Over the years, we've been presented with D'ni and it's many ages in a variety of different ways... Ages Beyond Myst and Prologue, To D'ni, The Path of the Shell, Myst V, Myst Online, and who knows what else is to come! Needless to say, between all of the different versions, not to mention some of the just plain bad writing that held MOUL together, especially to new explorers! As many of you know, I take my Restoration Era history very seriously, and usually go out of my way to try and keep people well informed with straight forward depictions of events as they've happened...


This is not one of those times.

Thanks to the magic of Drizzle and the Offline KI, it's now possible to merge all of these incarnations of the world we love into a twisted Frankenstein's monster of an environment, and recently while I was happily mucking my way around this whole sort of general mish-mash, I stopped to wonder how this world would look to an explorer who took a Drizzle'd world at face value. And so a decision was made: I would play as myself... the same vid who had lived through all of these things before, and had spent many late nights playing Myst V, would now make his way through this mess of a world, and try to figure out how it all came together.

This story exists In Cavern in the loosest sense of the term. What occurs is written from the point of view of someone who's experienced the previous excursions into D'ni, but at the same time will be approaching this in a fourth wall breaking near mocking tone, and it will absolutely never carry forward into any future endeavors.

If you don't want pretty massive spoilers for every single release of Uru as well as Myst V, turn back now. For the rest of you...

---

*Relto book is seen falling through a wormhole, as various shades of blue, purple, and green swirl around it*

*Cue Dr. Who theme song*

URU: THE PATH OF THE END OF AGES BEYOND D'NI ONLINE

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November 1, 2008 - 05:57pm

Hot. As I'm dropped off at the edge of the Zandi property, my first thought is that it's hot. Continuing along the same line, I remember that everytime I've been here, it's been hot, no matter what time of year. It's been five years since Zandi originally invited me out here. Close to three years since I came out again for the return, and then again after the bahro put everything out of whack. You'd think that by now I'd have learned to keep my Relto and KI, since I always end up coming back eventually, regardless of the DRC.



As I stop to touch the all too familiar cloth behind the property sign, I briefly consider exactly how many cloths I've brushed up against over the years. And then I stop, because it disturbs me how intimately familiar I've become with artifacts that used to seem so alien and magical to me. At some point, every explorer realizes that Yeesha does not hesitate to permanently leave her mark on any surface that you're likely to study even for a moment, and that everything embued with "Yeesha-Magic" is free from any need to have universal rules, and is in fact, a lot like duct tape. Much like the familiar sticky grey strips, Yeesha Magic can solve pretty much any problem, so long as you throw enough at it, and ignore the occasional leaks or tearing noises.

Jeff Zandi's still here too. He was here five years ago to meet me, and I know for certain he was here at least a full year before that. I remember hearing that his father Elias left all of his monetary assets to the DRF, but I suspect that Jeff got a cut of that money too. It's the only way I can explain a man being able to sit in front of his trailer year round enjoying the beautiful (hot) New Mexico days and dining on fresh (hot) burgers right off the grill. I question whether or not any explorer that comes out here at this point really needs his help anymore, but I guess it makes him feel involved without getting hands on with the restoration. Maybe he's waiting for Yeesha to come back and be his wife.



I noticed that there was still a Relto page sitting in the firepit near the trailer, so I'll come back to grab that after I collect my book. One near the telescope remnants too. After touching the three cloths that I knew sat outside of the cleft itself, I climbed down into the crack to snag the other four and claim my new(est) Relto... except as soon as I touched down on the ground inside, I realized that the tree was already open. For a moment I considered climbing down and ignoring the remaining cloths, but then decided that it'd probably be best not to "cheat" on the lesson. I started the windmill, listened to Yeesha's same old message, touched the cloths, and descended into the tree.




Deep in the earth, there it sat... a Relto book, lovingly placed for the thousands of explorers that have come through over the years. It warmed my heart (and settled some fears) to see the book sitting there, instead of just the page that I found last time I came through. Something about that page felt so cold and lifeless... almost as if it were a hastily applied patch of plaster in an effort to get more explorers into the cavern faster, rather than to encourage people to learn a little history before making their way down. I smiled for a moment, rubbing my hands across the familiar surface, and then clipped it to my waist and linked to my new home away from home.

November 1, 2008 - 07:15pm

Same old Relto that I remember from the last time... the spiral island sits off the foot of the main land formation, the rock that the calendar pieces would sit on is off to the side awaiting it's added page, even the stone ring is in it's place, waiting for the wedges of no apparent meaning (tm) to be added. Yep, everything's right wh-oh wait. Inside the hut is a different story. A more confusing story. Outside was the last Relto I knew. But inside... I found my original Relto. Three sets of tabs, organized by relevance to Yeesha's first three journeys, as well as thin booklets with bits of history about the first two journeys, as well as the full set of "Words of the Watcher" needed to walk the path of the shell.





Outside was the Relto that I picked up two years ago. Inside was the Relto that I last saw close to five years ago. What's happened in my absence? Did Yeesha come back and concoct a new journey, and I totally missed it? Or maybe that's why I'm here... I was called.

On the other bookshelf, there were already two books... one that I immediately recognized as a neighborhood linking book, and another that after a moment of thinking I realized was a link to the Watcher's Sanctuary. One thing was certain, no matter what sort of adventure Yeesha had cobbled together for explorers this time, I wanted a KI. While not as powerful as Yeesha Magic, I knew it could be useful for solving a lot of situations, and it was far less random. I linked through to the neighborhood, prepared to make a beeline for the Gahreesen book to pick up my KI.

Upon my arrival, I was immediately greeted with two familiar sights. The beautiful roaring fountain, and my old pal Eddie the beachball... but as I ran over to give Eddie a good solid kick, I noticed something that caused me to stop in my tracks. The sign indicated something that I could only chalk up to some sort of karmic reward or backlash for months of "Objection!"s and whining at the community. According to the sign, I was in Bevin. At first, I figured it was just another mislabeled sign, but then I realized that it wasn't "A person's Bevin" it was simply... "Bevin". And then I checked the visitor's list. Oh God. The last visitor was Douglas Sharper. In March 2004. I was somewhere that no one had been in years... I was in the REAL Bevin. The first neighborhood ever restored by the DRC! I was standing in one of the most pivotal pieces of restoration era history!





As I made my way to the bookroom, I stopped in the light garden to pick up the Relto page that I knew was there. As I pressed the islands page into my book, I noticed the broken 'heek machine across the pond, and thought back to when I was last here all those y-hey wait a minute. Why wasn't I on the recent visitors list? Oh no. Oh. Oh no. Running up to the book room, I realized that I needed to check on a few things, and I needed to do so as soon as I got my KI. Except when I arrived in the book room, I realized that not only was there no Gahreesen book... but that the books that were there made no sense.




On the left sat a book to one of my favorite ages, Eder Delin. In the back was a link to Eder Tsogal. On the right sat the Great Zero book that had so deeply offended my sensibilities before. The bahro stone that I knew linked me to the heart of Ae'gura also sat in it's place, as well as the familiar Nexus book. Three of the four books made absolutely no sense to be situated in Bevin, and the bahro stone was questionable, but acceptable with enough Yeesha duct tape. Clearly this is going to involve some larger leaps of logic. Still in need of a KI, I linked back to Relto and found myself silently praying that a Gahreesen book was still in one of the four totems.

November 1, 2008 - 07:27pm

Fortunately for me, the totems all seemed to contain the usual four books, and after linking to Gahreesen I picked up my KI and lowered myself down to get the sticks and stones Relto page with no problems. However, once I had returned to my hut I checked my KI and realized that it wasn't the dialed down feature neutered KI that I had found myself in possession of the last time the DRC left the cavern. It was a fully functional KI, capable of taking notes, photos, and presumably communication if anyone else was active at the time, which unfortunately, they were not.

As I looked over all of the books available to me, it began to dawn on me... I had access to a Relto which still retained all of the links necessary for the three journeys Yeesha had laid out so long ago. But, it was a little different... it had been merged with the way things were when we all left. This wasn't the cavern that the DRC had been working on for the past couple of years, but it wasn't the one they abandoned back in 2004 either. This was something new... and with a KI that indicates no other active explorers, it seemed like it was up to me to figure things out on my own.

_________________
-vid (KI: 00201880)
The Age Linker's Guide
It is up to you to create your own adventures today!

I enjoyed reading this. Your topic strongly carries your ideas, that is for sure. And I agree with most of them. I wish I could comment about them, but I'm afraid this is not the thing you want, as it may turn into a mass. Or do you?

Anyway, I started working on something samiliar, last night, by chance. I'll see how it goes.

_________________
Previously known as "The stranger"

Awesome vid! I'm looking forward to hearing more of this, especially when you get to exploring the fan-created ages

_________________

KI#46415

Looks good.

As someone who doesn't have URU installed on his computer at the moment (due to it being a different computer than the one URU was installed on), this is a good look into things.

Nice, vid!

_________________
URU blog | Archives of the Restoration

November 1, 2008 - 07:40pm

After taking stock of all of the options I was aware of, I grabbed the blank journal off of the bookshelf and started trying to make note of all of the things that had changed and merged, so I could get a handle on things before I started to completely lose track. Once I was satisfied that I'd recorded everything important, I made my way to the Nexus via Bevin. Before I started digging too deeply, I knew that I wanted to make at least a cursory search of Ae'gura.

As I started to link to the Nexus, I realized that the Nexus pedestal in Bevin had a KI registration slot. It'd have been a lot easier to visit friend's neighborhoods if every neighborhood had been registerable... perhaps there just weren't enough pedestals available for that? I soon forgot about this line of thinking once I started looking at what was available to me in the Nexus...



In the city locations section, I found the Ferry Terminal link that I had come to expect, but below that was also a link to Bevin since I had just registered my KI there. I also noted that my home neighborhood was listed as "vid's Neighborhood", which indicated that I was either registered to a different neighborhood besides Bevin, or that there was a bizarre reveral of the glitch that had previously plagued me so deeply. Unfortunately, there was no link to the Great Zero to be found, but instead I found links to all five of the Guild Pubs that the DRC had released back in 2007 to the general disgust of most explorers. Additionally, there was a link to The Watcher's Sanctuary, but listed as "The Great Tree Pub".

November 1, 2008 - 07:49pm

After exploring the various sections of the Nexus and recording the contents, I made the link to Ae'gura's ferry terminal and set about making my way through the city to gather the other four Nexus registrations. As I made my way up the stairs, I noticed that a lot of crates that had been added to the previously clear landings. For the first time, I started to entertain the thought that maybe some of this was being set up not by the DRC or Yeesha, but a third party entirely. Were explorers moving back into D'ni and trying to bend it to their new vision? What I found at the top of the great stair only cemented that line of thinking...




In front of the Tokotah there was now a rotating "news" sign like the one that had been previously placed in Kirel, happily proclaiming that the Museum Pod age books were now available. After grabbing the Tokotah Alley registration, I quickly ran to the Museum to discover that, exactly as the sign said, the five pod age books were on display in the museum. Wait. Five? There were only four previously. As I inspected the panel of the mysterious fifth book, I realized what I was looking at... someone had found and placed a link to Todelmer in the museum! The same Todelmer shown to us in the fifth Myst game!



I wanted to touch that book. More than anything, I wanted to link to the Todelmer pod and see how it matched up with what was envisioned in the game. I wanted to orbit that planet and take several memory cards worth of pictures. And for a moment, my palm hovered over the linking panel, shaking as I hesitated. Finally, I pulled away, and promised myself that I'd think it over after I finished looking over Ae'gura. Spying another Relto page across the room, I grabbed it and gently pressed it into my book, carefully tracing my fingers across the symbol displaying a sun and moon.

November 1, 2008 - 08:04pm

Making my way across the courtyard to the palace, I noticed another book on display directly in front of the gates leading into the grand building. Is.. is that Kirel? It seems to be, it's DEFINITELY a neighborhood! That's TWO books within the cavern that are breaking the no-intra-age linking rule! I gingerly lifted the book off of it's stand for a moment, playfully looking underneath to see if there was a sticky grey strip with Yeesha's symbol on it, but found nothing.



It wasn't until I was registering the link at the Palace Courtyard Nexus book that I noticed something that was missing among all of the additions. There was no snazzy blue beam of light permeating everything every few moments. The Great Zero wasn't turning... someone had shut it off! Or maybe it just broke down again after so many months of non-maintenance. I've never quite understood how the D'ni didn't think it was unusual to have a bright shining blue beam sweep across them every couple of minutes. Imagine that thing shining right into your eyes over and over while watching a dramatic scene in a play or movie or even television program, if the D'ni had such a thing.

I continued through the Hall of Kings, through the tunnels, crossed the rope bridge, and grabbed the Concert Hall link, saddened to see that the long promised concert hall was still tightly barricaded. As I finished the circle, I noticed that the doors to the Kadish Gallery were once again non-functioning.




November 1, 2008 - 08:22pm

Up the stairs past the palace again, this time I continued straight on through the tunnels until I arrived at the great Library, where I once again found a news sign, this time announcing the availability of Jalak and Minkata linking books in the Library. As I entered the library, I found this to be true... both ages and their respective documentation were on display. But the real surprise was on the other side of the room. There, alone on display, sat a book that upon inspecting the linking panel caused me to stumble backwards in such a rush of surprise, reverence, and perhaps a little fear.




I found myself thankful for the the railing that encircled the stairs in the center of the room, otherwise I'd have stumbled and fallen straight into the lower levels of the library. Tightly gripping the railing I had backed into, I choked out the only word that I knew at that moment. "Releeshahn."



I was clearly in over my head.

_________________
-vid (KI: 00201880)
The Age Linker's Guide
It is up to you to create your own adventures today!

See?? Now this is good! Keep it up.

Cool stuff. I'm enjoying it.

_________________

~Moiety Jean
Member of The Great Tree
KI# 29337

November 2, 2008 - 10:07am

The next morning I made myself a light breakfast and then started working out a plan of action. I figured it'd be best to start with the most familiar path, and then deal with the odd divergences as I crossed them, so I'd start things off by taking a day or two to retread the same journey that we'd all walked so many times, so long ago. I'd also pick up the Great Zero firmware first, so that I could pick up any stray markers along the way, in an effort to get the big thing turning again.

Scowling at the impossibility of the Great Zero book sitting before me in the neighborhood, I linked through to the antechamber and inserted my KI into the update slot. As I registered the marker that I knew would be hovering in the antechamber to my KI, I noticed that the lights around the edge indicated that I only needed to find five of them, instead of the fifteen that we had to plow through the last time we dealt with this. Just another sign of proof that this particular instance of the Great Zero was probably based in the 2004 era.

November 2, 2008 - 10:20am

After making the interim trip to Relto, I opened up the totem that I knew held the Teledahn book, and linked to the age of the giant pizza toppings. Teledahn was probably the first place I'd been that didn't cause some sort of system shock from confusing changes and rule breaking. The cloth behind the house, the solar powered machinery, the incredibly unsafe need to ride the buckets up into the control room since the DRC never bothered to finish fixing up the age... ah, memories.

November 2, 2008 - 10:47am

The office that Sharper had set up in the top of the 'shroom was unchanged, containing the same revealing documents about his fish tank, the Relto roof page that had been here since time beyond my memory, and most importantly, the link to the Ae'gura office. At first glance, that office held nothing unusual either. I grabbed my second Great Zero marker, and then took a look over Sharper's desk. His regular journal was in it's usual spot, and surprisingly the second journal that he had begun writing in 2004 had been returned. It wasn't until I started flipping through the journals that I felt my blood run cold again...

The first journal was missing all of it's entries from the events of 2007, instead having it's final entry dated at the end of 2003. My first line of thought was, like the Great Zero, this was probably a window into the 2003 era, which made me further wonder if the Ae'gura outside of the window was also the 2003 era one, or if it was the mysterious mixed up one from yesterday. Once I opened the 2004 journal, I realized that it wasn't quite that simple... as the entries in that book suddenly stopped in March 2004... and then suddenly picked up again close to five years later! YESTERDAY! Douglas was writing about ME!

What am I supposed to make of this? Is this the same Douglas Sharper who killed the bahro after the incident with Wheely? Or did those events never happen? Maybe Sharper's not even here, it could be the same person who set up the unusual books and devices in Ae'gura. Or... maybe Sharper put all of that together? The handwriting matched the rest of the journal, but it seems like almost every step I take along this new journey only further convulutes a world that was already edging on the brink of insanity. With absolutely no idea what to do with my newfound clues, I brushed my hand over the bahro stone that would take me to the open stump back in Teledahn.

November 2, 2008 - 10:55am

The stump was familiar. No new complications, like the rest of Teledahn, it was totally unchanged, comfortable, familiar. Granted, this in itself was pretty unusual, but I was prepared to cling to any logic that I could find. And as I sat on the stump, watching the buckets gliding along the track in the distance, I came to a conclusion that I figured I'd need to cling to for a good while... it was more duct tape. All of it. I was experiencing bits and pieces from all of Yeesha's lessons, all somehow sewn together in a complete desecration of any sense of reason. Even the journal entries fit... they were the same thing that happened to me all those years ago, but they were happening again. Almost as if March 2004 was a major turn... hey wait.

You know what, no, nevermind, just no. I'm not ABOUT to try and deal with the concept that maybe thousands of branches of reality all split off and spread out from the point where the DRC originally left the cavern. God. I think I just made myself sick. Still... the point was, these things were happening again.

It all made sense. It just made sense in a Yeesha sort of way. That is to say... when I finally figured out what I was supposed to learn from this, everything would revolve around that point in some way... and everything outside of Yeesha's point would be steamrolled and forgotten, after all, she was never one to let things like the preservation of history and culture get in the way of teaching.

November 2, 2008 - 11:07am

After taking some time to put these thoughts to rest, I made my way back to the main portion of Teledahn and continued opening up the rest of the age, collecting the remainder of the cloths, and even making a quick detour via the Gahreesen stone to pick up two cloths from that age, as well as the waterfall Relto page. As I passed through the room with the slave cages, I ran my hands over the wall where I knew the hidden alcove would be, feeling another shot of familiarity and recognition when it was exactly where I remembered it should be. After I touched the seventh cloth, I looped my way around the age, making sure to set the cage doors so that that alcove would be open.

November 2, 2008 - 11:32am

Looking into the opening, I found the stone that led to Sharper's old spyroom. Linking through, I discovered a spyroom that was definitely a bit larger than it was last time I visited, and featured two books. The link back to Teledahn, as well as what I immediately knew was Phil's Relto book. The telescope was still fixed on the Tokotah office, and revealed the same Bob O' Goobo note. Not prepared to start down the path that the errant Relto book might take me on, I linked back to Teledahn, made my way to the journey door, and fumbled my way into the darkness until I was linked to the bahro cave.

November 2, 2008 - 11:43am

The cave was the same old place it had always been. Journey symbols on the walls, mysterious unexplainable void of stars beneath my feet, and a glowing glyph of Yeesha loudly making proclamations at me. For the past six years, I've listened to what she had to say, giving myself a chance to refresh the important lessons of each age. But for once, I was totally frustrated with her flagrant disregard for the paths that had been lain before. Scowling at the glyph, I shouted "SHUT UP!", gave it a sharp smack with my hand, and to my surprise, she stopped talking.

I just told a talking cave drawing to shut up. And it did. I touched the wall and claimed the bahro totem as my own, before hurling myself into the starry expanse, hoping that my actions against the glyph wouldn't suddenly doom me to floating through the void forever.

_________________
-vid (KI: 00201880)
The Age Linker's Guide
It is up to you to create your own adventures today!

::reads with a smile::

_________________

~Moiety Jean
Member of The Great Tree
KI# 29337

Thanks for sharing, vid. Really enjoying this adventure.

_________________
OpenUru.org Minkata Test Shard is
OU-Minkata Shard Testers Guide (in laymen's terms)

One thing to say describes all this:

"timey-wimey-wibbly-wobbely...stuff."

Don't blink, a bahro might get you! OR you could just end up inside a Bahro cave by accident seeming as how things are going here.

November 2, 2008 - 11:50am

Despite my insult to the Yeesha-magic-Yeesha-glyph, after a few moments of watching stars whizz past, I found myself safely back in my Relto. The totem had been added to the appropriate spot, and near the foot of the island, I had gained a Wedge of No Apparent Meaning (tm). After an hour to rest and prepare a quick lunch, I did a quick scan of the island and chose my next destination. Since I'd already gathered two of the cloths needed, I'd go ahead and begin my trek through Gahreesen.

November 2, 2008 - 12:40pm

The first thing I did was use the same bahro stone that's been sitting in the lockers for the past six years to link to the neighborhood's balcony and pick up the marker there. For a brief moment, I considered the options for getting some rope and climbing down from the balcony to try and figure out which neighborhood this was, but then figured that the way things were going, I'd get to the fountain and there'd be no sign at all.

Back in Gahreesen, things were going in the usual manner. Crawling through unrepaired cracks in the wall, over creaky warped planks, that rising feeling of dread in my stomach as I watched a safety cone go plummeting fifty feet into the giant trench in the floor. Yep, that's about par for the course. I can't help but wonder, if everyone hadn't started carrying around Relto books for their own safety, how many explorers would have been killed when they inevitably skirted the barriers and went exploring on their own? For that matter, would the DRC have made it a priority to clean up the age a little more?

November 2, 2008 - 12:57pm

Tucking my hair into my shirt, I hurled myself into the giant spinning cog, steading myself against the walls as I made the trip around the circumfrence, before supressing my dizziness and tumbling out onto the smaller but still quite large cog that held the focus of the power room. As I ran back and forth, making my way through the steps to restore power to the fortress, all I could think about was how much easier this was with two people.

November 2, 2008 - 01:09pm

As always, Gahreesen was more of a giant obstacle course than an exercise in solving D'ni tech. I took the elevator up to the top of the building, and realizing that the turning of the building was imminently about to cross over the pinnacle between here and the larger building, I held my breath, ran down the bridge, took a flying leap, and proceeded to completely miss. After arriving in Relto, I made my way back to Gahreesen to repeat the attempt, this time successfully landing on the rock, grabbing the cloth, and then making my way to the other side. As the larger building began rotating me away, I looked down below to the journey door, frowning at what I knew lay ahead. Inside the building, I grabbed the cloth from one meeting room, then make my way to the opposite side to use the Ae'gura bahro stone that I knew would be there. I claimed another marker, then once again made my way back to the Gahreesen building.

November 2, 2008 - 01:25pm

Upon my arrival, I decided to investigate one more thing before I made my way to the journey door and closed the book on Gahreesen. I made my way down the halls and turned into the next room, heading to where the controls for the maintainer's wall would be. Would be. There were no controls. There was no chair. I was pretty used to seeing a set of totally deactivated controls at this point, but for them to not be there at all? That's just weird. Who could take them?! Taking it a step further, I went down the small hallway and checked on the "suit-up" room. Surprisingly, the tube was lifted into it's "ready" position. With one hand hovering over my Relto book, I stepped into the tube, and before I could blink, it had closed over me, and locked me into a skin-tight maintainer's suit.

November 2, 2008 - 01:31pm

These suits are meant to withstand extreme heat, cold, and impact. I knew what it was time to do. I made my way onto the bridge extending from the building, and waited for my opportunity to cross to the pinnacle. Once I had crossed safely, I carefully jumped down to the smaller pinnacle, then without hesitation threw myself down to the opening where the journey door was situated. The suit took the impact of the fall, leaving me unharmed and ready to finish up. I pressed my hand against the door, pausing for a moment to consider how the door reacted through the gloves of the suit, then pushed forward until I suddenly arrived in the bahro cave.

November 2, 2008 - 01:39pm

For the second time, I was being preached to by the (mostly) disembodied voice of Yeesha. I claimed the pole, and threw myself into the starry opening, listening to Yeesha's voice fade away into the distance above me. Back in Relto, I took note of the second Wedge of No Apparent Meaning (tm), then realized that I already had the perfect opportunity to test my new invincibility suit...

_________________
-vid (KI: 00201880)
The Age Linker's Guide
It is up to you to create your own adventures today!

November 2, 2008 - 01:54pm

Eder Gira is living proof that an explorer under the influence of Yeesha will try just about anything with little regard for their own health. Once upon a time five or six years ago, an explorer saw a journey cloth up in a high location, as well as a steep rock wall between them and the rest of the age. You'd imagine that someone would leave the age and return with the materials to build some ladders, or a grappling hook, or even a good pair of stilts. Instead that person thought "Hey, I bet I could block some of these boiling hot steam vents and use the extra pressure in the remaining open one to propel myself high enough to reach the cloth and jump over the wall!" I can't help but imagine that explorer returning to the neighborhood, covered in third degree burns and smiling from ear to ear, announcing that they had figured out how to get to the rest of Eder Gira! But with a maintainer's suit... suddenly the cloth and the rest of the age were both within reach with significantly less manual labor or bodily harm.

November 2, 2008 - 02:04pm

After manipulating the vents to get the required cloth and set up for the jump over the wall, I dropped down to the ledge where I could grab the second cloth. Looking out over the lava, I found myself wondering about the sanity of the DRC, taking a sharp turn from the contemplation of the followers of Yeesha.

If I remember correctly, the first age that the DRC ever made available to explorers was Eder Kemo, a garden age made publicly available in all of the populate neighborhoods. Nowhere in Eder Kemo can you find a book to link back to the neighborhood, the Nexus, or any other public and approved area. What you can find, however, is a link to the safe side of Eder Gira, an age that was never approved by the DRC until years later when they finally realized that pretty much the entire explorer population was now carrying Relto books. This meant that the Authorized Explorers, having no Relto books, were expected to link to an unapproved age through an unstamped book in order to leave Eder Kemo.

But wait, there's more! Once you made the link to Eder Gira, there was still no Nexus linking book in easy reach... no, in order to link back, they'd have to climb over the rock wall to the side with the OPEN CHASM OF LAVA AND BOILING STEAM VENTS, carefully traverse the gap, and then ONLY THEN could they use the Nexus to return to D'ni. "The cones are barricades are for your protection", Zandi's behind they are! If safety was a priority, then why would you leave no reasonably safe exit option for the people you had allowed in to partake and help in the restoration?

November 2, 2008 - 02:21pm

The more I thought about the way things worked around here, the more I realized that it was a miracle any of us were even alive. And with that in mind, I propelled myself over the wall to the "safe" side of Eder Gira, thanking the maker for my stolen maintainer's suit. On the other side, I made a beeline for the bahro stone that I knew sat on a nearby rock, and linked to the rooftop of one of the Tokotah buildings on Ae'gura. I plucked a marker out of the air, noting that a second one was nearby, but that the first had filled my KI for the time being. Because of this, I made my way to the Great Zero Antechamber, deposited the five markers I had collected so far, and watched my KI make room for twenty-five more.

November 2, 2008 - 02:37pm

Markers... so many markers. Collected so many times. And all of that work for nothing, if the Great Zero had been shut off yet again. And the resident technology expert, Victor Laxman, never really bothered to explain exactly what the markers did in order to "calibrate" the system. For the sake of it, I linked to the main area via the Nexus, picked up another marker as well as the page that would add an imager to my Relto, then went to pick up the second marker on the Tokotah rooftop. Satisfied that I had picked up everything I needed, I linked back to Eder Gira, crossed the chasm, jumped the wall, and then linked to Eder Kemo.

November 2, 2008 - 02:49pm

I'd linked into a pouring rainstorm. I'd by lying if I said I had expected anything less, nor did I mind, since the suit was keeping me dry. I did a quick lap of the age, picking up the four journey cloths and also the carpet page that was sitting on top of the table like extension of the stone wall. By this time, it'd stopped raining, and so I mopped the remaining droplets off the lenses of the helmet and poked around behind the rotating statue to see if the stone was in it's place. Finding the bahro stone in position, I used it to link to the rooftop in my neighborhood in order to grab the marker that I knew was there. Except, the marker wasn't there. Was my memory failing me? There was a marker here previously, wasn't there? Had it been moved? Or was it just a figment of my imagination? Forget it, it was on par with the other screwy things about this expedition.

November 2, 2008 - 03:03pm

I returned to Eder Kemo to do the nonsense with the fireflies that I won't even bother to talk about, except to mention that for a swarm of insects to follow such strict rules, they too much be under the influence of Yeesha duct tape. Yeesha flypaper? Heh. It was also a little surprising that the bugs stuck to me even with the suit on. After gathering the remaining cloth, I stood before the journey door, bit my tongue in regards to this being the only door that even made sense being where it was, and stepped through to the bahro cave.

Ok, no, seriously. The journey door in Gahreesen pretty much required a willingness to fracture your legs, the one in Teledahn somehow went unnoticed by Sharper who had set up a mounted gun about forty feet away from it, and the one in Kadish... well, we'll cross that massive bottomless pit when we come to it. The Eder Kemo door, while it required some positively ridiculous actions in order to collect the cloths on the Gira side, was reachable without threatening to break every bone in your body, and wasn't invisible to non-Uru Explorers. In fact, I remember hearing confused reports from the DRC about the door over a year before most of the Uru Explorers began flowing in...

Right, so, where was I? Ah yeah... I linked through to the bahro cave and claimed my third pole, imagining it and the third WONAM appearing on my Relto. Two deeply contrasting objects... one representing the slavery of a sentient being and the other having no specific purpose at all. As I prepared to step into the opening and tumble through the star spangled ebony, I stopped and stared across the gap at the final pole. I really didn't feel like dealing with the puzzles that Kadish used to lock away his riches. I'd been good, so far. I was taking the journey, again. It wasn't like I hadn't learned my lesson by now, right? And with that thought in mind, I launched myself over the gap, arms outstretched to grab the pole (and avoid the spiky part up top), terribly misjudging the distance and face planting against the edge of the platform. Thanks to the helmet of the suit, I was unharmed, but as I flipped backwards and tumbled through the endless night sky, Yeesha's voice continued overhead as if to laugh at me and condemn my pride. Sometimes, Yeesha could be a real jerk.

November 2, 2008 - 03:27pm

When I arrived in Relto, I planned to set up camp and take the rest of the day to record everything so far and rest up for Kadish Tolesa tomorrow. Even with an intimate familiarity with the first three steps of the journey, it was very trying on the body, and I was more than ready to eat something a little more substantial, and just relax for more than a few minutes. What I didn't realize was that it was going to take about two and a half hours to peel myself out of the maintainer's suit, without the help of the Maintainer's Nexus.

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-vid (KI: 00201880)
The Age Linker's Guide
It is up to you to create your own adventures today!

I'm kind of sad to see that you didn't finish up on your adventure here Vid. I'm sure whoever the architect was that allowed all of this to happen had a reason for it. It'd be a shame if the adventure were to end like that.

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MOULAgain KI: 024104

Chloe Rhodes

DIRT: Uru Live