Disclaimer:I do not own Myst, Riven,Exile, Uru, or any other random thing I
might make reference to in the following story. Those games are owned by ,
Rand and Robyn Miller , Cyan Worlds, Presto Studeos,Ubi Soft, and a whole
slew of other ppl who's names I don't know. No money is being made from
this story. It is entertainment only.
Please send all questions, comments, praises, and dead Squee to
shad0cat@yahoo.com.
*Spoiler Warning* The following story you are about to read is a journal of my experiences in the game URU. It does contain things straight from the game told through my own interpretations(and artistic liberties) as well as making references to events and places from the first 3 games and the novels. I am writing this as I play Uru for the first time so the character will not be all knowing. Eventually though it will include puzzle solutions. I mostly reccomend this story to players who have already beaten all 4 games. If you've already beat it all, or you just don't care...enjoy ^_^.
-Day 1- After travelling for miles on end our horses pulled to a halt. My little Grey mare snorted emptying her nose of the dry dusty desert air. Her name was Bint Baariq, it means "daughter of brightness." It could have been given to her for the kindness or intellegence in her eyes or even for the way the suns rays danced apon her nearly white coat, either way it suited.
This was my stop. I handed Baariq's reins back to the leader of our group. I had been very fortunate to get a ride out so far out here with one of the local Arabian horse clubs who did a small buisness taking tourists on daily desert rides. I had arranged for them to meet me later in the evening at the same location during their sunset run. I just hoped I'd find what I'd come for before their return.
Either way it would not had been for nothing. Worse case scenario I'd already lived the dream of crossing the desert on an Arabian horse. Although, that was not what had brought me to this little peice of BF nowhere. Nor had it been a rift in reality like the first time. This time it was most likely a rift in my sanity that was to blame.
All these months since I parted ways with Atrus after Releeshahn had nearly met it's end at the hands of a not so madman by the name of Saaveedro were taking their toll. I'm not quite sure how I ended up home again after that little adventure. All I know is that I went to sleep in Tomahna the night I returned from Narayan and woke up in my own backyard in Florida. I was supposed to have gone with Atrus the next morning to finally see Releeshahn, but it was not to be. I wonder sometimes if Atrus thought I deserted him. I wonder if maybe he had been the one to send me home. Perhaps like the starfissure that had originally brought us together reality had opened up once again and I'd simply fallen in. In any way that matters. I miss Atrus, Catherine, and the rest of the D'ni. With everything we'd gone through "together" they'd become some of my closest friends.
I adore the D'ni, or at least the few I'd had the honor of meeting. They are an entire race of people with the curioscity of eight year olds and way too much time on their hands which they've devoted to exploration, learning, and just trying to make themselves better people for the greatness of D'ni.
I've often wished,as have many or most of the fans out there to have been able to have been part of the D'ni Civilazation in it's height. That obviousely not possible, I'd be willing to settle for being able to see it at all. It's true I did get to see one chamber of it breifly when I first met Atrus,but I never had the chance to leave that room.
It was for this reason that I traveled here. The strange dreams that haunt my sleep and the strange calling that has grabbed hold of my heart. D'ni is a place, it exists, or at least at one time existed. It was real so therefore given enough effort it could be found.
In front of me, beyond the barb wire fence is an old volcano. No, it's THE old volcano. There was no mistaking. It was just as I'd imagined it... just as my dreams had shown me...just as I'd sculpted it in my mashed potatoes! I had some difficulty locating this place. I had originally believed from the descriptions found in the novels that the Cleft was to be found in some Arabic nation in the middle east. After doing an internet search on the nearest known city, the city of Tadjinar it yeilded some rather interesting results. Tadjinar as it turns out was an ancient city in New Mexico. It was a very rare fluke not often mentioned in American History. The city of Tadjinar it turns out was founded in the New Mexico area nearly 500 years ago after the great great great great...ect. grandsons of the "We Three Kings Of Orient Are" conned a passing caravan of Arabic traders and their camels into smoking 10 whole crates of their now world famous "Rubber Cigars." The rest as they say is history.
I had to get moving, now it was time.
I hopped the barbwire fence and turned to read the large sign that only moments ago I could only see the backside of. A large "No Trespassing" sign,in two languages old and sandblasted in appearance, marked the property from which I had just come. I'd unwittingly trespassed and tomorrow I'd probably do it again. I wondered who had bothered to put this sign up and what they felt they were defending with it. Maybe they were concerned that someone was going to sneak over and steal their sand. That had to be it, I'd traveled that direction for miles and there had been nothing else out there but sand and sky.
There was something strange attatched to the back of the sign. It was a sort of cloth, red in color, with a styalized hand that spiraled on the palm. I reached out to pick it up, but when I touched it and part of the spiral glowed. I had no idea what this meant save that somewhere in the universe someone currently didn't know where their towel was.
I turned once more in the direction of the volcano and resumed my trek. It was taking me far longer to reach my destination than I had originally guessed. Most likely my guess had been undermined by the massive size of the cone making it appear much closer than it actually was.
This desert in New Mexico is big. No spaghettie western no matter how long even comes close to the actuality. Even had I layed out the best of relief maps and calculated the mileage beforehand the number I would get could not possibly kick me in the butt the way the reality of it did just then.
The only thing out here bigger than the desert is the sky. Now please withhold the "thank you captain obviouse"s, of course everyone knows the sky is big. However, nothing pronounces this fact like having only flat land for miles to cut into it's azure expanse.
Only the sounds of the wind and the insects break the feeling of emptyness and prove beyond the visual veil that this place is actually very much alive. I remember once while I was in school,way back in the day, one of our teachers telling us how to find the temperature by counting the number of insect chirps per minute and then dividing them by.....well I forget, but even if I could remember, I didn't need a bug to tell me that Mr. "No Trespass" and/or his family, if he had one, had most likely packed their bags long ago and moved to Hell just to get out of this awful heat.
As intense as it was I didn't let it bother me too much. I'd spent far to long living in a subtropical climate. This was dry heat. Everyone knows that it's the humidity that will kill you. Humidity, cholesterol, and careers in retail... Thankfully none of the above were to be found in this place.
As I approched the volcano I saw my first sign of life since I'd parted ways with my my guides. What I origionally thought was some sort of truck turned out to be a mobile home. What was a trailer doing out here all by iteself looking like it had been picked up by a passing tornado tossed over the rainbow and dumped in the middle of nowhere? Was it occupied? Whatever it's purpose it's presence meant one thing. Someone else knew about this place.
This of course was not so much a revelation as it was a something I'd not anticipated. Of course other people knew about this place. Two men by the names of Rand and Robyn Miller and their team at Cyan Worlds had cranked out three novels and three games surrounding the stories of the D'ni. There was no mistaking their accuracy, They even knew about the Muslim traders and their camels. They must have known Atrus himself. They must have spent quite alot of time in the company of the D'ni. Maybe they were D'ni themselves. They were probably in Releeshahn somewhen playing disc golf even as I write this. It was possible. I saw Rand once in an interview that came with one of the games. He looks suspiciously like Atrus. I'm glad that he(or whoever) chose to cast himself for the part he was brilliant.
As I approached the trailer, even before I could visually confirm wether or not the trailer was occupied I could hear the music. It had not occured to me that in a place as far out as this that there would be either electricity or radio waves. Even had I expended the braincells to think on the matter I would have expected to be hearing more country music. So many dogs, trucks, and wives had gone missing since South Western flight 515 nontstop to destiny landed in New Mexico that I knew the cops would be kept so busy they'd never bust me on the tresspassing thing. I didn't recognize the song playing now, but it sounded more like pop rock.
I arrived at the trailer where I met a slightly overweight and equally as slightly bald gentleman who was crashed out under the overhang in an easychair with his feet propped up reading a book and making the most of the little patch of shade that his porch afforded him. He said his name was Zami or Zanni or Zenny or Zummy(or was that a Gummybear) or zumething. I wish I wasn't so horrible with names.
He told me not to worry that I had been called here just like all the others. I wondered how many others knew or had suspected that this was a real place. I was told to head for the tree and that she'd left a message for me in the cleft and that I should follow her. I was unsure about who this "she" was at the time but now I suspect that it's Atrus' daughter Yeesha due to a note I found in the cleft later the same day. Mr Z., as I shall have to call him untill I remember his real name, told me that he'd be there if I needed help. I thanked him then headed for the Cleft.
Here I was at THE Cleft at the base of THE old volcano. I would have tried to pinch myself except that as clumsy as I am I never come through anything without more bruises than I need without creating them on purpose. I was here at the Cleft where Atrus himself had grown up , where Anna had taught him that one very important question,no not "where are my car keys," the other important question. The all important "what do you see?" question. The whole place was humming with it's "big picture"vibe.
What I saw now was a crack with a big tree growing out of the top of it. A "crack in the ground", that was what Ghen had called it. He called it a crack in the ground because that was what it was....Ok I spent too long reading the Stoneship journal during my time on Myst.- I called them the rocks because that is what they were- and Ghen called it a crack in the ground because that is what it was and because he'd spent too much time smoking frogs and reading Moby Dick and was too trashed to come up with anything better.
I decended the ladder on the right front end of the Cleft and looked around. I was so busy looking around taking in all there was to see and compairing mental notes with what I'd read in the novels that I compleately missed the gaping hole in the rotting boards of the rope bridge I'd chosen to cross and I landed butt first at the bottom in a clump of Anna's famed favorite blue star shaped flowers. Enter the bruises. I plucked one of the flowers from a clump near my hand and put it in my hair. I know nothing of plants but they smelled as though they might be either another variety of Jasmine or related to one. Of course, my sense of smell isn't that keen so I could be compleately wrong on all counts. They were so beautiful it was no wonder that she loved them. I could have made a chain of them but I felt somehow that my rear end had done enough damage for one day and that I should leave the rest of them undisturbed.
I got up and brushed myself off. If the blue flowers were here then the pool where Atrus' mother was buried must be as well. I found it to my left. That famous pool where Ghen's boots had muddied the water. It had been part of some prophecy I now only half remember.
At the far end of the pool were the roots of the tree that marked the Cleft from above. There was a circle on it like on the hand towel thing. I touched it, but nothing happened.
I turned from the tree and headed along the pool to the other end of the hole I'd fallen into. There had been no means of getting out by it's waters and I needed to get back to where I started. There was a broken rope bridge at the far end so tempting fate I reached up and climbed the rotting boards dreading as I did so that a) the boards would snap and b) I'd have to spend hours when I got home getting the dirt that clung to them out from under my fingernails. At the top I found two bedrooms. The one on the right had a peice of paper lying on it. Was this perhaps my message from "her?"
I recognized the handwriting as soon as I saw it. I did not have to look at the signature to know it would be signed "Atrus" at the bottom. It was a message to his daughter Yeesha. This is how it read.....
Our dearest Yeesha,
Last night your mother had a dream...
We know that some futures are not cast by the
writer or the maker, but the dream tells that
D'ni will grow again someday. New seekers of
D'ni will flow in from the desert feeling called to
something they do not understand. But the dream
also tells of a desert bird with the power to weave
this new D'nis future. We fear such power, it changes
people.
Yeesha our desert bird, your search seems to take
you further and further from us. I hope that what you
find will bring you closer
-your father, Atrus
A strange note for certain, especially from one who doesn't believe in prophesy, but there was something even more cryptic about the red inking around the border.
-I will use them to bring me the least impossible-
-what I have learned must be returned-
-Now his....
What was that word? Garden? Gardenia...The handwriting was rough. Even I with my bad handwriting was having trouble making this out. Even with my head turned sideways I wasn't getting it. Of course most people would just turn their papers instead of turning their heads but I gotta be different. Burden! The word was "burden"
-Now his burden is mine-
Why? Why was Atrus' burden now hers? Did he die? I knew in all likely hood that he probably had. Even though I'd seen him only months ago in Tomahna that age could have been anywhen. The sadness was no less real. I had no real proof that he was actually dead, and if he was he had to be in a better place. He was probably sitting alongside the Maker delegating responsability to random passers by while scrawling relentlessly in the masterbook of the age of "Hereafter" to make sure the fundimental composition of the clouds kept them as fluffy as possible.
I found another handtowel in the room next door. When I touched this one even more of the spiral lit up. Perhaps I am to keep going untill it gives me the entire hand. Maybe by that time I'll know about the one at the base of the tree.
I had to do some creative jumping but I found it! Atrus' old lab. There was a diagram on the wall of a battery he'd designed and the rest of the room, though it looked slightly ransacked, was littered with traces of miscelaneous geological experiments. Here was proof, clutter always accompanies genius. There was an etching on the wall that I assumed went with this other machine that I found there. I matched the symbols correctly I think, but still it will not turn on. It probably needs power. Maybe the symbol on the wall is in the correct order but turned to some degree. Maybe the symbol goes to another similar machine and I'll find the correct sequence for this one elsewhere in the Cleft. It just seems as though it would be far too easy for the answer to be right there in the same room as the question.
Behind Atrus' lab is the kitchen. There's not much in here. Atrus lead a truly tough life. He lived out here in the middle of nowhere and there wasn't even a refridgerator to raid. Looking out the window I could see the ladder where I'd come in. If I could have only gotten the door open I could cross over to where I started. There's a blue button by the door, as by all the other doors,but it doesn't work. More support for the "find a power source" theory.
I headed back towards the center of the cleft leaving the kitchen and Atrus' lab behind me. As I attempted to cross the rope bridge I heard the sickening crack of wood combined with the voices of a thousand screaming blue flowers just before the really big thud where I hit the ground for the second time today. Two things went through my mind. The first was the fact that the only way back across that I'd managed to find was now destroyed and the second one was OW! I got up and looked around. I'd have to attempt to climb what was left of the bridge I just crashed. What if it broke again? Thankfully it didn't. In the end it's actually a more convenient way of getting back to the ladder than it was while it was still intact.
-Day2-
Today I brought my camera and decided to take things a little more easy. I got many great shots out and around the old volcano. On the far side there is a strange skeleton. I'm not sure what it used to be. If this was a game of "name that roadkill" I'd be losing. It's head shape and lack of arms suggest some type of Marine Mammal, but Shamu could not possibly have jumped this far. What would it be doing in the middle of the desert? It's huge, the size of an elephant easy, but the headshape and the teeth are all wrong. It must have been some type of dinosaur. The legs were probably sandblasted away or buried over time. I found another one of those handtowels attatched to it's skull. That makes three now I think.
There was a strange pile of scrap metal further clockwise around the volcano. I got pictures. The only part intact is a cone shaped peice that reminds me very much of the telescope that stood over the starfissure in Riven. I'm sure that shape is all they have in common and all of my poking and prodding of this object has brought me no closer to discerning it's true purpose. Perhaps the cone shape is a common element in D'ni structures.
I stopped by Mr Z's trailer to get his picture to add to my album. He must have misunderstood my intent because he just started spouting out hints for my task. Maybe he just can't hear over that loud music of his. He's still listening to the same track he was listening to when I met him yesterday. How much Peter Gabriel can one man take? I know if I return there too often that song will inevidably squeeze itself in amoung the Avril Lavign, Evanessence, Bare Naked Ladies, Michelle Branch, No Doubt, Outcast and all manner of other random songs that make up the never ending irrelevent soundtrack of my mind.
I found another handtowel on the back of Mr Z's trailer. Up untill now only the palm had lit up, but this one gave me the finger. The pointer finger was giving off that wonderful blue glow alongside the swirling palm. I wonder how many more I have to find to light the whole hand. I took some more pictures around the opening of the Cleft starting with the cracktree. I got a few more shots close to the bridge but I suspect it will take most of tomorrow to really photograph the Cleft indepth.
*Spoiler Warning* The following story you are about to read is a journal of my experiences in the game URU. It does contain things straight from the game told through my own interpretations(and artistic liberties) as well as making references to events and places from the first 3 games and the novels. I am writing this as I play Uru for the first time so the character will not be all knowing. Eventually though it will include puzzle solutions. I mostly reccomend this story to players who have already beaten all 4 games. If you've already beat it all, or you just don't care...enjoy ^_^.
-Day 1- After travelling for miles on end our horses pulled to a halt. My little Grey mare snorted emptying her nose of the dry dusty desert air. Her name was Bint Baariq, it means "daughter of brightness." It could have been given to her for the kindness or intellegence in her eyes or even for the way the suns rays danced apon her nearly white coat, either way it suited.
This was my stop. I handed Baariq's reins back to the leader of our group. I had been very fortunate to get a ride out so far out here with one of the local Arabian horse clubs who did a small buisness taking tourists on daily desert rides. I had arranged for them to meet me later in the evening at the same location during their sunset run. I just hoped I'd find what I'd come for before their return.
Either way it would not had been for nothing. Worse case scenario I'd already lived the dream of crossing the desert on an Arabian horse. Although, that was not what had brought me to this little peice of BF nowhere. Nor had it been a rift in reality like the first time. This time it was most likely a rift in my sanity that was to blame.
All these months since I parted ways with Atrus after Releeshahn had nearly met it's end at the hands of a not so madman by the name of Saaveedro were taking their toll. I'm not quite sure how I ended up home again after that little adventure. All I know is that I went to sleep in Tomahna the night I returned from Narayan and woke up in my own backyard in Florida. I was supposed to have gone with Atrus the next morning to finally see Releeshahn, but it was not to be. I wonder sometimes if Atrus thought I deserted him. I wonder if maybe he had been the one to send me home. Perhaps like the starfissure that had originally brought us together reality had opened up once again and I'd simply fallen in. In any way that matters. I miss Atrus, Catherine, and the rest of the D'ni. With everything we'd gone through "together" they'd become some of my closest friends.
I adore the D'ni, or at least the few I'd had the honor of meeting. They are an entire race of people with the curioscity of eight year olds and way too much time on their hands which they've devoted to exploration, learning, and just trying to make themselves better people for the greatness of D'ni.
I've often wished,as have many or most of the fans out there to have been able to have been part of the D'ni Civilazation in it's height. That obviousely not possible, I'd be willing to settle for being able to see it at all. It's true I did get to see one chamber of it breifly when I first met Atrus,but I never had the chance to leave that room.
It was for this reason that I traveled here. The strange dreams that haunt my sleep and the strange calling that has grabbed hold of my heart. D'ni is a place, it exists, or at least at one time existed. It was real so therefore given enough effort it could be found.
In front of me, beyond the barb wire fence is an old volcano. No, it's THE old volcano. There was no mistaking. It was just as I'd imagined it... just as my dreams had shown me...just as I'd sculpted it in my mashed potatoes! I had some difficulty locating this place. I had originally believed from the descriptions found in the novels that the Cleft was to be found in some Arabic nation in the middle east. After doing an internet search on the nearest known city, the city of Tadjinar it yeilded some rather interesting results. Tadjinar as it turns out was an ancient city in New Mexico. It was a very rare fluke not often mentioned in American History. The city of Tadjinar it turns out was founded in the New Mexico area nearly 500 years ago after the great great great great...ect. grandsons of the "We Three Kings Of Orient Are" conned a passing caravan of Arabic traders and their camels into smoking 10 whole crates of their now world famous "Rubber Cigars." The rest as they say is history.
I had to get moving, now it was time.
I hopped the barbwire fence and turned to read the large sign that only moments ago I could only see the backside of. A large "No Trespassing" sign,in two languages old and sandblasted in appearance, marked the property from which I had just come. I'd unwittingly trespassed and tomorrow I'd probably do it again. I wondered who had bothered to put this sign up and what they felt they were defending with it. Maybe they were concerned that someone was going to sneak over and steal their sand. That had to be it, I'd traveled that direction for miles and there had been nothing else out there but sand and sky.
There was something strange attatched to the back of the sign. It was a sort of cloth, red in color, with a styalized hand that spiraled on the palm. I reached out to pick it up, but when I touched it and part of the spiral glowed. I had no idea what this meant save that somewhere in the universe someone currently didn't know where their towel was.
I turned once more in the direction of the volcano and resumed my trek. It was taking me far longer to reach my destination than I had originally guessed. Most likely my guess had been undermined by the massive size of the cone making it appear much closer than it actually was.
This desert in New Mexico is big. No spaghettie western no matter how long even comes close to the actuality. Even had I layed out the best of relief maps and calculated the mileage beforehand the number I would get could not possibly kick me in the butt the way the reality of it did just then.
The only thing out here bigger than the desert is the sky. Now please withhold the "thank you captain obviouse"s, of course everyone knows the sky is big. However, nothing pronounces this fact like having only flat land for miles to cut into it's azure expanse.
Only the sounds of the wind and the insects break the feeling of emptyness and prove beyond the visual veil that this place is actually very much alive. I remember once while I was in school,way back in the day, one of our teachers telling us how to find the temperature by counting the number of insect chirps per minute and then dividing them by.....well I forget, but even if I could remember, I didn't need a bug to tell me that Mr. "No Trespass" and/or his family, if he had one, had most likely packed their bags long ago and moved to Hell just to get out of this awful heat.
As intense as it was I didn't let it bother me too much. I'd spent far to long living in a subtropical climate. This was dry heat. Everyone knows that it's the humidity that will kill you. Humidity, cholesterol, and careers in retail... Thankfully none of the above were to be found in this place.
As I approched the volcano I saw my first sign of life since I'd parted ways with my my guides. What I origionally thought was some sort of truck turned out to be a mobile home. What was a trailer doing out here all by iteself looking like it had been picked up by a passing tornado tossed over the rainbow and dumped in the middle of nowhere? Was it occupied? Whatever it's purpose it's presence meant one thing. Someone else knew about this place.
This of course was not so much a revelation as it was a something I'd not anticipated. Of course other people knew about this place. Two men by the names of Rand and Robyn Miller and their team at Cyan Worlds had cranked out three novels and three games surrounding the stories of the D'ni. There was no mistaking their accuracy, They even knew about the Muslim traders and their camels. They must have known Atrus himself. They must have spent quite alot of time in the company of the D'ni. Maybe they were D'ni themselves. They were probably in Releeshahn somewhen playing disc golf even as I write this. It was possible. I saw Rand once in an interview that came with one of the games. He looks suspiciously like Atrus. I'm glad that he(or whoever) chose to cast himself for the part he was brilliant.
As I approached the trailer, even before I could visually confirm wether or not the trailer was occupied I could hear the music. It had not occured to me that in a place as far out as this that there would be either electricity or radio waves. Even had I expended the braincells to think on the matter I would have expected to be hearing more country music. So many dogs, trucks, and wives had gone missing since South Western flight 515 nontstop to destiny landed in New Mexico that I knew the cops would be kept so busy they'd never bust me on the tresspassing thing. I didn't recognize the song playing now, but it sounded more like pop rock.
I arrived at the trailer where I met a slightly overweight and equally as slightly bald gentleman who was crashed out under the overhang in an easychair with his feet propped up reading a book and making the most of the little patch of shade that his porch afforded him. He said his name was Zami or Zanni or Zenny or Zummy(or was that a Gummybear) or zumething. I wish I wasn't so horrible with names.
He told me not to worry that I had been called here just like all the others. I wondered how many others knew or had suspected that this was a real place. I was told to head for the tree and that she'd left a message for me in the cleft and that I should follow her. I was unsure about who this "she" was at the time but now I suspect that it's Atrus' daughter Yeesha due to a note I found in the cleft later the same day. Mr Z., as I shall have to call him untill I remember his real name, told me that he'd be there if I needed help. I thanked him then headed for the Cleft.
Here I was at THE Cleft at the base of THE old volcano. I would have tried to pinch myself except that as clumsy as I am I never come through anything without more bruises than I need without creating them on purpose. I was here at the Cleft where Atrus himself had grown up , where Anna had taught him that one very important question,no not "where are my car keys," the other important question. The all important "what do you see?" question. The whole place was humming with it's "big picture"vibe.
What I saw now was a crack with a big tree growing out of the top of it. A "crack in the ground", that was what Ghen had called it. He called it a crack in the ground because that was what it was....Ok I spent too long reading the Stoneship journal during my time on Myst.- I called them the rocks because that is what they were- and Ghen called it a crack in the ground because that is what it was and because he'd spent too much time smoking frogs and reading Moby Dick and was too trashed to come up with anything better.
I decended the ladder on the right front end of the Cleft and looked around. I was so busy looking around taking in all there was to see and compairing mental notes with what I'd read in the novels that I compleately missed the gaping hole in the rotting boards of the rope bridge I'd chosen to cross and I landed butt first at the bottom in a clump of Anna's famed favorite blue star shaped flowers. Enter the bruises. I plucked one of the flowers from a clump near my hand and put it in my hair. I know nothing of plants but they smelled as though they might be either another variety of Jasmine or related to one. Of course, my sense of smell isn't that keen so I could be compleately wrong on all counts. They were so beautiful it was no wonder that she loved them. I could have made a chain of them but I felt somehow that my rear end had done enough damage for one day and that I should leave the rest of them undisturbed.
I got up and brushed myself off. If the blue flowers were here then the pool where Atrus' mother was buried must be as well. I found it to my left. That famous pool where Ghen's boots had muddied the water. It had been part of some prophecy I now only half remember.
At the far end of the pool were the roots of the tree that marked the Cleft from above. There was a circle on it like on the hand towel thing. I touched it, but nothing happened.
I turned from the tree and headed along the pool to the other end of the hole I'd fallen into. There had been no means of getting out by it's waters and I needed to get back to where I started. There was a broken rope bridge at the far end so tempting fate I reached up and climbed the rotting boards dreading as I did so that a) the boards would snap and b) I'd have to spend hours when I got home getting the dirt that clung to them out from under my fingernails. At the top I found two bedrooms. The one on the right had a peice of paper lying on it. Was this perhaps my message from "her?"
I recognized the handwriting as soon as I saw it. I did not have to look at the signature to know it would be signed "Atrus" at the bottom. It was a message to his daughter Yeesha. This is how it read.....
Our dearest Yeesha,
Last night your mother had a dream...
We know that some futures are not cast by the
writer or the maker, but the dream tells that
D'ni will grow again someday. New seekers of
D'ni will flow in from the desert feeling called to
something they do not understand. But the dream
also tells of a desert bird with the power to weave
this new D'nis future. We fear such power, it changes
people.
Yeesha our desert bird, your search seems to take
you further and further from us. I hope that what you
find will bring you closer
-your father, Atrus
A strange note for certain, especially from one who doesn't believe in prophesy, but there was something even more cryptic about the red inking around the border.
-I will use them to bring me the least impossible-
-what I have learned must be returned-
-Now his....
What was that word? Garden? Gardenia...The handwriting was rough. Even I with my bad handwriting was having trouble making this out. Even with my head turned sideways I wasn't getting it. Of course most people would just turn their papers instead of turning their heads but I gotta be different. Burden! The word was "burden"
-Now his burden is mine-
Why? Why was Atrus' burden now hers? Did he die? I knew in all likely hood that he probably had. Even though I'd seen him only months ago in Tomahna that age could have been anywhen. The sadness was no less real. I had no real proof that he was actually dead, and if he was he had to be in a better place. He was probably sitting alongside the Maker delegating responsability to random passers by while scrawling relentlessly in the masterbook of the age of "Hereafter" to make sure the fundimental composition of the clouds kept them as fluffy as possible.
I found another handtowel in the room next door. When I touched this one even more of the spiral lit up. Perhaps I am to keep going untill it gives me the entire hand. Maybe by that time I'll know about the one at the base of the tree.
I had to do some creative jumping but I found it! Atrus' old lab. There was a diagram on the wall of a battery he'd designed and the rest of the room, though it looked slightly ransacked, was littered with traces of miscelaneous geological experiments. Here was proof, clutter always accompanies genius. There was an etching on the wall that I assumed went with this other machine that I found there. I matched the symbols correctly I think, but still it will not turn on. It probably needs power. Maybe the symbol on the wall is in the correct order but turned to some degree. Maybe the symbol goes to another similar machine and I'll find the correct sequence for this one elsewhere in the Cleft. It just seems as though it would be far too easy for the answer to be right there in the same room as the question.
Behind Atrus' lab is the kitchen. There's not much in here. Atrus lead a truly tough life. He lived out here in the middle of nowhere and there wasn't even a refridgerator to raid. Looking out the window I could see the ladder where I'd come in. If I could have only gotten the door open I could cross over to where I started. There's a blue button by the door, as by all the other doors,but it doesn't work. More support for the "find a power source" theory.
I headed back towards the center of the cleft leaving the kitchen and Atrus' lab behind me. As I attempted to cross the rope bridge I heard the sickening crack of wood combined with the voices of a thousand screaming blue flowers just before the really big thud where I hit the ground for the second time today. Two things went through my mind. The first was the fact that the only way back across that I'd managed to find was now destroyed and the second one was OW! I got up and looked around. I'd have to attempt to climb what was left of the bridge I just crashed. What if it broke again? Thankfully it didn't. In the end it's actually a more convenient way of getting back to the ladder than it was while it was still intact.
-Day2-
Today I brought my camera and decided to take things a little more easy. I got many great shots out and around the old volcano. On the far side there is a strange skeleton. I'm not sure what it used to be. If this was a game of "name that roadkill" I'd be losing. It's head shape and lack of arms suggest some type of Marine Mammal, but Shamu could not possibly have jumped this far. What would it be doing in the middle of the desert? It's huge, the size of an elephant easy, but the headshape and the teeth are all wrong. It must have been some type of dinosaur. The legs were probably sandblasted away or buried over time. I found another one of those handtowels attatched to it's skull. That makes three now I think.
There was a strange pile of scrap metal further clockwise around the volcano. I got pictures. The only part intact is a cone shaped peice that reminds me very much of the telescope that stood over the starfissure in Riven. I'm sure that shape is all they have in common and all of my poking and prodding of this object has brought me no closer to discerning it's true purpose. Perhaps the cone shape is a common element in D'ni structures.
I stopped by Mr Z's trailer to get his picture to add to my album. He must have misunderstood my intent because he just started spouting out hints for my task. Maybe he just can't hear over that loud music of his. He's still listening to the same track he was listening to when I met him yesterday. How much Peter Gabriel can one man take? I know if I return there too often that song will inevidably squeeze itself in amoung the Avril Lavign, Evanessence, Bare Naked Ladies, Michelle Branch, No Doubt, Outcast and all manner of other random songs that make up the never ending irrelevent soundtrack of my mind.
I found another handtowel on the back of Mr Z's trailer. Up untill now only the palm had lit up, but this one gave me the finger. The pointer finger was giving off that wonderful blue glow alongside the swirling palm. I wonder how many more I have to find to light the whole hand. I took some more pictures around the opening of the Cleft starting with the cracktree. I got a few more shots close to the bridge but I suspect it will take most of tomorrow to really photograph the Cleft indepth.