A short walk from the well we found the living area for Fehnir’en and Nalen, a small area like the one situated in the well, containing a bedroom and small study. It seems they would head down to the well to eat with the others. Not to surprising really, even members of a close knit family still want their moments of privacy and peace.

There were no paths leading off into the forest, if there were they have long since grown over. So Steven and I headed into the nearest gap in the trees to explore.

We wandered around for about 2 hours before we found Jilen’s camp. A large boulder sat in the middle of a clearing. Sections of it had been carved out, and a wooden structure attached. Wooden steps lead across to a stream of fresh water. The first thought that hit me was that it was all very neat and tidy, for a location that has been around 200 years I expected it to be overgrown. The problem with this line of reasoning was that I assumed Jilen was no more, this reason was quickly changed when a figured stepped out from the house as we approached it.

Unsurprisingly he was weary, the man has been in solitude for 200 years, and it is very apparent we are not D’ni, a fact that Jilen himself acknowledged and muttered as we approached. So it came to a surprised to him (and an amusing one at that) when both Steven and I waved, said shorah and introduced ourselves.

He ushered us inside and motioned to sit before pouring us all a drink which he later mentioned was a wine he had made from some of the fruit that can be found in the forest, interesting idea, I should try doing that with the Norapods in Fahets some time.
We sat for a few hours talking, Steven doing most of it on our side as his D’ni is better than mine. He asked who we were? Why we came to Ahry’ahn? What happened to the plague? And many more questions. We explained how D’ni had fallen, many fled to the Ages like he had, then 200 odd years later humans discovered the Cavern and had started restoring and living in D’ni. How Atrus had gathered survivors and moved to a new home called Releeshahn. He took a lot of interest in the news about Releeshahn, not sure what he made of humans being in D’ni though.

A lot of what Jilen had to say we already knew from his journal. He had sealed the well up after Laia died and kept an eye from a distance over all that time in case people returned. Which is why he was expecting us, he had been watching our efforts in the well since we stepped through.

Dusk fell on Ahry’ahn and we parted company, Jilen wanted to rest and think over what had been talked about, especially the part about Releeshahn and joining the others. I asked him if he would mind us stopping by again sometime and speak to him more. As an Archivist he would be an excellent source of information regarding D’ni history, he said he will come find us in time.

Before we left however, he noted the Books on our hips, I asked him if wanted to take a look at Relto, but he said maybe later. He watched in awe and confusion as Steven Linked out first, the Book going with him instead of falling to the ground. Looking to me for an explanation, I told him that it was written by a D’ni descendant who was very good with the Art, with that I bid him goodnight and left myself.

At first I was hesitant about continuing the restoration process on Ahry’ahn after discovering Jilen was still living there, I explained to him that more may find their way to his house if we release the Age, but he didn’t seem troubled by that, he was keen for others to see it. I guess it’s the archivist in him, Ahry’ahn is now a page in history that others can witness.

It gives a short description of events that took place after the family had fled from D’ni, as well as helped up wrap up the small mystery of who the figure was laying in the bed on Ahry’ahn and who were the two that were in Lehns.

Seem Jilen did not stay in the immediate area with them but ventured out into the forest to find his own place.

We were now faced with the possibility that we may spend the rest of our days in this Age. Laia offered to set up a spot for me to live in with them, but I felt perhaps I should let them have their space, with Fehnir yet to show up I felt they would need it for mourning, I did not doubt that my friend had fallen to the same cloud that had taken many other lives.

Heading back to the Link in passage, I took the tunnel up to the upper areas of the forest and decided to find myself an area to set up a camp, Laia kindly lending me construction tools to aid me.

- Journal of Jilen

The passage where the book had been found had been blocked by Jilen himself, to protect himself from the plague. Steven and I plan to head out into the forest and see if we can find where he lived, see what other items of interest can be found.

We had taken a bit of a hiatus from the location after working on Fehnir’s house due to the amount of documentation discovered there. We’ve managed to make enough progress on the translations that the rest can be handled by Steven and his team. As a result I have returned to the Age to continue with a more thorough exploration.

My previous trip had been a quick one, collecting samples and seeing what the immediate location was like. I Linked through to the enclosed area, which I now noticed is actually tunnel that appears to lead up through the rock to the forest above. The way was blocked off however by a large bolder, I was about to turn away when I noticed a book on the floor, on closer inspection it appeared to be a journal.
I placed it in my bag to take back to my office on Sul to translate and headed out to the well again.

Descending the stone path I followed it around the rock wall towards the house, heading in I took the time to look around more. The first room appears to be a kitchen, a small stove and work bench is to the left and to the right a small table with four seats.

Past this room was a single bedroom where I had discovered the corpse on the previous trip. In this room was a largish bed and a desk which contained a Book back to Fehnir’s house and a Book to Lehns, oddly it contained little else, perhaps his usual equipment was back in D’ni?

Back outside I walked over to the well, an actual well this time that the family likely drew drinking water from, and looked up at the rock face. It would appear that there was once a waterfall that dispersed water into the basin, a section of the rock face is worn away that would indicate such, however no water currently flows, perhaps it has been blocked, either by Fehnir and his family or naturally.

I do not (hopefully) foresee this Age taking a long time to release, there is not a great deal that needs fixing. For now, however, I plan to return to Sul and being work on this translation.

Linking Books to Fehnir’s house can now be obtained from our Order Page. Some may be asking “why a Linking Book for a D’ni location?” well for two reasons.

1. It is a long trek up to the house which can be tiresome to make constantly.
2. Due to structural instabilities the entrance to the house is now blocked.

I returned to the surface last week to have some stitches removed from my head, and whilst up there I discovered we had a family gathering to go to in Kansas for July 4th. So after much running around like a headless chicken and 6 hours across several states we finally got there.

As a result of all this, releasing Fehnir’s house got delayed slightly, but we should be allowing access tomorrow with any luck.

Not a huge amount of work has taken place since Whil and Blake Heatly dropped in, the place is still a bit of a mess, but we can tidy it up later. Personally I’m inclined to leave it as is, the location is a snap shot in time, albeit one you can walk around, but it shows the emotion and destruction Veovis and A’gaeris’ actions that fateful day.

As a result I have been searching the streets around the area the Lehns Book was discovered in the hopes that we could find the owners home and find more documentation regarding the Age.

After the second day of searching I finally discovered the house some 5 minutes walk away from where the Book was located.

Doing a quick check over to see if it was safe I ducked in and had a quick look around, it wasn’t until I got to the second floor that I realized this was the place we were looking for. Upstairs sat the Book room which apparently doubled up as a study for Fehnir, a Guildsman in the Guild of Archivists (not sure of his position). Unfortunately it seems Fehnir didn’t make it out, as his body lies next to his desk.

But he was surrounded by artifacts I recognize from previous visits to Lehns. It seems he has a second Age in his possession, which from what I could quickly glean, is called Ahry’ahn. Unfortunately the Book contains the tell-tale signs of what we dubbed “Plague Seeding”, the Book is covered in that mucky brown residue and a palm print clearly shows activity after the plague had hit, most likely A’gaeris and Veovis.

I returned to the location a while later with some of the guys to start overseeing Phase 1, bringing a Maintainers Suit with my I decided to venture into the Age to see what was up. I had been there only 5 minutes when I suspicions were confirmed with the discovery of a shallow grave near the house within the Age, and another body inside the house.

Once the samples come back as green I shall have to return for an extended exploration trip.

However upon returning to Fehnir’s house I discovered a chaotic scene. The teams had set out to check the structural security of the surrounding buildings, as the district had taken on a lot of damage during the Fall. Unfortunately during their poking around one of the buildings gave way, the team managed to Link out quickly using their Relto Books, so thankfully no-one was hurt. But the collapse caused large amounts of damage to Fehnir’s house, blocking off large portions of it. As a result the area has been closed off for 24 hours to let everything settle before the teams return to check out how safe it is.

In the meanwhile I have the collection of journals taken from the study to translate with Steven.

Finished up the work late lastnight, took a while for it to dry out (some area’s still need drying), but for the most part it’s almost ready to hang, not sure whether to put it up in the museum to replace the broken painting there or store it for hanging elsewhere.

It’s a shame the DRC didn’t release more information about D’ni art.

The Age is in remarkable condition from what little I could see, it doesn’t look like that it will require much restoration work before we can release it to the public.

However, more documentation on the Age would be nice, what little Keira could find indicated that it was a place for people to meet and discuss cavern life and politics. Unfortunately that seems to be it as far as we can tell, we haven’t even found a name for this place yet.

The tests all came back green so we can progress with the Age in the future, for now however I am going to assign a small group to find more documentation on the Age so we can find out more about it, aside from that the Age will be placed with the rest of the pending Ages whilst we focus on tidying up other Ages to release to the public, seeming it shouldn’t require much work.

In the mean time I have added it to the projects page of Beneath.

We spent the morning searching half a dozen locations but without any luck, with more explorers searching the city for resources for Age writing I fear the supply will soon run out, for all of us.

We need to take stock of what we have left over the next few days…

However our search was not in vain, I happened to stumble upon a Book which was hidden under the mess that littered what appeared to be a study. Keira decided to stay at the house a while longer to see if any documentation regarding the Age could be found whilst I headed back to Tehren to get the Book checked over.

Tomorrow I shall arrange for the initial visit to the Age to take place, from looking at the Linking Panel it seems to Link to a small courtyard of sorts, aside from that we’ve been unable to tell what the rest of the Age may look like.

A quick study indicated that this piece was of a certain art movement, alas records doesn’t confirm what the movement was which is a pain.

I repaired and re-stretched the canvas over the new frame, cleaned up the paint work and the mold. We haven’t discovered any information on the construct of D’ni paint and how it was mixed so I ended up using surface equivalents and matching the colours up, matched them up nicely I think in the end.

I have a hi res scan of the piece here: The Prophetess.
For those of you who are interested, you can see the worst of the mold in the top left, haven’t managed to remove it all safely yet.

One thing about being in the Cavern so long restoring stuff, we have the processes down pretty well which means we can get things sorted out quickly, at least with smaller items anyway, bigger restoration projects always take longer not surprisingly.

Still got some work to do before I send it off to the SR guys.