Hey there! So after you read this chapter you will know what my fav Age from Myst is because it will be the only one left. And then Melody has to decide who she believes and who she will set free.

Dun Dun DUN!

Thanks to everyone who has clicked on this story. I do not own Myst, the Ages or any character other than Melody (but that could change at any time... MUHAHAHA)

Don't forget to click that beautiful 'review' button. It makes me very happy. :)

Where should she go next? She asked herself that question as she studied the map. The line stopped at two other places : the sunken ship and the massive tree. Since she didn't have a magic eight ball Melody shut her eyes, let the line spin around several times before taking her finger off the button. Opening her eyes, she saw that it stopped on the sunken ship.

That was one way to make a decision.

Taking the elevator up to the tower to look at the key was getting to be routine for her. This time there were three dates :

October 11, 1984 10:04 am

January 17, 1207 5:46 am

November 23, 9791 6:57 pm

The only place where she had seen anything related to dates was at the planetarium. Before heading over there though, she decided to stop in the library and read Atrus' journal with a ship's anchor on the cover:

Emmet was the first to live on The Rock. He named them The Rocks because that it what they were, a group of sharp rocks clustered together in the middle of a large sea. This is where Emmet lived. He enjoyed his life. Emmet occasionally would swim to nearby rocks, as it was never too far of a distance.

One day another person appeared on The Rocks, for no apparent reason to Emmet. Emmet named this new person Branch. Emmet and Branch quickly became friends, swimming and hunting for fish together often. Emmet showed Branch the simple cave in which he lived on the largest rock. Soon Branch discovered a place where he decided to live, also on the same large rock. The sun always shone brightly in their world and the water was always dazzlingly clear, allowing them to see almost to the deep ocean floor which surrounded them. The sun always shone. It was never too hot for the boys . A light breeze always came from the north and cooled the area down.

One day while Branch was swimming and having fun in the water he noticed another boy swimming. Branch brought the new boy to Emmet to find out what to call the new boy. Emmet said the boy should be called Will. Will was soon a part of the group and all three of the boys swam and enjoyed their perfect world.

At least that is the story I was told when I arrived today on the island. Emmet, Branch and Will were surprised to see me at first, but even before the night ended we were all becoming good friends.

Today, the second day on this newly created Age, a strange thing happened. It was not strange to me, but the boys did not understand what was happening. While I was relaxing under a large tree on one of the smaller rock islands it began to rain. It was a nice rain that lasted for about an hour in the morning. I explained to the boys that the rain was not harmful, yet they obviously still feared it. Before going to sleep tonight I told the boys I would leave the following day. I told them that while I was gone I would make a surprising change in their world. They didn't understand, not that I expected them to.

I still do not fully understand what happened today. I was experimenting with the Art, testing the limits of the rules as dictated to me by Father. I attempted to create a boat by writing it into the world. I thought everything was planned correctly, yet somehow the boat had become gripped by the rock and broken in half. Although this test did not turn out as I had hoped I now have answers to a few of the questions my father never answered. As for the boat, I can see the boys enjoying it anyway and with that I am pleased. They have played on it all day. Even though the boat cannot move I have enjoyed studying from it. It is a much sturdier platform then the jagged rock.

In the course of my observations I have learned some very interesting things regarding the solar system of this Age. The nights are absolutely beautiful here. I have made note of and named a number of constellations that pass above me. Also during the night I catch glimmers of light from the horizon which I have not been able to discover if it is created by some natural phenomena or additional people on far off islands or rocks. I should very much like to discover which. I rather suspect it is additional people, which would explain the appearance of Branch and Will.

The rain today was slightly heavier than usual. Just when the boys were getting used to the light rains, a small storm arrived. They were frightened of the heavier rain, not to mention the thunder and lightning. If rain has never fallen here until recently, as the boys tell me, I would like to discover why it is falling now. Regardless, I have decided to return home for a short while. I have also been thinking of some plans for a lighthouse that I hope to construct soon. I think that perhaps by shining a bright light towards the horizon, it might prove my suspicions regarding additional inhabitants. They would be curious about the light and travel to discovers it's source, if they have the means.

I return for many tools which I will need to construct the lighthouse. I have decided that after the lighthouse is constructed I will leave for some time and let the world's own imagination have control.

We have worked three weeks on the lighthouse now and are making great progress. The rocks that we are building on seems to not be as secure as I would like. I have had to alter my plans slightly, but those alterations pose no real problem. The boys are quite strong and have been helping me immensely. I estimate construction will be done within two days.

The lighthouse is finished and we are all proud of our creation. The boys are amazed at the structure wrought with their own hands. That evening we powered up the generator, much to the boy's dread at first, and shined a great light to the horizon for many hours. I stayed the night in the top of the lighthouse and in the morning awoke to observe the sunrise without my being coated with the chilly blanket of ocean dew I had become accustomed to.

It was Will who first saw the girl. She was swimming not far from the boat where Will was getting ready to hunt for fish. Then Will noticed a man not far away from the girl. Emmet was very pleased to meet the additional neighbors.

I feel pleased to leave this Age. I have set in motion events that have nothing to do with writing or the Art, that will have a more profound effect on the world than I could have ever written. I think of this Age as a gift to myself that I will wrap and open some day in the future only to discover that it has changed so much that indeed it is a surprise.

Besides, I have yet another new Age that awaits me. It seems I'm going to need some way to travel underwater and so much planning is in order.

It has been ten years since I left this Age, which I have since called the Stoneship Age. Upon returning, I cannot believe the changes that have taken place. The original three boys have grown into adults and there are many new faces that I do not recognize. Branch told me that it has not rained for seven years and the cool breezes are back again. They are all very content and have been serving me with new foods and showing me new materials that they have discovered. It even seems they have found gold somewhere. I see it in many forms around the island. My lighthouse has been kept in perfect condition and it looks as if they have tried their very best to keep it so. Yet I have noted that the entire rock it was built on has sunk approximately 40 or 50 meters. After a wonderful visit with my old friends I wondered aloud with them what things will be like here in another ten years.

Melody smiled as she read. This was her favorite journal so far. It was so sweet. She definitely wanted to travel to Stoneship next. Maybe she could meet Emmet, Branch and Will. Maybe they could tell her about Atrus and answer some questions she had about Sirrus and Achenar. It would be nice to travel to an Age with people. She was starting to feel lonely. The only people she had been able to talk to were literally in books.

The last few pages of the journal had drawings of constellations. She took the journal with her to the planetarium. Something told her that she needed to identify certain constellations.

She ended up being right again. By putting the dates into the chair and comparing the stars to the drawings in the journal, she was able to make out a leaf, a snake and a bug.

Now that she had them, what was she supposed to do with them?

It took a bit of searching to realize that the pillars surrounding the ship model in the pool in front of the library had the symbols of the constellations on them. By pushing the leaf, snake and bug she caused the ship model to ride out of the water.

The sound of rushing water made her whirl around. She gasped at what she saw.

The actual ship at the dock rose and floated on top of the water like a normal boat. Amazed, she walked slowly down to the dock. Testing with first one foot than the other, she climbed aboard.

The ship had no sails, no wheel and no rudder so she couldn't take it anywhere. What it did have was stairs leading down inside of it.

The door at the bottom of the stairs opened to a room the size of a shoe box. The only thing in the room was a chair.

A book rest on the chair.

Melody knew before she picked it up.

Opening it, she smiled and enjoyed the trip to Stoneship.

The first thing she felt was the rain. She looked up at the grey sky and covered her face against the soft rain. She was standing on a ship much like the one in Myst but, as described by Atrus, this ship was broken in half. The other half was to the right, coming out of the large boulder in front of her.

The silence chilled her more than the rain. Weren't there supposed to be people in this Age?

"Hello?" she called. "Emmet? Branch? Will? Anyone? I'm trying to find a man named Atrus. Hello?!"

The wind whistled. The rain continued to fall.

She waited.

There was no response.

Melody sank to her knees. The isolation was starting to get to her. She hadn't realized how starved she was for human contact until she'd had the hope of an Age with actual people on it. Now it appeared as if there was no one here. What had happened? Where were the people that Atrus had written about? Had they grown in such a number that they had to find a larger place to live?

Somehow though, she had a sneaking suspicion that something terrible had happened.

After about fifteen minutes of shaking and feeling sorry for herself, she stood and brushed off. All she could do now was try to find the red and blue pages and the linking book back to Myst.

There was a path leading into the boulder, but it was flooded with water.

To the far right was a wooden walkway to a lighthouse. Inside was a ladder leading up to a trapdoor but it was locked. A key was chained to the platform beneath the trapdoor. The chain led down into the dark water. Melody shook her head and went back the way she had come.

There was no way she was going in that water. She'd seen Jaws way too many times.

Going back to the half of the ship that she had appeared on, Melody went toward the front half. Another path into the boulder was also flooded. The boardwalk continued to lead upward, winding around the boulder all the way to the top. The only thing at the top of the large boulder was a telescope. Looking through, Melody scouted the area but saw nothing.

Going back down, she returned to the back half of the ship. There was a door that she hadn't noticed before, but when she opened it she saw yet another stairway that was also flooded with water.

Alright, she thought, something's gotta give. There had to be a way to drain the water.

On the opposite side of the ship from the lighthouse was a series of planks connecting a few smaller rocks. They led out to three large grey buttons that were protected from the weather by an umbrella.

Pushing the left button, she heard a pumping noise. She smiled to herself. Atrus and his logic puzzles.

Since only one button could be depressed at a time, Melody went to investigate what the left button did. It turned out that it cleared the water out of the hallway leading down into the ship. She followed it to another door that opened easily.

She could tell by the echoes that the room was large, but unfortunately it was so dark she couldn't see a thing. She felt along the wall, but couldn't find a light switch of any kind. Melody frowned as she shut the door. Maybe she could find a power source somewhere.

The right button, she discovered, cleared the water from the light house. Wooden planks had been pounded into the wall to make a circular staircase that led to the bottom. The only thing to investigate was a small wooden chest. When she tried to move it, she found it was too heavy. A valve on the side told her why. She opened it and water drained out. She eyed the stairs. It would be a rather awkward climb to lug the chest to the top. There was no way she wanted to risk the possibility of a broken neck.

An idea slowly unfolded in her mind.

Closing the valve on the chest, she climbed the stairs and went back to the pump controls. By pressing the middle button, she flooded the lighthouse again. She was thrilled when she discovered that her idea had worked.

Without the water to weigh it down, the chest floated to the top as the lower level filled with water. It now floated beside the ladder. The key on the chain unlocked to box. Inside was another key that unlocked the trap door.

Melody blew her hair out of her face. Whatever was up here, someone had gone to a lot of trouble to keep people out.

She was rather disappointed when all she found was a crank and a battery pack. It took quiet a while, but by using the crank she charged the batteries until there were full. Wires ran from the lighthouse to the boulder.

Melody yawned and looked at her watch. Whatever she had found could wait. She was tired and wet and cold. At least the top of the lighthouse was encased with glass so she was protected from the elements. Curling up on the wide ledge that ran around the place on level with the windows, Melody slept away from the rain and soft thunder that echoed across the empty sea.

The sun woke Melody as it beamed through the windows. The rain from the previous day was long gone. The sky was clear and vibrant blue. Stepping outside the lighthouse, she breathed deeply of the salty sea breeze. Unlike the Mechanical and Selentic Ages, Stoneship was beautiful, exciting and promised adventure.

The batteries that she had charged the previous night had run out so she spent the first fifteen minutes of the morning recharging them. You'd think with how smart Atrus was he would have come up with a better system.

Both tunnels leading into the boulder were lined with lights. She followed the first tunnel down and around until she came to a door with a green button. When she pushed it, the door slide open.

She quietly gasped.

Inside was a very opulent bedchamber. Straight in front of her, across the room, was a large four poster bed covered in rich fabric. The room was furnished with a chest of drawers and a desk that looked like that were made of sandalwood, lamps of carved ivory and several expensive looking rugs on the floor. The walls were carved wood, perhaps cherry wood. Several paintings decorated the walls and lush plants rested in gold pots.

It was so out of place with the rest of the Age it left Melody speechless for several minutes.

From what she had seen in the Mechanical Age, she concluded that the room must have belonged to Sirrus.

There was nothing on the desk but some writing materials and a globe toy that spun. The chest of drawers held much more. The two top drawers held silver, gold and bronze coins. The second and third drawers held silver dishes and expensive fabrics like silk and velvet. She caught her breath at the fourth drawer, which was filled with what looked like rubies, emeralds, sapphires and quite a few pearls. In the last drawer she found a red page. It was the only thing she took from the room.

The other tunnel led to another room. She knew it had been Achenar's as soon as she opened the door.

Across from the door was a bench with the horns of some animal decorating the wall above it. A lantern made from a human rib cage swung from a thick chain that hung from the ceiling. Melody grimaced and turned away.

The room was sparsely furnished, the bed having only a thin cover on it and it was grimy. Laying on the pillow was a blue page, which she pocketed.

Across the room from the bed was a simple chest of drawers. Most of the drawers were empty. A few held maps, but she didn't recognize anything on them.

A torn note in the middle drawer intrigued her. The parts she could read said something about a vault and marker switches. It had to be talking about Myst Island, because that was the only place she had seen marker switches. Was there a vault on Myst Island? Melody searched, but couldn't find the other half of the paper. She decided to take it with her, hoping she'd run across the other half in another Age.

But right now she needed to find the linking book and return to Myst.

As she was leaving the room, she noticed something strange about a part of the wall in the tunnel. An indent in the wall was a slightly different color than the rest of the wall. Crouching, she pressed on it.

It moved slightly.

Melody pushed harder until part of the wall gave way into another tunnel.

Another secret passageway.

It led to a room shaped sort of like a hexagon. Windows looked out into the water. Fish swam by. A jellyfish drifted against the glass, then moved lazily away. Melody spent several minutes watching the brightly colored fish before looking over the room.

A large compass rose was in the middle of the floor. Examining it, she found that each arrow of the compass pointed to a small black button. Curious, she pressed one.

She shrieked as the room became instantly shrouded in darkness.

A buzzer began going off and a green light blinked to show her where the door was. Stumbling and feeling her way around, she made her way back to the outside.

Okay, randomly pressing buttons was not a good thing.

When she returned to the lighthouse to charge the batteries again, she wondered about what had happened. Apparently pressing the wrong button caused the batteries to drain very quickly. So what would happen when she pressed the right button? How did she find out what the right button was?

After several hours of searching the area, she ended up back where she had started. She stared up at the lighthouse thoughtfully.

Alright Atrus, she thought, give me something to go on here. I know there has to be one little thing that I'm missing. That one thing that will tie it all together...

When she finally realized what it was she wanted to slap herself. Why hadn't she noticed it before?

There were two power lines leading away from the lighthouse.

One went to the boulder.

The other went to the ship itself.

Her gaze wandered up to the telescope. She had to somehow divert power from the boulder to the ship. Was that what pressing the right button on the compass rose did?

There was only one way to find out.

Using the telescope, which had the degree marks etched into the lense, she figured out that the lighthouse lined up with the 135 degree mark.

Too bad she didn't know anything about calculating degrees on a compass. She narrowed it down to four buttons.

It took her two tries, running back and recharging the batteries when she chose the wrong one.

By the third try she was tired and ready to give up. She picked a button and closed her eyes, bracing herself as she pushed it.

Nothing happened.

Opening her eyes, she found the lights still on.

Racing outside, she went first to the pump to drain the water from the ship's passage. She ran down to the door and threw it open.

The lights were on inside the large cabin. Now she could see the wooden railing and the black and white tile of stairs leading downward.

Melody laughed and felt like dancing in excitement.

Taking the steps two at a time, she had to go down two flights before reaching the bottom.

There, resting on a table, was the linking book to Myst.

Melody glanced up at the colorful fish that swam by. They seemed to watch her, as if sad to see her go. Indeed, she felt a slight sadness at leaving this very interesting Age.

But she had a job to do. For some reason, it was becoming more and more important that she complete it.

Melody felt a kind of inner excitement, like she was getting closer and closer to discovering something she now desperately needed to know.

Bidding a silent goodbye to the Stoneship Age, Melody opened the book and placed her hand on the page.