I laid down with my back to the Sun. I'm not really sure which Sun it was, but it felt very similar to Earth's own. There were a lot of things on Myst Island identical to Earth. The trees, the animals, the clouds. I needed to remind myself of these similarities at times, to protect myself from the reality of being trapped in a world otherwise unknown to me.
When I first arrived on Myst I had hoped that perhaps I was still on Earth, perhaps on a remote island somewhere. That desperate theory was dismissed when I realised that none of the constellations in the sky were remotely familiar to me, nor I have seen any passing ships in any direction. If I was on Earth, I was in a remote tropical region discovered by no man.
It has been roughly 16 D'ni days since I first arrived on Myst Island. In Earth time, the figure was close to 18 days.
After my second meeting with Atrus, we worked out a method of relating our different means of measuring time. After I repaired my watch, we took spent three days making comparative measurements. While the Earth day is divided into 24 hours, while the D'ni day is broken up into five periods. From our findings we found that a D'ni day is roughly 27 hours, and an Earth day is close to four and a half periods.
Building from what we learned about each other's measurement of time, I constructed a calendar of the current month. Today was October 30th. To Atrus, we were at the end of the 7th month of the D'ni year, named Leebro. I extended my calendar to the end of March and hung the finished work in the library. I wondered what would happen when March would pass. Would I continue using the Earth calendar, or would I resign myself to using D'ni time measurements.
Of course it gets more complex when you throw in the fact that Myst time doesn't adhere to Earth time or D'ni time. According to Atrus, A single day on Myst Island was somewhere between Earth and D'ni. I wondered how he coped with the time differences after linking between ages? I imagine he compensated for it by writing about Ages with similar ecosystems. Linking to ages that are vastly different and yet disturbingly similar at the same time.
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a movement. Far down below Atrus had stepped out of the library and walked towards the log cabin, presumably trying to find me. I shouted down to him. He turned around and looked up towards me with his hands up to his. Once he focused me he lowered his hand and walked back towards the library.
A minute later, I heard the elevator rising in the shaft underneath me followed by the clanking sounds of soft leather boots on ladder rungs. The clanking paused briefly for a second, then continued. I looked up to the far end of the tower to find Atrus staring at me.
"Greetings," he said.
"Hello," I replied.
We appeared to be as different as night and day. I was barely wearing any clothes at all, while he was in a full D'ni outfit, complete with the thick goggles that protected his eyes from the sun. It still took some time for his eyes to adjust.
He walked around the tower a bit looking out towards the ocean. A seagull flew across the east shoreline. "I've made some progress in my work."
"Oh really," I replied. I didn't express much enthusiasm because I had no clear idea what Atrus' work was. He spent a lot of time in that dark D'ni chamber scribling notations in books that I was expressly told not to touch.
"You may find it interesting," he said.
"How so?" I asked. "Is this another experiment you want to perform?" To keep myself busy during my time on Myst, I had often assisted Atrus in several experiments. Simple experiments such as measuring ocean currents, air temperatures, taking soil samples. I was like a gatherer for Atrus at times, or a junior lab assistant.
"No, no," he said. "This would probably be considered an expedition."
"An expedition?" I asked.
"Yes," Atrus said. "To an Age you've never linked to before."
"A new Age?"
"No, an old one. Much older than the others."
"Riven?"
"Yes," Atrus said. He looked down at me, puzzled. "What have I told you of Riven?"
"Nothing. You only mentioned it once while we were working together."
"Oh," Atrus said. He took a step past me and looked out towards the setting sun.
"When do we leave?"
I don't think he heard my question, so I repeated myself. Out of all the Ages I've seen Atrus link to, none of them affected him quite like Myst. I lost track already of the number of times he fell into one of his quiet sulking moods. From what I understood, Atrus actually lived on Myst Island before being trapped in D'ni, but ever since I helped him link back I never saw him spent any great amount of time here.
"Tomorrow morning," he finally said. "And I won't be joining you. I need to stay behind to work."
"What?" I asked. I didn't expect the idea of being sent out by myself to an Age I was unfamiliar with.
Atrus continued as if he didn't hear me. "You'll need some rest. You will also need to put some traveling gear together." He turned back and began his descent down the ladder along the edge of the tower. "Meet me in D'ni in the morning. I'll tell you more once you arrive."
I tried to get another question in, but he was already in the tower making his way towards the elevator. With a clatter and a clang, the elevator made its descent towards the library. I'd have to wait for the elevator to return, and by then Atrus would already be back in D'ni.
I picked up my shirt and made my way inside the tower, taking the elevator down to the library. I opened up the outside entrance and made my way to down the dirt path to the log cabin. The sun was setting now and the wind became colder. Another day on Myst has come and gone. One more notch to make on my calendar.
Inside the cabin lay my gear. My earth clothes were folded up in a nice neat pile by the bed. They wern't very well suited for the environments of the worlds I linked to, so I left them behind in favor of some D'ni clothes Atrus had given me. They were more rugged and sturdy to protect from the harsh environments the D'ni were accustomed to living in.
Sitting in the corner of the room was a basket of fruit I had collected from one of the harvest ages Atrus had used in D'ni. I packed enough fruit, bread, and water for three days. If I needed more I would use food from Riven, or just link back to D'ni and get more.
My field gear consisted of a backpack for my heavier gear and a belt pouch for items I like to keep close at hand. Some of the insturments I used included a D'ni timepiece, my Earth watch, a telescope, and a couple of specimine bottles. The pouch also had room for a pen and a blank journal.
Not long after I started helping Atrus out that I began to take extensive notes in my own journal. I had filled pages upon pages with notes, drawings, calculations, and observations. Every experience I have had since my arrival was a learning experience, and I quickly learned the necessity of making sure I had recordings of my findings.
I took the gear I had assembled and placed it beside the door. The sun had set by now and I was tired. I shut off the fire-marble lantern and climbed into bed. I wanted to make sure I slept well that night because I knew it could be a while before I'd be able to sleep in this bed again.
It wasn't until then I then realised I was starting to treat Myst Island like home.
The next day I awoke to the birds chirping in the nearby trees. I climbed out of bed and gathered my gear together. I left the cabin and headed up the dirt path up to the library. The air was damp this morning, and the cold mist crept along the shoreline of the island.
I walked past the fountain and into the entrance to the library. Above me the chandelier bathed the walls in its soft yellow light. Ahead of me was the main bookcase which had since been cleared out of the books destroyed by Sirrus and Achenar. On either side of me were the chared book displays that once held the prison books that held Atrus' only sons. Perhaps it was the events that happened here that kept Atrus from spending much time on Myst.
I crouched down on my hands and knees and entered the fireplace, closing the shield behind me. By now I had memorised the pattern on page 158, and I could recreate the pattern on the door with relative ease. When I completed the pattern, the fireplace rotated and I found myself facing a set of shelfs bearing the green book that would link me back to D'ni. I opened the book to the appropriate page and placed my hand over the linking image.
My body faded away and I felt the electric tingling in my hand as my body traversed the link from Myst to D'ni. In the blink of an eye I was in a new environment. The lighting was darker, the air was slightly stale, and the mood was much more depressing.
Behind me was a caved in archway with a shattered lantern. Below my feet was a representation of Ri'Neref, a famous D'ni Guildsman. A few feet ahead of me was Atrus, sitting at his makeshift desk working on a large book, one I've seen him work on numerous times. He took a second to look up and his eyes met my face. "Thank God you've returned," he said.
I walked closer to the desk, curious as to what he was concerned about. "I need your help," he said as he resumed his writing. "There's a great deal of history that you should know, but I'm afraid that I must continue my writing."
He took care to set his pen down next to the book and then reached under the stone desk. He brought up a small book with a brown leather cover and offered it to me. The book was small, the pages themselves no larger than my hand. "Here," he said. "Most of what you'll need to know is in there. Keep it well hidden."
I tucked the book into a hidden compartment of one of my pouches, even though I really wanted to read it right now just to get an idea of what I was getting myself into.
Atrus reached down again and picked up another book and looked through the pages. "For reasons you'll discover I can't send you to Riven with a way out, but I can give you this. It appears to be a linking book back here to D'ni, but it's actually a one man prison. You'll need it, I'm afraid, to capure Gehn."
Gehn?
Atrus told me before that Gehn was his father, and that he had taught him how to Write. Asside from that, Atrus never mentioned much about his childhood. He did mention that he and Catherine had escaped from his father to Myst Island, but I couln't remember if he had mentioned Riven at that time. I didn't like the idea of knowing this expedition would require a confrontation with anyone, particularly Gehn. What else would I have to face in this Age?
If Atrus was aware of my concerns, he didn't show it. "Once you've found Catherine," he said, "signal me and I'll come with a Linking Book to bring us back." Atrus closed the large book and took a second to stare at the cover. From my vantage point I could see the large metal symbol of a square with a horizontal line through the middle tacked onto the leather cover. He flipped open the book again towards the last page towards the descriptive window used to Link to the new Age. The image was blurry and distorted as if the Link to the world were somehow damaged. Riven would be a new Age for me, and I felt my older fears about Linking in the past resurfacing. Did I really want to goto this new world?
Atrus sensed my hesitation. "There is also a chance," he said, "if this all goes well, that I might be able to get you back to the place that you came from."
I looked up from the image, directly to Atrus' eyes. He had never mentioned this to me before, and I was curious as to why. Did he really know a way for me to get back? Was it a good chance, or just a slight chance? I continued to look at Atrus and I found no looks of betrayal. He had always been trustworthy in the past and I should have no reason to doubt that trust now.
Instinctively, I reached my right hand towards the linking window and felt a surge of energy as my body tingled out of existance in this world, and traversed the link to another unknown Age.