In effort to keep the mess at a minimum, the following plans are being entertained by Ruby O’Degee Glenfadden. By the way I am considering keeping the third name always. It is my theory that one can’t slough off knowledge or *names. It is forever with you (no matter how hard you try to deny it); all those experiences that make up a person for better or worse. This will be no different, because the truth is “you can’t go home again.” You can go physically back to the place you started, but you are at a butterfly’s mercy – a tad revised, especially when that revision comes through story, which is 12,000,457 times more affective than being told anything atal.

When Scout stood on the doorstep of Boo Radley’s house at the tale end of To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee told the metaverse, she’d learned what she needed to know. She didn’t have to live her character, Boo’s life. No, she only needed to absorb his experiences into every cell of her being. Lee did, and I did, when my storyteller of a father took me to the movies to soak in what Lee called the best adaptation of film to book, she’d ever seen. It is a rare happenstance when I can say a book is manna, and the film that goes after is manna too. When folks tell me they want to read minds, I hand them a book. “Here it is,” I say. “The origin of all thoughts are in these pages, and you will need to spend a lot of time reading them. Sit down by the fireplace over there,. Take your shoes off. Get comfy and bring some snacks. You will never come back from where you are going, always. And mind you, if you try to come back, you will require a prescription of an elixir more potent than hot triple chocolate cocoa. Caution. Caution.”

Footnote*A Little known aside is that Ruby absorbs almost everything through her thick bull head. No matter how much she protests the name Glenfadden will accompany her where ever she goes, but that isn’t what this chapter is about dear explorer. This chapter is dedicated to best laid plans that will never come about exactly in the way Ruby plans them. It doesn’t work that way, regardless of what bubble one lives in.

Plans 505
1. Check – find office space on desert. Check – set up office. Checkmate foiled – office partly laid across neighbors parcel, and needed to be moved 1 foot to the north (presumption here – no idea which way Eder D’Uru is pointed – but, I always place the door facing due north where my faith resides and makes a promise).

The moving of the office, requested by the resident engineer and manager, resulted in a major disaster of the Ruby sort. Now she will need to spend time with the tape measure, because she previously, without knowing, unlinked the boards, floor, roof top, juke box and sound control booth. “Oh for the love of Yahvo,” she screamed to the wind, now rustled by a thousand butterflies, “why now?! Just when I am finding my footing, and I’m clearing a path to my destiny.”

Making a mess is one thing. Allowing others to see your mess is an entirely other storytelling device. Devices have their place along and along, but LY words, dialogue that use other verbs than the word said, and obvious editing notations should be used sparingly. Talking to the reader is unseemly and untidy, if there are no mental images to draw out the relationship between the giver and the receiver. Before an author talks to the readers, an author should know the readers fairly well. Coming to a dig was one way Ruby got to know her readers. Teaching readers is another way to get to know the reader. Living in the confusing, overly advertised, not what it appears world with her readers is the best way Ruby got to know her readers. She is her reader, always.

2. Check – find a home in a quiet, craggy, mystic meadow on an island in the middle of the sea – A W.B. Yeats kind of place – an Innisfree that needs no further pontification. Check – done and in the midst of renovating and personalizing the beloved house with the garish purple door windows that can’t be changed, or the windows will stay forever open, or forever closed. Ruby notes, as do I dear reader, that we cannot every detail in any plot. That is the joy of lateral storytelling and the mystery of linear storytelling; what you can’t or wouldn’t change, if you could. Most of us, for example would like to be more attractive, but still “me.” Others of us would like to be rich, but not live in the glare of scrutiny and envy. The glare kills the most talented amongst us. At first it looks like a rainbow, but later it looks like death. I know that sounds harsh in ages where no one falls to a permanent end, nevertheless, glare is the final blow to many a survivor.

3. Check – revive the much beloved The Cavern Players. There is nothing I am more proud of in the D’niverse. Pulling together the players is having a party in your own backyard. It is the carnival, circus and theatrical production done as a child with sound effects, explorers rushing here and there, directions being called out by Veralun, the film producer, who tends to be charmingly gruff on cue. It is nirvana piecing the voices together. Even with every argument that ever came to light, it is a blessing to listen to the remnants of what I have left in the sound arsenal. Never did I see such a bunch of talented amateur actors and voices. Now I’ve laid down the stage, as I always envisioned it in the backyard behind my house. I did it early, before everything else came into focus. As the anthropologist, Margaret Mead, said, “get those pieces of art up on the wall. Forget about the forks, toilet seats, china, every explorer’s relto hut rug or Maytag washing machine. They’re not going to make a your find a home yours.”

Note: Dear explorer, strictly by serendipity and more than likely destiny, I took my anthropology, philosophy, alchemy and all other pertinent sophies from a professor, who studied with Margaret Mead in the flesh. I suspect, like adding a name to my other list of names, I can’t or don’t prefer to slough off any knowledge I absorbed during my professor’s rush to gold or rainbows.

4. Check broadcast CCNE Find a Home Companion. Unchecked the same. The program continues to haunt me, but there are technical glitches and costs that need to be considered. The good outcome is the live stream, and it works well to telecast from any point. The problem is the sound and the limitations of the Linden transportation and property management system. Their bandwidth issues are of great concern. When other matters are addressed Ruby will get back to working out the details, even it means a small outlay of Linden $. Up to this point, she has managed to carefully consider every dime spent. She has a locked in budget to keep.

5. Partially checked the Seanachai Book Publishing Business. This business is set up in the Eder D’Uru mall, and will be partly done in the studio at home. It is planned that books of an appropriate size will be distributed, once this enterprise is completely learned by curve and practice. The kits are in my hands. There is no limitation on how many books can be produced, given away or sold, depending on the sort of book published. Other items “sold” by the seanachai include scrolls, story weavings, illuminated journals, children’s picture books and replicated ancient texts.

6. Partially checked the Ruby’s Sewing and Design Studio. This came about, because laterally story needs a few directions to take. Since I like designing my own garments, and I’ve learned some sewing for dummies tips along the Gimp way, I thought it might be nice to share my learning with others. It seems like there has been Much Ado made about Nothing. It’s not that I am denigrating the wonderful designs I’ve seen, while shopping for garments and costumes until I drop my clicking fingers. It is that basic items are not difficult to make, once the lens is wiped clear of the jargon and hyperbole. In other words, I am embarking on a learning to make clothes myself, and plan to offer my help to others struggling through the mire, mist or myst like I am – always.

7. Checked joining other groups that relates to my ilk. It is my opinion, and this is a strong opinion that I’ve only recently made concrete: explorers, like myself don’t get out much. If we are to bring explorers to the dig, we must get out more! Who will know what wonder yonder lurks. Word of mouth is the viral way net communities are recognized. Advertising in a subscription, pull me, technical metaverse is only effective when the populations, who click are aware of the use for it. It is why I am “sold” on net activities and not television that blares at me, when I flicking channels for something interesting to watch and learn from. 57,045 channels and nothing on continues. It is getting worse.

8. Checked writing my book – working title: Violet’s How to Tell Your Own Story Adventure. Purpose to teach third graders what a story looks like, and to encourage them to write their own along with me. The process of teaching in this way is much like teaching explorers how to sew, while I learn with them. It is the best and only way to teach. It is present, and by that I mean I don’t teach in the past tense or the future tense (which is not accessible or assured). I teach in the present tense, always.

Of course I can talk about the past, and the future, but I am sure to call both notions dreams. Yes, it is a wee bit wacky, like slipping through celtic thin space stones, or falling down a crack when the earth shakes, but it so far effective. In the Violet story, she (an eight year old girl with snarly hair and odd timing) loses her words to fairies, after the death of her seanachai father. Violet inherits the mantel of storyteller, but has no idea of how to complete the mission, until she meets Fergus and they go on a wild romp through a camping trailer park’s hiking trail. As is true of many a Donegal traveller tale, the children can’t access the trail or trial, until they find the fireplace in the cart. Without a fire to look into and through, there is no transparent viewer to be found.** Like Scout and Jem, who found the figures in Boo Radley’s tree, it requires careful reading of a text to find ancient and true fireplaces, but once found the ride that comes after is scary, thrilling and flies through universes unknown without any limitation forever and always.

**Footnote, Dear reader the rest is for reading, and will not be addressed here, (copyrighted and legal such), but I did want to explain the fireplace metaphor for those of you, who are partial to wardrobes.

9 and 10. Check, partially check and discovering the check mark to get all of these initiatives done, before there is a plot development I am not aware is coming. Lateral storytelling is the sort of storytelling we all fear, Josh, but it is the sort we live out, and work around with our limited amounts of time, no matter what the written end (or not). Harper Lee did this when she was a young woman, never required herself to water down another word that diminished her masterpiece, and continues to live on into the age of wisdom, mercifully for me!.:whistle: Mercy. Mercy Me!

**A last author’s note to Dear Explorer: There is no such thing as scarcity in the story world. When there is no scarcity, there is no end. It is not possible to end a story always. Every story is a story within a story, or bits and pieces of an author’s journey added to another soul’s story, or an interpretation of a story, or a new age of the same story, or tribute to another story. There are twists to stories that require copyright and good “no trespassing” sense without credit, but there is no blank page, no completely original work by a writer. It is a soup, one big Desperaux (a classic that should be front and center of anyone’s bookcase) soup, period and without end, always.

Oh dear one more note to readers: bullheaded I am, and what you’ve read herein is only the tip of the ice pile. There is more. Another one of Ruby’s mores is that there is no original invention, only discovery of what is out there for us to plunder. Plunder we will. It is the apple we bit into, but in rare instances out of the plundering comes a thing of beauty and stability. It is the age I am interested most in; The Age of Reason.

The seasickness finally subsided. A long nap and a roast beef dinner at Cracker Barrel took care of it, but she felt a quagmire coming over her. Does an explorer whose seen her better days go back down with new transportation. This time the shuttle isn’t a shard. It’s a sim, and she remembers the sim from a time past. Ruby booked a sim in the spring of 2004 after the first live restoration came to full stop. The sim experience was a bumpy, and nearly X rated ride she never wanted to take again. Ruby has a full blown sense of humor, but she’s also a wee stuffy and prudish when it comes to cultural morays and the wearing of clothes. She likes clothes, and lots of them.

Nestled between a nightclub lingerie dealer and a pole dancer did not agree with her. She bought a car, got sick and got out. There is not much more to say about it. Her foray was over, before she got started.

This time was different. There were new ticket exchange offices built along the sim. Ruby could enter the transportation system to get to Eder D’Uru through one of them. She chose the super commercial, but very successful PG (nearly G) rated Faery portal to enter. After being born as a Fae, she took the next TP Shuttle over to Eder D’Uru. Not a single griefer got in her way. The entire trip went without a hitch. Her only problem was flying. It is a common way to get around inside the sim, and Ruby can’t take the heights or the passing terrain. Neither can she look out of an Amtrak window dining car window to the side. The last time she tried, she threw up on her husband’s tweed jacket.

To avoid flying (a try at flying resulted in her episode of seasickness) Ruby walks everywhere or she transports herself through the TP shuttle system. It works. The miles per hour resolution, if set at 1024 X 718 does not bother her to see rush by. The stronger the view the better, and she keeps her eyes on the path in front of her.

Ruby’s ground transportation is a triple core beam me up scotty. Regardless of bandwidth consumption (otherwise known as sim gas), Ruby only goes where she can get a good view. During parties and well attended events, she may resort to a 4 cylinder rider only for the duration of the event. After all she is standing still at that point (unless she is actively engaged in dancing and listening to the wonderful music played by some very professional DJ’s). Her mind can’t fuss about 2 issues at once.

At this time Ruby’s other quagmire, purpose is not so easily determined. She knows she will tell story. It is her life ambition to live out her grandfather’s legacy, and she can do that by telling an old story with new vigor, but she also wants to tell a new story that is only bubbling up from beneath cavern surface now. Most likely there will be conflict of the funny kind now and then. She expects Madge will show up for an adventure or 35. Old friends are certainly going to make the difference. Picking up an explorer shirt in the cavern reminded Ruby of how important it is to belong to a tribe of like minded and kindred spirits. She doesn’t expect to meet a stripper or day bond trader among them.

Out of 12 or 14 Myst like communities along the Sim route, there is bound to be place for Ruby to find old friends and make new ones. Eder D’Uru has that special texture that suits her in particular. Not that other communities aren’t also extending the story. Every one of them does in their own way, but Ruby believes The Voice is never easily replicated. Better to find a new vision for an original concept, than to try to piece by piece lay bricks for an exact copy. Exact copies aren’t possible to do with different technologies and designers at the helm. Ruby, herself is an evolution. She started out as an explorer and fine artist/oil painter museum curator, who came to Myst Island on her own, and only on weekends. At 16 years of age, she lived through virtual life time of antics and mysteries, not all created by game players. Not a moment would she change, but finding the humor in all of it transformed the character of Ruby into someone else. She is no nicer, certainly no wiser, and she is still inept and clumsy. Her wacky assumptions about secret guilds, diverted water, and Riven being withing walking distance of the volcano’s entrance do not help her causes. Ruby has been chastised, fired, rehired, burned, cast out, and not trusted, and all of it brought on by her lonesome.

On the other hand, she is loyal, harmless and ready always to laugh at herself, pratfalls and all. She managed to finagle some over the top gifts, attend a Mysterium in Spokane with friends she will never forget ever, and make more life time friends along the way. Her friendship with Ghaelen is one her of her most precious finds in the cavern. Ghaelen is one of those more than patient explorers that can put up with Ruby. It is Ruby’s blessing and good fortune that Ghaelen listened one night to a play that Ruby adapted.

And for years Tyion, Veralun and LC have also put up with Ruby’s sometimes lack of focus and her decisions to make unwise choices. These alliances are important to Ruby and will be part of the story herein.

In part Ruby believes that many of her issues arise out of her belief that Facebook, My Space and all the other social connection sites have their place, but OOC is not interesting or safe to her. Story and the “sweet rocking safety of a lie” is the line of demarcation between Ruby and her benefactor’s world. Ruby always tells the truth from her perspective. Her benefactor does too. In the in between thin spot (a Celtic place of prayer) lessons are learned for life. Then the benefactor takes the lessons back to the classroom and spreads those life lessons out. Divvying up code is much less arduous than dividing up fishes and loaves (divvying code requires no divinity).

A 95% Ruby O’Degee (Glenfadden) is the only way Ruby will come to the cavern, or any other world wide stage. If 95% of her benefactor’s presence is not good enough for prime time so be it. The remaining private 5% will never be told through the footsteps of Ruby. [Dear reader, this is MY gnarly disclaimer]. As Madge (an original phone bot transformed through Merle’s ingenuity and wit to an avie missing some parts) would say “Don’t be telling your kids to leave themselves open online. It is no place to wash the family’s undergarments or your own.”

What Ruby will do is confess in her own loose cannon style the back story, present and front story of her trials and tribulations, her birth into a cavern, and her attempt to reshape her future until the next best and real thing comes along (Thank you Rod Stewart for reviving that wondrous classic).

Be on the look out for trembling crust.

After Veralun had looked carefully into the hole down which staff members were certain the office had fallen, the group realized it was part of a large ravine they had seen but failed to notice during their search near the hole.  This ravine had appeared in the New Mexico desert some time during winter of 2008.  It was odd that the closing of the Cavern Public Gate in early 2008 should have such a seismic effect on the North American tectonic plate, but apparently it caused quite a number of minor tremors that caused more chaos than anyone had imagined.  And these tremors continued for months after the great silent crashing of the gates as they swung closed.  Unbeknownst to these stalwart Cavern Communicating Networking types, the tremors were still tremoring beneath the temporary desert office abode (shack) that was to serve while construction of a new, temporary office space was built.

It was these tremors, not Madge, that caused the Great CCN Temporary Office Loss of 2009.

This, the staff realized as the joined Veralun at the hole down which they surmised the office had fallen.  Tyion made a comment about holding a memorial service and after some of the same type of avoidance that the staff had decided on earlier regarding the danger of the hole, the staff decided a memorial was a very Explorer-like thing to hold when something was unrecoverable.  As Veralun began a rather long-winded objection-yet-acceptance in regard to the memorial, Alty shouted to him to be careful because, standing some distance away, she felt the tremoring of a tremor and feared it would make the hole and ravine even larger.  The staff as a whole realized the tremors were still tremoring as Veralun turned toward Alty just in time to see Ruby walk quickly past him toward the hole.  She was quite intending to look into it — of course she did –  and she pitched forward as the patch of rock she stepped on shook just enough to change the pitch of the ground on which she placed her weight.  Her other foot came down onto part of a board laying close to the edge of the hole, and as she shifted her weight to compensate for pitching forward, the outer edge of her foot slipped off the board.  Arms flailing, she fell forward and down off the edge.

Shouting loudly (and definitely in Dutch), Veralun reached out, grabbed her by her belt and pulled mightily to keep her from falling into the hole.  He managed to stop her descent, but her belt snapped, whipping her around to face up and away from the hole, and as her belt slid through the belt-loops of her pants, her Relto book caught against one of the belt loops and the velcro she’d used gave way under the force.  Tyion lunged forward to grab her arm, reaching out in vain to catch her Relto book with the other hand.  He nearly lost his own balance, but recovered in time to pull Ruby back from the edge.

Ghaelen and Alty grabbed her waist and the other arm (such was the force of her pitch forward) and betwinxt them all they managed to prevent her sojourn into the deep recesses of the new office abode.  She squirmed just a little as they watched her Relto book descend, but since no one was having any part of her sudden notion to follow it, she cried for a while instead.  Ghaelen began to cry, too, then Tyion groaned out loud, and soon all of the staff were indeed conducting the very memorial they had begun to discuss some time earlier.

After much ado, Alty convinced Ruby to come back to the crate, and to make her feel better Tyion called a meeting.   He told her she didn’t really need to attend, but called it anyway as he was at a loss for anything else that might help. Ghaelen kept herself busy attempting not to plan future agendas, but her to-do list kept getting longer and longer.  Veralun and Alty did what they could to mitigate the shock of the fall, the loss, the other loss, and the tears.  Alty complimented the organized manner in which the non-meeting had grown out of the memorial.

Everyone did feel a little better since they knew now that Madge hadn’t actually done anything to the office,  but they did not feel at all better knowing all those boxes and crates of video was still down there in a buried basement somewhere.  “Ruby,” Alty said sternly, “you don’t need that Relto book now, anyway.  When the Cavern opens again, you can surely get another one.”  Ghaelen nodded and suggested that maybe they could just keep using the crate for the time being.  Ruby nodded and agreed as she always did, which made everyone breathe a sign of relief.

We hope you enjoy the broadcast.

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High-quality download in wmv format (95MB)

We hope you enjoy our broadcast.

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High-quality download in wmv format (66MB)

For more information on this and other episodic events, visit this link at the Myst Online Uru Live forums. There are links there to other historical archives as well. You can also visit the Myst Online Uru Live site to find out about current news and events.

If you are a character (or a supporter of all things fan fiction) and you love Myst/Uru, you might find CCN a nice place to hang out.  All of our programs are centered around Uru and the D’ni (and our own office adventures, of course).  You will find us all at the CCN Central Forums.

In Part Two of Episode Five:   Tension and concern continue to build as Wheely Engberg and Rosette remain out of reach under the Kahlo Pub.  Rescue teams work feverishly to rescue the two girls.  Rosette is still silent, carvings glow on the wall, and something is watching Wheely… a bahro?

We hope you enjoy our broadcast.

–

High-quality download in wmv format (39MB)

For more information on this and other episodic events, visit this link at the Myst Online Uru Live forums. There are links there to other historical archives as well. You can also visit the Myst Online Uru Live site to find out about current news and events.

If you are a character (or a supporter of all things fan fiction) and you love Myst/Uru, you might find CCN a nice place to hang out.  You will find us all at the CCN Central Forums.

This early format of the CavernCast was called the MiniCast.  This episode was broadcast in three parts.

Since the CCN staff was still moving in to the new offices, there is some, er, well, repetition of video at the beginning of each of the three segments (see subsequent posts).  We’d like to say Madge got her hands on the film, but we can’t because she didn’t know where the new offices were (yet).   Neither did we know where she was…so she could have…but she couldn’t have…  Truth is, we were so excited to be in the cavern with everyone else we plumb forgot to film. No, that’s not true, really, either. We just didn’t have enough video for all the information.

Still, we are proud to say that the information is new in each segment, regardless of what you see.

In Part One of this episode:  A New Age, unexplained.  More DRC activity and evidence of Bahro in the Cavern.

We hope you enjoy our broadcast.

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High-quality download in wmv format (40MB)

For more information on this and other events, happenings, and history of the DRC and their relationship with the Cavern and Cavern Community, visit this link at the Myst Online Uru Live forums. There are links there to other historical archives as well. You can also visit the Myst Online Uru Live site to find out about current news and events.

If you are a character (or a supporter of all things fan fiction) and you love Myst/Uru, you might find CCN a nice place to hang out.  We are very serious but never boring, and we are certain that even as each of us plays a “role” in this virtual D’niVerse there is something of our real selves in all things we do.  CCN produces fictional fan fiction, non-fictional fan fiction, and other types of audio and video programs.  All of our programs are centered around Uru and the D’ni (and our own office adventures, of course).  You will find us all at the CCN Central Forums.