Unbound Hearts

Let me be clear: when someone you thought was dead turns out not to be, it’s wonderful news. I had mostly left the cavern after Sydney Austin’s apparently-fatal accident in May of 2007, but before her reappearance the following July. As a result, I have spent the last three years believing that Sydney was dead.

You can imagine my disquiet, then, when I first heard of the Ranting Thespian.

I knew immediately that he was more than a rumor. I learned about the incident through Cactus Wren, a new explorer who joined the restoration through the MYSTcommunity sponsorship program. She saw it with her own two eyes. He was hysterical, it seems, and claimed to have seen Sydney. Recently.

(05/08 16:06:25) Kaelri: Hrm. What was his name again? RT something?
(05/08 16:06:46) Cactus Wren: Ranting Thespian? Something like that. “Thespian”, anyway.
(05/08 16:09:10) Cactus Wren: Some in this conversation last night were advocating a complete re-abandonment of exploration… if the D’ni had abandoned the City, we had no right to occupy or explore it.
(05/08 16:14:33) Kaelri: I’d like to meet this man.

I immediately contacted Chloe Rhodes. If anyone could confirm a Sydney sighting, it was her. Unfortunately, I received no response; she must have been on her way out of the cavern. So, I proceeded to Ae’gura on foot.

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As you can see, we’ve moved! (My apologies to Uru Blogs readers for the duplicate posts that showed up in the feed.) The reason is very simple: WordPress kick’s Blogger’s posterior all over the place. After helping Renata set up her own blog – which I encourage you to read, if you want to see the Ages through the eyes of a true anthropological talent – the advantages of using this elegant and powerful software became clear to me. (I swear they’re not paying me to say this.)

I know the URL is a lot less friendly. That’s the only reason I hesitated to do this. Fortunately, until I can get proper forwarding on my server, there are now homepage links to the Unbound Hearts on two websites:

• Go to Lore (lore.gilgarn.org)
• Go to Uru Blogs (urublogs.com)

If you want to send new people our way, just give them one of those addresses and tell them to click “Unbound Hearts.” Or, better yet, bookmark us.

Beyond that, I hope the benefits will be obvious. The Picasa thumbnails are now working – in all browsers. Our ability to upload pictures, media and HTML content is now unrestricted. I can also open registration for other members of the UH to post on the front page. And as you can see, the importation process was absolutely seamless, so all of the original blog’s posts and comments have been completely preserved.

Feel free to comment. Feedback is important.

 

If anyone’s interested, I’ve uploaded my entire library of KI photographs, from ’05 to present. It’s separated into two albums. The first, Expeditions, contains the raw images dumped from my KI. The second, Portfolio, holds the select few shots which have undergone careful CS4 processing.

As you can probably see, I also added a gadget to display the image feed on the right side of this blog. It’s a bit limited, though; it doesn’t allow me to specify the album, nor the picture order. If there are any other Picasa users out there, I’d be grateful for any advice.

Update: Apparently the display gadget fails dramatically in Webkit browsers. I’ll keep working on it.

(I’m not dead, just nightmarishly busy with surface affairs. I hope to have some cavern time next weekend, though. I am far from done with certain persons’ encyclopedic knowledge and sexy accent, respectively.)

I’ve finished a new and improved About article for this site. If you’ve been wondering who on earth we are and what we’re doing here, please do have a look!

(An OOC version is also available.)

Before the Grower began playing her hand in the restoration of D’ni, the concept of “instancing” did not exist. An Age was simply an Age. Now, every explorer has his own Teledahn, her own Minkata — we even think of our personal instances in terms of property. It is unclear whether the “original” Teledahn or Minkata (or any of the other dozen Ages we’ve unearthed) even exists anymore.

As a result, it has been difficult, to say the least, to congregate anywhere outside of the city and public neighborhoods. I’ve always thought that this was a shame. I’d have loved to bring guests to my primary office on Ahnonay, or organize a meeting of cavern notables in the conference room on Gahreesen, without the mess of wrangling access permissions in Nexus.

But now, a kind and thoughtful explorer named Kenguin has decided to change that. Kenguin is offering free Nexus invitations to all of his Ages, to anyone who asks, in the hopes of creating pseudo-public instances where open gatherings and spontaneous encounters are possible, the way they are in Ae’gura and the Bevins. I’ve fallen in love with the idea, and I encourage you to participate and help spread the word. You can read more about Kenguin’s project here.

I’ve been making an extra effort to keep my pellet factory in Er’cana in working order. I recently unearthed an old recipe, just a few notches higher than Yeesha’s in mass and temperature, but nearly twice as effective. It also requires a slightly longer processing time — about four-and-a-half hours — so I’m only able to churn our two or three batches a day. But it’s oddly satisfying work. Like gardening. If I owned a massive wind-powered industrial plant in my backyard.

I had a bit of a scare when the number-four fluid silo showed a murky composition, while the other three were nearly transparent, as normal. I was able to clear the fluid by cycling the drainage pump a few times, but I’m going to keep an eye on it; if there’s a leak, or an eroded pipe letting rust into the reservoir, I’ll need to grab my Maintainer’s suit from the garrison and have a closer look.

I haven’t been myself of late.
I haven’t slept for several days.
But coming home I feel like I
Designed these buildings I walk by.

Well. As it turns out, I sort of reclaimed the wrong Bevin last week. I realized it after discovering that our courtyard clock was missing. A linking book is one thing; a giant specimen of ancient machinery, quite another. The error has been corrected, and Renata and Clyde — the two poor souls who joined before the error was discovered — have been successfully transferred. Even better, our Eder Delin is safe and secure after all. There is snow on the ground, naturally, and the door, although unusually reluctant to stay open for long, appears to be in working order.

Another pleasant surprise: Vormaen, the Unbound Hearts’ founder, has returned to the cavern. I truthfully wasn’t expecting to see him again, especially given the circumstances under which he left us three years ago. Unless he expresses a different desire, I will continue to serve as the leader of the U.H. But it’s a joy and a relief to welcome him back into the home he built.

Speaking of neighbors, our ‘hood is regrowing at a surprising pace. I’ve managed to track down a few of our old members: Mirabi, Al’Kaera, and MystOdyssey. I have reason to believe that Mousie may show up in the near future, as well. As for new members, in addition to Renata Jael and Clyde Craft, I’m pleased to welcome Araxia into the fold. Last night was her first time in the cavern — an unbound heart indeed.

If all goes well, I’ll have our “About” page and memberlist up this afternoon. Watch this space.

I can’t write long. Packing, you know – takes forever, even when you’re only bringing it through a book that’s already bolted to your belt loop. I write, however, to say this:

The Unbound Hearts have returned to the cavern. We’ve reoccupied our old Bevin, although the Lattice has stubbornly refused to let me rename it from “Kaelri’s Bevin.” Someone has also greedily stolen our Eder Delin and replaced it with the distinctly-inferior Tsogal, but I’ll be sending some notes about that in the days to come.

Mind you, when I say “the Unbound Hearts,” it’s really just me, for the moment. I haven’t been able to contact Mousie, Luona, Kedran Cor, or anyone else, not to mention Vormaen, the founder of the UH. If they see this, I hope they all know that they’ll be welcome to return, if they so choose.

However, we do have some new faces. If you look on the right, you’ll see Renata Jael, who has joined the cavern community as something of a dispassionate observer. I’ll let her introduce herself, but despite her reservations, I think she’s a perfect fit for the Unbound Hearts, and I’ve invited her here to contribute to this blog. I’ve also inducted two new explorers, Clyde and Erca, with a prospective fourth – a charming woman from across the Atlantic – on the way.

I do not know yet what role the Unbound Hearts will play in this new phase of the Restoration. I know that I am proud of the work we did in mediating the Anti-DRC Movement affair, and I know Vormaen has approved of my leadership since passing the torch to me. For now, I have three simple hopes: that we are known; that we do good works; and that we remain true to our principles. Beyond that, the ending can never truly be written.