I have an idea for a storyline that will involve several ages. I cooked up this storyline a while ago, and I think you will find it interesting. So, I present to you the story of the Ages of Devokahn.
The story begins not long before the fall. A young guildsman (I'll call him Tal'ri for now, but I might change it) writes an age. It is approved by the guild of maintainers, and Tal'ri travels there to see his work. He begins to explore his age, and is very happy with the outcome. Soon, however, an unexpected storm hits. When he gets back to the cave which contains the linking book back to d'ni, he finds that it has been completely flooded. The water later drains from the cave, but by that time, the book has been destroyed by the water, leaving him trapped.
Tal'ri, forced to cope with this horrible fate, sets up a camp, and begins to gather fruit and hunt the animals to survive. He also begins to explore more of the age. Soon, he finds a village. Because of the D'ni's cultural xeniphobia, instead of embracing the fact that his age is inhabited, he becomes terrified, and stays away from the village. Later however, his lonesomeness gets the better of him, and he decides to risk visiting the village. To his surprise, instead of being hostile toward him, the villagers take him in as one of their own. He lives with them for several months, and learns their language and culture. He soon grows to admire these people.
One day, while hiking, Tal'ri encounters a D'ni search party which has been looking for him. When he had gone missing, they searched his home and found the book to his age. He overjoyed to find that they have come, and immediately uses their linking book back to D'ni.
Shortly after Tal'ri returns, the guild of caterers buys his age. He makes a good amount of money, and is proud of his achievement. Several months later, however, he decides to pay another visit to the age. When he arrives, he finds something horrible. It seems that the natives were making it difficult for the factory to be set up, so the Guildmaster in charge of the age has ordered their extermination. Those who survived were made into slaves and were forced to work in the factory. Tal'ri is horrified by this. When he returns to D'ni, he tries to speak out against what is happening, but as a result, the guildmaster puts pressure on the guild of writers to fire him. He is shocked by what happens, but there is nothing he can do.
Tal'ri decides to do some research, and begins to realize that what he has just seen is but one of the many atrocities committed by the D'ni people. His distrust in D'ni culture grows the more he uncovers, until he can take it no longer; he decides to leave D'ni.
At first, Tal'ri wants to simply write an age to escape to, but then he learns about the expedition to the surface. He has a friend who is sympathetic to his distrust in the D'ni, and who is also going to go on the expedition, so he asks for his help. after some reluctance, he agrees to sneak him into the excavator's cargo hold as a stowaway.
After getting ahold of some blank books and ink illegally, Tal'ri stows away on the excavator with the help of his friend. He stays in cargo for the whole trip, and his friend brings him food each day. He is miserable during the trip, but knows that this will have been worth it.
Soon, however, Tal'ri friend tells him that they are ending the expedition before they reach the surface, and that he has to get out of the excavator before it begins to descend again and bring the books and ink with him, because if he is caught, both of them will be arrested. Tal'ri is distressed at first, but his friend tells him that there is the possibility that one of the tunnels branching off from the shaft might lead to the surface. He asks his friend if he will come with him, but his friend declines saying that he is happy with the life he currently leads, and he does not want to sacrifice that on the uncertain possibility that there might be something better. He does, however, make him promise that if he does find something better, that he would come back for him. Since Tal'ri brought a linking book to an out-of-the-way part of the city proper, he agrees to meet him there at a predetermined time several years later.
Tal'ri leaves the excavator and shortly afterward, he finds a tunnel to the surface. He is upset to find that it is dessert, and hopes that there are parts of this world that are more hospitable. After some travel, he comes across a city. He meets some locals, but since he can't speak their language, he draws pictures to communicate. He uses this to ask where he can find a forest (because he does not like the desert) Since these locals don't much care for foreigners, they direct him to the east coast colonies (they were still colonies at that time, right?) rather than the much closer pacific northwest. He pays them with gold coins he brought with him for a compass and a map, and sets off eastward.
After a long journey, Tal'ri makes it to the colonies. At this point, he has picked up a reasonable amount of the Spanish language. Unfortunately, in the colonies most people speak English. He is fortunate enough, however, to find a small farm owned by a farmer who knows Spanish as well as English. He agrees to allow Tal'ri to stay the night in exchange for work. Tal'ri stays the night, does his work, and gets ready to leave. As he's about to leave, the farmer tells him he can stay longer if he continues to work. He quickly agrees, since all of the previous people who quartered him on his journey only let him stay for one night, and he really needs a place to stay.
The farmer lives alone with his daughter, Jean, who is a few years younger than Tal'ri. At first Tal'ri is nothing more than a farm worker, but soon he becomes almost part of the family. He learns English while he is with them, and they grow to trust him more and more. After a while, him and Jean grow to really like each other.
All this time, Tal'ri has been working on a new age. He had been working on it on and off throughout the whole journey. He finished the age shortly after he arrived on the farm, but still had to write a linking book so he could return to the farm. When he finishes the linking book, he links for the first time to his new age. He links back to the farm and tells Jean where he truly comes from. She thinks he has gone insane at first, but then he takes her to his age. She is in shock, and demands that he take her back. He does so, but she is now frightened of him. Back on the farm, she starts to believe that he might be a minion of Satan, and stays away from him. She tells the farmer this, but he is unsure what to believe. After much effort, he manages to talk to her long enough to convince her that he isn't evil. Some time after that, he convinces her to go to the age one more time. On her second visit, she explores the age, and finds it to be amazing. She begins to find The Art fascinating. She begins to visit the age every day, completely mesmerized by what she is seeing.
Soon, Jean desires to show her father. Tal'ri is unsure of whether this is a good idea, because he is old and the shock might be too much for him to handle. She eventually convinces him, but right after he links, he is so afraid that he has a he has a heart attack and dies. When they see this, Jean suddenly thinks that it was true all along and Tal'ri is evil. In a fit of grief and rage, she yells at him, telling him to leave and never come back. He does, but as he is walking away from the farm, she begins to have second thoughts about what she has done, so she catches up with him. Now, she begins to blame herself. Tal’ri responds by saying that it was his fault, and he should never have brought this age upon them. After some talk, they agree that what happened happened, and it was nobody’s fault, however both still feel responsible.
The two hold a small funeral and bury the farmer. Jean asks Tal’ri to write a new age where they can live, because the farm reminds her too much of her father, and she wishes to move on, and the age he already wrote was where her father died, and she does not ever want to go there again. He tells her that writing an age will take several months at least. She doesn’t want to stay on the farm for that long, so he decides to build a villa for them in a nearby forest. When it is finished, they live there until he finishes the age. While there, the two grow closer and closer. They have soon fallen in love.
The new age he writes is called Devokahn. It is a forested island age, not unlike Myst. While the two fine the age beautiful, they decide to continue to live in the villa until they build a permanent home in the age. After some time, they move completely to Devokahn.
Tal’ri analyzes the chemical makeup of the ink and paper and finds out how they are made, then writes an age with everything he needs to make them. With an unlimited supply of books and ink, the life of Tal’ri and Jean become much like that of Atrus and Catherine. He teaches Jean the art, and they write many ages, as well as do some construction in them. They link to inhabited ages, and meet the civilizations there. He gives all of his ages names in English, to show that he has left D’ni behind. He gave Devokahn a D’ni name, however, as a single reminder of his D’ni heritage. Since has no cultural fear of experimenting too much with the art, he and Jean begin to write some very unusual an extraordinary ages.
After a while of living like this, Tal’ri realizes that the scheduled time to meet his friend is approaching. When the day comes, he links to D’ni with a linking book back to Devokahn he plans to drop in the water as he links out with his friend. When he arrives, it has already been a few years since the fall. He is shocked to find the city in ruins. He returns to Devokahn.
At one point, he finds that another planet in the solar system of Devokahn is inhabited. The inhabitants have mastered interplanetary travel within their own system, and he meets them. Their technology is almost as advanced as the D’ni in some areas and even more advanced in others. Tal’ri finds this amazing. The civilization is just as fascinated by the art. Tal’ri forms an alliance with these inhabitants, teaching them the art, and uses some of their technology in his ages as well.
Jean dies of old age at one point, and Tal’ri, while saddened by this, moves on. He decides to leave the island on Devokahn and live instead on the inhabited planet. Before he leaves, he begins to wonder if there are any D’ni survivors. He believes that if there are, showing them some of his ages might open their eyes. He chooses 3 of his works that test the limits of the D’ni cultural rules of the art, but don’t truly break them, to prove he is a skilled writer. He leaves those three in Devokahn. He also chooses one age he wrote which shatters the boundries of what the D’ni thought possible with the art (sort of like one of Catherine’s ages.) He places this one in a vault which can only be opened once the other three ages have been completely explored, so that the D’ni traveling there will be able to see everything he has done before they travel there. If they simply link to the extraordinary age right away, he fears that since they know nothing of anything else he did, they will jump to the conclusion that he is “abusing the art.†To ensure that nobody rushes through any of his ages, and instead takes their time so they can understand and appreciate them, he adds some obstacles to them to make traveling through them more difficult.
Tal’ri also leaves some of his journals in the ages, so they will learn his story. He also makes translated versions in English, in case someone from the surface comes across his villa, where there is a book to Devokahn.
To make sure that his linking books are protected from damage, Tal’ri creates special pedestals that allow people to link without touching the book itself. They use a special crystal from one of his ages. While the crystal touches a linking panel, every part of the crystal becomes an extension of the panel. Which is to say, if the crystal is touching a linking panel, and you touch the crystal, you link. He places his books in vacuum-sealed vaults, and installs long crystal lines running underground from the book to the pedestal.
Once the three initial ages and the final one are completed, a linking book is unlocked which allows passage to the inhabited planet, where those who have explored the ages of Devokahn can finally meet the people of the planet, and maybe Tal’ri.
Once finished preparing, Tal’ri leaves a book to Devokahn in D’ni, and finally travels to the inhabited planet, and lives there for many years, still writing ages. He returns to earth once in the 1950s and is impressed at how much human society has developed, but returns shortly afterwards to the planet.
In the modern day, an explorer is exploring an uncharted part of the city proper, and comes across the Devokahn book. Shortly afterwards, the book is released to the public. The ages of Devokahn are explored by many. Explorers will find that once all the ages are completed, a linking book is unlocked. This book leads to a small room with a nara gate blocking access to a book to the inhabited planet. There is a button that signals the people in that age, but no one responds at first. In the following weeks weeks, explorers keep arriving at the room, pressing the button, and leaving after nothing happens. Finally, one day a lucky explorer presses the button, and someone from the planet links in. They press a button on the other side of the gate, which causes it to open. The explorer meets with the inhabitants with the planet, who explain that Tal’ri died of old age a month earlier. Contact between the explorers and the inhabitants will continue.
So that's the story. It will be revealed slowly through journals as people play through these ages, but the final part will involve live IC actors and explorers.
The ages:
I have come up with pretty much all of the ages already. I have only written a detailed description of one so far, but the brief descriptions for the others will do for now.
Devokahn: Serves as the hub for these ages. An island, roughly circular. Was originally the home of Tal'ri and Jean, but now most of the buildings have been converted into puzzles which guard each of the ages. Full description here
Connection: A planet and its moon connected by a space elevator. Full description here.
Subaquatic: An age where you begin in an underwater base, and gradually work your way up to the surface from there. Description here
Crystalline: An age rich in many different crystals with unusual properties. Was where the linking crystals were mined. Description here
Duality: Like something Catherine would write. Contains two separate lands which occupy the same physical space.
The villa and farm: An optional location which can be linked to from Devokahn. Contains no puzzles.
The inhabited planet (I haven't thought of a name yet): A purely IC age. Can only be accessed if the inhabitants let you in. more ages supposedly written by Tal'ri may be released by means of the inhabitants giving them to us.
So that's my idea. Tell me what you think.
Guild of Writers
