Irena - Part 4

Disclaimers may be viewed in the previous posts or accessed here: Disclaimers.

After the fade in noise the first sound she heard was water. To her right a fountain danced in the dim light. Buildings carved out of rock stared down onto the small courtyard with black, empty eyes. Stairways and walkways disappeared in several directions, disorienting with the possibilities they revealed. She was underground, the stalactites and stone revealed that. Looking up showed a high ceilinged pocket cavern off an enormous main cavern. The rock floor, slightly cool beneath her bare feet, was composed of intricate stone patterns worn and polished by countless feet.



Everything leaked immense age except for the orange traffic cones and the sign board near one set of stairs. "Welcome to DRC Bevin. For more info go to the classroom" was lettered on the paper with a big arrow pointing to the stairs.



The emptiness ate at her nerves. The place called out for running children and gossiping adults watching over them. There should have been smells of cooking drifting on the faint currents, yet there was only the water and a faint hint of old dust. She shivered, shrugged, and then remembering her sister's instructions, started up the stairs. It was a short flight, a short passage, and another short flight up to a wide balcony.



Looking off to the right was a wide promenade and a still waterway. In the distance a tall waterfall cascaded down the side of the cavern.



To the left, the waterway ended in a pool with fancy stepping stones and multi-colored lights. 'Where was everyone?' she wondered. 'Surely, other explorers must come here,' her thoughts continued. Shaking off the growing unease, she continued along the walkway.



The far end of the balcony widened out into a plaza with two doors into the side of the cavern and a third into a walled off, smaller room. Small glowing white marbles were scattered about on the floor, as if abandoned suddenly. Cracks and chips in the paving told of old stresses and shifts in the earth around her.



She continued on to an out of place sign on the nearest door to the left. It said "Classroom" in the same neat hand as the first sign and was held in place with one red and one blue round magnet. The door was some intricately worked, shiny metal, and it slid open when she touched the glowing blue gem in the center of it. Inside, a short hallway led into a small classroom. Desks were clustered randomly around the room. Four large sheets of paper were fastened to the front wall and a projector of some kind hummed quietly in the back. A purple notebook sat on the large table at the back of the room, in front of the projection device.



Two images alternated on the projector. The first was of a man in a hard hat wearing a light grey shirt with DRC and a logo stenciled on it. The same logo was stamped on the pages at the front of the classroom and on a placard under the viewer. Next to him was a message saying:
Are you new to the Cavern?
Please link to A Beginner's Bevin Neighborhood from the Nexus Terminal. There you will meet fellow explorers and learn more about the D'ni culture.
There will be a Restoration Engineer present to give a brief verbal tour every hour, on the hour, from 5:00 PM to 11:00 PM Cavern Time (MST).



The second was of a younger man in a light grey shirt with two hands touching emblazoned on it. Around him was a text message and the two hands symbol and the word 'Greeter', shown larger in the lower right of the image. The message said:
Do you need help?
Please link to the Greeters Neighborhood from the Nexus Terminal.
Find a greeter by looking for this symbol on their shirts. (a large red arrow pointed to the two hands symbol in the image)



The purple notebook was titles "KI/Nexus" and contained detailed descriptions of how to use a device called a KI. The last section talked of a Nexus, a repository of traveling books, apparently called "Linking Books", allowing travel between various areas and places. It required a KI as an authorization device.

The pages at the front of the room contained a set of instructions for getting the KI device. Irena studied the diagram carefully and then followed the path back to the linking room, the small room separated from the classroom courtyard.



Four pedestals were set in the room, each containing an open book. She knew the one to her left, under the stained glass image, similar to the one on the pillar on her cloud island, was the one because of the map in the classroom. Before she placed her hand on the panel she walked around the room, looking at the other three books. The forward, center pedestal showed a small room with a strange mechanism on the left.



The right hand pedestal book showed a small room with a strange sort of platform in the center.



The center pedestal, on the back wall, Showed an outdoor garden under a bright blue sky.



For a few moments she wondered why only two of the books had the DRC stamp, why the garden book had no markings, and what the strange pattern on the last book was about. Half lost in thought she returned to the indicated book and placed her hand on the picture of the large stone chamber, fading out with the now familiar sound.

Irena's Tale - Part 3

Disclaimers may be viewed in the previous posts or accessed here: Disclaimers.

Once again the strange sound echoed around her as she faded onto the mossy ground of the cloud island. She sucked in deep breaths, waiting for the adrenaline rush of the transition to fade. Slowly her pounding heart returned to normal.

The first time she had been too panicked to look around. This time, knowing she wasn't trapped, she surveyed her new surroundings. Up the rise was the small building, she had thought it to be of stone, but on closer look, it seemed to be fashioned of adobe. Thick wooden poles supported the thatched roof. Two braziers, on high walls, glowed with a steady light against the twilight of the sky. The door was closed and the shutters down but the roof had holes and the shutters were torn. All the trees looked young and there was no sign older ones had died or been cut, either for clearing or to provide the roof poles, yet the building looked old and worn.

A strange stone pillar, carved with intricate symbols, poked up from the ground in front of the door to the building. Beyond the pillar the ground sloped to another abrupt edge. Two small stone islands poked up from the empty cloud sea beyond. A third baren spiral peak poked up from the clouds to her left, off another edge of her island. Heading toward the two small islands she found a narrow path that threaded its way through a rock outcropping to her right. Along this side of the building she could see where the adobe had flaked away from the stacked stones forming the core of the walls. Through the gaps and tears in the shutters she could see glimpses of the area inside. The path wound around the edge of the island and ended abruptly in a grove of trees. Peering through the trunks she saw only the cloud sea beyond. For a moment she settled to the ground and beathed in the pine scent of the trees and stared up at the thin clouds drifting in the sky above.

Rising slowly, she walked back around the building and up to the higher plateau she had seen from the arrival point. The view from the upper plateau was even more sectacular, in an empty and alone sort of way. After staring out over the expanse of clouds for a few moments, she turned and walked to the closed building door. It slid open at her touch revealing the small interior space. There was an empty bookshelf on the wall to her right, a bookshelf with a single book on the wall to her left, and a large wooden wardrobe directly ahead. What immediately struck her was no bathroom, no bedroom, and no kitchen. Apparently this wasn't a place to live, but only a place to stop for a short time.

Small metal braziers, sitting on wall mounts, provided the same steady light as the larger ones outside. When she jumped up and tried to look inside, she saw a small glowing rock marble. A small lever near the door opened the window shutters. Late sunlight streamed in, flashing on the small dust motes her bare feet kicked up. Crossing to the only book she pulled it out and opened it to reveal an image of a small square and cluster of buildings.

She slipped the book back on the shelf and walked slowly outside. Directly in front of her was the large stone pillar. The main part of it was about three feet in diameter and five feet tall. It tapered in to a center section that rose another three feet and was maybe a foot around. On the face she approached a spiral pattern formed a stylized thumb and palm with four wide slashes above for fingers. Below this was a swirling pattern that might have been flowers or trees. Above the hand, on the section tapering in to the pole, was an open book. Going around to the left there was a pattern of triangles with a carving of mushrooms on the taper. Next was a carving of mushrooms on the bottom and a tree on the taper. The last patterns were a tree on the bottom and a fish on the taper. She walked around it several times, studying the detail and workmanship of the item. Uncertain, she walked toward the far edge of the island and settled down to look out over the edge.

Ahead of her clouds drifted through the setting sun, lit with warm purples and reds. The cloud sea shifted and flowed almost like an ocean. The breeze puffed through her hair as she sat and stared into the distance. Was this where Shandi kept disappearing to? Where was here and what was going on? The clouds gave back only calm silence.

Restless curiosity finally pulled her to her feet and back to the single book. This time she barely hesitated before placing her hand on the picture and fading out.