During the first restoration effort by the D'ni Restoration Council the D'ni city was rife with conflicting political ideals.
The Third Path first started in 2003 when a group of explorers came together with a shared interest. Originally their goal was to explore and learn more of the D'ni civilization. During this time the D'ni cavern was rife with conflicting political ideals with the main two points of conflict being the pro Yeesha/Anti DRC and pro DRC/Anti Yeesha movements. At the time Keith Lord was an active member of The Great Tree group which was lead by Douglas Sharper. Keith grew to dislike the method that the Great Tree group were using to further their agenda and so began promoting a new path, a third path in which everyone both Yeesha and the DRC worked together for the betterment of D'ni as a whole. This caused clashes of conflict between Keith and Douglas Sharper resulting in Keith leaving the Great Tree group to focus on The Third Path.
The group continued to amass knowledge and documents on the D'ni to further their research whilst at the same time pushing for people to work together in the cavern.
Contents
Rise of the Restorers Guild
In 2004 the DRC ran out of funding for their restoration effort and endeavored to shut down the cavern. However that genie was already out of the bottle and try as they did they were unable to keep people out of the cavern. Members of The Third Path returned to the cavern and set up camp in the Tehren Neighborhood, they were not the only explorers to return in fact many others had ventured back down into the cavern eventually becoming known as D'ni Raiders.
Having set themselves up in the Tehren Neighborhood the Third Path shifted their focus to finding and restoring Ages and areas of D'ni, changing their name to the Restorers Guild to highlight this fact. Their first project was the restoration of the Tehren Neighborhood itself.
Death of David Clarke
In 2004 Keith Lord and Dr. Keira Benson were on a supply run to the surface. During this time James Rofen had gone missing which was not unsual. James would often vanish from his duties for days at a time. David Clarke having grown tired of this tracked James down to an abandoned house in the City Proper, there he discovered the James had been conducting research into the Bahro and The Art. The Third Path had forbidden research into Age Writing as a result James and David got into a heated argument resulting in David's death.
A search party was organized after both David and James failed to resurface, after several days of searching David's body was discovered. James was no where to be found and the group concluded that David had been murdered by James.
As the group mourned, some returned to the surface for a break. Sophie Thomas returned to D'ni with a plan. She had known David a long time and the two were very close, she wanted answers about what happened. Taking a Relto Book from one of the former Third Path restoration engineers, she modified the hut on the Age turning it into a prison cell of sorts. After weeks of hunting for James Rofen she finally caught him and imprisoned him on "Prelto" as the group later called the Age (prison Relto).
The group question James but did not find the answers they were looking for, James was uncooperative. All of his journals a research from the location in the City Proper were confiscated and placed within the Third Path archive.
James eventually escaped "Prelto" with the assistance of an unknown helper. Explorers reported sightings of him in the D'ni cavern but the group never caught up to him again.
Third Path Again
The group later returned to being known as The Third Path. They continued to restore area and Ages of D'ni they had discovered in their exploration of the D'ni cavern.
Eventually they group relented on their rule of not researching Age Writing, with a couple of the council members themselves learning how to Write Ages. This opened up new Ages and areas for the Third Path to work on.
In 2014 Keith, along with other restorer groups in the cavern, was approached by the DRC. The DRC passed on their unfinished restoration projects to the group so that they could continue where the DRC left off, this group became known as the Intangibles Group.
The Third Path Council
The group is structured much like the DRC from which it drew inspiration, a council of 5 members overlooks the restoration/development process and pass the phases that an Age/Area goes through. The group also has Engineers that help out with the work.
The Council is comprised of 5 people, in the past however this has changed to three. The 5 council members over see the running of The Third Path and approval of an Age/Area. Originally the council was comprised of Keith Lord, Dr. Keira Benson, David Clarke, James Rofen and Sophie Thomas. These days the Council is comprised of;
Keith Lord
Dr. Keira Benson
Sophie Thomas
Steven Ross
Robert Lumley