Still Here, Too

Posting from error...

vid, good to hear from ya! At first, I thought my KI was acting up...I tried to keep these things tied in to the feed, but you were always better at tweaking the these than me. Guess you should know this reporter is still out and about, as well. The cavern is pretty quiet, though. There's a bit of life here and there; it's not all gone, but there's certainly a lot less action than when I was actively field reporting for TCT.

Although apparently I need to work on this delay between when a post is made and when it actually informs me of that.

Well anyhow, I'm still around. Usually getting lost in Minkata or reflecting in the cool air of the Great Shaft...and occasionally I'll take a stroll through Delin. Love the smell of the air there, you know.

Until next time, this is Dalken Starbyne, saying goodnight.

Against All Reason...

Posting from the surface...

Four years. It's been over four years since I've tried to do this. To post from a KI. To post from a blog that hasn't seen life in four years. Who would have known that it still works? Or that I could even remember how? This is my fourth KI. Three of the damned things have stopped working over the years, who knew that D'ni tech was so disposable?

...wait, four devices in... eight-ish years? Nevermind, that's better than most cellular telephones.

Why am I posting? I don't know. I guess I do. But maybe not? A certain D'ni related discussion came up recently, brought up some old memories. Against my better judgement, I decided to skim some of the old posts, and read the comments. There's too many people that I haven't seen or heard from in years.

...if anyone still reads this, I'm still here. If you need me... you know how to find me.

Confusion

Posting from Relto...

Wow...we really need to get better about keeping this updated. vid, that means you too!

A lot...and I mean a LOT...has happened since the last update here...jeez...

There's the loss of Willow "Wheely" Engberg, and Rosette Taylor. The poor girls.

...A memorial was put up in the Kahlo Pub for them...now it's a general memorial for all those from the Cavern who've been lost.

Mr. Engberg himself ran off down into the Descent, presumably looking for Dr. Watson...I say, good luck to him...

The Negilahn predator turned out to be the Bahro...well, some of them. It's kinda complicated, but suffice to say, some of them ended up attacking Sharper, while others saved him.

Bahro activity has shot through the ceiling...Bahro have been seen all over the City and in the 'hoods...rumors are running around about a Bahro civil war...Phil's returned, and says that the Bahro are indeed free, and that they're split into "good" and "evil" factions...whatever that means. Phil also mentioned that "he" was coming. That's gotten everyone speculating as to who "he" is, of course.

A Bahro visited my Relto on the 4th...that was, well...how do I put it?

Confusing, to say the least. Didn't help that the guy didn't even understand English, and that I don't speak Bahro. Still, a couple questions were answered...sort of. A lot more were brought up, though.

I hope he comes back.

On an unrelated note, I just started my seinor year of high school. Last year of torture before I move on to what I'm sure will be even more torture! Yay for college! ...Well, at least I have moving to Spokane to look forward to. And after college, I'll apply at Cyan...and everything will be totally awesome. Well, almost everything, anyway.

Well...I don't think I forgot anything there...I'll try to remember to update more often...and you too, vid!

~Dalken

Thank the Maker!

Posting from Descent'...

vid! You're okay! Get some rest, alright?

Jeez, I dunno what else to say...

Once you're feeling better, come tell me what happened, okay?

Right now, I'm gonna sit here and play my harmonica happily, and enjoy the resonance of the Great Shaft...

Oh, and if you need any help, please ask me! You know I'm always here for ya!

Mold and Plants...Waeh?

Posting from the surface...

So on Wednesday night, an explorer, SBernath, got into vid's house and found his letter, and took a picture of it for us to see. It reads as follows:

"Matt, lockbox: 9879

I wanted to talk to you in person, but can't wait anymore. Going to go hide out for a while, I don't know where yet. I nearly put a few explorers in the cavern at risk, so I had to get them to panic and leave the neighborhood. Make sure they know that I'm alright and not to worry. Use the boards. [Right here there's an arrow pointing to a part in the margin that says "DON'T USE THE BOOK!"] As soon as I can get a better grasp on the situation, I'll put some information in the usual place.
-vid"

After reading the note, it occured to me to check vid's website, and sure enough http://www.vidkid7.org/lockbox/ was a valid link. I found there a "placeholder" message for this Matt character (who I can only assume is vid's roomate, whom some of us in the cavern know as Spock), as well as a report encoded in *.rar format. After downloading the file and decompressing it, I found an MP3 file named "report.mp3". This is what vid had to say:

"Uh...hi, this is... this is vid. I...I think it's been either four of five days real time now. I... I'm having trouble keeping it straight in my head. I'm sorry it took so long to get some news to you, but I went down to the cavern a couple days ago to get some of the mold from the Shaft, but a lot of panicked explorers kept stopping me, so, based... based on this, I'm going to assume that you either forgot or just didn't care enough to pass along my message. I feel pretty sick. I think that some of my stuff on the surface was tampered with, but the effects aren't what I'd expect, either, and, uh, I'm almost positive it's related to my continuous contact with the experiments I was conducting on the plants. {Coughing} I took my samples with me, but I lost a lot of my notes when I was... when I was leaving, so I can't remember a lot of the data regarding locations, soil, and stuff like that. I'm gonna rest for a little while, and hope that a fresh mind can kinda jog my memory. Uh...as soon as I know more, you'll probably be the first to know about it. Just be sure to keep your eyes, um, here. Um, alright, uh, according to the newspaper it's Wednesday...so, it's...it's dark. I don't know what time it is. I don't know... I guess, I hope this'll upload. It should work, if I can still establish the link to my PC at home."

From listening to that report, I can tell he's really sick. I hope he comes back down to the cavern, soon. Hopefully we can figure out where these plants he was experimenting on are at...

For now, I'm going to go down to the Great Shaft and collect some of that mold vid was trying to get. I don't have any knowledge of how to deal with it, but hopefully someone else does, or at the very least vid will come back down so that I can give the samples to him.

vid, get better soon. Please.

Agh, vid!

Posting from Descent'...

Hey, Dalken again. Something's gone wrong with vid, granted I'm not sure what exactly. I figured I'd write everything down here, maybe to get my thoughts straight. Last time I saw him before he had a "problem" was on Sunday about 12 AM in the Great Shaft. Later, he and Janine both jumped into the Shaft together, and a few minutes after that he appeared the Uru Obsession 'hood, where Montgomery and K'Tania where talking, and started freaking out. After eventually going to the 'hood balcony and jumping off of it, we didn't see him for a day. On his website, his In Real Time cam had been knocked over, showing Atrus' map of the journey to the Cavern, what might or might not be a linking book, and a partially torn note. On the map, the Great Shaft was circled, but unfortunately the note was illegible. Then Monday, vid showed up again, and after going to and then leaving the Great Shaft, he kept linking from Age to Age. Later, Thend and I caught him in his Negilahn, where he mentioned that people (explorers) were following him, and that might be bad. After I apparently got too close to him, he jumped over the railing and dissapeared. Luckily, however, I was able to catch him again in Eder Delin and talk to him. After offering my help, he told me "this is [his] problem" and also that he was gathering things. He told me to stay away from him as well, because getting too close is dangerous, and that that would force him to jump, which only slows him down. After a few minutes, other explorers started showing up in Delin, and [ Shadow ] got too close and scared vid off. Me and a few other explorers were later able to catch him once again back in the Great Shaft, where he seemed to be gathering more things. He coughed once and spit into a napkin (which has started a huge fear of a disease spreading) and asked to get past, and he went into the main part of the Shaft. Once again people got too close to him, despite my warnings I might add, and he jumped into the Shaft. We haven't seen him since. During this whole fiasco on Monday, vid's IRT cam also went black, and then went to a fizzled-out screen, and hasn't changed from that so far.

Now, no one seems to be able to figure out anything else. No one has been able to do anything to read the note that was on vid's IRT cam, and this whole situation is still as "nebulous", as Thend put it, as ever.

vid, if you can read this...please, come back safe from wherever you've gone and whatever you're doing. I think I'm speaking for the majority of the explorer population when I say, I'm really worried about you.

Busy Day

Posting from Uru Obsession's Bevin...

Since yesterday, quite a few interesting things have cropped up. The museum in Ae'gura finally opened, bringing us back to the level of restoration we saw before the Bahro scream. The artwork that was removed from the walls during the D'mala period has been returned, and I can say that they're very fine paintings, even before you take into account their D'ni origins.

Also, just a little while ago, a Negilahn book was added to the museum (presumably by the DRC... Nick White was showing up in my KI at the time) and is available to all explorers. In an interesting development, it carries Yeesha's symbol, and as a result... use of this book adds a copy of it to your Relto bookshelf. Unfortunately, I cannot comment on the age itself, as I have not yet had an opportunity to link there... I've got to wait for someone else, first.

Two new bahro stones have shown up as well. The first one appeared on the balcony that circles around the library in Ae'gura, and features a link to the top of the pyramid structure in Kadish Tolesa. From this location, you can get an extra close view of the giant firemarble when it rotates, if you have a friend inside the pyramid at the same time.

The second stone, I discovered in one of the default DRC neighborhoods. A stone pedestal with various bahro glyphs carved into it was sitting in the neighborhood's book room, and sitting on top of it was a link to a neighborhood's instance of Ae'gura... right beneath the large stalactite in the Tokotah Courtyard. The stone appears to link you to your neighborhood's instance, regardless of what neighborhood you link from. It's currently unknown what effect sharing the stone will have.

A third "sparkly" appeared today, this time in Eder Gira. This pretty well confirms the calendar theory. One sparkly seems to appear every month, on the first of that month, and there are twelve marks on the dial. So... if they do anything, it looks like we're not going to know about it until December. Patience.

On the subject of patience... I'm trying to excercise a lot of it, right now, but it's draining. To occupy myself until I can link to Negilahn, I'm been sitting in the Uru Obsession book room, hoping to catch Yeesha, a Bahro, or SOMEONE in the act of placing that stone. Nothing so far, though, just an empty neighborhood, and the sound of the waterfall.


A watched pot never links?