Beneath

It has been a while since I had last stepped foot upon Fahets. My last visited had showed me the upheaval that was wrought by the last series of earthquakes. The basin wall has been cracked and a section fallen away. The basin floor itself has shifted with one area dropping down and splitting the pond into two area, an upper pond and a lower pond. For a while it seemed as if things had quietened down so I started to venture out into the surrounding area taking stock of what damage there was. The tall stone columns seemed stable, but the ground showed signs of trouble with several pits that had opened up to reveal lava at the bottom of it. It is clear that this Age has stability issues…

The apparently stability did not last of course. I was down near the swamp area when the tremors started again, this time they were significantly more violent that any we had previously encountered. Several times we were thrown to the floor.
The others felt it prudent to leave, I stayed, longer than perhaps I should. But in doing so I witnessed a prelude of 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.

The rumble of the earth and the thunder above grew ever louder until the point it was almost deafening, at that point I felt it best to leave before I ended up hurt or worse.

As promised a quick summery of some of the experiments and studies that I am currently working on.

Fahets Stability

The stability issues are on going, I’m continuing to monitor the various Ages (especially Fahets) for further signs of trouble.
I have decided to use a couple of my precious blank Books to Write a couple of simple test Ages where I can monitor degradation of the underlying structure and implement any possible fixes.

So keen was I to put pen to paper, to Write an Age. I don’t think I was ready.
I have been spending countless nights pouring over Descriptive Books from other Ages trying to understand the various intricate concepts used in Age Writing, to see if I had overlooked something or if I could find a solution.

Water Studies

D’ni lake water studies continue with sampling of various pellets. Whilst I am now convinced that I have a nice formula for the pellets that will give the algae a healthy dose, the sheer mass of the lake means that fixing it will take many years. Especially after looking at the data provided in the rest of the community.

I’m hoping to take the pellets to a new stage an introduce new elements into the make up or perhaps work with Sophie on a better means to feed the lake…perhaps something airborne? I’m not sure.

Age Viewer

The idea came after Sophie and I had been working on the new imager model. The Third Path archive contains some interesting notes from a third party, relating to the experiments Atrus had done. So we had been musing if perhaps we could take a look at the concept, a fact made easier with the KI and Lattice technology, and see if something could come of it.

This was a couple of years back now, we have both been working ahead with it in our spare time. A few of the preliminary tests have yielded positive results.
Hopefully when some of the other issues have died down we can focus more on it and hopefully develop a solid working test.

Todah Berries

The berries have been the subject of some small scale studies. I’ve been curious as to the potency of the effects after the fruit has been prepared in numerous fashions.

As a result I roped Steven in to giving me a hand testing this and being a lab rat.

So far I’ve discovered the following.

• Juiced – Unsurprisingly the potency of the berries with the juice is almost as strong as eating the fruit itself. I plan to run some tests regarding shelf life of the juice. I have some ideas about using it in brewing in a very small amount just for an extra kick like the Absinthe of old.
• Pulped – Similiar result, a little more potent give that the flesh of the fruit is contained, it still seems to loose something in the process however. Perhaps something reacting with the air?
• Dried – Drying it out reduces a lot of the potency of it. Ingesting small samples resulted in a more subtle reaction. Steven suggested the concept of drying it out and leaving some in the bottom of the bottle which would likely give the small trace kick we would be looking for.

I have gone a head and placed small amounts of the dried batch in a couple of bottles of Norapod brandy to see what results.

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 for further study, probably not the best idea to go around eating them though.

Progress on Cass has been coming along nicely, I’ve been trying to give the Age my attention when I’m not working on my experiments relating to Fahets.

We have been having some discussion as to whether we should release all the museum wings at once or bit by bit. In the end we have decided to open it up one wing at a time, we won’t feel so inclined to rush it that way.

So the Harbingers Wing will be the first opened, not sure when yet. Whilst the artifacts are easy to install, it’s actually the information books that will take the time as they need to be written and approved.

Yesterday I worked on the new floor plan, originally we were going to have a Guild of Maintainers helmet from one of their suits on the display, but then a team discovered an in tact suit that was on display elsewhere. Amazingly it was in pretty good condition given the state of the building it was in, so we have been cleaning it up to move to Cass instead.

Hopefully people will enjoy what we’ve found to display there.

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.
Some instabilities have wormed their way in to Fahets it would seem.
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 Book for the Age and taken it to Cass 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..