I've mentioned the concept before, but never put a name to it: an Age (or continent, anyway) whose biomass is entirely composed of a single tree and its parthenogenetic offshoots, with the explorable area being made up of the huge tree's plateau-like trunk. The Age belonged to a minor noble or Ink-Makers' guildsman named Umeen, who resided in a small mansion built atop the tree. The name "Ahlnay" means "tree/seed/plant root," which would be fitting for this Age with its omnipresent tangle of flora.
Without giving away too much of the story that I have planned, let me just say that there's far more to the house and to Umeen than is at first apparent (hint: shady activities). Things are further complicated by the tree itself, which is reclaiming its "territory," so to speak, and the house is riven with cracks caused by encroaching shoots and branches. But Umeen's secret activities in Ahlnay and the fate of the tree are intertwined in an even stranger way that I'm sure this smart bunch will figure out pretty quickly, and the hapless explorer who first stumbled upon the Age in modern times and attempted to restore it found himself the victim of a maddening turn of events.
Also, as a first taste, I present an excerpt from the aforementioned explorer's journal:
1.25.09
Second link-in after environmental test. There was a significant amount of background information on this one, or at least compared with most of the other Books I've managed to
find. It was the mansion home of a minor lord with apparent connections to the Ink-Makers, so it was obviously meant to be hospitable, but I wasn't prepared to take any chances. Home-away-from-home Ages were likely candidates for refugees of the Fall, and there's no telling how long the pathogen could have survived in non-Cavern environments. However, all chemical and microbiotic diagnostics checked out.
In fact, the air here smells astoundingly clean and fresh after all those weeks in the Cavern. Silence is overwhelming, though: no sounds but the rustling of foliage and blowing
wind. In a climate like this, and with such an obvious abundance of flora, I would have expected more animal activity. Oddly, though, I have yet to see even so much as a bird.
The entire ecosystem appears to be plant-based.
On that subject, I guess the most important feature of note is the tree. I thought it was a rocky plateau at first; the shape of the thing is very odd, as if it were a mere
stump of its former self. If this is the case, the thing must have been absolutely enormous in its heyday - even now, it rises what must be hundreds of feet above the ground,
and is just as wide in diameter. The fact that it was used for the foundation of the house is a testament to its immense size and durability. I'll have to take some samples,
though a full coring will doubtless be impossible. I'm very interested in the structural and vascular mechanics necessary to support such a huge organism.
I haven't fully mapped the house yet, but it's pretty standard D'ni fare. Not particularly large, though - the owner, one Umeen, was either too low on the totem pole to warrant
a huge home, or the tree itself couldn't stand anything larger. The lower floor is mostly for entertaining guests, by the looks of it, but there aren't any spare bedrooms. All
of Umeen's personal quarters are on the upper level, with a couple studies and personal libraries. There looks to be a basement level as well, but until I get power to the
elevator there seems to be no way to get there. A flight of stairs just off the entry hall must have led there, but it looks like the tree is reclaiming its territory now that
the pruners are gone - a huge branch has burst straight through the floor and blocked off the staircase. I doubt I'll be able to remove it myself; the thing is as big around as
an oak.
1.26.09
Tried taking a core sample of the tree yesterday, but broke my drill. I knew better than to try to use it on D'ni rock, but I never expected wood to give me this much trouble.
The hardness of this stuff is unbelievable, but I guess I should have expected as much since the tree has a damn stone house built on top of it. Hopefully that Surveyor I've
been studying has something lying around of which I can make use - nara-tipped would be nice. The D'ni could obviously cut this stuff, or else the house would have no
foundation. I'll have to head back to the Cavern to get something.
In the meantime, though, I've mapped out the ground and upper floors of the house. I'm no technical artist, but my rough sketches should do for now. My first order of business
after the initial mapping was to check for structural issues; however, despite the intrusions of the occasional tree branch, the house seems to be in good order. Most of the
breaks are on the ground floor, which would make me uneasy except for the fact that no walls are broken. The whole building was built for sturdiness. D'ni architecture triumphs
again.
In fact, the building is still quite liveable. The amount of dust and pollen is, of course, astronomical, but with minimal refurbishing it could serve as a very nice retreat
after long hunts for materials in the Cavern. I've already brought in a sleeping bag and some food and drink. Staying here would be much preferred to the usual dank wetness.
After I make my trip back to the Cavern to resupply and (hopefully) get a new drill, I plan to make an extended stay of it. I might call it better than Relto - at least I have a
quick way back to the City Proper this way. Much easier than rafting across the Lake. However, I'll have to find a way to power everything back up if I want to get anywhere.
1.27.09
Damn it! With the stairs to the basement blocked off, there doesn't seem to be any way to power the elevator back up - I can't find a generator anywhere and this leads me to
believe it must be in the basement. If I could analyze the circuitry, I might be able to power it up myself, but I'll need to go all the way back to the surface and get a
generator.
Then again, if I know D'ni engineering, there must be some kind of backup power supply somewhere. The doors were working when I arrived, so something at least is still
functional and supplying power. If I could reroute it to the elevator...but if it's inherent to the doors themselves, I'm out of luck. I'll continue my search.
The doors appear to be powered by an innate system based on firemarbles, with no connections to the main power network. I'm curious as to why this may be - the house should have been designed with some measure of redundancy to the power grid. An exhaustive search turned up no accessible primary power source, but I did manage to uncover some of the elevator circuitry. I don't have the equipment to measure voltage or current right now, but it's almost a given that the circuitry will operate on a different frequency and voltage than anything I can generate. I'll be back when I've gotten the generator and a multimeter.
1.30.09
Stayed on the surface for a day to buy extra supplies. I visited an old friend at the university and borrowed a small variable frequency converter, as well, just in case. It
took a little trial and error, but the system seems to be working.
I also found out why the backup power failed - apparently the system drew power from solar panels on the roof, which I took for decorative tiles until I found their electrical connections. Unfortunately, the panels are completely choked with intruding vegetation. It's likely that, when the main generator failed, the backup system did in fact kick in, but its battery power is long drained by now. I'll try to clear away the blockage after my foray into the basement, but I suspect it will be just as difficult to cut as the rest of the tree.
Mapped out the basement area. Nothing too impressive - just a storage room, generator room, plumbing access for the washrooms, and a kitchen that connects via the elevator to the dining room. The branches (roots?) in the storage room are still blocking the stairway to the ground floor, as I have yet to find a new cutting tool capable of effectively penetrating this tree's tough xylem. I'm having the same problem in the generator room, which is similarly under attack. I underestimated the destruction this thing is causing.
I may have to reevaluate the structural integrity of the house as well, given the amount of damage to the basement.
1.31.09
Heading back to the Cavern for an extended search. It's going to be impossible to get anywhere without tools to cut away all these branches. Once that's taken care of, the real renovating work can begin.
