The Calling
I have no idea how long that message had been sitting in my inbox. The message was from Jeff Zandi, despite the wishes of the DRC he was giving me the means to reach The Cleft.
Despite it being late August, the temperature was extremely hot, thankfully I had packed plenty of water, I was not used to American weather. I had been walking a while, eventually I started recognizing the landscape from my previous visit, and as if to signal that I was on the right track, on the horizon I could see the volcano.
I had spied the volcano even before I had noticed the fence that surrounded Zandi’s land. As I walked over to the infamous Airstream trailer I was surprised to find Jeff himself waiting for me outside.
Surprisingly he had little to say to me, he mentioned a message waiting for me from “her”. After I finally got the windmill working and power running in The Cleft, I discovered “her” message.
Shorah. Rekooahn treCleft preniv legloen b’rem… Oh yes, not in D’ni, they won’t understand.
Once again, the stream in the Cleft has begun to flow. It was dry for so long. The water is flowing in from the desert. The storm is coming.
Have you heard of the City? The deep City, the ancient Uru? Where there was power to write worlds? For thousands of years, the City lived; lived beneath the surface, keeper of the secret, keeper of the power, keeper of the Ages. Always keeping. The City grew proud, and then it died.
The water flows where it wills. It seeks its own path uncontrolled except that it flows downward, always downward.
D’ni, the City of Ages, of other worlds, died. But now it breathes again, it awaits. Some will seek that destination, but you should seek the Journey. It’s as a fine tapestry, complex beyond comprehension, but now torn. We will show you remnants; pieces of the tapestry. Pieces of the Journey. Find the remnants, these Journeys. Seven. Seven in each Age, seven here in the desert. Consider it a quest. No, a request.
Worship.
The water flows downward, and there it pools and collects, and finally, it reaches the roots. And the tree begins to grow again.
I am Yeesha. My parents brought me to this place. We will bring you.
There is much to study here, there is a document seemingly penned by Atrus’ own hand to Yeesha, his daughter. I shall have to return here with the means to copy the document for future referencing I think.
My search for the cloths took me back up into the heat, as I headed back over to Jeff to see if he had any thoughts on the message, as I did so I discovered another one of the cloths on the back of his Airstream. Despite his lack of words he was most helpful in pointing the way at times. My hunt for the cloths lead me to discover some interesting artifacts strewn about the area. My first discovered was sheets of metal, half buried in the desert floor, they encircled a larger object which I recognized from Catherine’s journals as the telescope from Riven. Across the way I could spy some large bones, upon which was another cloth. Then bones as it turns out (from looking at the formation of the skull and tusks) is that of a Wahrk, which leads me to wonder what other relics from that infamous Age has fallen through to Earth to be left here gathering in the dirt unloved, if I had my way I’d be carting them off to somewhere safe.
Is this the location where the fissure lead too after the collapse of Riven?
Incredible, it seems that the seven cloths allow for the doorway under the tree in The Cleft to be opened. Opening it revealed a tunnel that lead to a cave. All around me I could hear strange chittering noises that I found unnerving coming out from the dark recesses of the cave. Upon the walls were strange pictoglyphs of symbols with D’ni lettering, a figure and spirals, all of which gave off a blue light when passed.
The path through the tunnels lead to a podium of rock, upon which was a small book which I had seen before, a Relto Book, my Relto Book.
It’s been a long day, the cave is nice and cool but I need to find a place to rest. I will chronicle the pictographs when I return here, but for now I shall Link to Relto and see if I can rest there.
Tags: Jeff Zandi, The Cleft
