Beneath - An Uru Explorers Journey Through D'ni and its Ages

I find more and more of my time is spent away from the cavern and the Ages. Life has slowly been pulling me in another direction and I find myself pondering if it is actually possible to leave the cavern behind. All the things I’ve seen, all the things I’ve done, all the things I have accomplished with Ages like Fahets and Cass.

Is it possible to leave it all behind and move on?

My focus returned to the cavern today with Leo from the Guild of Messengers contacting me regarding the cover I had said I would do for the Go magazine. Given that I promised to do it before I closed myself off from the rest of the explorer community I figured I should make it.

I also realized that I needed to make the wallpaper for September and get that posted.

Whilst my mind was set to cavern related activities I figured I should check in with Fahets and see how things are progressing.
It was raining as I Linked in, as annoying as the rain used to be I found myself missing it. I am guessing it has been raining for some time as the dry cracked earth that was in the basin was now a shallow pool of water.
It was also refreshing to see that some of the old wildlife was returning with the water to feed it.

It will take some time, but the Age will flourish again. The Age seems to have stabilized nicely.

Whilst it has only been but a month, there have been notable signs of stabilization on Pyre. As a result I have gone ahead and copied the passage into the Fahets Book.

We shall see how it goes…

Stopped by Sul this morning to check on the plantlife I had saved from Fahets to find a note on my desk.

The handwriting looks somewhat familiar, whoever wrote it apparently knows me which could be why the handwriting is familiar.

Enclosed in the note was a Garohevtee I had not seen before. The question is would it actually solve the issue as the mysterious author attests too? The notation under the phrase comments on which elements within Fahets that it relates to, I can see how it technically could introduce a stable element. I won’t further risk Fahets with adding it untested though. I Wrote two other test Ages when the Fahets issue started in order to try and figure out a solution, I think testing it on “Pyre” (the more damaged of the two test Ages) would be a good idea. I can monitor any changes and if it proves safe apply it to Fahets.

It’s been a while since I had last stepped foot on Fahets. My last visit showed me the upheaval that was wrought by the last series of tremors. The basin walls had been shattered into splinters of rock, as a result the surrounding mass of water had rushed in and flooded the area.

For a while things seemed to quieten down, I had even started constructing wooden walkways spanning the new watery areas linking the new islands with others, even constructing a dock and a boat so I could venture out further.

Of course it didn’t last.

We were constructing the hut when the tremors started again, this time they were significantly more violent than before. Several times we were thrown to the floor.

The others left, I stayed, longer than perhaps I should. But I at least got to see a prelude to what was to come.
The sky was darkening, loud thunder rumbled the rock beneath my feet. As I looked out over the swamp I noticed that patches of water were beginning to steam, and boil, the wildlife in the water floating to the surface dead as they were boiled alive.

At that point I felt it best to leave the Age for now, before I was harmed myself.

Today however, I decided to return, with a suit of course.

Such changes…

The Link in point survived, but the surrounding area did not fare so well. In the middle of Fahets that was, a giant fissure has pushed up out of the rock below, from it comes a vibrant orange glow from the magma at its bottom.
The walkways have been rendered useless and in some cases have been destroyed. The formation of the surrounding rock has shifted drastically. The once walls of the basin are jutting spires of rock, it’s hard to tell there once was a basin. The surrounding rock has pushed up or sunk, I can’t tell but the area of Fahets that was is now in a large sunken recess. The fissure has dried up the surrounding water, its is now no longer a swampy area but a barren plane of cracked mud. A lot of the plant-life has died (like the Norapods) but some grass and the Glowcaps have managed to hold on.

Outside of the recess it’s worse. Everywhere I can see the water has vanished, cracked earth spreads out meeting blackened rock where more fissures riddle the surface. The area out there is too dangerous for people to venture out in, I think we’re going to have to block access off to those portions.

The sky still rumbles with thunder, the tremors are faint but still happen frequently, but I’m not fooled this time, it’s just a calm before another storm.

And yet I am helpless, I cannot seem to locate what the problem is with the Age, why it continues this decay.
And honestly, at this point, I’m sorely tempted to throw my hands up and say to hell with it, let it succumb to its fate and be done with it.

Work on Cass has been progressing nicely, the central hallway is now stable and completed and work has moved on to what I call “The Harbingers Wing”.

The new expansion for the Age has created 4 museum wings dedicated to various aspects of D’ni. The Harbingers Wing which deals with D’ni past. The Restorers Wing, which deals with the DRC and their restoration attempt. The Grower Wing, which deals with Yeesha and the journey as well as the Bahro and their freedom. And finally the Explorers Wing, which deals with the new inhabitants of D’ni, us.

The Harbingers series of portraits have already been hung in their new home, as well as replicas of paintings found in the Ae’gura museum and the Ri’neref one that we discovered elsewhere.

One of the spare Rehevkor from the Archive has also been submitted as well as a damaged Descriptive Book. We also decided that the Seed from the Tehren prayer rooms should find a home there too given that its former home is in a bad shape.

Currently the work is being overseen by Keira and Steve, which allows me to step back for a few days to focus on some other issues that have been slowly coming to fruition over a long period of time.
The problems I faced with Sul, the instabilities are finding their way to my other works. At first I thought it was perhaps because I was trying some new concepts with Sul, and had borrowed from other Books in its development that perhaps some instabilities had wormed their way in, but my own observations of Fahets have shown that it too is having troubles.
It started at the beginning of the year, slight tremors at first that have been gradually getting worse. Reports have been coming in from other explorers and Path members of fissures (not Fissures mind you) opening up here and there.
As a result I have gathered the Descriptive Books for my other Ages and taken them to Sul for further study.
Whilst I am loathe to squander precious resources that are in short supply, I need to look into Writing some experimental Ages to see if I can predict the decay and counter it..