren or even Yoshonah.
Then came the darkest day of the year 2013. On 20th of September, a small expedition, consisting of Shane Kennett, Alex, Noelle, Jack Rowe and myself, went to Nifehrehn.
We wore our maintainer suits to protect ourselves from the extremely harsh cold of the age.
When we left the abandoned D’ni outpost, we almost immediately got lost due to our compasses spinning around maniacally, which had happened never before in Nifehrehn.
As we were trying to find the way back, one of the apex predators of the age attacked us out of the blue – or rather, out of the white – and quickly locked jaws onto Jacks suit, ripping it open.
It would surely have killed him, if not for Shane, who had a D’ni stun gun with him. He stabbed the thing with the gun, and it shrieked terribly, rearing up and starting to run away. Some 20 meters (approx. 60 feet) away, it collapsed and – as we found out later – died. It seems, these creatures are extremely vulnerable to this kind of stunning device.
Jack lost a lot of blood, and the cold started to take a heavy toll on him. Fortunately, our combined efforts helped us to rescue him just in time, and then leaving quickly with our emergency books that led us back to D’ni.
Jack had to undergo massive medical treatment, but after a few weeks, he fully recovered from his wounds.
We decided not to go out into Nifehrehns dangerous environment until we would be able to protect us better.
After the accident, we played it safe – stayed in a few secure ages mostly, doing a lot of harmless research.
Alex and Noelle decided to leave the cavern shortly after the incident and wouldn´t come back until much later.
All these things happened from July to October in 2013.
).
Critter 3 to the rescue!
Posted by Rabenschwinge - Monday, October 24th, 2011
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.
Tags: age, book of commentary, Critter 2, Critter 3, Dr. Alexandra Rebman-Bartos, Forberg, guild of maintainers, linking book, maintainer suit, maintainers stamp, Tom Woods
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