The Riven Expedition: Catherine's Journal

How long had I been out? I checked my D'ni watch and noticed that it was the middle of the second period. If I was lucky, I only lost one night. Given Riven's deteriorating condition, time was something I could not afford to loose.

I lifted myself to an upright position. To my left was a hole in the cave wall looking out into the dark blue night. Through the makeshift window I saw the balcony where I had linked from across the lake. I must be inside the tree. I stuck my head through the window and looked around. I could feel a cool breeze blowing around my head. I was probably a hundred feet above the ground.

I pulled my head back inside. At the other end of the room, the cave lead to a small unlit tunnel. I stood up and walked towards it. It was narrow with a low ceiling, so I had to hunch over while walking. The tunnel ended at a wooden door with a window opening cut out at the top.

Through the window I could see huts. They were carved out of rock like the one I was in, and they were connected to one another by rope bridges. The huts were larger than the ones I saw in the Riven village, resembling mushrooms with oversized heads. There were five huts in the immediate vicinity, and behind those I could make out more. The huts probably filled the entire tree. How many Moiety were there?

I tried to open the door, but it was chained shut. The padlock on the chain was on the other side of the door. In the distance I noticed someone walking across the bridge from one of the huts to another. A tall man in a white cloak and a red sash down both sides. It wasn't like the military outfit I saw the other Moiety wear, but like the more casual outfit that Catherine had.

I backed away from the door. They knew I was awake now. Maybe now I would find out what they want to do with me. I walked back towards the room and sat down on the bed.

The door opened and a woman walked in from the shadows. She was a few inches shorter than I was, and dressed in a thick cloak that was colored in varying shades of dark green. She also wore a large amount of jewelry on her ears and around her neck. It almost looked like it had some sort of ceremonial value to it. I backed up until I could feel the cold cave wall behind me. She held a bundle of red cloth that acted as a makeshift sack.

"Katarine renal desal ay-apal," she said. "Yapa aye moneigh on ya-boh. Hil decigh."

She presumed I spoke D'ni, or Rivenese. Unfortunately, I had no idea what she was saying.

She opened up the red pouch and took out two books. She set them down on the stone table and then gestured to them while speaking.

Before I could say anything, the woman backed up towards the tunnel and walked out. I heard the door open and close as she left.

I walked towards the table and looked at the two books. The first one was the Prison Book that was stolen from me. I opened it up to the linking page and checked the Descriptive Window. I could see an image of the D'ni chamber rotating in a panoramic view. I put the book in my pouch next the the tiny journal Atrus had given me.

The second book was tall and narrow. A piece of paper was sticking out of one of the pages. I took the paper and read it.

I write quickly from my prison.

Nerah will return your book which the Moiety intercepted upon your arrival. After questioning her, I've concluded that it was written by Atrus for a very specific purpose. Gehn will desire to use it... although he will be suspicious.

If you can find my prison, you will still need the combination to release me. Gehn keeps it in his office. Then, I assume you are to signal Atrus... I think I know how it might be done. But don't signal him before I am released.

Catherine

The book was Catherine's journal. The entries were written vertically across the pages, so I had to hold the book open sideways. She didn't date any of her entries, but it appears that the journal covered her experiences on Riven since she arrived.

Catherine had spent a considerable amount of time hiding with the Moiety before she was captured by Gehn.

She described how the Black Moiety came to be, their guiding principles, and how they had come to believe that Catherine and Atrus were gods of some kind. At least, Atrus was a god, Catherine was given a god-hood status when Atrus chose her as his wife. She was clearly disturbed by this, but she did not know how to change their viewpoints. They had witnessed the final stand-off between Gehn, Catherine and Atrus. The confrontation when Atrus and Catherine jumped into the fissue and disappeared from Riven. The Black Moiety realised that Gehn was not in control of the situation, and did not "banish" them like he told the other villagers.

After a period of hiding, Catherine went along with the Moiety on an expedition to the surface. Apparantly, Riven had changed dramatically since she was last there. She was saddened by the breakup of the islands, and how the villagers have become more placant under Gehn's rule. She noted that the Moiety broke all social ties with the Riven villagers, so she wasn't able to see her father.

The sixth entry was depressing. Catherine was feeling the frustration over her confinement on Riven itself and in the Black Moiety caves.

The seventh entry was simply the words, "I am boiling .......". It was as if she was too upset to continue writing at the time.

In the eighth entry Catherine wrote down that she had just learned of Gehn's plan to write Ages. She now considered her accidental Linking here to be a calling of some kind. She felt she was sent here to stop Gehn.

The ninth entry contained details of something known as the Star Fissue (something Gehn wrote about in his lab journal). It was covered by the metal plating next to the linking point on Riven. At one end of the plating was the giant knife the Moiety used as their symbol. It turns out Catherine was the one responsible for the giant knives on Riven. She wrote them into the Age long ago when she was trying to make it stable.

The scope was used by Gehn to examine the fissue. He covered the viewport of the fissue with a lid that could only be opened with a combination. Somehow the Moiety discovered what this combination is.

Gehn threw disidents into the fissue to see what effect it would have on them. Catherine believed that the fissure itself is safe, but opening the fissue would accelerate Riven's collapse.

Catherine later learned that Gehn had finally created a working Book. She also learned that the Moiety had stolen an old discarded Book from Gehn's Lab. With this information, she devised a plan to give the Moiety a new hiding place.

Using the old Book, Catherine described an ingenious plan to help the Moiety. She instructed the Moiety to find out the combination of the domes, and to obtain a second Book. She modified the discarded Age Gehn wrote, and created an element that can compensate for the flaws in Gehn's materials. Using the second Book, they created a Linking Book to bring them back to Riven. They would then sneak into one of the domes when Gehn performed a test, and link to the new Age.

When she arrived in the new Age, she created the crystal slabs that she refered to as Book Windows. She linked back to Riven, and brought the rest of the Moiety with her to their new Age that they have named "Tay".

After the Moiety relocated to Tay, she became concerned that Gehn's suspicions would be aroused. She planned to return to Riven the next day to find out if Gehn was aware of their escape.

The journal ended there. It was probably at this point that Catherine was captured.

The journal answered a lot of questions for me. It offered a different account of recent Riven history, in contrast to the version I had learned from Gehn's teachings and artwork. The note from Catherine also gave me information on how I might be able to free her.

I put the journal down when I heard the door open again. The same woman, (Nerah?), returned with her red cloak. She removed two more items from within the folds of the cloak and set them down on the stone table. One of the items appeared to be one of Gehn's manufactured Books, the other item was a crystal slab, identical to the other ones I had seen.

"Mesia-po mi-boko mi-boko nesepo," she said. "Nevena. Katamore neve riben." She turned to look at the Book and then back at me. "Na katarina ney. Weci fupo lo no essep peye."

Nerah turned around again and left the room. I walked up to the Linking Book. Through the blue crystal slab I could see the hidden Moiety cave back on Riven. I was concerned about Nerah's method of bringing these items to me. Was she smuggling the Books in defiance of the rest of the Black Moiety, or were these actions approved? While I agreed with their principles, I didn't hold high regard for their methodolgies.

I picked up my backpack from the floor and slung it over my shoulder. I made sure I had everything with me and placed my hand on the crystal. I felt my body fade away from the linking process, and my field of vision was filled once again with the Moiety cave back on Riven.

I was in the middle of the stone circle, facing the wall of water that had re-sealed itself to conceal the Linking Book to Tay.

I had the Prison Book. I felt like I was really making progress in my mission. Now my next move was to capture Gehn.

Text taken from Wayback Machine's snapshot dated April 9th, 2009.

Restored and updated for modern rendering by Deka Jello. See the divergences page for known differences and alterations.