Uphill Battle

My how the time flies. I've been off on an expedition for the past week, without a way to post an update. As part of my new high priority plan to make sure I can live off the land down here (so to speak), I took off on a hike to track down the source of the water flowing through the channel near the tavern I'm still calling home for the time being. I've made extensive use of my dye paint since I can't map my way with Markers any more, and hopefully I won't need to go on any more long treks like that, because I don't think I have the paint for it.

My explorations took me deep into the City Proper, and the level of devastation there makes even what I've seen on the harbor front pale in comparison. Whole buildings are completely leveled... and not little one-story affairs, either. I'm talking about major structures, including what looks like the remains of an apartment complex or something similar. This is one of the oldest areas of the City, so these buildings are likely to be upwards of 9,000 years old in some cases, and their stability was probably somewhat questionable at the time of the Fall. What the quakes back then didn't completely flatten, two hundred years of neglect likely managed to pull down later.

The view of the Lake – when I had one – was breathtaking, though. I ended up several hundred yards above the waterfront before I reached the main aqueduct for the water channel I was following, and the top of the Arch was seemingly at eye level. Ae'Gura glistened in the dim evernight of the Cavern, and its mirror image shimmered darkly but elegantly in the water below. It was a hollow image, though, remembering not just the millions of D'ni who had lived here in the past, but the thousands of explorers who had also called that island – and this Cavern – their home for upwards of five years. Not to mention the DRC members, Elias and Jeff Zandi, and Branch Loftin, who had first discovered this place over two decades ago. That view, more than any other, impressed upon me the sheer scale of D'ni's size and history. Even if it remains just me, alone down here in the dark, for the rest of my life, I am determined now more than ever to make sure that the memory of this place does not burn out, and that someone is still here to keep it alive.

I continued to follow the aqueduct back to a long, elevated archway that stretched across a wide canyon to where the waterfall that fed it cascaded down in a misty stream into a collection basin. Knowing that channel was elevated from here back to its source,  and having not stumbled across anything that might sully the waters between this junction and my home in the tavern, I have concluded that the water here is as pure as I might hope to find in a cave. I'll run a few final chemical tests tomorrow to be sure there isn't anything growing in the aquifer, but I feel much safer about drinking the water here without needing to purify it first, which is fortunate, because I'm down to my last few purification tablets... after that, I start running it through my sock and boiling it with what little propane I have left for my stove.