April 21, 201x. Weather: Clear, Sunny

Having finished my round of work (and sufficiently calmed down from my interview high), I now find myself looking forward to multiple options of research, due to my staying in town.

1. I can wait for my work season to end, purchase a spectrometer and Geiger counter and head straight to the "Many Hole'd Place." This would provide for me a greater insight into Gem society, culture and infrastructure without the need to inform any of the Gems of what I'm doing. This is important because of a newfound need for secrecy. Gems clearly don't want humanity knowing about these places, as well as other aspects of their being. Seeing as Gem-like beings have been responsible for countless deaths across history (as well as a potential "War of the Gods"), I need to tread lightly, lest I lose my own head, either metaphorically or, unfortunately, literally.

2. I can study Gem anatomy benignly. Having studied Gem physiology for a while, it seems that some Gems are capable of shapeshifting and interfacing with computational technology. I can further work out for myself what they can do by requesting a Gem from Little Homeschool for research in this subject. If possible, I would like to see if they can fashion a USB port for themselves or perhaps physically react to a white radio signal. This will also help me maintain an image and keep Gem suspicion to a minimum.

3. I can ask around the area about this "Steven" character. The man in question seems to have been responsible for multiple pivotal events in the city, especially regarding Gems. He seems to be a local hero of sorts, although he is nowhere to be seen. He can't be a propaganda figure or some legendary folk hero. Dr. Maheswaran's daughter apparently dates him, from what I heard of that cryptid testimony earlier.

4. I can be direct about my desire to study Gem locations. If I inform a friendly Gem regarding my interests, they might be willing to warp me to these locations without the need for traveling great distance. While risky, this could expand my range beyond the "Many Hole'd Place."

5. Demand answers regarding the cryptid sightings and deaths of the last few centuries. This will likely shut me out of Little Homeworld completely and have little value in research.

6. I can call my losses here and come back with greater resources. If I can convince a scientific authority back at the university, I could have access to greater budgetary resources. This would also increase oversight and my study's legitimacy, but the problem is the chance they have of picking this up. I am only a student, and while I have interesting testimony and some surprisingly detailed historical accounts and x-rays, I might need more. What I have is good for a low-budget academic thesis, but little else. These documented events could have dire historical consequences with many lives on the line. If I am to convince a large authority to take action, it needs to be an all-or-nothing affair. From the sounds of the local government, they took the "nothing" route, meaning it's down to the scholars and/or the feds.

Gonna need to sleep on this for a while. This is a tough call to make, and the paranoia's blaring like crazy. Can't tell any Gems for a while. It could be that they are completely harmless now, but there's a lot to unpack if that's not the case.

April 23, 201x. Weather: Clear, Overcast

Fuck it, we're doing options one through four, one by one. Headed to the hardware and surplus stores after my shift today, picked up a radio transmitter, light spectrometer, medical electrodes, circuitry tools, radiation suit, and a Geiger counter. I have a good feeling about this expedition, so I also ordered an x-ray monitor. Given the right resources from the university, I might even get an x-ray transmitter for further testing in the area.

I ran into the Nephrite from the other day, and she offered to assist in the studies. This Saturday, I'll be exposing her to varying radio signals and noise to see if her anatomy is affected at all.

April 28, 201x. Weather: Clear, Sunny

I reconstructed an Electrocardiogram for the study, which may or may not help depending on Nephrite's response to the signals. I also set up a ham radio running three different programs across multiple frequencies as well as a white noise timer as a control. Let's do this thing.

From the looks of the ECG, there seems to be a large degree of voltage spiking when exposed to higher and lower frequencies of radio waves. There was one particular frequency, close to the one made by most networked computers, that made Nephrite's form almost… spark. She briefly turned into a blob of static, saying the noise "felt odd," like being scrubbed down by a massive brush. I noted the frequency for later. I seem to have found the Gem's signal antenna.

I don't think I should tell the Gems about the signal. If possible, I'd like to save it for a different time. For now, however, I had Nephrite attempt to interface with my personal computer via shapeshifted USB port. Given the right mindset for transformation, Nephrite managed to see my laptop's operating system. Just as well, I managed to get a reading on the Gem's internal storage, a mess of garbled code in an unprocessed language. I'm getting close, and I think Little Homeworld might be the answer to the final piece here.

April 29, 201x. Weather: Clear, Sunny

For now, I think that missing piece will have to wait. It seems Nephrite shared about that odd feeling she had during the radio tests. About five other Gems came by during my shift to ask me about it, and they were way too intimidating to turn away (All big quartz people. If I remember correctly, these were originally military units of some kind). Two of them had me run the program again after my shift just to see what it was like. Are they… titillated by the feeling of radio static? Did I just… ugh, I don't want to think about that. I am trying to be professional here. Well, I guess that happy signal just became well-known to Gems in Beach City. This is the fate of the intrepid researcher. I'd somehow feel dirtier if I charged them for this, even if it's just to have an excuse to turn them away.

April 30, 201x. Weather: Clear, Overcast

For my Sunday, I had Nephrite take me back to Little Homeworld for two reasons: I need to learn Gem Glyph and decode the garbled code from the Nephrite's operational data. I heard there was a Gem in Little Homeworld with enough technical know-how to install Gem Glyph as a language in my computer. If that is done, I would be able to interface with Nephrite and possibly reverse engineer her cognition. It is a ludicrous idea, but I would like to at least see how it works, or possibly send it to a second location for decoding.

The Gem in question is a Crystal Gem calling herself Peridot. Quite a flamboyant one. Approximately the size of a human child, wearing a set of sharpened goggles and a star-shaped insignia on the center of her chest. From what I've seen, she's unique among the Little Homeworld Gems in that she possesses similar strength to a human, while also in possession of a kind of ferrokinesis. Short answer, she's small, relatively weak, and able move metal with her mind.

The installation took about two hours. According to Peridot, she decided to go the extra mile and install a system that both encodes and decodes lines into and out of Gem Glyph, reducing my need to learn the language. According to her, the language is a lot less intuitive than just writing in English or machine code, since the Gem's spoken language is still English, ironically.

However, that didn't stop me from picking up a few reference books on Gem Glyph. According to the etymology involved, Gem Glyph is spoken in English but reads almost like Han Chinese or Kanji. The idea is that a small set of symbols can be read in multiple ways, each symbol denoting a specific noun or adjective with multiple different pronunciations, though most are just English. For example, the name "Nephrite" is a combination of symbols for "facility" and "aeronaut" (though I might be reading that wrong). It's an interesting language, though I can see why Peridot sees it as unintuitive (but I'd rather die than type and translate in machine code).

These books will likely occupy most of my time for a few months, at least until I learn Gem Glyph and finish my shifts for the season. Peridot likely won't be much help from here on out. Seems she's more interested in art these days.