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Noelle Belfiore « Rabenschwinges Cavern blog

Posts Tagged ‘Noelle Belfiore’

Recapitulation – what happened over the last two years, part II

Posted by - Friday, November 7th, 2014

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.

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Nifehrehn shivering

Posted by - Friday, October 8th, 2010

Okay, this age IS cold. I went there yesterday, with a small group of fellow expedition members. We explored the outpost first. It is partly underground, and rather small. There are sleeping rooms for four people, so I guess, it was crewed for more than just short visits. The expedition had found three journals before, which Noelle has translated partly. It seems, the writers were three survivors, who had fled here, when the Fall happened, two men and a woman. The dates given in the journals suggest, that they stayed here for at least two months – because of the limited space and ressources, the tensions between them rose, and it seems, that at least two of them got rather deranged after some weeks. What happened to them? Why did they leave with most of their equipment left behind, not to mention, their personal journals?
I fear, a great tragedy has happened here.

The outpost itself is mostly disfunctional currently. The gauges and scales seem to get no energy, and frost has entered most of the equipment, rendering it unusable.

At least some kind of emergency light is still working – maybe we just have to find the energy source and turn it on again.

We left the outpost through some kind of lock – not an airlock, but something similar, maybe to better keep the cold outside.

All of us weared our maintainer suits, because we were repeatedly warned – the temperatures are really low, beyond -50.0 °C (approx. -58.0 °F).
Even with the maintainer suits, we only stayed out there for 10 minutes – if the D’ni survivors really left the outpost, they wouldn´t have been able to survive there for long.

After that visit, I had to warm myself up, so I was rather happy to be invited to a small party given for one of the explorers because of his birthday, in Risoahl.
The age is very comfortable, as I mentioned before, at least, if you´re not doing any hard manual work there.
We had a campfire, sat around on some felled giant bamboo stems and roasted marshmallows (I had just learned how to do this, I´m not from the US, so this was new to me – I like this particular custom :P ).
Of course we told each other ghost stories (especially creepy, when some unknown creatures suddenly shriek inmidst the night, as we found out)

I got to know some of the guys from the expedition a little better, for example, our diving team. They are cave divers from New Zealand, and asked, if I would mind them dive in my new age, Ahnoto. I told them to go ahead, but of course told them of the huge shadow I saw on my last visit. They weren´t scared at all, said, they had dived with sharks, whales and giant squids, and they could handle any creature. Well, it´s their necks they risk – maybe I should let them sign a waiver of liability.
Just kidding … or am I?

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Ashetens fate

Posted by - 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 :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!

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Yagi visit

Posted by - Monday, September 27th, 2010

As I had mentioned before, Alex and Noelle had invited me to join them visiting the Yagi, our first “ahrotantee” people (if you don´t count the Bahro).
So we linked there last saturday.
I was surprised, how cool (fresh) the age was – I had expected a tropical climate. There were pine trees on the islands, a lot of long grass, and ferns of various sizes.

The village we visited lies on a rather big island, adjacent to a small bay. We were joyfully welcomed by nearly the whole village population. The Yagi are clearly humanoid, and quite similar to us. But there are some differences: They are smaller and broader built, and their heads are rounder. Their language is strange, they seem to speak very fast (I couldn´t make out any single word) and add many snarling and hissing sounds.
They are a very friendly and peaceful people. Noelle and Alex are already well known, but I was eyed curiously. Some of them touched my hands and my arms, as if they hadn´t seen something like them before (but their arms and hands are nearly identical to ours, so I guess it´s some kind of greeting gesture).
Noelle is quite fluent in their language by now, and she translated.

I got to observe the fishing techniques of the Yagi – I think, I´ve seen this techniques in TV on our own earth. They stand in a semi cycle in the shallow water and slowly direct the fish between them into the direction they want: A gap in the circle, where another group of Yagi waits patiently with big nets. When the fish have been driven into the nets, the Yagi enwrap them quickly. This technique works surprisingly well, and we were invited to a opulent fish meal that evening.

The most intriguing fact about the Yagi are their domestic animals: They have tamed a huge species of herbivore, which they call “Toosha”. They are bigger than a Rhino, but very calm and imperturbable.
They are really strong – Onsha, one of our hosts, showed us a Toosha pulling a big tree down – it didn´t seem to strain itself a lot.

I wonder, if the Yagi might borrow us one or two of these formidable beasts – they could easily pull a medium excavator!

We left the Yagi late at night. They first wouldn´t let us go, and always brought more food. Very hospitable.

That visit will stay in my mind for a while, what a great day!
And, of course, the Toosha.

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Progress

Posted by - Saturday, September 11th, 2010

I´ll finish my first age this weekend, it´s nearly done. I feel so excited!
What will it look like? Will it be flawed? Will it be suitable for a home base?
It´s hard for me to keep concentrated on writing with all that thoughts running through my head…

Yesterday I had a chat with B.P. He told me they had found some documentation on the crystal age we had escaped narrowly… he said, it was a garden age!
It´s name was Eder Kamonee. Can´t believe the maintainers allowed such a dangerous place to be a garden age… what were they thinking? Though, I like the name, sounds nice.
B.P. said he thinks, there must have been some kind of shelter in the age once… otherwise the D´ni wouldn´t have been able to visit the “garden age” safely.
Maybe there is another linking book to this shelter?
At the moment, it will keep closed for any visitors, even of the expedition itself. They clearly won´t risk anyones life.

Work in Risoahl has stopped for now – felling the bamboo is to time consuming right now. B.P. said, it will be restored later. They´d rather do some work on another age they found last year… B.P. said, I would be told more about it at the next meeting.

My wounds from that visit to Eder Kamonee are slowly healing, but they still hurt.
On the positive side: We heard news from Claire, the intern that got hurt most in the incident. She is alright, the cut will heal without any long-term sequela.
Alex collected some money to buy her flowers and “get well soon” cards. And then, she told me, she and Noelle would make a visit in Yagee Mohts next week, and invited me again to join them. Great!

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… if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Posted by - Monday, September 6th, 2010

Well, I´m not a woodchuck, that´s for sure.
Yesterday we went on with our work in Risoahl, and it was worse than the last time. We only managed to fell five of that giant bamboo stems, and it was really hard. I cut my hands open, despite wearing thick leather gloves.

Fortunately we decided to break off for the day. Shane Kennett, who led our little working crew, said he would try to find some D´ni equipment – maybe they have some faster, less exhaustive means of doing this.

I used the break to become familiar with other members of the “Forberg expedition” (it really needs an official name, one which can be abbreviated, like the DRC or SR, or TTP, or all the other cool names.)

I had a nice conversation with Alex and another woman, Noelle Belfiore, who is the expeditions linguist. They told me more about the Yagi, the first – and yet only – people of “ahrotahntee”, the expedition has encountered until now.
They seem to be a simple, but spiritual fishing community, living in the age of Yagee Mohts. They aren´t aware of the art, of the D´ni or of the terokh jeruth, and it is official policy of the expedition to not telling them if possible. I agree. It would be a cultural shock to them.
Alex and Noelle have visited them several times – they said, they came from far away (which, from a certain point of view, is true). They did research on the culture, religious believes and the language of the Yagi.
Alex again invited me to join them on their next visit, which is planned for the next week. I´m looking forward to that!

And I was able to meet B.P. and ask him about a place to sleep… told him about my problems with Relto. He assigned a room on the second floor to me. It´s small, but sufficient for me. And it is rather quiet, so I can work on my age.

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