Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.
-Michael Jordan
After a night spent hearing Yeesha’s voice in my dreams, I awoke late yesterday morning and did some work around my Relto, taking some inventory and examining the books I’ve collected. There weren’t many. I’d picked up a Relto page the other day during my time at the Cleft, which added birds to my Relto. Creepy birds. Creepy, evil birds whose evil screeches sound like devil vultures or something. After listening to their racket all night (I slept in the hut tonight, instead of under the stars, they’re that creepy) I deactivated that page, eager to get rid of the things.
Later in the day I linked to the city, and did some exploring. I wandered around all over the place, but eventually I made my way back to the Museum and linked to Dereno and Payiferen, two of the locations within the Pod Age. I took an exploratory look around, then started tinkering. Both Ages’ circuit breakers were functional, unlike Negilahn’s. Turning on the power activated lights, and the buttons around the circuit breaker activated these loud animal calls. My theory is that the noises are keyed to attract certain animals; I didn’t mess with it long enough to get any results, but let me tell you, Dereno is simply swarming with creatures! A bunch of different fish, and also this large creature that reminded me of a three-way cross between a manatee, a ray of some kind and a hammerhead shark.
After my return to the Cavern, I remembered the new Age I’d added to my bookshelf the other day–Jalak. I decided I wanted to see about getting a game started there, but having never played before I had no idea how to go about it. Fortunately for me, I ran into Gondar, whom I recognized from the DRC forums. He was very generous and understanding, and explained to me that while in Jalak the KI gained extra functionality–the ability to raise and lower the pillars and summon cubes and other objects. I got in touch with Zuri and together the two of us decided we’d meet up to play a game, Zuri mentioning he thought he’d bring a friend. I did some quick research on the internet (someone, maybe the DRC, has been kind enough to set up public WiFi by the tent near the Great Stairs) about Jalak games and found the Jalak Registry, a repository of Explorer-made games.
Meeting up with Zuri I was happy to learn his friend was Paul, one of the Explorers who had come to my Relto the night before to undertake the Journey with me; unfortunately, he’d been unable to wait while I took forever pressing Journey Cloths in the Cleft, so it was good to catch up with him. The three of us linked back to my Relto and then to Jalak. We spent the majority of the day playing games of “Tile Survivor”, which is pretty simple. Each player starts in a corner, and can only move three spaces in an “L” shape, like a knight in chess. When they arrive at their new tile, they raise it. Raised tiles are off-limits; you can pass over one on your way to another tile, but you can’t land on one. The goal is to keep raising tiles until your opponents can’t move any more, without getting trapped yourself.
Later on Paul headed out, and Zuri and me played a few games of “Jalabyrinth”. It’s a lot more complex–you start with a cube on a corner, and moving it one space at a time your goal is to get your cube onto your opponent’s cube first. What makes it complicated is that each turn you must raise a row of five pillars. It makes the board difficult to navigate, since cubes can’t move to columns higher than it, and moving to spaces lower than it gives the other player(s) an extra move. Tehlrov joined us later on in the evening and we noticed Jalabyrinth wasn’t as good a game for three players (Zuri figured out that the ideal would be to have one player begin on the center tile of the row opposite from the players on the opposite two corners, forming a triangle, but it was getting late and we decided we didn’t have time to put it into action), so we went back to Tile Survivor and had a blast.
Also yesterday I noticed Nagao was online so the two of us met up and he invited me again to join his Neighborhood. We didn’t get to hang out long, but I linked through to the Neighborhood, bringing my gear with me. It’s thrilling to finally having a home in the City! I love Relto, but it’s never felt like a home to me. My new room does. I still haven’t gotten the chance to meet all my new neighbors, yet, but I’m looking forward to the opportunity (I’ve been in Ae’gura most of the day, Skype chatting with my friends and family–this is the first time I’ve gotten to speak to them since checking in my first day back in the Cavern. I’m definitely not going that long between calls again!). I’ve been exploring around the place and learning a lot about the Bevin-type neighborhood I’d never really noticed before.
Anyway, here’s hoping I get to try a game of Ahyoheek soon!
