Spent more time out of the cavern and on Ter’ni.

We’ve been mapping the area and using some cameras attached to helium balloons to take aerial photography of the surrounding area.

A group of us headed up to Northland, as it has been named, to meet the team that headed up there a while back to explore.

They had set up a camp up there to study the area and wildlife. It’s a very long trip up there, no means to Link at the moment, which is why one of the Writers is coming up with us. The trek was very tiring, the mountain regions were extremely trying, we lost a couple of the team there when one fell and broke his leg, so he was taken back to the barracks.

He is ok, we returned to the surface earlier today to check on him.

I thought Dereno was chilly, but it’s nothing to Northland. Was pretty harsh weather when we finally arrived. The camp has been built into a large ice cliff, Simon said it was for protection against the creature. I slept for several hours before waking up and peeking outside to find the weather had cleared up a bit. Shelly got to work on the book as we headed out to explore with Simon. We hadn’t been out long when we saw this huge creature.

Simon said he called it a Frostspine, apparently the one we saw was a male. I asked if this was the creatures he mentioned earlier to which he said no. Apparently their backs is a means of protection against the creature. Simon said he hasn’t seen it properly, he was out in a storm heading back when he got a glimpse, he said the thing was huge and given some of the Frostspine corpses he has found it’s pretty vicious too.

I got to spend a lot of time seeing Frostspines, sketching them, observing them.

Simon said they have short horns on their backs which they use to harvest icicles, the icicles serve as a defense for them, allowing them to bed down and hide in the landscape, but also serves as a means to damage enemies, in mating season they are used as an indication of a good male (bigger icicles means a better mate).

Males also have this pale band around their bodies, where as the females are pretty much all blue in colour.

I did sit there watching them, wondering if they could be tamed, animals that big would be able to carry a lot of weight, and given that they will be able to Link, we could start transporting some bigger equipment around especially here where we need to set up a more stable base of operations.

Simon said it’s a couple of months before young ones are born, so I think we’ll have to try and locate their habitat and keep an eye on them see what we can learn.

At least the trip back was nicer, open book, Link.
So much easier on the old legs, plus with Shelly’s book we can just Link up to the camp now, will need to put the book in The Hub when it is completed, I believe the wood paneling is going in tomorrow.

Might move that Bahro body from Dereno up to Northland now that I think about it.

Seem to be spending a lot of time in the office lately.

Working on liquidizing the Restorers Guild site. Site doesn’t get updated as much as it should, and given Rob is happily financing the group the site isn’t really needed. So I have been sat in the office merging content from the Restorers Guild site to my Beneath site.

Seem to be spending a lot of time mulling things over lately.

Sometimes I feel the group got too big, back when we all got together it was just the 4 of us, myself, Keira, Dave and James and later Soph joined us. Back then it was about restoring D’ni, about learning and uncovering the mysteries.
Dave was killed and James fled the cavern, so Steve joined us, and it became about restoration and learning The Art.
We got funding, Keira’s husband Joe joined us and we had engineers, the group became considerably bigger.

Breakthroughs came, Ages were written and the society was formed and the Ter’ni project crafted. Was this evolution of the group or did the group, like me, loose its way?

So where do we go from here, does the group go back to being small? Does the group continue without me? Originally I wasn’t going to stay, joined to help with a few projects and to get help with Tefoonetahn.

So much to think about, to much to think about.

As the society finds a way I seem to be loosing one. Not sure what it is but lately I have felt so lost.

Occasionally I get these flashes, a feeling washing over me and I felt like I did back in 2002/2003 back when I started all this.

I miss that feeling.

What is it that I feel I am missing? A sense of purpose? Sense of mystery and intrigue?
It didn’t take me long to see D’ni in a different light, even now as people still see an archaeological site, I see a home, a future, a new start.

But as I see this new home, future, a new start. I start failing to see other things, perhaps things that should be seen, that are important. But I forget what they are and why they are important and thus am lost.

Do I miss the adventure? The thrill of danger? I remember sneaking back into D’ni after the DRC pulled out, building a base for The Third Path, ‘borrowing’ books and resources on the Art.

Course I remember the loss, the death of David, the flight of James.

I find myself in the City Proper, venturing here in a daze, and I reach the spot where David was found, where James had been living and researching the Art and the Bahro.

Perhaps I need to retrace my steps in order to find where I was on the path again.

Back in the early days, before the DRC opened the cavern publicly and only Authorized Explorers were permitted into D’ni there was some Fish Taco shirts that soon vanished and became much coveted by a selection of people.

‘Rium+’ managed to stumble onto them and so I promptly stole one for myself.

Hoping to get some printed up and sent to the DRC for them to dispense to the explorer community, we shall have to see where that goes.

Sophie stopped by the office earlier, there were a few images on the KI most of them the usual, Ae’gura, Hood shots etc. But one of them is what we’re assuming is Nekisahloth;

Soph said she has cleaned the image up a lot with some new equipment she has been experimenting with. Apparently there are some journal entries on there too but they are pretty garbled, not sure if we can save them.