Beneath

The last few days have found me returning to Fahets. Met again by the constant tiresome rain that the Age is known for amongst the Third Path members. The pumps we were using to keep the water out haven’t been able to keep up with the onslaught, as a result Sophie is now looking into something that is better suited to the job.
She’s been looking at the heavy duty ones we used in Cass along with some that the teams found in D’ni in the past.

She tells me we may have something to put in the Age tomorrow if we’re lucky (by lucky she means if she pulls an all nighter).

Currently work is hindered by a bout of thick fog, which has made it hard to see more than a meter in front of oneself, not to mention the dank musky smell and taste it leaves in your mouth.

My focus during my return has been to the wildlife that has grown remarkably quickly in the Age. The most curious of these plants are some strange pods (that I have named Norapods) that have grown, akin to cigars in shape. They have a mottled blue/yellow coloured skin which at first appears firm, but when touched you can feel that they are softer inside. We cut one of the ones near the Link in point open to investigate further, the inside was indeed a lot softer, juicy one might say, which a structure that reminds me of a tomato. We took the top half back to be tested to see if it contains anything dangerous.

It’s been a while since I have been back to Fahets, the Age has changed dramatically in the last year or so.

The constant rain had filled up the area surrounding the Link in point, it’s now several feet deep, as a result dormant wildlife has flourished, growing all over the place.
Unfortunately the Roseleaf tree we had implanted into the Age had not been so lucky, the ground it was planted in became so water logged it had nothing to cling to and toppled over and slowly died.

We spent the day looking over the basin, and constructing some wooden decking that we’re thinking of extending out into the rest of the Age, the problem being the rest of the Age is blocked at the moment thanks to the wildlife so we’ll have to look over that.

Seeming that there is technically not that much to sort out, we should be good to release the Book for the Age soon. We just need to run some tests on the wildlife, and we can always release the Age in stages and just allow for visits to the initial Link in point.

Success! Took several hours of search but I managed to find the book out. It’s been 2 years since I last stood in that Age, thankfully it wasn’t raining, skies had brightened up but the place was flooded out, Nexus book had been destroyed by the rain so I shall have to replace that.

Will need to build up some shelter for the book, raise it up to keep it out of the water too, shall have to work out how much wood I’ll need for walkways and such.

I seem to be living down in the archives these days. The interesting thing is I discovered some old KI images of my first Age, Fahets.

I can’t even remember where the Linking Book for it is now, it should be in the archives with everything else but I have yet to see it, that said there is still several boxes of stuff to go through.

I need to take a look through it and see if it is around, if the Age is stable I might see about making it public.

The team came back with the test results from Fahets, they were all green the Age is safe.

I returned without the Maintainer suit, despite it being one of the slimmer models of suits the Maintainers had I still find it rather restrictive.

I spent the morning down in the basin studying the various plant life and making notes for my ongoing flora and fauna classification project. The pod plants seem to be a large fruit of some sort. The centers are a similar structure to tomatoes but they have a very sweet scent to them. I harvested a collection of them at several stages of growth to run some tests on and see if they are edible.

It is very peaceful here, the sound of the waterfall and the birds, the occasional buzzing of insects. I did spy what appeared to be a beetle of some sort flitting around the rocks and settling on the trees. I am hoping I can catch one for further study.
I brought in a ladder with me to get up to the second level that surrounds the basin. It is an enclosed area with walls of rock but from what I can glimpse the Age expands out further through a forest like area. Perhaps I can see about cutting through the rock and opening a channel to this secondary area at some point.

In the mean time I have set myself to mapping the initial area. Sophie voiced an idea of setting a camera up on a helium balloon and letting it go to see if we can capture some images of the surrounding area. Evidently she had read an article about some school children doing something similar to take photos of Earth from the edge of space with great results.