While I was working in Winterfell Reverie today, I received a rather enigmatic note from Shenn: "Time spheres are dancing in Tao Lia sky".

Shenn and Leah have recently joined the team at the Devokan Trust and are working on regions to the north of Waysmeet on Restoration.

Intrigued, I linked to Tao Lia, and this is what I found:


Time spheres dancing in Tao Lia sky

A video would be better to convey the sense of gentle and graceful movement of these spheres. Do visit the area if you can.

(This is on OSgrid. Enable Lightshare, water reflections and turn on the land audio stream for the full effect. If you have access to a flycam, try using it to fly with the spheres.)

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

You may remember that two weeks ago I mentioned that something was brewing on Tallis, Mat Mahogany's home on Restoration, where Mat has released a very powerful orb. Quin has been keeping a watching brief on developments since.

Mat makes his intentions clear in his diary on the Devokan Trust forum. Unfortunately, things have escalated, as I discovered over the weekend just past.

I was working in Winterfell Reverie, when I caught sight of a steampunkish Tardis materialising at one of the portal terminals Quin has installed for us (it seems they are compatible with the Time Lords' favoured transport system). It was Filbert Holmer, who has a cottage on the south side of Reverie, as well as extensive lands in Restoration.

He was most concerned about the orb in Tallis. Apparently it has been affecting his islands to the east, Tannhauser Gate. As he reported in his journal:

Filbert Holmer wrote:

Tannhauser Gate, however is a different story [to a stabilised Reki]. Since the Tallis orb appeared the sky has turned a sickly yellow. Now numerous, small tremors are plaguing the region. I expect Tanhauser to disappear soon. With data collected from Reki, I may be able to specify just where it goes. Not much time remaining for Tannhauser Gate.

I visited the area later that day -- the air itself seems to shimmer.

Quin has reported that the orb on Tallis seems to be increasing in power. The high-energy particles it is emitting have started several fires in trees close by, and in the lovely FLW-style house that Paislee built. Mat's latest diary entry reports that the building is beginning to collapse.

I had a chance to speak to Mat about all this. He was puzzled, and I suspect a little worried and upset, by Tannhauser Gate being affected by the orb -- it was never his intention that something like that would happen as a result of his actions.

But as Quin has pointed out on various occasions, we still do not understand the underlying scientific principles regarding the spheres, in spite of the experiments carried out by Filbert Holmer, Nalates, Shenn and himself. Deliberately trying to control and release one of the more powerful of them might be asking for serious trouble...

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

Some very good news about the experiments in Shell 415 ... they have succeeded!

It all sprang from something ametist suggested back in October last year:

Quote:

The temple on Deepwater intrigued [ametist], especially the blue plasma sphere within its rotating gold cage. I explained how Quin and Nalates had conjectured that such spheres might be the source of what enabled the transfer across of elements of the old Devokan to this new world.

She went on to speculate whether it might be possible to generate a similar sphere within Shell 415. That, I think, we will need to get Quin involved with -- and check with D'Lanor first, who is overseeing the shell infrastructure development. We do not want to cause any linking mishaps in Ahra Pahts.

All the research and careful team work has paid off -- and with a very surprising result!

We're currently testing it all out to make sure everything is safe and stable, but in a week or so I think we will be able to open this to the public.

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

How exciting! I'll be sure to keep my Ahra Pahts book out.

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Many Urus have come and gone, yet the Cavern remains... and so do we.
KI #: 01951307

The testing of Shell 415 is going well. Quin's experiment is repeatable (which he seems to be relieved about, for some reason!).

Quin took some time off today to revisit Tallis to check on developments there. He wrote about his visit later in his logbook on the Devokan Trust forum.

Quinquifid wrote:

The orbs' power is increasing. It still seems to be spawning minor orbs, two at a time. Some of these have escaped their confinement.

Fires have completely consumed one of the trees; others are now burning in the interior of the nearby house, which has suffered further depredation.

I also saw two orbs partially submerged in the river that flows through the centre of the island -- a new development. The furthest one was beneath one of the arches of the main bridge across the river; the other was at a bend in the river.

The plan Mr Mahogany mentioned in his diary, of "pushing" the neighbouring island of Pangaea away using giant rams, seems to have succeeded. There was no sign of the island, and on that side of Tallis there were signs of landslip, as can be seen in these photographs.

Tallis Orbs 7 March 2011


Tallis Rams 7 March 2011

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Cross-world story and project planning: Devokan forums

This week saw yet another anniversary of the loss of a home-from-home for some of us, of the world of There. That too is part of the story of Devokan.

By chance the day fell on Wednesday, when Ivy, June, Ilf and Morgon meet for their regular game of Spades. This is something they have done for years, first in There, where they played at Ivy's Relto Island in The Meeting Place's neighbourhood, and sometimes in Lareh's place at Eder Devokan.

Now they meet in the grounds of Devokan Dusklight, in Winterfell Reverie (SL), using a splendid card table crafted by Uru's own OHB.

We were joined by another ex-Thereian for the evening -- one of June's many friends. So while the others played, he and I discussed the different journeys we each had taken over the past year.

For me, I suspect, the journey might have come full circle with what Quin discovered from the experiment in Shell 415...

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

The Devokan Story -- End of Book III

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My journey has indeed come full circle, from the initial attempt to "find a way, made a home" when access to the Cavern closed in 2008, to now, with a "home" in Ahra Pahts and ...

But Mat Mahogany's story continues, as does Filbert Holmer's and Zuri's and Kemy's and Zenoc's and ametist's and Quinquifid's, over on the Devokan Trust forum for Story Threads.

And the image? That was designed by Mat with further Photoshop work by D'Lanor. It depicts pod homes as made by Paislee in Skysong (see also the imager in Neolbah), and by Shenn in Tao, placed on a Tree of Possibilities; the vertical lines comprising the trunk represent the parallel worlds in which we "found a way, made a home".

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

"In my end is my beginning"

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Resources for open-source Uru: OpenUru; rel.to
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This is a long thread, covering several years of story. It struck me it might be helpful to add a table of contents with a brief summary of key events and dates, as well as where journals have been placed in Uru fan ages.

Lockhouse code quest -- 23 Jun 2009
Village renovations, including tree village; linking with other Myst/Uru areas and groups -- 3 Jul 2009
Lost Pages sphere; Guild of Healers Ride for Joy -- 23 Sep 2009
Discovery of Selenitica -- 19 Oct 2009

The Devokan Story
An expanded version is also available in Neolbah.
Winter comes to Devokan -- 9 Nov 2009
The strange spheres -- 27 Nov 2009
Tracing the source -- 10 Dec 2009
The tree village -- 1 Jan 2010
The evacuation -- 10 Jan 2010
Farewell to Devokan; return to the Cavern -- 1 Feb 2010

Subsequent events 17 Feb 2010 to May 2010
The journal in Serene also covers this period, but from Quin's viewpoint.

Working across multiple worlds; foundation of the Devokan Trust
These next entries are covered in journals in Neolbah.
Discovery of Neolbah -- 9 Jun 2010
Andy's discovery of Eder Tomahn -- 23 Aug 2010
Quin's visit to the sky islands of Kamali (OSgrid) -- 30 Aug 2010
Starting work on Shell 415, Ahra Pahts -- 26 Sept 2010
Who is Elspeth Sorrelwood? -- 9 Oct 2010
Andy links to an unknown world -- 30 Oct 2010
Strange letter from Elspeth Sorrelwood; celestial clock? -- 3 Nov 2010
Completion of Phase 1 of Shell 415 -- 7 Nov 2010
Andy explains about Descriptive and Linking Books; Quin disappears -- 17 Nov 2010
Andy's anguished discovery -- 26 Nov 2010

Expansion of the Devokan Trust
Journals in Shell 415 document the period from December 2010. It includes the discovery of new areas in Restoration (OSgrid), and expansion of the Devokan Trust in personnel and infrastructure. Read on from the entry for 2 Dec 2010.
Mysteries of time -- 26 Jan 2011
Completion of Shell 415 -- 3 Mar 2011

At this point the story moves to the new thread: The Devokan Trust

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Edit (25 Sept 2011): Devokan Tapestries

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