J'nanin
Darkness surrounded me, I felt my stomach lurch. I finally reach the strange world, disorientation chased away by fear and panic. I saw the man run along a short, curved catwalk. I followed and saw him at the top of a rectangular column of stone. A sort of ladder was built into it. Now, of all times, why did I have to wear a skirt! I reached to top to see him entering a sort of observatory. There was a wide, deep gap between the column and the observatory, and a rail less catwalk over it. A new fear came over me, a fear of heights. I continued over it, anyway, only to find the door locked. I looked through a window and saw the man pacing inside. Why would anyone want to steal Releeshahn, anyway? It couldn't have any real importance, except to Atrus. Perhaps I could get in by another way. I set off to explore the island.
When I originally linked in, I hadn't noticed much about my surroundings. I looked and saw that the island was a sort of caldera. I examined the scenery. Rocks, water, rocks, giant tusks, hmm, nothing odd here. The observatory also rested atop one of these tusks. I went down the ladder (it's even harder to go down, somehow) and noticed a device at the spot where I linked. The entire piece was on a pole. It had three lenses equally spaced around it. On the top was a red fire marble. I looked through one lens, it showed another piece of the island. The other showed nothing, but the last was also clear. I then discovered the piece rotated. I moved on down a path toward a rock with the same device only with a blue marble. I continued up a slope with one of the viewers, as I decided to call them, holding a yellow marble. A little way down the path was a broken pole.
I followed the path to a short set of stone steps that had apparently been carved into the rock. From the end of those there was a set going up to a sort of flat area in front of one of the tusks and more going further down. I went up to the tusk. The flat space had an odd device in the center. I couldn't figure out what it did, though. I turned, intending to leave, but I saw a door in the tusk with five buttons arranged in a circle. Below them was a handle. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. The buttons had to be the way to unlock it. There would be a certain sequence that I didn't know. Assuming that I would later find it, I went down the stone steps to a long strip of metal stairs. They twisted through a gap between two rocks. The slight wind whistled eerily through them. Those stairs led me down to yet more stone steps. This place rivaled Riven when it came to ladders and stairs.
I reached the pond in the bottom of the caldera. There was a path across it to a small stained glass building at the base of the central tusk. This catwalk rested almost directly on the water. As I walked over it I looked into the water. It was slightly murky and I could see some plants growing in it. I entered the glass structure. There was a gate keeping me from entering further and a leaver. I flipped it and the gate swung back to let me through. I walked in and found, in a gap in the gate, a botton. I also noticed plants growing behind that. Many were leafy plants, but I noticed an odd one that seemed to be a trap for small animals, and was apparently carnivorous.
When I pressed the button, I heard a noise behind me and turned to see a gate lowering. I cautiously went through. I was inside the tusk. It seemed as though someone had been living here, because on one side of the large circular room there was a hammock roughly sewn from animal skins. Sitting on it was a journal. Could this be the home of the thief? I felt that before I explored further, I should read the journals that I now possessed. I looked at Atrus' first.
It spoke of how he had found other D'ni survivors and planned to rebuild the city. How he decided against this, and decided to build a new age, how he searched his journals for ideas, and decided how to write the age. I hadn't expected it to prove very useful, and it didn't. Perhaps the other journal would tell me something.
This one proved more useful. It spoke of using "his" linking book against him. It described the affects of linking, and how this person recognized it. When in made a reference to "his murdering sons" I became suspicious that "he" was Atrus, considering my impression of Sirrus and Achenar. Apparently this man came from a world known as Naryan, and he, for some reason, followed the brothers to this world.
It seemed that at one point Atrus came here and left a Tomahna linking book behind. This man had used it and found that this was Atrus' home. He was afraid because he thought that Sirrus and Achenar would be waiting for him there. He obviously did not know what had happed to them. He, for reasons he did not know, began to search. He found Atrus' "never-ending journals," and a linking book back here. So this was J'nanin. It seemed that Atrus had come back here. He mentioned someone called Tamra, his wife? I found his name, Saavedro.
He kept trying to find some sign of the brothers, but couldn't. The writing seemed to grow bitter as he assumed that Atrus had forgotten Naryan, as he probably had.
He wanted them to suffer. The entire family. I found this anger somewhat misplaced. I wouldn't object to anything happening to Sirrus and Achenar, but that was impossible.
He became sure that the brothers were not in Tomahna. He seemed to underestimate Atrus in his remark of "What happened, Atrus? Did you grow tired of them, the way you grew tired of Naryan? Did you abandon them, the way you abandoned my people behind your shield?" I didn't understand what shield he meant, but I thought that perhaps I would find out later.
Now Saavedro's anger was REALLY misplaced. He now planned revenge against Atrus. Atrus hadn't done anything! I read on, anyway.
He said that he made changes to the other worlds. He said that he would lure Atrus here. I began to suspect that I had ruined those plans. He mentioned "the Orbiter," whatever that was. He had various diagrams on these pages of things I did not recognize.
He seemed to have discovered Atrus' writings of Releeshahn, and he misunderstood. He believed that Atrus had reawakened a dead world. This false belief seemed to trouble him.
He then spoke of more devices I did not know of, and drew more diagrams I couldn't understand.
His last entry assured me of his plan. I now knew I had destroyed it. I also now understood some of what had happened. The brothers had trapped Saavedro here many years ago. At one point he went mad. Then, some time fairly recently, Atrus paid a visit to this age. Saavedro used the linking book to follow him, and he began to plot his revenge. Perhaps an hour ago he carried his plan out. And I, rather than Atrus, followed him. It might have been a good thing, though. I had no clue as to what he would have done to Atrus. But then again, I didn't know what he would do to me, either. I shook this thought out of my mind, and continued to look around the room.
Near the hammock, there was a hexagonal column of rock. This held a rather interesting item. There was a sort of balancing...toy, I suppose might be a correct term. A stick was positioned so that the weights on both of its ends, little human figures, one on one end, two on the other, were perfectly balanced. I could guess who these figures represented. On the other side of the hammock I could see more pillars of rock. I noticed a scale on one of the pillars, but I couldn't get close enough this way.
I walked around the desk positioned in the center of the room. On the wall behind it was a painting of a woman, Tamra? The eyes seemed very blurred. Although I knew the red substance he had used had to be a sort of paint, it bore a terrible resemblance to blood. Of course, that would have dried to a brownish color by now.
The desk held some interesting items, as well. There was a scale here, too. It showed that one metal sphere equaled the weight of four crystal ones. As I looked at the items on the desk, I saw a clear tube with wire wrapped around it, what seemed to be a small generator, and one of those trap-like plants sitting in a large shell. Some of its roots were dangling into the desk.
I experimented a little, and found that electricity made tiny pieces of something, metal, probably, fly up to the top of the tube. The plant reacted to the electricity by opening. A fly (which explained the buzzing sound I heard earlier) flew out as the plant's "leaf" rose. It buzzed around a little, but was trapped again as the plant clamped shut.
I moved toward the column I had seen from the hammock. This scale balance one crystal sphere and four wooden ones. Spare spheres were scattered beside it, as well as one of a glowing type of stone in a bowl. From here I noticed something large and cylindrical beside me. There was a small passage beside it. I walked through it and saw a door on this side on the device. There was also a leaver beside it. I pulled it, the metal "cage" surrounding it (except for the door) spun around. Even though there was a good amount of space them and me, I tried to flatten myself against the wall as the spikes spun menacingly past. I nearly melded with it when the cage spun back into position at twice the speed. It rose and I realized that it was an elevator. I had found my way to Saavedro!
I brought it back down with the same leaver and rode it up. When I got there I noticed one small problem, the door was on the wrong side of the room. I turned to look out a small circular window in the other side. I saw Saavedro walk into my view. He looked toward me. His voice was muffled, but I heard him clearly.
"Atrus? That you? Come to rescue your book so soon? Not yet, old friend, not yet." He placed a crumpled piece of paper into a device, and watched as what looked like an egg-shaped cage rose out of a pit in the center of the room. He removed the paper and left my field of vision again. I looked around and saw, in the window through which I had pulled the leaver, a small green button. I pressed it and it took me back down. I noticed that there was a small pit below the elevator (the bottom was more grate than floor) in which I could see. something.
I got out and sent the elevator up, this time prepared for the spikes. Once it was out of my way, I crawled down into the pit. What I had seen were places in which the sides had been broken to expose some of the mechanisms. Four to be exact, they looked familiar. I pulled out Saavedro's journal and flipped through it. There! His diagrams! Some of them showed these very mechanisms. This elevator must have been the other mechanism he spoke of, and I could now guess what the "scanning device" was. His diagrams must be proper settings.
I reset everything, brought the elevator down, and hopped in. If I was right, maybe this thing would turn around. I was right. The seemingly pointless rotation of the "cage" was actually part of the process of rotating the elevator. When I reached the top, the "egg" had opened. I saw Saavedro walk out to it, and place his had on a linking book. He disappeared, the "egg" closed and sank into the pit, and so did some devise on the wall behind it (close, not sink into the pit).
I stepped into the room, and looked around. Two more of those wall devices were evenly spaced around the room. The pit was surrounded by a railing, except in one spot. This area was between the scanning device and a glowing blue button that was reminiscent of Riven. I pressed it, unsure of what would happen. The three devices opened, each producing a different beam of light. A hologram image of Atrus appeared. From what I heard, I gathered that this world had been created to teach his sons to write, and that there were three other books scattered throughout the island, apparently more "Lesson Ages."
Atrus' message to his sons was interrupted by one from Saavedro, to Atrus. Saavedro said that he had been trapped here by Sirrus and Achenar, that he had Releeshahn, and that to follow him, I would have to use the book below. He said that he had changed the three symbols that did that, and that to get them, I would have to take this course.
I sighed, this was going to be a long day.
~
This was a long chapter, but Edanna, Amateria, and Voltaic will be just as long.
And, to Shad0cat, I most certainly will continue, I'm just a slow writer. I'm not looking forward to the rest of the ages, but I practically have the Naryan chapter written. I had the same problem with locations of puzzles many times. It's amazing how entirely stumped (no pun intended) Edanna had me. Referring to the novels, I stumbled across The Book of Atrus, but I haven't gotten around to looking for the others yet. Um, I feel as though I'm eternally correcting you, but it's Ti' Ana, you were missing your I.
Hopefully I'll be able to Finish writing the Edanna chapter quickly enough, but don't expect anything too soon.
Darkness surrounded me, I felt my stomach lurch. I finally reach the strange world, disorientation chased away by fear and panic. I saw the man run along a short, curved catwalk. I followed and saw him at the top of a rectangular column of stone. A sort of ladder was built into it. Now, of all times, why did I have to wear a skirt! I reached to top to see him entering a sort of observatory. There was a wide, deep gap between the column and the observatory, and a rail less catwalk over it. A new fear came over me, a fear of heights. I continued over it, anyway, only to find the door locked. I looked through a window and saw the man pacing inside. Why would anyone want to steal Releeshahn, anyway? It couldn't have any real importance, except to Atrus. Perhaps I could get in by another way. I set off to explore the island.
When I originally linked in, I hadn't noticed much about my surroundings. I looked and saw that the island was a sort of caldera. I examined the scenery. Rocks, water, rocks, giant tusks, hmm, nothing odd here. The observatory also rested atop one of these tusks. I went down the ladder (it's even harder to go down, somehow) and noticed a device at the spot where I linked. The entire piece was on a pole. It had three lenses equally spaced around it. On the top was a red fire marble. I looked through one lens, it showed another piece of the island. The other showed nothing, but the last was also clear. I then discovered the piece rotated. I moved on down a path toward a rock with the same device only with a blue marble. I continued up a slope with one of the viewers, as I decided to call them, holding a yellow marble. A little way down the path was a broken pole.
I followed the path to a short set of stone steps that had apparently been carved into the rock. From the end of those there was a set going up to a sort of flat area in front of one of the tusks and more going further down. I went up to the tusk. The flat space had an odd device in the center. I couldn't figure out what it did, though. I turned, intending to leave, but I saw a door in the tusk with five buttons arranged in a circle. Below them was a handle. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. The buttons had to be the way to unlock it. There would be a certain sequence that I didn't know. Assuming that I would later find it, I went down the stone steps to a long strip of metal stairs. They twisted through a gap between two rocks. The slight wind whistled eerily through them. Those stairs led me down to yet more stone steps. This place rivaled Riven when it came to ladders and stairs.
I reached the pond in the bottom of the caldera. There was a path across it to a small stained glass building at the base of the central tusk. This catwalk rested almost directly on the water. As I walked over it I looked into the water. It was slightly murky and I could see some plants growing in it. I entered the glass structure. There was a gate keeping me from entering further and a leaver. I flipped it and the gate swung back to let me through. I walked in and found, in a gap in the gate, a botton. I also noticed plants growing behind that. Many were leafy plants, but I noticed an odd one that seemed to be a trap for small animals, and was apparently carnivorous.
When I pressed the button, I heard a noise behind me and turned to see a gate lowering. I cautiously went through. I was inside the tusk. It seemed as though someone had been living here, because on one side of the large circular room there was a hammock roughly sewn from animal skins. Sitting on it was a journal. Could this be the home of the thief? I felt that before I explored further, I should read the journals that I now possessed. I looked at Atrus' first.
It spoke of how he had found other D'ni survivors and planned to rebuild the city. How he decided against this, and decided to build a new age, how he searched his journals for ideas, and decided how to write the age. I hadn't expected it to prove very useful, and it didn't. Perhaps the other journal would tell me something.
This one proved more useful. It spoke of using "his" linking book against him. It described the affects of linking, and how this person recognized it. When in made a reference to "his murdering sons" I became suspicious that "he" was Atrus, considering my impression of Sirrus and Achenar. Apparently this man came from a world known as Naryan, and he, for some reason, followed the brothers to this world.
It seemed that at one point Atrus came here and left a Tomahna linking book behind. This man had used it and found that this was Atrus' home. He was afraid because he thought that Sirrus and Achenar would be waiting for him there. He obviously did not know what had happed to them. He, for reasons he did not know, began to search. He found Atrus' "never-ending journals," and a linking book back here. So this was J'nanin. It seemed that Atrus had come back here. He mentioned someone called Tamra, his wife? I found his name, Saavedro.
He kept trying to find some sign of the brothers, but couldn't. The writing seemed to grow bitter as he assumed that Atrus had forgotten Naryan, as he probably had.
He wanted them to suffer. The entire family. I found this anger somewhat misplaced. I wouldn't object to anything happening to Sirrus and Achenar, but that was impossible.
He became sure that the brothers were not in Tomahna. He seemed to underestimate Atrus in his remark of "What happened, Atrus? Did you grow tired of them, the way you grew tired of Naryan? Did you abandon them, the way you abandoned my people behind your shield?" I didn't understand what shield he meant, but I thought that perhaps I would find out later.
Now Saavedro's anger was REALLY misplaced. He now planned revenge against Atrus. Atrus hadn't done anything! I read on, anyway.
He said that he made changes to the other worlds. He said that he would lure Atrus here. I began to suspect that I had ruined those plans. He mentioned "the Orbiter," whatever that was. He had various diagrams on these pages of things I did not recognize.
He seemed to have discovered Atrus' writings of Releeshahn, and he misunderstood. He believed that Atrus had reawakened a dead world. This false belief seemed to trouble him.
He then spoke of more devices I did not know of, and drew more diagrams I couldn't understand.
His last entry assured me of his plan. I now knew I had destroyed it. I also now understood some of what had happened. The brothers had trapped Saavedro here many years ago. At one point he went mad. Then, some time fairly recently, Atrus paid a visit to this age. Saavedro used the linking book to follow him, and he began to plot his revenge. Perhaps an hour ago he carried his plan out. And I, rather than Atrus, followed him. It might have been a good thing, though. I had no clue as to what he would have done to Atrus. But then again, I didn't know what he would do to me, either. I shook this thought out of my mind, and continued to look around the room.
Near the hammock, there was a hexagonal column of rock. This held a rather interesting item. There was a sort of balancing...toy, I suppose might be a correct term. A stick was positioned so that the weights on both of its ends, little human figures, one on one end, two on the other, were perfectly balanced. I could guess who these figures represented. On the other side of the hammock I could see more pillars of rock. I noticed a scale on one of the pillars, but I couldn't get close enough this way.
I walked around the desk positioned in the center of the room. On the wall behind it was a painting of a woman, Tamra? The eyes seemed very blurred. Although I knew the red substance he had used had to be a sort of paint, it bore a terrible resemblance to blood. Of course, that would have dried to a brownish color by now.
The desk held some interesting items, as well. There was a scale here, too. It showed that one metal sphere equaled the weight of four crystal ones. As I looked at the items on the desk, I saw a clear tube with wire wrapped around it, what seemed to be a small generator, and one of those trap-like plants sitting in a large shell. Some of its roots were dangling into the desk.
I experimented a little, and found that electricity made tiny pieces of something, metal, probably, fly up to the top of the tube. The plant reacted to the electricity by opening. A fly (which explained the buzzing sound I heard earlier) flew out as the plant's "leaf" rose. It buzzed around a little, but was trapped again as the plant clamped shut.
I moved toward the column I had seen from the hammock. This scale balance one crystal sphere and four wooden ones. Spare spheres were scattered beside it, as well as one of a glowing type of stone in a bowl. From here I noticed something large and cylindrical beside me. There was a small passage beside it. I walked through it and saw a door on this side on the device. There was also a leaver beside it. I pulled it, the metal "cage" surrounding it (except for the door) spun around. Even though there was a good amount of space them and me, I tried to flatten myself against the wall as the spikes spun menacingly past. I nearly melded with it when the cage spun back into position at twice the speed. It rose and I realized that it was an elevator. I had found my way to Saavedro!
I brought it back down with the same leaver and rode it up. When I got there I noticed one small problem, the door was on the wrong side of the room. I turned to look out a small circular window in the other side. I saw Saavedro walk into my view. He looked toward me. His voice was muffled, but I heard him clearly.
"Atrus? That you? Come to rescue your book so soon? Not yet, old friend, not yet." He placed a crumpled piece of paper into a device, and watched as what looked like an egg-shaped cage rose out of a pit in the center of the room. He removed the paper and left my field of vision again. I looked around and saw, in the window through which I had pulled the leaver, a small green button. I pressed it and it took me back down. I noticed that there was a small pit below the elevator (the bottom was more grate than floor) in which I could see. something.
I got out and sent the elevator up, this time prepared for the spikes. Once it was out of my way, I crawled down into the pit. What I had seen were places in which the sides had been broken to expose some of the mechanisms. Four to be exact, they looked familiar. I pulled out Saavedro's journal and flipped through it. There! His diagrams! Some of them showed these very mechanisms. This elevator must have been the other mechanism he spoke of, and I could now guess what the "scanning device" was. His diagrams must be proper settings.
I reset everything, brought the elevator down, and hopped in. If I was right, maybe this thing would turn around. I was right. The seemingly pointless rotation of the "cage" was actually part of the process of rotating the elevator. When I reached the top, the "egg" had opened. I saw Saavedro walk out to it, and place his had on a linking book. He disappeared, the "egg" closed and sank into the pit, and so did some devise on the wall behind it (close, not sink into the pit).
I stepped into the room, and looked around. Two more of those wall devices were evenly spaced around the room. The pit was surrounded by a railing, except in one spot. This area was between the scanning device and a glowing blue button that was reminiscent of Riven. I pressed it, unsure of what would happen. The three devices opened, each producing a different beam of light. A hologram image of Atrus appeared. From what I heard, I gathered that this world had been created to teach his sons to write, and that there were three other books scattered throughout the island, apparently more "Lesson Ages."
Atrus' message to his sons was interrupted by one from Saavedro, to Atrus. Saavedro said that he had been trapped here by Sirrus and Achenar, that he had Releeshahn, and that to follow him, I would have to use the book below. He said that he had changed the three symbols that did that, and that to get them, I would have to take this course.
I sighed, this was going to be a long day.
~
This was a long chapter, but Edanna, Amateria, and Voltaic will be just as long.
And, to Shad0cat, I most certainly will continue, I'm just a slow writer. I'm not looking forward to the rest of the ages, but I practically have the Naryan chapter written. I had the same problem with locations of puzzles many times. It's amazing how entirely stumped (no pun intended) Edanna had me. Referring to the novels, I stumbled across The Book of Atrus, but I haven't gotten around to looking for the others yet. Um, I feel as though I'm eternally correcting you, but it's Ti' Ana, you were missing your I.
Hopefully I'll be able to Finish writing the Edanna chapter quickly enough, but don't expect anything too soon.