What do you do when your legs are on fire from learning how to walk (climb) around San Francisco, and you’re looking to hang out away from people for a little while?

Myst Online, of course! I explored some of what was new since the last time I’d been down there, and some that I hadn’t thought to explore.

Resurrection of the Guilds

I started wandering again, just like I used to. From my Relto, I went to my Bevin, and noted that only one other explorer has visited in months. I wonder if new explorers get added to old Bevins. From there, I went to the Nexus and to the Watcher’s Pub. The DRC still hasn’t cleared any more Path of the Shell Ages, so I was still on pause, as far as learning Yeesha’s ways, and following the Paths that she’s set out. I headed back to the Nexus and found a new link there, to a place called Kirel. Kirel seems to be a Bevin, but completely flipped, right-to-left. It’s a mirror image of all of the neighborhoods that I’ve seen, but missing the gaming table, no access to the “silent” room, and only a link back to the Nexus in the Book room. Scattered about Kirel are five tables, each with a stack or box of t-shirts of a certain color, with the DRC Guild logos on them. Each table also has a sheet of paper with a short description of each Guild. Apparently, the DRC is encouraging explorers to proclaim loyalty to one Guild or another before they actually bring the system back. And being who I am, I picked up a Guild of Writers shirt. Lucky me, it’s even black!

The short explanations of the Guilds had also included a note that wearing a Guild’s t-shirt would give you access to their Pub in Ae’gura. The Writer’s Pub is shown here, and seems to be laid out exactly like the Watcher’s Pub, only decorated more richly. All of the side rooms are blocked by rich, thick curtains, and the imager in the center is actually on. There are quite a few notices, and reading them makes it sound like the proto-Guild is attempting to be a full Guild as soon as possible. I only ran into one other Writer there, and he linked out before I took this shot.

While I’m not the biggest fan of the Guild system after going through Yeesha’s first Path, I figured donning the Writer shirt was appropriate. I mean, the reason that I’ve been trying to keep to Yeesha’s direction is so that I might learn what she has learned.

The Age of Minkata
A trip to the Guild of Greeters neighborhood triggered something that had told me about regarding Minkata. He said that there was something strange to be discovered about the Bahro there, and one of the Greeters said something similar. While I know that it will probably raise more questions than it will answer, I am hoping that it will bring more than another rotating stone in my Bevin. So, determined, I headed to the Library in Ae’gura, to where the Minkata book is located. I was a little surprised to see another book on the pedestal to the left, but then I remembered the “game” Age that had been recently released by the DRC.

I took a glance at the notebook on the left of the Minkata Age book, and boggled. There were a ton of D’ni numbers, written inside compass points, with their Arabic counterparts written inside of the diagrams. Most had a part of the compass point highlighted in a light green. I remembered saying something about how math-oriented this Age was, and sighed. But there was supposed to be a more simple way to do it, dealing with the flags and shadows. So, I linked in to try and short-cut the Age. I got there, and saw the bone cage, and immediately investigated. It has a stone inside of it with all kinds of hieroglyphic-like inscriptions on it. Something done here must open the cage and allow access to the stone. The Bahro have communicated and linked with inscriptions before, but I’d never seen anything this complex. So, I spun around me, looking for something that stood out.

This banner, whipping in the wind, has a number on it. It’s hard to see, and looks to be aged pretty badly. But the banner itself is flapping in a direction that the wind isn’t blowing. The three banners that were on the cage were all flapping the same way, but this one is pointing in a totally different direction. I also noticed the shadows. Both the flag and I seem to have three shadows of varying brightness, though I could only locate two suns going through the sky. So, I followed the direction that the banner was flapping, and came upon two more, that were a few feet apart from each other. Each of these was flapping in the same general direction, so I took off that way.

I remembered that there was a hole in the ground, instead of the weird knobby reverse-craters that were all over the place. That hole was supposed to trigger a switch from night into day, I think. So, I ran. And ran. And ran. And, I ran some more. Eventually, you get so far out into the sandy fog stuff, that you can’t get back. I was pretty sure that I pulled a 180 when I decided to try to make it back to the cage, but the stuff never let up. So, I linked back to my Relto. I’m going to pay more attention to the math this time, I think. I may try to use the KI pictures and notebook for this, but the tried and true paper notebook might be the least clumsy way to go about this. In any case, it looks like there’s some base-15 (or was it 150?) math in my future.