Er'tsuda Expedition, Day 14

Wow, what a hike.

The past eight days have been long and largely dull, though I did cover a lot of ground and get a much better handle on how the whole harvesting operation must have worked back in D'ni's heyday.

About 20 minutes from the factory, the canyon split into four sub-canyons, with a harvester track leading into each. Determined to get an idea of what to expect if my harvester ever starts working again, I continued to follow its track into the unknown. Beside me, the irrigation canal forged an angular path along the base of the canyon.

Eventually, the walls of the canyon widened a bit, and I entered what can only be described as a forest. Plants not dissimilar to those in Er'cana towered above me, thick as a pine tree forest back on Earth and in some cases just as tall. The irrigation canal apparently still functioned well enough to provide a regular flow of water to these plants, and they thrived after the Fall. Some seem to have infiltrated the canal itself, so some repair work will no doubt be necessary once this initial overgrowth is dealt with. Assuming the harvester blades are capable of cutting through growth this substantial, it might be a good idea to clearcut some of this for future use and replant it with seeds or spores (or whatever) from these now-ancient specimens.

Interestingly, the walls of the canyon themselves gave me a pretty solid idea of just how overgrown the plantlife here had gotten. In some of the naturally narrower parts of the canyon, the walls had been widened at the height where the harvester blades once passed, creating an odd and distinctive shape that served as a handy benchmark for roughly how tall the plants needed to be to be harvested efficiently. This benchmark was easily forty feet over my head, and in some cases the plants stretched thirty feet above that. Hardly what I would call optimal harvesting conditions now.

It would also seem that at least some of these plants had seen the last days of the D'ni empire, as the growth above the harvest line was considerably thinner than that below it, indicating that the plants can be cropped off at the top and still continue to grow. To what extent this may still be true in this now-forested mess is unclear. I'll have to remember to get a hold of a botanist at some point now as well to try and get some answers.

After walking for eight days through dense, inhospitable forestry to find little of ultimate interest besides the fact that the harvester tracks are at least fundamentally intact for several miles despite the overgrowth of the plants, I'm ready to get back to the cavern and do some more exploring in the city. Funny how fast my interests can change, but I've had enough of this dry and dusty place for now. Hopefully I can come back in the future with more assistance and get this place up and running again. It'll take more than what I have at my disposal right now to make that happen though, so for now, it's back to D'ni.