Uru: Day 10

Today was fairly productive. I still don't know where I am or what I'm doing here, but the scenery is great. Just keep track of your feet.

I started by linking out to what I call "Lava." It's hot. I wanted to see if I could find a way to get some light in those dark caves, but on my way to the cave I noticed a rock that seemed a logical place to hide something. Sure enough, there was one of the burlap pages. You never know where one of those will take you.

Uru's worlds are so dense that it's easy to overlook clues like this. I'd walked past this rock several times and never thought about it. So, I linked out and got to an enclosure that must be in the world I call "Shrine," because of all the strange glowing window-and-balcony things hanging on the stone walls. This must be somewhere in the city of the D'ni.

There were lots of notebooks lying around. The room, roofless as it is, must have been a major meeting point for the D'ni Restoration Council folks. I read about kings and rituals. The D'ni were like us: lots of problems, more power than brains. After reading all the journals I looked around for anything else useful, but didn't find anything. I picked up a hard hat, hoping that it would have a headlight for those dark caves, and then used my "Idiot Relto" book to link out.

Linking back into Lava, I learned that the hard hat didn't have a headlight. Still as dark as the inside of a cow in those caves. Is there anything hidden in the dark? I'll have to try another experiment. I used the Idiot Book again, back to Relto, and then linked out to the KI world. Now I know it's called Gahreesen.

Given the length of time the computer spends loading this world, there has to be more to it. I'd managed to find my way to a control room on Friday, but hadn't had time to figure out how it works.

There's a big gear in the floor that obviously is supposed to mesh with the big one that runs past the opening. There's a big golden plunger that rises when I stand on a panel in the floor, and four big switches that I can pull down. If I pull on a switch while the plunger is up, the switch stays down and its panel lights up, but as soon as the descending plunger--it starts dropping as soon as I step off the panel--gets to the bottom, the switch snaps up and the panel goes dark.

So, it's timed. What am I supposed to do? I wander around and find foot-treadles in the floor near the gear. I tromp on one but nothing happens. So, I go to the plunger and raise it, then turn around and notice lights near the treadles flashing. With the plunger up, I stomp on a treadle but nothing happens.

Back to the plunger. Raise it. Then run to the first switch and snap it down. Then run to a treadle and stomp it. Two lock-like things rise, but retract as soon as the plunger hits bottom.

Now, how can I do this? I can't run fast enough to hit the switch and both treadles. Will it work if I run back to the plunger between switches? Nothing to do but try.

Raise the plunger. Run to engage the switch. Run back to the plunger and raise it to the top again. Run and stomp the far treadle; its locks retract while I run back to the plunger and raise it just in time. Run to stomp the other treadle, and this time the locks stay down.

The gear rises and engages the big gear. Thunder fills the room. And it keeps going.

Finally, I take a closer look at the four switches. The first one has a gear shape on its panel. The second has a box with arrows down, the third switch the same but the arrows point up. Elevators? The fourth has the obvious outline of those heavy doors so common in this overbuilt place. I pull them all down and they stay. And I can go out the door, instead of having to shut everything down and wait for the gap in the big gear to show up.

Outside, there's not much to see. More hallways. Eventually I find one with a hole in the side and realize this is how I got up here; there's the cleft in the wall that allows access to the big gear. I walk down the wreckage, and enter the lower-level hallway and go to the elevator. Now its circular button is glowing, and it opens when I push it. Hooray! Going places.

And what a place it is. I end up on top of a rotating building. Now, how did that happen? I always thought the building was fixed. Didn't feel any Coriolis forces. I wander around on top. The valley is green and steep-walled. Beautiful. Waterfalls dropping into the calm river or estuary. Nearby is another building, also rotating, with four long walkways projecting from it. My building also has a walkway, which I walk to after watching the scenery go past for a revolution.

There's a pinnacle between the two buildings. I leap from the ramp I'm on and make the landing, and find a hand-panel--one of the things Yeesha talked about--on the rock. Obviously there for those who don't make the next leap. I touch it and am rewarded. Two segments found, five to go. Then I watch a walkway from the other building go past to see where it lines up.

I get in the right place and wait. The gangway approaches. I time it and leap, landing on the deck. Wait a minute! Where are my legs? I jump, and my legs are there but they disappear as I land. As if I'm walking in dark water. It's a long walk.

The door flashes blue, thanks to my KI, and I enter the building. A featureless room. Up the stairs and there's another massive door, which opens. The next room is dark. Lights shine here and there in odd structures. To left and right doorways lead to corridors; straight ahead, inward, is another door. I turn left and walk along the corridor.

It bends, then bends again, and then another dark room just like the first. It'd be really easy to get lost in this place. On a whim I turn right and go through the door that opens, into a large dark room with a polyhedral window at the far end It's a uniform beige. Enigmatic machinery lines the walls. I wander around and find a narrow doorway that leads, after a dogleg, to what looks like a suiting room from an old science fiction movie. There are niches along the walls, a machine at one end, and what looks like a suit of powered armor standing near a door.

In one of the niches is a suit of some sort, inert. Blue lights glow at spots. It does nothing. I amble around, look at the "power armor," but it is also inert. The machine at the other end, however, is active; as I step onto the circle below it, it makes noise and a tubular extension surrounds me. When it retracts I have a full suit of some sort on, different from the one in the niche. Is this a hint that I'm going to need the suit's capabilities? Maybe it has a light that will work in those dark caves.

I exit the room through the massive door and find myself in one of the dark peripheral rooms. No idea which one. Probably four, because there are four gangways to the building. I walk along a corridor to the next dark room, and then go in. Here's another room with a window, with the narrow corridor to a suiting room. This one is blue instead of green. No suits. I exit to another dark room, walk the corridor, turn inward and expect another suit room.

It's actually a conference room. Big table, viewscreens with only noise on them, and a journal on the table. This one's about the "Maintainers," whose facility I'm aparently in, and the suit I'm wearing is apparently their latest model. From what I've read here and elsewhere the Maintainers were a sort of police group, and they had a secret inner group that handled enforcement tasks. Apparently this place is a training facility, and the core has something called the Wall, where teams of Maintainers competed. Nothing is visible through the fogged window, but there's a plan on one wall.

The building has 12 sides. I shoot the plan with my KI and decide to figure it out later. On a wall near the window is another handprint cloth, which I touch and get three segments. I return to the dark room, walk halfway around the building, and go into the other conference room. Just like the first, except the viewscreens have a pattern on them. The journal on the table talks about the KI and its capabilities. On a chair is another burlap linking panel, which takes me to an isolated balcony on Shrine World. Nothing there. I link out.

From Relto, I link back to the first conference room and then walk outside to the end of a gangway. Just to see what's there. Canyon, water, streams, nothing moving, no landings except the pinnacle that's the transfer point to the other building. I'd hoped for something else. There does seem to be a door near the base of the other building but how I'd get to it I have no idea. Maybe there's a way from the other.

I link out. At Relto I like to Lava to test the illuminated suit theory. No go. Just as dark in those caves as ever. I link out, enter the wardrobe and shed the Maintainer suit.

Then I link back to Gahreesen. Take the elevator up, walk to the end of the gangway and then watch. About 90 degrees around from the egress pinnacle is another pinnacle, with a light on it. Aha! I watch it go past, to scout the landing. It looks feasible. On the next pass I leap and land on the light.

There's nothing here. No handprint, no door, nothing but a ramp that goes down to a dead end. I go back to the top to double-check. Nope. Back to the end of the spiralling ramp. Over there is something I might be able to land on, so I leap and have to make an idiot link out. As I rematerialize in Relto I wonder what happened to my kinetic energy. And what's that pinnacle for? It has a light, it has a ramp, but nothing?