Site Imagers
My apologies, but the site’s Imagers are temporarily offline for maintenance. The hope is to be able to shore up the code so that these can be released for everyone to use to post their own images. :)
Cheers,
Izy
February 15, 2010
Pruning Links
Hey All,
Just a note that I’ve had to go through the site and disable a few links just to clean things up. I removed links in the sidebar to a few places like CCN Central, and the URU Guilds page. If you come across any others that need to be taken down, or updated, let me know either by email (isyldar@uruexploration.net), or by commenting on this post.
Cheers,
Izy
February 15, 2010
A Busy Evening
Well, it was time to return to the Cavern in force. With the path to D’ni wide open, Explorers have been returning in droves. I’m not quite sure that the DRC knew what to expect when they opened it up again. I was helping out a few friends set up new KI’s tonight, and I’m of the impression that either the lattice is over-worked, reserving mass amounts of #s, or there are enough Explorers in the cavern to start a very large surface-sized city, let alone re-populate D’ni.
The Cavern has been open for approximately a week (perhaps a day or two longer), and already, the KI #s are above 1 million! I honestly can’t remember if they ever hit that count when the Cavern was open last time. Further to that, I was helping set up the new Canadian’s Bevin with J’naem, who returned to D’ni this evening as well, and the KI#s jumped thousands within minutes. (This is partly what leads to my borked Lattice, or reserved #s theory.)
At any rate, there are a lot of people in D’ni these days, and it is great getting to run into old friends, and even new ones!
Nadnerb and I were able to attend an Eder Delin run courtesy of the D’ni Museum of Art Bevin. It took us quite a while to get the door open the first time. Nad’s theory is that with so many cooks in the kitchen, it was hard to communicate. We were also trying to teach a new Door Caller how to do the job, and that definitely contributed to the time it took us to get it working the first time. (Including having everyone leave the Age and come back in when we thought the door had stopped working.)
Following the first success, we had Medic get stuck behind the door, and Nad had to bring me up to speed on the cloths so that we could open the door with just the two of us and get Medic out of there. It took us a few tries, as I kept getting things mixed up, but we succeeded. :)
Along the way, Lagrider stopped in, and was surprised to see the door opened with such a technique as the one Nad taught me, so we ran the door on 3 people to show him how it was done. That also took us a couple tries, though only a couple. :)
I think we may need to put together some articles on the techniques of running Eder Tsogal and Eder Delin on less than a full crew of people. And, based on tonight’s performance with the large group, we may yet need to put something together on the standard practice for a run too. :) Either way, I don’t think we have any notes posted for either Delin or Tsogal at this point. It’s worth looking into.
Wow, there was so much accomplished tonight.
Nad and I proceeded to run through Eder Gira and Kemo following Delin. I hadn’t yet retrieved my pillar for the Ages. Along the way, Nad discovered that it was possible to walk across the gap between the land and area behind the waterfall in Gira on just 1 basket. It saved us having to retrieve the second one; but I’ll let him post about hte technique. He understands more of what he did than I do, as usual.
February 14, 2010
Returning
It seems that in the time since the last cavern opening, the Lattice somehow got reset. Perhaps power failed at some point, clearing it’s memory. Anyway, my new KI number is 23247. I’ve spent some time bringing stuff back to my Relto, running the Eder Delin and Eder Tsogal doors with Gylippus and Elatine, who finally got back into the cavern after some difficulties with transportation. Familiar names filled the city, and there was much buzz.
Today, I neared completion of my collection of stuff. Only the Minkata wedge remains to be retaken. Ironically, the Minkata sparklie remains also, but cannot be collected for some reason unknown. I spent a good deal of time in Ahnonay as well, helping Elatine understand the age, hosted a good sized (5) group in my Relto for a Fissure opening, which was quite fun, and played around in Jalak a bit with Jeff.
The pod portal calculator has been updated with new times and should be accurate to the minute, though at the moment there appears to be a timezone issue that causes some people to get a countdown exactly an hour off. Hopefully I’ll find the time to look into this soon.
February 12, 2010
Ah’lex
I managed to FINALLY arrive down in New Mexico yesterday to meet up with Zandi. Lucky for me he was waiting outside. I greeted him and he told me what I needed to do to get back down into the Cavern. I followed his instructions and found a Relto book waiting for me. I used it and linked to my new home.
Back inside the cavern, I was very excited to see all the explorers again. It doesn’t seem like the DRC has changed much since the Cavern re-opened. I’m guessing they’ve just added a few more neighborhoods to help with the tons of people coming into the Cavern. Basically everything there was before the closure of the cavern is still around. I’ve even heard of a bahro sighting recently.
Yesterday, my main focus was to do business in Gahreesen and Teledahn. After that I began to focus more on exploring the City. I got to visit Ae’Gura once more, never happier to see it again. I then headed to the Watcher’s Sanctuary, and linked into Er’Cana to start the vats up once more for Pellet baking. It might be a little more difficult now since I’ve forgot the recipe I used to use, but I’ll be testing things out.
So I think I’ll be headed down into the Cavern once more this afternoon. I’d like to finish what I started yesterday in Er’cana and maybe start exploring Kadish Tolesa or Eder Gira once more.
Oh yeah, I’ve decided on a new name. I’ve figured apostrophes simply make anything sound more D’ni :)
February 10, 2010
Lost in Minkata
I was able to get back into the Cavern this evening. There weren’t even any real issues Linking, and the trip was quicker than usual. Nadnerb had already arrived, of course, and was awaiting verification of the portal arrival in Negilahn.
Yesterday, (or the day before, I can’t remember which), we were able to determine that the Portal Calculator set up two years ago was still fairly accurate (within 4 minutes) for Payiferen, and we wanted to know if the new app for his iPhone was going to accurately calculate the other portal times as well. An attempt in both Negilahn and Dereno wasn’t successful. I guess we’ll have to re-work the math based off of the Payiferen portal, which we were able to catch later on this evening.
While waiting on the Payiferen portal, Nad decided to get us lost while grabbing a new pair of boots from Minkata:
Izy & Nad lost in Minkata
Happily, Nadnerb was able to figure out which hole we were at, and navigated us to the right one with the boots in it. (Was it 3? It was either 3 or 4, but I think 3.)
Anywas, the paying job calls me back to the Surface, so I must put to rest my explorations for the evening. The Cavern will have to wait for another night. The Bahro only know that it’ll be there tomorrow.
Shorah all,
Izy
February 9, 2010
Returning to the Cavern!
Well, I was so excited to hear yesterday that the Cavern has been opened once again to explorers. As soon as I heard the news, I made preparations to leave to New Mexico. As I write this I’m starting to pack up. However, I also learned that the Cavern was closed out to most folks this morning because of a power issue the DRC had. I want to leave ASAP though, so hopefully within the hours it takes to get there, the Cavern’s Power will be back to normal.
I’m extremely excited for what’s to come. I really want to continue getting into becoming a Maintainer and start training in Gahreesen soon. Hopefully within the next few weeks, Guild activity will start back up as well.
And Finally, on my last thoughts before I finish my preparations to leave for the Cavern tonight, I want to think of a new name for myself, preferably something partially taken from the D’ni language. I have a few ideas that I’ll go over on my way down to New Mexico, but I want to decide on a good one before heading into the Cavern.
So with that, Shorah! And I hope to see you guys all down there soon!
February 9, 2010
Again
I was able to make it to the Cavern today. Or at least as close to it as Bevin. The old hoods aren’t present anymore, but are quickly being set up again by Explorers eager to resume ops in D’ni.
While I was there I was able to hook up with Nadnerb in Eder Tsogal, after a quick trip to Gahreesen to grab a new KI of course. It was great to see the old sights and sounds again, and breathe in the air of a totally different world. Refreshing in ways untold to those of us stuck in the grips of deep winter on the surface.
At any rate, I must away for now. The Cavern has temporarily closed up while preparations are made to further handle the onslaught of Explorers heading for the city. It will be good to go back again once they’re ready.
Shorah,
Isyldar
February 8, 2010
The Cavern Opens!
It has been a long 2 years since last I was able to visit the Cavern with other Explorers, and the wait is now over. D’ni is open, and the passages to it are crowded with those rushing to return to its depths and reconnect with old friends in corridors well known.
I myself am awaiting the chance to enter with great anticipation. Word came to me from Nadnerb that we were able to return, and now its just a matter of hours before I will be able to join the rest of the Explorers in the ancient tunnels.
I have some new tools with me this time for keeping these journals updated. Automatic updates, both to and from my KI will allow for eveb more info to flow out onto these pages.
I wonder how much has changed down there, if anything, and whether or not the old hood is still accessible…not likely, but rebuilding isn’t a concern. It’s something our community does well. Too bad I’ll have to build up those Heek points again though…
Isyldar
October 4, 2009
How much longer?
Shorah fellow explorers! First a small update on my personal life:
Well, the summer has passed us by pretty quick. I myself am starting my sophomore year in High School already, and at a brand new school too. A couple of months ago, my dad and I moved down from California’s central coast back to California’s central valley. It wasn’t easy at all adjusting to a new school, there were new friends I had to try and make, and new classes to learn to get to. But I’ve gotten the hang of it so far.
These past couple of days have re-kindled interest in me for the Cavern. Since every day in school I get about a 15 minute break after my first period class, I have time to do whatever I want. Since there’s not much to do during this break period, I decided to read the Miller Brothers’ The Book of Ti’ana again. This time around when reading, I got a better visualization of everything (before the fall) in my head than before. This made me want to know much much more about D’ni than I knew already, including their diet, religion, laws, kings, etc.
This past weekend I began to do a tad bit more of research on some of those things, even though my experiences in the Cavern before its closing taught me a lot about it’s history. I’ve even done research on D’ni language recently, hoping to give myself a better title people can know me by instead of “Macintosh”. It doesn’t at all feel to me as a legitimate last name for use in the Cavern.
Hopefully by the time the DRC decides to re-open the Cavern, i’ll have decided on a new title for myself. Once I have I’ll be sure to let whoever reads this know. I really am looking into making something original sounding, with various words I like and see fit from the D’ni Dictionary combined.
Also I’ve begun looking into some of the guilds, more specifically the Guild of Maintainers. As I looked up their website, I was sad to be reminded that the Grand Masters had gone on hiatus. Unfortunately since I have no way of getting to the Cavern at the time, there’s no way for me to even practice on how I’d go about making sure ages are stable, even if the Grand Masters were no longer on hiatus. Besides that, the Guild of Writers seems to be on Hiatus as well. I don’t know of any ages that guildsmen have been writing since the Cavern has closed.
However, I did become familiar with one Guildsman’s works. I periodically check the website спалниUrublogs.com and I read one explorer’s journal/blog entries since I find them so interesting.
I think most other explorers are familar with Tweek and his organization D’ni Jazz Club, but I’m not exactly sure how many are familar with him and his age creations. He currently writes frequently on a blog titled “Beneath“. This has actually inspired me to learn more and more about D’ni’s history, and it’s been making me more and more anxious to get back into the Cavern and explore the Ages he’s written. I’m hoping to get to learn more about Tweek and his explorations in the Cavern in the coming weeks.
Well, I think that just about does it for this entry. It may be a while until my next post, but I will never stop thinking about the exciting day I can set foot back into D’ni!