The Path to D'ni (Great Shaft and Beyond)

[Patrick Dulebohn]

Hello all!

As you all know, my team of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteer explorers and I have been working on getting the full path to D'ni reopened for explorers eager to experience the trek themselves and I thought I'd take a break to update (I'm actually typing this up in one of the bunks in the Eder Tomahn right now!).

To say it's been an immense undertaking so far would be putting it mildly. Damage from the quakes back around the early aughts really did a number on the structural integrity of the spiral path. We've been using our (admittedly crude) understanding of nara to try to patch the damaged parts. So far, the repairs have held up, which is encouraging given how many of the walkways and bridges will need such patching in the future!

With that said, work on the Great Shaft and its working components is nearing completion and should hopefully be done before the end of the year!

Beyond the GS is going to be trickier as it appears the DRC didn't get very far beyond it in their restoration work. The bridge almost immediately after is probably not going to be salvageable as a cave in from above took most of it to the bottom of the channel. While it's possible to hop over it with effort, this obviously isn't recommended for general use. Instead, there may be a way to reroute traffic through a surrounding maintenance path and nearby mines. A series of caves appear to properly bypass the inaccessible section of tunnel on the other side of the aforementioned bridge.

We may also put up a temporary rope bridge like the DRC did in Ae'gura, but I'm still not sure on that. Given how they prided themselves on safety, the DRC's solution seems rather...dangerous? I'd rather not have some sort of "Temple of Doom" scene play out.

In the end, while it is possible to get from surface to cavern and back now, it's a very treacherous path at the moment thanks to centuries of neglect and natural land shift...not to mention semi-active steam vents from when this area used to have an active volcano centuries ago...so we will need to work diligently (and safely!) to make it ready for general use. I'm hoping that, once we have the full path (with bypasses) properly mapped out, I can split it up into several sections for individual restoration teams. In this, I'm hoping the work will go faster, having many teams focused on smaller sections of the path instead of one team eyeing the whole thing at once.

It's not going to be easy, but I think it'll be a real draw for veteran D'ni-dwellers such as ourselves and newcomers looking for a challenging tour of D'ni architecture as well as an exciting way to travel to D'ni.

I'll update here when I can. In the meantime, feel free to discuss!

[Traveler263]

Speaking simply from previous work I've done surveying the spiral path... just the first leg of this trip is a real journey in and of itself. With breaks included it took me roughly two hours just to get from the top of the shaft to the bottom. I can only imagine how crazy it'll be for folks who haven't been working on this to take their first steps down and not just reach the bottom of the shaft, but carry on through the rest of it on foot.

There's been some issues with the various elevator mechanisms so far, which has made the foot-long trek down mandatory for starters unless we use linking to circumnavigate around. Hopefully we'll have that working by the time we open up everything, primarily for accessibility reasons. I don't expect everyone will want or be capable of making the full journey down the shaft on foot.

That said, if people do decide to walk all the way down on foot- it is one heck of an experience, and I can recommend it to anyone wanting to do such.

THAT said, I think we're going to need to possibly put up some signage reminding folks to please keep their Reltos on hand before proceeding. The lack of railing down the bulk of the shaft alone is a dangerous thing with a Relto, and without one... I shudder to imagine...

I've long since sent Patrick my thoughts on that, though.

For now, if anyone's going down the shaft, please use your Minkata-A or Destiny Internal Network KIs so we can track your location incase of an accident. We had someone poking around the shaft a few months back on a regular network KI and caused me a near heartattack given everything else we were dealing with at the time.

Please stay safe while we're working on the Descent, folks.

[Kelsei A. Taylor]

I'd rather not have some sort of "Temple of Doom" scene play out.

But "Temple of Doom" was such a fun movie!

That said, yes, probably should avoid potentially fragile rope bridges, especially in an area that was hit by a cave in? Yikes!

I haven't had much of a chance to get in and take a look (Linguistics vs. heavy construction work, different department entirely!) but I've seen some pictures you've all posted elsewhere and the work looks good so far. I can't wait to see it all for myself!

[DecafToaster]

I'd rather not have some sort of "Temple of Doom" scene play out.

I suppose a bullwhip wrapped around a conveniently-placed wooden beam for traversing the gap is out of the question, then.

In all seriousness, I'm looking forward to taking on this new part of the Journey. I could use some away time!

[Traveler263]

I completely forgot to make note of that reference to one of my favorite Indiana Jones movies ever. I feel ashamed of myself, dang it.