Voices

Posting from Descent'...

I'm not sure why I'm down here right now. Or even awake at this hour.

The Descent. The great passage from the surface to D'ni (or D'ni to the surface, depending on your origin). The great undertaking, halted at its final moment. I didn't really come back for any particular reason. It seems that, sometimes, the call beckons, and I must heed it. I have no direction. Not sure if I really need one.

I miss the life that we had down here. As before, it still breathes, but only barely. The sparse few that keep a flickering candle burning in the darkness. But that is the light that shines most brightly...or so they say.

I feel like I should do something, but I don't know what. The cavern calls. D'ni calls. I come, I leave...only to return again.

To my knowledge, the DRC have not visited in years. I'm sure they've moved on with their lives. The Bahro are quiet. I don't know if they've decided the dwindling numbers of explorers warranted an end to their conflict or if they've just moved it on to somewhere else. And it's anyone's guess where the 'desert bird' is or what she's doing.

That leaves us. The few. The quiet few. One might shout, and a reply may come...or perhaps just an echo.

What use is there for a reporter if there is nothing to report? No one to report to?

What use is there for a voice if no one is there to hear it?

I thought I might make a new report for The Cavern Today, but maybe that is no longer my calling. At least for now. If not that, though, then why does the cavern call me back time and again?

There are people here, but they seem distant and closed off. I find it difficult to connect.

And it feels lonely here without my friends.

I still stay in touch with some on the surface, of course...but we don't journey down here together much anymore.

I don't know if I can even count the faces. It seems like there were so many. So many that I could not even name them all...but now so few.

I recall the stories of this place. D'ni. Ti'ana. Gehn. Atrus. Yeesha. And even ours. The DRC. The history of the restoration itself. So much history. So many echoes. Is that the destiny of this place? To be the eternal home of echoes from distant shouts in the darkness? Is that the destiny of anyone who dares add their own shouts, lured in by its promises of something grand beyond imagining? Is that all the call really is? Some false beckoning, as the sirens' call, designed only to lure those who don't know better into its gaping maw?

No. I can't think like that. I've seen too much good happen here. Despite all the disaster that's happened here, it's only left for us to learn. There is magic in this place. A wonderment beyond anything else I've ever known. Something intangible, almost surreal, yet more real than any other experience I've ever had.

That's what happens when things really come alive here. You feel the life within you, and it's uplifting and fulfilling and so striking that it'll take your breath away if you let it. That's just the nature of this place. The Cavern. The Ages. D'ni.

New Start. That's what it meant to them. That's what it was for me, too. A lot of folks, I'm sure. I was at my darkest when I found D'ni, and it--and a very important friend I met along the way--helped me find new purpose, new meaning, and a new drive. It was not just something I longed for. It was something I needed.

Perhaps that's what I've been missing. It's not about bringing things back again. It's not about restoration. It's about renewal. It's not about bringing back the old, but creating something new. I've been so eager to apply that message to everything else, my desire to relive that magic made me forget the very message that brought it to me in the first place. Ironic, I suppose.

Creating something new. A new sound. A new voice? Who knows?