Making the Best, continued

[avevale_intelligencer]

That last but one line I wrote yesterday has been bugging me all night. Well, I assume night: the quality of light got a bit worse, but nothing else changed.

How do I know there haven't been earth tremors here? I've never been here before. I've read up on it, of course, that's how I know where the Books are supposed to be, and there was never a mention of seismic activity in the journals, but this is more than just an assumption. It feels like certainty. And that worries me.

Also hungry. None of the trees are fruit-bearing even if they weren't dying from the inside out, and if there are living quarters on this island they're frodding well concealed. As they would be, of course, this being Atrus' place. Were all the D'ni as paranoid and puzzle-mad as he was? One imagines a D'ni salt-cellar, something like a Rubik Cube. Takes you half an hour to get the salt out, by which time the food is cold, and the lesson is to eat less salt.

Were they all mad?

I've seen one pure D'ni now, if indeed he was--I have no proof one way or the other--and he, well. But then he had been on his own for a longish time.

Frod, I'm hungry. I need to do something.

Later.--Shinny along the mast, he said. Easiest one to get to, he said. All right till the mast breaks under your weight and drops you into the drink. That water was cold, and deeper than I thought. And there are things living in it. One nearly got me. Lots of teeth. Where the frod did they come from? I managed to get back on to the dock, and I sat there for a good ten minutes just shaking. That wood is like balsa. It must be losing actual substance. I don't think the deck would even bear my weight. This is going to be tricky.

There's life here, though. Which means the Age is not dying, or not just dying. It's been sabotaged.

Someone knows where the Age Book is. Which mean*SQUIGGLE*

Sorry. I sneezed. There are germs here too, from the look of it. Great. Absolutely frodding marvellous.

I've got a piece of the broken mast here. I'm wondering if it'll come to a point...

Later again.--Got one!!! It's about five feet long and vaguely fish-shaped. I sharpened the piece of mast with my penknife and fashioned a crude spear, as they say, and then went and dangled myself off the dock till a shoal of them came along. This one was easy. I expect it'll get harder as they get cannier. I'm in the generator hut now. I'm going to try to get a fire going with some of the dead wood so I can try cooking it. I'm not desperate enough to eat it raw yet.

The intent was to trap me here. Which means that, as far as the trapper is concerned, there can be no way for anyone to get in to let me out. The doors you open with Linking Books don't close behind you. So. I wish I was more up on the fine points of linking theory. If you change the Age Book enough, does that affect the Linking Books? I don't think it does. They'll have had to go round and destroy all the Myst Linking Books they could find.

But the Age Book has to survive. So they have to put it somewhere no-one will ever find it.

I'm chasing my tail here. Time to start that fire and try to gut this thing.

Later again.--Eeeeuuwww. There were things living in that fish. I scraped them out and stomped them, washed the carcass in the water (which probably didn't help) and then speared some chunks on my harpoon and held them over the fire for as long as I could stand. The result tastes horribly salty and rubbery, but I managed to get some down and it hasn't come up again yet. I may be able to live on this for a while. If I can find a vessel of some sort I can boil some of the water to get the salt out, maybe.

Froddit, Robinson Crusoe had less than I do, and he did okay.

Been down to look at the generators. The glass seems quite solid still, but I'm sure I can get through it. And if I can't make them work, I can cannibalise them for copper wire and rig up a kite to catch the lightning. One way or another, I am getting off this island.

I've got to.

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[shannachie.livejournal.com]

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