The Riven Expedition: The Village

I hid in the bushes of the jungle and planed my next move. It was just after mid-day and I had explored quite a bit of Riven. I had covered almost all of the four of the five islands, and as far as I knew, the only place I had yet to explore was the village. The only trouble was, the village appeared to be the area where most of the Rivenese congregated.

I ate some of my rations as I read the notes in my journal. I made additions to my notes, drew maps, and reread old entries. The maps I was able to make on the machine from Survey Island were very helpful. If I had a chance to go back to there I'd bet that I could get Riven mapped down in even more detail.

But doing so would risk being caught. It was only a small miracle that I hadn't been discovered already. The stranger that I ran into on Survey Island had either ran for help, or ran to escape from me. But nobody had come back to capture me, nor did they wait here for my eventual arrival. Why?

Judging by the way the man was dressed, I assumed that he was a Guildsman, a member of one of Riven's five Guilds. Maybe he was with the Guild of Surveyors; maybe he was even the Guild Master.

After I ate, I explored more of the jungle. Gehn had always assumed that the Black Moiety hid in the jungle, but if that were true, they were doing a very good job at hiding. I searched the trees and the bushes and found nothing. Nothing to indicate that they hid here. Maybe they used to hide in the trees, but moved on after Gehn started cutting down the forest.

I took the elevator to the upper walkways and checked out the jungle from above. Although I had a much better vantage point, I still didn't see any signs of the rebels. Maybe Gehn was wrong about their hiding place.

No, they were here at one time. They left the tiny knife that I almost tripped over yesterday, just like the one I saw the rebel jam into the link trap mechanism.

I was standing next to the spinning dome, next to the metal stairway leading up and out of the jungle. I climbed the stairway keeping an eye out for the guard tower that was just over the rise. There was nobody in the tower. Either the guard was needed elsewhere, or the post was only manned during certain hours.

The walkway went across the ravine and lead to a thick black metal column with gold trim. It was identical to the linking trap I was briefly captured in, except there was a oval shaped door on the front with a handle in the center.

I turned the handle and opened the heavy metal door. The doorway was the only source of light in the capsule. Inside there was a chair surrounded by a large ivory structure. Directly in front of the chair were two levers that ran under the floor.

I sat down in the chair and closed the door behind me. Total blackness surrounded me and it took me a few seconds to adjust to the low light level.

The curved ivory structure I sat in was about seven feet high and surrounded the chair on three sides. At the flanks of the structure were two long and very familiar tusks. The chair was made from the skull of a Whark.

I reached out to the two handles. I pulled the handle on the right, but it wouldn't budge. I tried the left handle and felt the chair move. The chair started rotating to the left and then slowly lifted up. A bright light came from above as the roof of the capsule was splitting apart to accomodate the chair.

The light became brighter as the chair rose to the top of the capsule and turned to face the crater on the other side of the ravine. I was overlooking the Riven village. Across the crater I saw the huddle of earth huts stucking out of the ground on their tall stilts. Towards the right side I saw a small landing with machines and tools.

On this side of the crater was the tall metal structure. It was a large cone shape of bars rising from a circular platform just above the water line. The center of the platform was open, possibly to let people easily enter or leave the water. Looking up towards the top, the bars intersected at a metal hoop. Just above the hoop were five upright Whark skulls forming a circle. Above the skulls was a brass sphere. There was a wooden plank leading from the skulls to a metal walkway running along the wall of the crater. The walkway turned around the bend, and there was also a door leading to a tunnel in the crater wall.

From here I felt like I could command the entire village. I sat at the highest point, in full view of all the huts below me. This must be how Gehn addressed the people of Riven. From here he saw everything, and everyone would have a full view of Gehn.

It all made sense. The exits from the catwalks in the jungle were the mouth of the idol, and this chair. To reach the catwalks you could take the Mag-Lev from the Survey Island or the Linking Book in the Fire Marble Dome. Gehn used these secret paths to reach various points in the island in no time and to make it difficult for others to follow him.

I pulled the handle on my right. From down below me I heard a motor whir to life. Metal shutters closed together to cover the center of the circular platform. The design on the shutters resembled Gehn's crest.

I pulled the left handle. Immediately the chair began to lower itself into the metal pod. It rotated back to facing the door as the metal covers sealed shut above me. I stood up and opened the door. I stuck my head out to see if there were any guards in the tower. Nobody had monitored my brief, unsuccessful attempt at impersonating the dictator of Riven.

I walked back into the jungle and thought out my next move. Since there was no guard in the tower right now and the village did appear deserted, I decided it was worth a chance to risk it. I had to go into the village to see what was going on.

I approached the second jungle door leading to the canyon. To the right, the walkway lead down into a cave I hadn't explored yet. To the left, it ran towards a staircase that appeared to lead back up to the forest. The guard tower was still empty.

I turned right and walked down into the cave. The air was cooler and the walls were bathed in a deep blue light. There was a hole in the far wall that looked out towards the sea, just inches above the water line. The ground below me was damp suggesting that this cavern was occasionally flooded in.

On the inside wall was a drawing done in chalk. The drawing was simple, reminding me of those depictions of cave paintings by early man. The image showed a large man holding two smaller men by their legs, allowing them to dangle upside down. directly below each man was a fish looking up towards the men as if the they were some kind of food to them. I assumed that the larger man was Ghen, and the two smaller people were subjects under his control.

I continued through the cave which lead to a wide opening meeting with a wooden bridge above a pool of water. Beyond the opening I could see the bottom of the crater and some ladders running up the wall. I noticed a small child playing on the walkway. I ducked in the shadows of the opening as a woman walked over to the child and picked him up. Either it was probably the child's bedtime, or they had seen me.

I walked out of the cave opening and looked around. There crater wasn't very large compared to the one on Book Island, but the it contained so much more. Huts, buildings, machinery, and the tall cone structure that seemed oddly out of place with everything else in the village.

The bridge followed the crater walls around the lake. A small lantern was perched on the handrail every ten feet or so. The bridge widened out to a landing with a ladder leading down into the water.

I walked towards the ladder looked down below. Somehow the water was diverted from the area around the ladder forming a bubble of air. On the ground I could make out a metal square centered between two rails. The rails ran to either side of the square and continued running parallel to the boardwalk. When I looked directly at the square I could feel warm air flowing through notches cut in the square.

The square must be some kind of a heat vent. Gehn wrote that the bacteria in the water avoided heat, but I didn't think it would be possible to form pockets of air this large. I looked up from the air pocket. I could make out other dimples in the water suggesting more air pockets in the lake. What were they for?

As I scanned the lake, I noticed one particular rock about ten feet away from the dock. There was a mechanical apratus built into the middle of the rock with a long tubular extension sticking out from it. The tube was pointing directly at me and the landing. It was the camera. The camera Gehn had used to watch his villagers from the Survey Island.

Was anyone sitting at it right now, watching me? Maybe the Guild Master had a chance to return to Survey Island when I wasn't watching the idol.

I stepped up from the dock and began to walk back towards the cave. If someone was watching me, then more than likely the camera would pan to the right to follow my movements. I was walking backwards using the handrail for guidance, keeping my eye on the camera at all times. When I made it back to the cave entrance I was convinced that I was out of camera range.

There was no movement from the camera. I stepped out from the cave entrance and waited. When I felt that my movements weren't being observered, I continued walking on the dock. Gehn had mentioned spying on the Rivenese in his lab journal. I remember he had said something about finding one of the wooden eyes that I had seen around the island.

I stood by the metal ladder and looked around. About twenty feet away from the dock, past the camera was a small wooden ball floating in the water. I would make a note of checking the eye later on. Jumping in the water now, would make my presence more noticeable.

The huts in the Riven village were build on complex wooden scaffoldings. I walked further along the dock towards a ladder that would take me up to the first level of the huts. I climbed the ladder to a small cluster of huts that were about twenty feet above the water line.

Directly in front of me was a hut no more than eight feet tall. The doorway was a small metal door surrounded by the thich walls of earth. There was a simple window on the side wall of the hut, and a small bump on the top, used either for ventilation or maybe a cooking stove. I couldn't imagine such a structure holding more than one person comfortably, but the reality of it was that it probably held more.

I counted 15 of these huts all along the scaffolding, but from what I knew the population of Riven had to be close to 200 people.

I walked past the hut along a walkway that hugged the rock wall. I passed another hut and an overhead walkway. There were three flat triangular shaped fish hanging from a pole next to the hut, probably the latest catch from a Riven fisherman.

The walkway ended at an open ledge. Across the ledge was a large cone-shaped clay oven. Inside the oven was a fish lying on a metal grill above a wood fire. The fish looked like the ones I had just seen hanging outside one of the village huts. A few feet away from the oven were three short tables. They could only accomodate one person, and the gold table in the center had the shape of a Whark worked into its design. Was it Gehn's personal eating table?

On the far side of the ledge, overlooking the village lake was a large vehicle mounted on twin rails. The design was similar to that of the MagLev, but this vehicle was much older and weathered. It was pot-belly shaped with extensions for four wheels resting on the tracks, and an extruded portal in the front. On top of the machine was a circular hatch that looked like it was designed to be air-tight.

I climbed up the slightly wet handholds built into the side of the craft and opened the hatch. The vehicle had one metal seat riveted into the body of the craft on all sides. In front of the chair was a series of levers used to control the vehicle.

It was probably a submarine of some kind, but what was it doing up here? I climbed back down to the ledge and looked over the vehicle. On the ledge next to the vehicle was a lever reaching into the ground. I pulled the lever. As the lever locked into place, the tracks underneath the vehicle descended, taking the small submarine with it. I looked down the ledge, watching the sub lower until it hit the waterline of the lake. After it touched bottom, a metal ring lowered from the side of the ledge until it linked up with the circular hatch on top of the submarine.

I looked up from the sub and noticed a path that lead to the other side of the village. Across the ledge, I could make out the path I explored yesterday where I was spotted by the Riven guard in the tower. As far as I could tell, there was no other way to get to this path without literally circling the island.

I walked back towards the village, and back down towards the cave where I emerged from earlier. From the cave, I made my way back to the jungle paths and down the stone staircase that winded along the side of the island. I passed the rock the strange sea creatures rested, and finally made my way to the other entrance of the village.

The guard tower was empty this time. The path lead to a ladder leading down to a smaller ledge below me. In the middle of this ledge there was a stone basin reaching up to waist height. Inside the basin was a small valve and another one of the wooden eyes.

I turned on the valve to get a drink of water. The water flowed out of the bottom drain hole and filled the bottom of the hand carved bowl. But before I could drink any, the water flow stopped. The water that was already in the basin had flowed down the overflow pipe in the side. Maybe this was a Riven source of drinking water.

I turned on the valve again to get some more water. It flowed out for a few seconds, and then shut off again. The wet surface of the bowl was discolored by the water strain, creating a silhouette. The wooden eye in the bowl was positioned so the image looked like some kind of creature. Something about it was familiar.

I pulled the eye back again and listened to the noise it made as it rocked in the metal socket. The faint fluttering sound came from the socket again, sounding like something I had heard before. Something in the jungle.

The beatle! It sounded like the buzz of the beatle. In fact, the silhouette in the bowl resembled the profile of one of the beatles. It looked just like the one I saw in the forest, and the golden ones I had seen in the gate room. If I could go back to the other eyes I had found, I may be able to see if the other eyes make sounds like other animals I had encountered on Riven.

I left the basin and continued down two more ladders until I was on a path just above the water of the lake. The path lead to a short tunnel that lead to a metal dock. Directly underneath the dock was the submarine I had lowered down from the high ledge.

The short metal dock had holes in the surface for water drainage. The end of the dock wrapped around a large metal ring that rested just above the circular hatch of the submarine. Along the edge of the ring was a ladder to lower me inside the craft.

The water surrounding the craft was drawn away from the hatch by a wave of heat. I could feel the warm air under my feet as it flowed around the curved sides of the submarine from an underwater vent.

I reached down, opened the hatch and lowered myself inside. The submarine was a bit confining, and I had to hunch my back slightly to get a full view out of the forward bubble. In front of me was a steering lever that rotated from left to right. Below the steering level was a lever capable of sliding left to right. On my right hand side was a long lever sticking out from the floor. Next to the bubble on my right hand side was a simple air gauge made from a glass tube and a light ball that would rise or fall depending on the inside air pressue.

I closed the hatch above me and tried the lever on the right first. I pushed it forward hearing gears underneath my seat click and whir. The submarine started to move forwards along twin rails through the water. I felt the hull of the submarine rumble as it left the confines of the air bubble and submerged into the lake.

The track curved around the perimeter of the lake rising and falling over the rough surface of the bottom. Up ahead I noticed another track running parallel to the one I was on and intersecting with this one at a switch junction. The submarine stopped at the junction, and the lever on my right reset back to its start position. From under the metal seat I heard a rumble of a small motor and a dull thud as metal connected to metal.

Through the forward bubble I could see the base of the tall cone. I also saw the wooden ball that was floating in the water. It was kept in place by a rope line anchored to the bottom of the lake.

I turned the steering lever to the right. The section of track below me then rotated counterclockwise. The controls must be connected to the track switch underneath me. My view swept across the lake until I found myself facing the track I came down on the left, and the new track to my right.

Since the lever in front of the steering column was already set in the right position, I figured the junction switch below was already angled to take the track on the right hand side. I pushed the hand lever forward and the sub slowly rolled up the tracks. The sub veered along the tracks on the right hand side lifting up the sloping ground. The sub continued until I noticed another air bubble in front of me. The viewport broke through the bubble, and I heard a rush as the water was suddenly swept away from the body of the sub.

I turned the wheel on the hatch and lifted it up to take a look outside. The sub was in the middle of the air bubble. To my right was the boardwalk. Attached to the boardwalk was the metal ladder assembly. Unfortunately, it was out of reach. I wouldn't be able to get out of the sub without jumping into the water.

I looked around some more, seeing the rest of the lake from this vantage point. But my carelessness may have given away my presence, when I remembered that this dock was right next to Gehn's viewing scope, and it was still pointing right at me.

I climbed down the ladder into the sub and locked the hatch after me. Now, how do I get out of here? The path ahead of me was a dead end. I turned the steering lever and the track below me rotated a half circle. I pushed the lever on my right pushing the sub forwards. Once again the sub was imersed in the water.

The sub stopped at the junction facing the cone shaped cage. I pushed the lever forwards again. The sub moved on. The tracks rose up a small hill and through another air pocket. The sub entered the pocket and stopped. I opened the hatch and looked around.

Now the sub was right next to the giant cone. There was another dock built into the base, but it was retracted, preventing me from leaving the sub. Since there was nothing else I could do, I closed the hatch and continued forward along the tracks.

I reached another junction, this one with two tracks ahead of me on the left and right. There was also a fourth track that intersected with the junction behind me. I guided the sub to the right and continued along the tracks. The sub rumbled ahead and it arrived at another air bubble.

I opened the hatch and looked up to see a ladder directly above me. I climbed up the ladder. Once I was out I realised that this was my starting point. I had taken the sub in a full circle. I looked back towards the lake to get an idea of where exactly I had traveled. I saw the cage across from me, and towards my right were two more air bubbles next to the shore.

I climbed back into the sub and secured the hatch. I turned the tracks underneath the sub around and moved forward, backtracking towards the last junction point I was at. I was in the middle of an X junction, with immediate paths to my left and right. According to the map in my head, I had come from the left, so I sterred the sub to the right.

The sub moved along the new track and rose up from the water into another one of the air pockets. I opened the hatch and climbed up a ladder that was extended from the shore to reach the sub.

The dock lead to another ladder that ran up the cliff wall. At the end of the ladder was a large overhanging stucture. I climbed up the ladder occasionally looking around in all directions. Even though it was late, I felt that it was unusual that I wasn't attracting attention from the Riven villagers.

The structure above me was man made, with a hole in the bottom allowing me to enter. The inside was hollowed out and had enough room for about three people. The floor was made from wooden planks and ran towards an assembly of levers on the far wall.

Behind me was a wide narrow opening in the rock wall allowing me to look out into the village. From here I could see the entire lake and the village huts. Maybe this place was a guard tower.

I turned around and looked at the row of levers. There were 5 brass levers mounted at waist height, running to control rods the went down into the floor. Of the five levers, the first and fourth were in the upright position, the others were down.

I touched the first lever and pulled it down. I didn't see any immediate indication of what the lever performed, so I tried pulling down the fourth lever. I tried a couple more levers around at random, each one squeaking as it moved. It appeared that they could only be set in an full upright or downward position. If I tried to leave a lever halfway up or a quarter way down, it would continue moving to the closest vertical position. That probably meant that the levers were switches. Whatever they controlled were either turned on or turned off.

I left the levers and climbed back down the ladder. But when I reached the bottom of the ladder I realised the dock below me was retracted. Somehow my means of getting back in the sub had been altered.

I climbed back up the ladder towards the overlook and inspected the levers again. One of these must control the dock below me. Maybe the levers control the docks all around the island. If I turned them all on, I'd be able to take the sub to all of the docks in the village.

I tried flipping up levers four and five. I ran to the hole leading down the ladder and looked. From up here I could see the dock extend until it reached the hatch on the submarine. I stood up and looked out the opening. I paid close attention to the docks that I saw along the shore. Some were extended, some were not.

I played with the levers for about five more minutes and by going back and forth between the levers and the narrow window I was able to make a chart of which levers controlled which docks. I made a chart in my journal.

I left the overlook with all of the docks extended. I climbed back into the submarine and closed the hatch. Turning the submarine around, I moved towards the X junction, and from there I streered the sub to take the tracks on the left hand side, taking me to what was the only area I hadn't yet reached with the sub.

I opened the hatch which was directly underneath the docking ladder assembly. Beyond the dock was a small building recessed into the ground.

I walked down a set of stone steps towards the wooden door. I put my ear up to the door to listen for noises. When I felt confidant that the room was empty I opened the door and stepped inside.

Past the entryway was a large room with a high ceiling. I walked down a center aisle past low benches on either side of me.

Towards the far end of the room were two lamps with that were the only source of light in the room. The shades had painted images of the Whark around the surface casting colored shadows around the room.

Dock	Location	Lever
A	Starting Point	1
B	Boardwalk	2
C	Gallows	3
D	Dock Control	4
E	School	5

Between the lamps was a podium with a spherical shaped cage mounted on top. On the side of the podium was a lever. I gave the lever a few turns and a humming sound came from the bottom of the sphere. Light began to form in the center of the sphere, and that light took shape to form a three dimensional image. Gehn.

"Taracoi D'ni," he said. "Keebe yem revot. Amboy ambay tig tabon. Gobodo nah ya-gaben."

As he spoke he turned his head, as if he was looking directly at people that weren't in the room. His looked towards the benches on the right, and then the left. I wasn't sure what he was saying, but I had the impression he was trying to take on a conversation. There were pauses in his speech as if he was waiting for a response.

But Gehn wasn't really watching the room. If he was he'd probably be looking directly at me. This must be a recording of some kind.

The image of Gehn stopped talking and slowly faded away. I stepped away from the projector and looked around the room.

There were two blackboards on both sides of the room covered with large clearly written D'ni letters. I looked up and noticed that there were more D'ni letters, written on wooden blocks and hung up high around the walls of the building. There were 25 letters and none of them repeated. It looked like the entire D'ni alphabet was spelled out.

This was where the children of Riven were taught. The Guild of Educators probably used this tiny one room school to teach Gehn's ways. Maybe they would be taught how to Write, or maybe they would learn how the D'ni Descriptive Books were constructed.

I walked towards the back of the school room towards a small table. In a bowl were some half-eaten Riven fruit and some papers with samples of D'ni writing. It looked like a school child's work. I wonder what was written down on the page. The beginning of a new Age perhaps?

On the left side of the room on another table sat a curious looking machine. It had a wide circular base with a small window cut into the side. From the left and right sides of the base were two long poles that supported gallows. A tiny spool of thread on top of the gallows lead through a loop towards a wooden figure hung from his legs.

On the bottom of the base was a wooden of an Whark, looking up with its mouth directly underneath one of the hanging figures. Behind the Whark head at the base of the toy was a wooden ring.

I pulled at the ring, and it immediately revolved from the left side of the base to the right. The Whark head was connected to the ring, so it was now poised underneath the figure on the right hand side.

In the tiny window a wheel started to scroll by with symbols visible in the tiny window. The wheel suddenly stopped and a single figure was showing.

The thread for the figure on the right hand side began to lower. The movement was staggered, lowering the figure, then pausing, lowering, pausing, and so on. The pattern repeated three times.

I turned the ring again from the right to the left. A new symbol appeared in the window

The figure on the left hand side lowered itself in seven even steps. I turned the ring a third time to see a new symbol.

This contraption was a toy, designed to teach numbers. Whatever number was displayed in the window was represented by the number of steps the figure would lower itself into the mouth of the waiting Whark.

I continued playing with the game. At times when one of the figures would be low enough, the wooden Whark would snap its mouth closed on the figure.

Ten different numbers, one through ten to be exact. Now I maybe I could use this information to figure out the combination of the Fire Marble Domes.

I wrote down the entire D'ni alphabet in order, and continued looking around the building. There was nothing else that I could find helpful, so I left the schoolhouse and climbed back into the submarine. I turned the sub around and headed back towards the X junction in the tracks.

When I reached the junction, I remembered that I hadn't looked over the giant cage. The docking ladder should have been extended, so I'd be able to leave the submarine and examine it more closely.

I turned the sub a half circle and leaned it towards the tracks on the left. The submarine rolled forward on the rails around the corner and settled at the stop right next to the cage.

I opened the hatch of the sub and climbed up the ladder. The cage was about thirty feet tall with a brass sphere at the very top. I could walk into the cage from the docking ladder, and the iris hatch just above the waterline was closed, giving me a surface to walk across.

As I crossed the hatch I felt a heavy thump against the hatch knocking me off balance. Something had struck the hatch from the underside. The thumping continued for a few seconds and then subsided.

At the far end of the hatch was a rope leading up to the sphere. The end of the rope was tied to a triangle shaped handle to provide a better grip. I pulled the handle. From up above I heard gears turning, and then a rope dropping from the sphere. At the end of the rope was a long metal bar with a ring at each end. The roped dropped down until it was only a foot above the hatch.

It wasn't until I saw the rope that I realised what this entire cage was for. A cold chill ran down my spine, as if it had been touched by pure evil. The last time I had felt like this was back on the Channelwood Age, when I found the bloody sacrificial altar constructed by Achenar. This structure was a gallows, similar to the game in the school building.

It was a brutal punishment, and I didn't want to even think about how many people Gehn had dispensed his justice on. He probably watched it from the high cliff. He controlled the iris hatch from his chair, and then someone down here by the hatch would actually pull the lever plunging the victim into the water. Then, they would be eated by the Whark.

I walked towards the middle of the hatch and examined the crossbar. It was made out of brass and it was surprisingly clean. I pulled lightly on the rope to test its strength. In response to the tug, the motor up in the sphere began to lift up the rope. I climbed up on the crossbar and held onto the rope.

The sphere pulled up the rope to the top of the cage where a wooden plank bridged the cage with a metal walkway on the cliff wall. A circular red metal door was built into the cliff wall.

I crossed the plank. The doors were made of metal bars allowing me to look inside the room. It was a single room made from stone blocks. There was a man lying against one of the walls. He appeared to be very tall and strong. He wore a red bandanna around his head keeping his long dark hair out of his eyes. His clothing was similar to the outfit the Moiety soldier I saw yesterday. This room must be a holding cell for prisoners awaiting execution.

A few feet away from the door, well outside of a prisoner's arms reach was a wheel. I pulled the wheel from its socket and turned it around. The circular door to the prison cell broke apart in five sections, like rose petals slowly being plucked from a stem.

I hoped I was doing the right thing. I didn't know how this person would react to my freeing him. He may try to help me out, or he may try to kill me to cover his escape.

I immediately turned around, thinking that he had hiden behind the door to catch me by surprise. But he wasn't there. The cell was empty. I looked around the cell for any clues. I didn't see anything in the prison suggesting that anyone was ever here. But I had seen the prisoner with my own eyes.

He couldn't have used a Linking Book, because the Book would have been left behind. So he must have left the cell through some other exit.

On the floor of the cell was a tiny drain. The drain cover was on a hinge so I opened it up to look inside. The bottom of the drain was filled with water. I put my hand in and felt something. Making a fist with my hand I lifted up a metal handle, connected to the bottom of the drain. I pulled the handle up and I heard a rumble from the wall on my right.

A section of the brick wall was sliding back, revealing a tunnel behind the prison cell. The prisoner was lying against this wall, only pretending to be asleep. He must have used this escape tunnel as I was opening the door to the cell.

I climbed into the short tunnel and the brick wall closed itself behind me. The tunnel was lit by a single fire marble connected to a stick that was mounted to the side wall. The tunnel was only about five feet high, and I had no idea where it lead.

I made a few steps forward and felt the ground slope downwards. There was also a cool breeze flowing, so I was pretty sure that the tunnel wouldn't lead to a dead end.

I blindly felt my way across the walls, walking slowly in a hunched over posture. There was no light anywhere, and after thirty feet of stumbling I began to wonder if this was a bad idea. For all I knew, this tunnel was only one of many that I could now be lost in.

Further down I began to hear the water. The smell of the open sea air was flowing through the tunnel. I rounded a corner and soon saw a ray of light. The tunnel had ended at the base of the island. The waterline extended into the cave, ending my downward path. On the cave wall there was another fire marble.

This marble wasn't lit. I squeezed the marble between my fingertips and a soft glow began to eminate from the center. The bottom of the cave was soon bathed in a soft light that would eminate from the marble for days.

Looking back up the tunnel I noticed another fire marble. I walked back up the tunnel path and turned this one on. Further down, I saw another marble. It would appear that the entire tunnel was set up to be illuminated.

I made my way back through the tunnel, turning on the fire marbles as I saw them. Halfway up my path I saw a small stone door. I decided not to enter it yet, until I had all of the marbles lit up. I finally came back to the hidden door to the cell. Once I lit up all the marbles and found no other paths, I made my way back down the path towards the second door.

The stone door was flush with the side wall of the tunnel and had a single rope run through holes on the side to serve as a handle. I pulled the door wide open, until it blocked the main path leading down. Through the doorway I could make out another light source. I got down on my hands and knees and crawled through the smaller tunnel.

The tunnel ceiling sloped upwards leading into a large dimly lit chamber. The room had a dirt floor and brick walls. At the far wall, there was a brick circle surrounding a pool of water. The water was flush against the wall, held in place by a heat source coming from the surrounding bricks.

In the middle of the chamber floor were stone slabs, almost resembling tombstones. There were twenty-five of them arranged in a circle. On the inside face of each one was a painting of an animal of some kind. They were relatively simple drawings, showing either a profile or a frontal view of the animals.

I knelt down in front of one of the tomb stones and brushed away the dirt from one of the images. As I touched the image the stone began to sink into the ground. I pulled my hand back and the stone stopped when it was halfway submerged.

I touched the stone next to it. It lowered itself into the ground just like the first one, stopping halfway before it was completely under the floor.

I touched a couple of more stones and the reactions were identical to the first two. After I had touched a fifth stone, however, the four previous stones I touched immediately lifted themselves out of the ground.

For some reason I began to worry about the possibility of booby traps. Darts spitting out of the walls, or hot lava pouring in from the ceiling. These stones were built for a purpose that I had no understanding of. I could touch these stones at random for the next two hours, and I doubted if it would get me anywhere.

Reluctantly I tried it again. When I touched a fifth stone in a row, all of the stones reset themselves to their original position. If I were to guess at the function right now I would say that the stones served as a combination lock of some kind. Touch the right five stones and something would happen. Touch the wrong stones, and the system would reset itself to give you another chance.

I decided to hold off on examining the stones any further until I had a chance to go over what I had learned in the village. It was already past midnight on Riven and I still had to catch some sleep.

I made my way back up the tunnel and through the prison cell. I stepped out on the walkway and began to follow it around the side of the cliff wall. It ran along the cliff wall for about a hundred feet and ended at a folding ladder leading down. I extended the ladder and it allowed me to climb down to the lower walkway of the village. From there, I walked back to the caves and made my way into the safety of the Riven jungle.

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.