Having gotten everything mostly straightened out where the Flyer is docked, I decided it was time I caught up with events in the other world.

Paislee was away at the time. Quin, who for once was quite sociable, said she was working elsewhere

He was obviously pleased with how things were going with the buildings on Lost Pages, reporting slow but steady progress. He took me over there to see for myself.

Once we had checked out the workshop building, he urged me to follow him down to what will be the laboratory.

In the centre of that room is the opening of a shaft, enclosed by safety railings I was pleased to see (Quin doesn't always remember to take care of health and safety issues). We took a basic elevator down the shaft, and followed the tunnel round, which eventually emerged on one of the smaller islands to the north.

Here we each clambered into an adaptation Quin has made of a basic hovercraft he found elsewhere in that world -- these adaptations make serviceable submersibles, as I was about to find out.

We plunged into the deeps, down to about 15 m below sea level. Visibility was adequate, and I followed Quin's submersible to what he was eager to show me: the start of a complex in the waters of Nocturne, to enable him to study the intriguing substances of this area in a more natural environment.

We inspected the ventilation shaft, and the various corridors leading from the main building, one of which leads to an observation area over a natural deposit of what look to be the same crystalline substances as were revealed by the landslip on Curiosity.


Underwater complex on Nocturne

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During the time we spent looking around the complex being developed for the Devokan Trust in the regions of Lost Pages and Nocturne, Quin and I were discussing what might be needed in the future.

By its very nature, the mission of the Devokan Trust potentially spans many worlds, which has implications for location of infrastructure and localised bases.

Quin has taken a keen interest in the lost civilisation and ages of the D'ni since I told him about them, and sees it as a key area for future activities of the trust. So he asked if I knew of a central location that might be suitable to develop as a base for the trust.

I thought a little, then remembered the city of Ahra Pahts, discovered by Aloys some years ago. I said I would investigate possibilities there.

Accordingly, I checked out which areas were still available to be developed in the city, and linked in to check them out further. I was particularly attracted to the water district, thinking there were possible links with the investigations Quin is conducting. So, walking in an easterly direction from the main link-in point, I eventually arrived at Shell 415.


Ahra Pahts shell 415 entrance

I booked the shell with Aloys and Robert the Rebuilder -- and now planning is underway!

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WHOBA!
i got 418 recently... hey neighbor!

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Love Jesus the Lord our God. Also I am not affiliated with HeadSpin or Cyan.

Greetings, neighbour!

We'll try not to make too much noise and mess -- but you know what builders are like.

The Guild of Maintainers have kindly let me use a corner of their forum for planning the shell, and a team is already working on ideas.

I'm hoping to work across two worlds, with some prototypes developed on the island of Lost Pages, perhaps transferring these across using the spheres both Quin and Nalates (in another context) have been investigating. An archived (IC) article on the GoW wiki has hints that another method of transfer might also be possible. Who knows -- perhaps the two methods have a similar underlying mechanism, though I should say that this is wild speculation on my part.

It's early days yet -- but exciting!

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yes, this is my forst blender project, but is being put off til i finish riven

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Love Jesus the Lord our God. Also I am not affiliated with HeadSpin or Cyan.

Yet another week has gone by...

I spent a bit of time in Neolbah. Quin came in with me for a while to use my laptop. While he has a rather splendid brass-and-mahogany portable (umm, make that "luggable") difference engine, he has so far not been able to connect it to any network that I know of, let alone the internet. So if he wants to research something on the web I have to move over.

Andy hasn't made any progress on getting the imager parts together. I think he is mostly splitting his time between Eder Tomahn -- the area he discovered about halfway down the Great Shaft -- and lending a hand to Marcus Wheeler's valiant efforts for the Guild of Maintainers.

I also took Quin across to see Shell 415 in Ahra Pahts. We linked down to Prin Pahts, the city's nexus area, and he was most taken by the crystals there, speculating whether they were functional or merely decorative. I reminded him of the crystals working in the Great Zero machine. Are they linked? Who knows?

Then the final plot of land on Winterfell Reverie needed to be seen to. The individual who took it on from me, Elspeth Sorrelwood, although a complete stranger, nevertheless reminded me of someone else. And although young-looking, her gait was that of an old woman -- stiff, somewhat ungainly. As Paislee might say, "I wonder..."

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Resources for open-source Uru: OpenUru; rel.to
Cross-world story and project planning: Devokan forums

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Mac - MOULagain KI#00004826
In the interests of the environment, this post has been constructed entirely from recycled electrons.

...ummm... any idea what the screen refresh rate is?

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Nalates - GoC - 418 - MOULagain: Nal KI#00 083 543, Nalates 111451 - Second Life: Nalates Urriah
Guild of Cartographers

<sigh> Why did you have to post that photo, MacFife? Quin spotted it and is now pestering me to find out from where he might acquire one.

Never mind the fact that his old one is still perfectly serviceable -- the keyboard of which looks similar to the one behind in the second photo.

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I've received a rather worrying letter:

Quote:

Dear Miss Macchi,

I trust that you and your colleagues are well.

With regard to the land in Winterfell Reverie that I recently acquired from you, however, it seems that all is NOT well.

I would like to discuss this with you, face to face, at the earliest opportunity.

Elspeth Sorrelwood

I had better go and find out what the matter is. More later...

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Resources for open-source Uru: OpenUru; rel.to
Cross-world story and project planning: Devokan forums

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Mac - MOULagain KI#00004826
In the interests of the environment, this post has been constructed entirely from recycled electrons.

Those are gorgeous looking machines, MacFife, but from what I learned today on my visit to Winterfell I suspect Quin might need to watch his Ps and Qs -- so no luxuries for now...

For the journey to Winterfell, I decided to use one of the alternative transporters that Nalates has been testing out: the Kirstens system. It was just as well that I did, for it enabled me to see what had alarmed Mistress Sorrelwood.

She took me first to the elegant tower on the southwest corner of the island of Winterfell Reverie, and there quizzed me about modifications to the tower's foundations. "What is that gear mechanism? Why is it there?"

I tried to explain the experiments Quin had been conducting -- this would not be an easy task, I thought, given that her dress would place Mistress Sorrelwood's eon around the late 1500s. To my surprise, she showed no puzzlement at what I said, but indicated understanding of some of the underlying concepts.

What surprised me even more is that she knew of Quinquifid. "You might say that I am an old family friend -- I knew his parents and grandparents -- oh, a lifetime ago, now!" This was coming from a women who looks half my own age!

"Now", she said, "I do not know whether those experiments might be behind what is happening here, but come outside and tell me what you see."

So we went outside, turning towards the sea. There was a stiff breeze, and the early evening air smelt fresh. Then I caught sight of what was worrying my new acquaintance: out of the corner of my eye I saw the flicker of darkness -- a deep black swallowing sea and sky.

Mistress Sorrelwood heard my intake of breath. "So you see it too? The darkness?" I nodded.

"At times I have seen the ghost of mountains too. Winterfell is, by its nature, a land on the edges of space-time -- and Reverie, here, is on the outer boundary. I do hope that Quinquifid's experiments with the seed spheres you describe have not destabilised matters."

And I thought back to when we needed to evacuate Devokan all those months ago -- how Quin had found mention of Winterfell in his aunt's journals, described in very similar terms. What was going on here?

Whatever it was, practically we needed to deal with the situation at hand. So I suggested that we contacted Winterfell's Seneschelf, Miss Serra, to see if it might be possible to move to a more central location, away from the anomaly.

To my relief and Mistress Sorrelwood's delight, an alternative plot was available on Winterfell Sanctuary, in the heart of the community. So all was agreed and set up.

As I turned to leave, Mistress Sorrelwood spoke: "Miss Macchi, I do hope that we might meet up again. Do come back and visit me when you have the time. For there are many things that we need to discuss."

Intrigued, I agreed.

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I'm pleased to report that work on Shell 415 in Ahra Pahts has begun in earnest.

Ametist is supervising the building site operations. It looks like the builders come from her home nation Sweden, since they've set up a stoutly built log cabin to store their tools. Piles of sand are everywhere -- and shovels and a wheelbarrow.

Then D'Lanor is lined up to work on the area's infrastructure, to make sure everything works as it should do.

Ametist set up a private instance of the shell so that I could check out the floor tiles she was suggesting for Quin's and my rooms. She had chosen mottled dark brown tiles for Quin's workshop/laboratory -- eminently practical, I thought, given Quin's tendency to leave oil stains everywhere when he works on anything. The tiles for my office suite are light, modern, and attractive -- just perfect!

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From a later visit to Shell 415, I can confirm that the builders have been hard at work. The resulting mud heaps are slippery, so wellingtons are recommended on site -- or a maintainers suit.

In other news, Andy Legate has started up a new forum, Alternate Worlds, especially for those of us who work in different worlds, so we can share insights and help each other. Nyn is hosting it, as she does the GoMa forum and website. Here's the web address: http://www.alternateworlds.org/forum/

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Cross-world story and project planning: Devokan forums

It's been a worrying week. From Sunday, all communication was lost with Paislee's new home world -- no signals, nothing.

What is more, none of us could link in to check what was going on. The transporter systems simply came up with 'Destination unavailable' whenever we tried.

Listening to various Twitter streams helped -- pioneer explorers of that world were explaining what they understood was happening. They seemed calm.

Then, on Tuesday, word came out that contact had been re-established. It seems the world had shifted to a slightly different place in the multiverse, so that we had to adjust our transporters to a new set of coordinates.*

Of course, we linked in straight away to check whether there was any damage. Initially linking between areas was hit-and-miss, with many lands still being unreachable. But one by one they reappeared on the live world map.

I'm relieved to say that all of the islands in our corner of the world have survived: Tallis, Curiosity, Nalands, kamali, Lost Pages and all the neighbouring lands are accessible once more.

Cross-communication links between worlds are still not completely restored, but being able to link in directly helps to ease any concern.

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* In Imprudence, use the Grid Manager to change the OSgrid login URI to http://login.osgrid.org.

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