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

The hand symbol from the note and the book, I’ve seen it elsewhere! Why did I not piece this together sooner?

“Ah! I’m thick! Look at me, I’m old and thick! Head’s too full of stuff! I need a bigger head!”

- The Doctor

Kehra and I discovered it during our exploration of Kehrahn during our last visit back in November. Our journey took us out through the forest where we discovered that the lake actually sat upon the top of a vast column of rock. As we stood at the edge we found other columns and walkways linking some of them. It turns out there was once a village near the lake column. We had figured there must be some signs of civilization due to the carved head that lies next to the lake.

The village was abandoned but there were carvings left inscribed with the language of the people who resided there. And upon one of the tablets was the spiral hand symbol. The hand symbol was attributed to someone called “Lore” who had saved them from an oncoming evil by moving them to a new world. This turn of events were correlated by a journal we found in the village written in English, the journal of “Lore”.
The problem is more questions now surface. It stands to reason that Lore knows me, so do I know this Lore under a different name? How did Lore access Kehrahn when access is only between myself and my wife?

Perhaps another read through Lore’s journal is needed, perhaps I over looked something.

Now as to how this relates to the current ongoings in Fahets…
Kehrahn has some interesting creatures that the locals referred to as Skyfish, these fish use the water in the foggy air to “swim” through the sky. They had developed a means to capture these fish with nets that resonated the air and the resulting frequencies attracted the fish. Different frequencies attracted different fish.
After I had completed my studied of the Grass Shark, which I have officially named Mangark (Mangrove Shark), the similarities between it and the Shark of Earth was not missed. So I started to ponder the idea of using sound to repel the Mangarks, to keep them at distance and away from the populated areas of Fahets.
So Sophie and I took a trip to Kehrahn to study the “nets” in order to perhaps build a similar device on Fahets.
Of course it was during our wanderings of the village that I walked past the carvings again and saw the hand symbol making the connection finally.

But the theory should be sound, we figure it was probably the sounds of us working that attracted the Mangarks in the first place. So it is just the case of finding the right frequency to repel them. Sophie says she should have something that will work within the next few days but she may have to harvest some parts from Kehrahn to do so.

I’ve been so worn out lately. Cass is requiring a lot of input from me, given that I’m the chief historian most of the books being placed in the Age fall to me to either be written/compiled or to be checked out. Then I have my experiments with Fahets to keep an eye on.

I’m about ready to lie down under a tree and sleep for a few weeks.

Kez and I have taken to spending more time on Kehrahn, both of us are under considerable stress at the moment and it’s nice to get away and just relax somewhat.
So we’ve been cataloging some of the wildlife around the lake, a pretty diverse selection.
Kez likes the little starburst flowers personally my favorites are what we call the Ghostcap mushrooms, tiny little white mushrooms that seem to glow with brightness.

We did, however, discover some odd berries, some very odd berries. The remind me greatly of acorns, they have a hard lower cup which cradles the actual fruit. I picked on of the smaller ones to study and to eventually try.
They’re pretty tasty, nice and sweet and kind of safe to eat. I say kind of because whilst they didn’t poison me or anything of the sort, they did make me trip the heck out.
Turns out the Todah Berries as we called them are hallucinogenic in nature.

I’ve taken a few more samples to take back with me to Sul for further study, probably not the best idea to go around eating them though.

The Christmas holidays saw the majority of us heading up to the surface to spend the season with family and friends.

For us it was a double new, it was the first Christmas of me being a US resident and the first Christmas in our own place. Despite some issues in November and the chaos of organizing it went well, the kids seem to certainly enjoy themselves.

With the holidays over I returned to the cavern to continue the work we are doing, one project was Kehrahn. Upon seeing Cass my wife expressed an interest in having a Linking Book to a similar location albeit purple instead of blue. So for our one year anniversary that is coming up at the end of the month I thought I would Write a small Age for her, I may not be able to give her the world, but I can give her a world (sappy I know but I adore my wife).

Work has been progressing nicely over the course of time, I based the design heavily on Cass with some changes (the Kehrahn Book is almost a copy of the Cass Book), I don’t plan to get into the habit of duplicating Books I feel it belittles the specialness of the Ages contained within, almost like mass production of a classing painting or something, not that I could deem any of my Ages to be classical, they simply are what they are.

Thankfully the project hasn’t been as much of a disaster as Winterbloom, which still hasn’t reached phase 5.

Giles has been posting his journal entries recently regarding an Age he is writing called Luminesce. The other day he posted a map he had drawn out for what he hopes the Age will look like when it is finished, in my experience the Ages never quite work out the way you expect them too, but I enjoy the surprise in that, it takes on a life of its own.

The map however inspired me, more specifically the symbol for the Age inspired me, so today I took a break from Kehrahn and Sul and worked upon a small project which I have now finished.

Using the left over glass from previous stained glass window projects I constructed a new one based on Luminesce’s symbol.

I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, given that it was rushed, there are some changes I’d like to make, some of the weld spots, some of the glass I used, I think the colours could be tweaked (the blue in the sky is a little too vibrant for my liking). I’m debating hanging this in the gallery on Cass with other works although I am tempted to see what Giles makes of it.