Cavern Link

Moving...

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 04:31:00 +0000

Spent most of the day setting this up. The blog is moving to Wordpress! Please update your bookmarks or feeds if you have any.

http://cavernlink.wordpress.com/

Plans

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 04:28:00 +0000

Been working on re-calibrating some of the D'ni sensors. These holes are messing with them. For now I'm going to move them out of the City until I can figure out what is going on in my City instance.

I'm also drawing up some plans for some future ages. Rumor has it that there are some people working to get explorer-written ages approved for distribution. It'll be interesting to see what happens. I have a number of plans going on. Just started working with the people at Subterranean Restorations. Said they had a project I could be useful on. I'll keep this blog updated on it, but they aren't letting me say anything. Suffice to say structural integrity is going to be an enormous challenge. Kingsley also said he'd be willing to help out with supplies for my other ages, but I'll have to report to him. Fun times. Wonder if I can get Clarke interested too. Maybe he can distract Kingsley long enough for me to get something done.

Thinking about getting a self-contained music player into Maw. Also working on some more tests in Fens before I open it up to more people. I'm still not quite sure about the environment quality. Especially the water.

Pools of Nothing

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:38:00 +0000

They appeared in my instance of the City a few days ago. Starting off usually as specks the size of a grain of rice or small cracks in the rocks. In the last day, however, I noticed that they have grown dramatically. What's stranger still is that every instrument or device I put up to them registers absolutely nothing. That is, when they choose to register at all. The KI goes haywire around them too. The largest ones in particular. I managed to snap a couple of pictures of them. They only appear in the instance of the cavern I was forced into some months ago (the surface link is unaffected as it leads to the "real" earth, so far as I can tell). The neighborhoods, the great shaft, the City, the Zero, everywhere. Pools of nothing. Nothing beyond, nothing in, just nothing. No sound, almost all devices cease working around them. They're even hard to see. Like they're there, but you don't recognize them. Yet they're solid too. I dropped a firemarble on one to see what would happen, and it simply bounced off.

Company

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 18:08:00 +0000

Something else is in my instance of the City, I'm positive of it. Just odd things like boxes of supplies opened or missing. I think I'll set up a camera sometime to see if I can find out what it is.

Also, I've noticed something strange just recently... They're odd little cracks in the buildings and rocks. Not many, I've just found five so far, but they're strange because the inside is white. Seems stable, though, so I won't worry about it.

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 03:36:00 +0000

Got it finally. Needs some work, but what matters is that it's working now.

Camera

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:01:00 +0000

Setting up a camera in Maw today. The camera's in place and broadcasting, but I've yet to pick up the signal with the hardware.

Visitor

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 03:53:00 +0000

Had a Dr. John Smith contact me this morning. Said he knew about a new pocket of D'ni caves not on the maps. Strange fellow, but he seems to know his stuff. I'm surprised I've never met him down here. He also told me to remove my linking books from the City, which I suppose is some common sense. I don't want them to get stuck there if the instances revert. I'll store them in Relto and in Tor'oolbah.

Long Nights

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:18:00 +0000

More long nights in Tor'oolbah collecting notes in an office ready to fall apart. Perhaps I need to get to work on rebuilding this place...

I've decided on the general pattern I'll follow for my rest Age. As it's much larger, it's more difficult to properly describe it. Most of the time some minor shortcuts can be taken if you don't particularly care what a certain feature is like. Others have easy formulas able to be used repeatedly. Rocks, for an example. Ideally, I'd like a variety of environments so I could rest depending on what mood I'm in. I'm thinking large islands by a river or a lake so I could cool off if need be. Trees for shade. Canyons for something interesting to see. I'll need to draw up a design for a bridge to span the islands and figure out the proper description for rivers and lakes.

In news from the cavern, there's a rumor that something else may happen to the cavern sometime soon. From what I hear, the Bahro may soon be re-uniting the instances. Though the source may be in question... I'm curious if anything is down in my instance with me. I could swear I see someone from the neighborhood viewer occasionally... and occasional sounds echoing from somewhere near. Doors opening.

Back to Work

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:52:00 +0000

Back down after securing the supplies in Tor'oolbah. Working on gathering together some notes to start writing a larger age for me to relax in. Currently Delin is one of the few really relaxing ages and it's not that large.

Speaking of which, I spent a little time there today. It's spring, very peaceful listening to the birds.

Surface Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Sun, 25 May 2008 14:38:00 +0000

Linking up to the surface today for a brief trip to get some supplies I'll need in the coming months. Let's hope the Station is well-stocked.

I've been having the wierdest feeling recently while I was in the City, like I wasn't alone. I could swear there are some things out of place around the Library tent. I wonder if the instances aren't as private as they seem.

Maw

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Sun, 18 May 2008 22:25:00 +0000

Crawling through the darkness with the light on my suit showing the way, I exited the small cave and found myself below a great hole above where I could see the sky and above a vast black pit, the bottom of which I couldn't see. Around me pillars of rock resembled the teeth of some giant animal.

I did some quick tests on the rocks around me and the D'ni tool puts it as a form of dense basalt with lines of a kind of marble. I also tested for how deep the canyon goes and it came up as approximately four miles. After the first survey, I attached some firemarble lamps using a rock-insertion technique that seems to hold well enough (one broke in a lower cave, but it doesn't matter).

I sent the book off to the Maintainers so the book should be available to anyone who wants it soon.

Another Age

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Sat, 17 May 2008 15:02:00 +0000

I'm astonished at how quickly I wrote this age. I'm worried there will be some flaw, but I've spent the last day double-checking and I can find none. The area I link to should be a cave. I'm interested in using this space to test some D'ni sensors.

I'll be linking through in a minute as soon as I check that the lights on the suit work properly.

Writing Again

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Thu, 15 May 2008 18:02:00 +0000

Seems writing is most of what I do these days. This one isn't taking so long as I've gotten most of the common phrases down. Probably a day or two.

Gave Tweek a Fens book. Seems like his explorations went well. I might investigate the plants myself in a few days if no one else is interested.

Tests

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Mon, 12 May 2008 02:10:00 +0000

Finished processing the samples. The water (while disgusting) seems to be nothing more than ordinary pond water similar to that on earth.

The air's a little more tricky. I've identified a microscopic species of plant life in the air. Seems there's something odd with it, though. Whenever it comes in contact with anything it breaks down and, essentially, evaporates. Seems to spread via spores in the air. Must have a rapid life cycle considering their high mortality rate. Otherwise, the air seems close enough to earth's atmosphere for it to be breathable and lack any potential danger (high oxygen content would = boom).

With that, I think I'll post about getting some people to help catalog the age.

Expedition 01

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Fri, 09 May 2008 22:06:00 +0000

The minute my vision cleared from the link what to call the age. Fens. Low, flat, marshland. I'm impressed with the age. A chorus of birds and amphibians can be heard all around. I can see very little from my vantage point on the small island as a thick mist clouds my view, but I see a great deal of plant life I look forward to exploring more.

I took a number of water samples to test if they are corrosive or yield any hazards or benefits. I also took a sample of the air to examine its composition, though the maintainer suit detected nothing hazardous.

I'd also like to set up more expeditions. Perhaps with other explorers, but I want to finish my tests first.

First Link

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:26:00 +0000

Done as much double-checking of the concept as I can. Nothing seems wrong. I'll be linking in later this morning. Just need to get my maintainer suit set up again. It's been a while since I used it.

Finishing

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Sun, 04 May 2008 12:50:00 +0000

Almost finished with the age. Probably by the end of the week. I need to double check some of the symbols I used for the air and water. Should be fine, but after the last attempt I'm not taking any chances.

Back to work

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:59:00 +0000

I've tracked down what went wrong, I think. A mis-writing of a certain symbol for the air's content. I'm not sure exactly what the atmosphere is made of there, but I'll figure that out later. I've double-checked and it seems the new age should work perfectly. I'm anxious already. If I keep up the pace I did today, I'll finish in around a week.

Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:23:00 +0000

Something is terribly wrong in that age. The air was orange with a strange chemical the suit didn't recognize. I'll look over the data later and see what else it registered. Aside from that, there were some strange clouds. They moved strangely. Must be some atmospheric anomaly. Regardless, the age I linked to was not the one i intended to. I'm going to have to double-check my notes for any errors in my calculations, but everything should have worked out.

Ready

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:29:00 +0000

Double-checked the notes, looks like the age is ready to go. I must say it's taken a far shorter time than I thought. Once I get the suit ready and a linking book, I'll link through. Probably some time this afternoon.

Checking

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:40:00 +0000

Still doing routine checks of the ages for any other issues as a result of these latest events. All of the ages that were part of Yeesha's journey are fine. I've seen no changes in the areas open to explorers. The ages opened by the DRC this past year seem to have undergone no visible changes either. It seems that only the cavern has been affected. The Nexus links to the Cavern now go to the same individually-instanced version that the books in Relto go to. The Great Zero is still active as it was before and it seems everything is the same.

Except that there's no way for us explorers to easily meet. I'll still need to test this theory, but I think a way for small groups to gather might be found through the link to the Cleft. From what I can tell, it is still linked to the "real" Earth's surface and every explorer who has finished Yeesha's journey has a link to there. It might be possible to organize some trips if need be.

My Second Age

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 00:05:00 +0000

I think I've gathered enough notes to get to work writing my second age. I'm hoping this age will provide me with but an interesting research station as well as an intriguing and beautiful age. If my calculations are correct, it should take a few weeks to get the descriptive book down right.

Splintering

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:28:00 +0000

Seems something's happened to the instancing. I've only recently gotten this connection back up. There was at least one Bahro looking around on the night of the 9th. Phil's Relto, K'veer, and, apparently, Kirel. They (or it) always looked to the sky or the ceiling. No one's really sure what's up at the moment, but it seems we've all been diverted to personal instances of the City and the neighborhoods. Some people are reporting that some or all of their books were destroyed. Thankfully mine are still intact.

Things are moving very fast down here. These latest events have somewhat turned off the people I had gotten interested, but only time will tell.

Learned just the other day that Tweek will not be leaving. vid's also still down here as well as Dalken and most of the other people I knew down here. I'm hearing most, though, are leaving in light of this instancing split. Still watching, but not down here.

Getting some final Phase 1 work finished on Tor'oolbah this Sunday. Atheni has been kind enough to help me get some of the designs straightened out.

Deadlines

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 03:36:00 +0000

Well it seems official now, barring some miracle. The DRC isn't finding new funding, and, from what I've heard, they don't seem to feel that funding is likely to arrive anytime soon. In a couple days many people (voluntarily or otherwise) will be leaving the cavern. Some for a second time. I spent most of today collecting the final photos of people I've gotten over the past year. Tidying up Relto, etc.

While the Guilds are still up and working to start releasing soon, it just won't be the same to see people as much as before. Without the people, who knows? I may even leave. But that's for later. For now, I think we still have a future down here. I still feel called.

To that end, I also spent some of today working on getting some more documentation together. Though I'm spending most of my time saying goodbye to friends down here... I can work on my ages later. I only hope I get to say welcome back to them all one day soon.

Meetings

noreply@blogger.com (Whilyam) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 14:43:00 +0000

It's actually nice to have these meetings again. To try and talk about all the good things in the cavern. While it may not be the funding I need to keep from being self-sufficient, I might be able to get some help on my ages. Kingsley, Clarke, and Whitefield all had an interest in D'ni, but they had no experience in the work I needed. Seems I ended up more working for them then anything. We'll see. Haven't heard from Kingsley in a while.

Worked on some more documentation for a swamp age. I'd like to study the plant life that arises there because of my writing or in spite of it. Maybe get the DZS to help out in classification.