Next piece of the puzzle

Something bugged me, but I did not know what. I had this restless feeling that a thought was knocking at the door of my consciousness. I kept mulling it over fruitlessly, feeling that I missed something important.

I have had this feeling since bringing mr. Damus back to Mehatoor for leg repair. As he could not walk, he was confined to the Indagatrix's small medbay. We have been talking and playing chess while speculating on the cause of the malfunctions.

This morning, as I was taking a shower, I suddenly caught the thought that I was chasing and that had been lurking in the corner of my mind. It had nothing to do with the malfunctions -we are not closer to solving that mystery- but it was about the riddle. And about chess, the ancient board game we were playing. The "dark king's bishop" in the garden is a reference to the fact that the biosphere is laid out exactly as a chess board. In that game, there are black and white pieces, and there are kings and their bishops. 

For black, the king's bishop is placed on square F8. 

That is where we should go and search.

((ooc image source: an attempt at AI generation of Amarrian chess pieces...))

Ministry monitoring

Before heading back to Mezagorm to resume my exploration, I briefly met with the Indagatrix's political officer, mr. Firth. 

He tells me that although the turmoil surrounding Ms. Yubari has somewhat shifted to the background for now, it is by no means gone. Especially coronation day is a thorn in the side of the sedevacantists, for obvious reasons, and the Ministry of Internal Order expects trouble. 

Monitoring sedevacantist chatter on social media has revealed to the Ministry that there is internal dissent among them. Some of them, especially those that came over from the Purity of the Throne cult, reject the arch-heretic's claim that Ms. Yubari will give birth to the new emperor. They insist that any true emperor must be of pure Amarr blood. Diametrically opposed to them are the Promissae Matris, a new and very Yubari-centered devotional cult. The Ministry considers it quite possible that the arch-heretic's latest sermon will lead to a schism in the sedevacantist movement.

Mr. Firth will assist the Ministry in following these developments closely, at least until coronation day is over, after which he will be rejoining the crew of the Indagatrix. 

I will inform the rest of the crew, who no doubt will as be sad as I am that we will have to miss our political officer for another week.

Coronation day preparations

My visit to Mehatoor over the last couple of days was somewhat reassuring. The focus in the station is now fully on the preparations for a grand celebration: next week is coronation day! 

Banners and decorations are put in place, shops have longer opening hours, extra services are held at the churches and chapels, and the restaurants are taking reservations. The entire station is getting ready for the anniversary of the ascension of blessed Catiz Tash-Murkon to the Holy Throne. She was anointed Empress Catiz I on September 27th, YC128. 

Her coronation took place roughly one year after the cowardly assassination of her predecessor, Empress Jamyl I, by the Drifters. So, it is only fitting that before celebrating Empress Catiz's wise and merciful rule with a formal ball, LUMEN will hold a remembrance ceremony for her predecessor in Safizon. 

The ceremony will be organised by the most venerable paladins of the Praetoria Imperialis Excubitoris and the Societas. I look forward to see the ranks of the LUMEN pilots, all dressed in their military gala uniforms hardly visible behind many rows of medals attesting their service to the Empire. 

I look forward to interrupt my expedition next weekend again, so I can attend as well. I am preparing a sermon for the occasion.

Missionary Missive II

Heading back to Mehatoor, I again reconnected to LUMEN's servers and found that I received a second letter from brother Hugo. 

It is mostly a letter of complaint.

He and his companions are confined to the Ardishapur quarter of the colonists' space station. This is a sector on the lower decks, reserved for orthodox Amarrians. It is a measure to avoid disputes with the other colonists, who call themselves the "Starborn". Brother Hugo finds it unfair that the Starborn are free to go anywhere they please, while the missionaries in the Ardishapur quarter have to stay in their sector.

Brother Hugo also complains that the Starborn do not adhere to the Theology Council canon. They have a bad habit of questioning any House of Authority. They have the pretension to "think for themselves"! This he considers a malicious outgrowth of vanity and pride. He argues that ultimately such an attitude leads to a failed system of governance: a democracy where everyone's vote is equal. In such a system the opinion of any lowly mindless thug, shouted loudly in drunken moods on late nights in the pub, is deemed to be of equal weight as the voice of an Emperor anointed by God. Even a child can see the madness in this.

The final complaint in brother Hugo's letter is that for the moment they are forbidden to go proselytizing on IX. Apparently, there are negotiations taking place between Publius and the inhabitants of the planets, the "Originals" as they are called by most baseliners in the station. For the duration of the negotiations between the Starborn and the Originals, trips to their settlements are not allowed.

Despite this lockdown, more information is trickling in and reaching even the Ardishapur quarter. It is now confirmed that the Originals are not native but come from an earlier wave of colonists under the protection of a capsuleer corporation, the Alexylva Paradox, who are also involved in these negotiations. 

The Originals settled almost all of the planets in the system, including the inhospitable lava worlds. Most settlements are relatively small, like the one on IX. The sixth planet of the system is their capital planet, hosting a much larger settlement. Planet VI is a world with a mild and pleasant climate, where forests with giant trees alternate with grassland. 

Brother Hugo and his companions are eager to visit VI and see the Originals' capital in person. He hopes the negotiations are concluded swiftly, but fears it will take a lot of time because the Originals have democratic decision-making, which he claims will slows down things with endless meetings of countless sub-committees. Personally, I see it differently: the cultural similarities between the Starborn and the Originals should be helpful in reaching an agreement faster. 

Corrosion

Investigation of the retrieved mapper drone has shown severe micropitting corrosion, with submillimeter size pits localized in some regions. Inside the drone's mechanical parts, the corrosion is almost exclusively on the electronics. Normally, such a targeted attack would be from nanites, as chemicals give a more diffusive pattern. However, no nanites were detected. Also when we went back through the decontamination, it did not show any harmful nanites.

So, we are still a bit at a loss to explain what causes the damage, but it is clear that it is targeting semiconductor regions. I am also not sure how we can protect ourselves from something that we do not know. 

Mr. Damus's legs suffer from the same strange corrosion, and we are unable to repair in on the Indagatrix.

So, I am planning another short trip to Mehatoor. First, our labs can do a much better job at investigating what is going on, and second, mr. Damus's legs come with a life-long warranty so we will have him fixed in the medbay with the newest model legs from Wiyrkomi Industrial Biomechanics.

Rescue

We have found mr. Damus, and he is mostly unharmed, even though he was dehydrated. 

He had decided for his walk to follow the likely path that a mapping drone would follow, in the hopes of retrieving the missing drone. A clever move, and a good way to give a goal for a walk. He did manage to find the drone, and was bringing it back, when his legs stopped working. Mr. Damus has prosthetic legs, higher-end ones from Wiyrkomi Industrial Biomechanics. They can not fail without warning days in advance, at least according to Wiyrkomi's advertising.

On top of that, also his comms failed. Without functioning legs and with no way to warn ms. Ellur, he could only crawl but did not make much progress. We found him in square G1 near the edge of the biosphere. In a patch of rye - which ms. Ellur took as proof that all these malfunctions are the work of a Feldgeist. 

Even disregarding the superstition of Feldgeister, it is starting to become conspicuous that so many things fail while we are in the biosphere. We're going to inspect the retrieved mapping drone to figure out what is wrong, as it is the object that has been exposed the longest to whatever influence is present there. In addition, I am implementing a full bio/chemical/physical decontamination procedure for when we exit the biosphere. 

I do hope that it is not a pathogen or disease, as I am experiencing a strong headache after our search and rescue mission. The crew does not seem to be affected, so maybe I just picked up a cold while in Mehatoor.

Rye wolf

The Indagatrix has returned to Mezagorn, it was not camped by pirates today. Some of the crew had stayed behind in Mezagorn: my technicians, Ralen Ellur, a probe scan specialist from the Mandate, and Levular Damus, my cloak technician. The techies were to try and get the broken scanner back on-line while I was shopping in Mehatoor for new equipment. They were also to see if they can salvage anything useful from the Tetrimon barracks.

Ms. Ellur told me that mr. Damus did not return after his morning walk in the biosphere today.

Even though the Ammatar are now a full member of the family of the faithful, there still lingers a remnant of the old Minmatar animism in many of them. This is the belief that the world is full of spirits attached to places or objects. The spirits can be good or bad, and they display human traits and emotions. Such animism grows out of a desire to describe God, or the supernatural, exclusively in human terms, disregarding the transcendent nature of God.

She believes in so-called "Feldgeister", evil spirits that live in argicultural fields. She thinks mr. Damus may be abducted by a rye wolf, a type of Feldgeist that takes a shape in between a man and a wolf. She thinks she spotted one last night in the rye field nearby, and now she is mighty happy that I am back with the rest of the crew.

I talked her out of that nonsense, and we are setting up a search party with the rest of the crew.

More glow-in-the-dark figurines

On my return to Mehatoor, I could easily arrange for some new vehicles and even new scanner equipment. 

I noticed right away that the station was somewhat in turmoil. Not that this is very unusual, but still the presence of Ministry of Internal Order inquisitors and upholders was more expressed than usual. Some paladins were also guarding what seemed to be a lone armor plate standing against the wall in the hallway leading up to Gottin's Lamp. 

Closer to the entrance, there were little groups of baseliners praying, on their knees. Some were being escorted away by members of the Ministry. The merchant who sold me the glow-in-the-dark figurine of Empress Jamyl again had a market stall up. I was very surprised to find out that this time he is selling glow-in-the-dark figurines of... ms. Yubari, in saintly robes, holding a child!

Most of our pilots were out on yet another glorious mission, but I did meet with Libby. She has taken up the care of ms. Yubari. She explained me what is going on - the arch-heretic Nauplius has been focusing his romantico-theological obsessions on ms. Yubari. Her place of convalescence is becoming a pilgrimage site for his followers, and they have made paintings on the walls.

Religious graffiti is a marked change from the lowing of yak: usually the arch-heretic's infatuations result in the transfer of large amounts of livestock to LUMEN. Gifts of yak are not uncommon as a courtship ritual among upper class Khanid families, but the arch-heretic takes it to another level altogether. I remember a time when his fancy was focusing on ms. Griffiths. Back then new recruits to the 24th Imperial Crusade arriving in Mehatoor mistook LUMEN for a dairy cooperative.

I prayed with Libby in the Chapel for ms. Yubari's recovery, and for the evil of sedevancantism to be purged from Mehatoor's 24th Imperial Crusade station. 

I did not see mr. Firth around, but I made sure to return swiftly back to Mezagorm, since he had suggested I stay until his return.

Missionary Missive

As I reconnected to LUMEN's mail servers on my way back to Mehatoor, a bunch of messages flooded my mailbox. Mail always piles up so fast! 

I skimmed through and disregarded most messages, but I was happily surprised to see a letter from brother Hugo. We met during the transition of St. Vasrayi's relic to the chapel in Seclusion, and struck up a friendship. Seeing an opportunity to bring the Faith to new worlds, brother Hugo and fifteen missionary companions boarded one of the Deep Space Transports in Publius' wormhole colonization fleet.

He writes me that the fleet finally has arrived in a hospitable system, with no less than four temperate worlds orbiting a yellow-orange main sequence star. They decided that it was a good place to settle. Publius and his fellow adventurers have baptized this system "Epikouria". 

They have begun deploying in orbit of Epikouria IX, the outermost planet. Despite its distance to the star, it is one of the four temperate worlds. Nevertheless, it remains a cold world: a substantial portion of its land mass is covered in snow or ice during the current part of its orbit. Brother Hugo included a picture of the world in his letter, taken from the station's observation deck:

Brother Hugo writes that there is a civilization down below on IX. Publius' associates found that most worlds in Epikouria already have some inhabitants, capable of sending out probes to see who has appeared in their system. The inhabitants have been very reluctant to make contact - they seem not to trust outsiders easily, especially outsiders that fly Imperial battleships. 

Orbital observation has detected two separate settlements on IX. One is in a rather arid part near the equator, and the other, larger, is on an island. The population is estimated (again, from satellite observation) to run in the tens of thousands.

Brother Hugo and his companions took a shuttle down planetside, to the island city, bringing scripture and some material to build a mission church. They were pelted with overripe fruit and chased away. Not that they met savages: these people were modern, and clearly belonged to the various cultures of our own cluster. They must have come here on a previous wave of colonization of Anoikis. Either by their own volition, or by lack of interstellar ships, or perhaps after a raid, they remain severed from their Empires.

For the moment, Publius and his new colonists do not seem to be preoccupied by these inhabitants, and mostly ignore them, preferring to live in orbit. Isidorus and others have been putting down mineral extraction facilities in remote parts of most planets, and are starting to harvest planetary resources. I do hope there will be no clashes, and I will pray that brother Hugo receives a better reception on his next visit.

Vehicle rental reviews

The logical next step for my investigation is to reposition the station scanners to find signatures in the biosphere. Signatures that point to objects that are not as young as the vegetation, yet either younger (Tetrimon) or much older (relics) than the rest of the station. There is no absolute certainty that this will work, given the small size the relics may be, but it is not unrealistic and worth a try. 

Unfortunately, the scanner that we had set up inside the biosphere is still not functioning. My tech guru was not able to get it to work, but he's more familiar with range-finding and pinpointing scanners that work on a solar system scale. In addition, the vehicle that we used to transport it - we had parked it next to the deployed scanner - also does not work any more.

In retrospect, I should not have used 1-ISK-RENTALS to rent planetary vehicles. They did have a 4-star review on galnet, but now that I looked again to find out how to contact them, I see that there was only one review. Probably from the owners. And even they did not want to give 5 stars. 

I called them from the Indagatrix, and a woman introducing herself as Kelly told me that there is no breakdown insurance, and also no roadside assistance. Especially when vehicles break down in abandoned forbidden cities floating in Blood Raider infested space, you're on your own. Actually they do not have it even if you drive around in Dam-Torsad! I will have to pay for a new vehicle if I do not bring it back.

This is not a problem for a capsuleer wallet. But I felt I should add something to the reviews for future clients. I do not want to be mean, so I went for 3 stars, and wrote "Had some problem with one of their vehicles breaking down, while parked. Note that you should have your own roadside assistance." 

I considered whether this was maybe a bit too harsh, and also I did not want to bring the lady on call in trouble, so I added (stretching the truth a little bit) "Kelly on the info line was very helpful."

I am heading back for a brief visit to Mehatoor to get a new scanner and some vehicles to move them.

Rewilding

The Tetrimon Order mostly used this place as barracks it seems. I do not think they hid any important relic here. It was merely a conveniently located site in the station. 

Before the Tetrimon turned this facility into their barracks, I think this was a biology or biochemistry lab related to the management of the agricultural biosphere. There is no functioning lab equipment remaining, but we did manage to salvage some old data generated by monitoring devices in the biosphere. It tells the story of how it evolved after the station was abandoned.

The biosphere is a large patch of land, divided in squares of roughly 4 square kilometers. These are laid out in an 8 by 8 chessboard pattern, indicated by coordinates A-H and 1-8. The square patches were alternating agricultural land and wildland. Our entrance is at E1, in the middle of one edge.

When power was diverted to other systems, the solar energy input turned out to be not enough and the biosphere cooled. Perhaps Mezagorm was designed to be closer to the star, or perhaps the design did not live up to specs. Also, biospheres are known to be fickle and liable to instabilities.

It cooled, not to the point of freezing, but reaching a thermal equilibrium cooler than before. Beans and tomatoes stopped setting fruit, and pollinators declined and essentially disappeared. Then the warm-soil bacteria slowed down, reducing nitrogen mineralization. Rye took over from wheat, and conifers started to thrive. At some point when that seemed to settle into a new equilibrium, it appears that the monitoring devices malfunctioned all one by one in a relatively short time span.

Another piece of the puzzle

Over the last couple of days, we have explored the remains of the Tetrimon garrison stationed in the ruins of Mezagorm. It was as I feared: there is nothing of any value left. Broken utensils and machinery, bunk beds, emblems, and other objects indeed show that the Tetrimon Order was here for an extended period of time. 

More recent objects point to at least one team of looters that came after the Tetrimon left: Blood Raiders. We have identified remnants of their food supplies, in particular left-over vials of their blood drinks. This seems to confirm my hunch that they are still from time to time sending raiding parties, hoping to find interesting loot.

We have managed to retrieve some data from the old mainframes in the facility. The data represents logs by the garrison. They are either unreadable or trivial day-to-day activity logs. For example there is a complete record of how many eggs the chickens have been laying every day. They must have been keeping a chicken coop for some reason, in a nearby part of the biosphere. 

Still, the egg records were useful: what struck me is that they used the exact same idiom to denote the biosphere as what is used to denote the "guarded gardens" in the riddle that I found in the restored library of Baron Redwolfe's order. As you will recall, it read:

In the guarded gardens of
the fallen temple of pride,
at the Dark King's bishop,
find the stench of sin.

So, the first two lines seem to be deciphered now: they do refer to this biosphere where we lost the mapping drone. That drone is still not found. Now also the long-range scanner that we have deployed there has stopped working. Not that we need it, it has served its purpose, but I might have to pay the warranty upon returning it, unless we can fix it.

While one of the technicians from my crew works on that, I am investigating even older logs that we retrieved, apparently from the biochemists working here when this was still a facility, probably overseeing the biosphere.

Located

We have found the location of the garrison! Not long after the radio-isotope long range scanner was installed, it read a huge signal, and pointed us to a biochemistry research facility at the edge of the ecosphere hangar, off the main passage connecting it to the Grand Hall. 

In retrospect, it is an logical spot to stay in this abandoned city. It is easily accessible from the Grand Hall where you can land your ship, and it is next to a source of food and water, making it rather autonomous for a long time. Moreover, the forested area provides a good space to have a relaxing walk, or exercise a bit. And, being a research facility, it is easy to seal it off or guard its entrances.

The entrance has been forced open, so we have not been the first visitors after the Tetrimon left from their garrison. Perhaps Sansha or Blood Raiders? They are seen often enough outside Mezagorm, even last week. 

A cautious first look reveals that the place has indeed been thoroughly ransacked. We'll continue to explore it more systematically tomorrow, but it is very disappointing, as probably we will not find much of value. 

Biosphere

The missing mapping drone caused a lot of speculation among the crew. Possibilities were debated, such as a faulty battery or a defect in the communication array. Of course, the location where it went missing was the cause of speculation too. The most popular hypothesis was that it had found a large fleet hangar, perhaps with some passive jamming equipment still active.

Our assumption turned out to be spectacularly wrong.

When we went up to that location, we found a forest. Pine, birch, spruce and fir trees, under a dome of filtered sunlight. We could even hear some animals making sort of squeaking sounds. We have not found the mapping drone, but it is not designed to map out a forest, so I am not surprised it malfunctioned.

This turns out to be an artificial closed ecosystem, that has been abandoned for centuries. Energy input does not come from power generated inside Mezagorm - that has long ceased to function - but from the sunlight collected and spectrally filtered by the dome above, acting as a one-way mirror letting the sunlight in but trapping the infrared radiation. Part of the solar energy is used to run very basic systems, but mostly the whole ecosystem is self-contained, passive, and recycles its own materials.

At one point this must have been a farming ecosystem; there is still a lot of rye growing in open patches and clearances. This would have provided Mezagorm with food even when systems would fail or power  would needed to be diverted for defensive systems. Perhaps the mad Emperor was already taking into account a possible attack or siege.

We repositioned the long-range scanner, so that we can continue the search for the location of the Tetrimon garrison. Once it is set up and triangulating, we will start looking for the mapping drone and exploring the forest a bit.

Mapping Mezagorm

The remote scanners are pointing us towards one of the side-structures of Mezagorm. The whole station is designed as a fractal of ever smaller outer circles surrounding inner circles. In order to close in on the exact location of the old Order of Tetrimon camp, we need to move one of the scanners more towards the outside.

This is difficult since there are no maps of Mezagorm - at least not publicly available, even for scholarly research. So, we do not know how to navigate this cursed city.

I did bring 3D tunnel-mapping drones to help us with that. These are really neat, tiny flying devices with advanced gyroscopes that continuously map their surroundings and keep track of their position and orientation. You let them loose and they will map out large areas of tunnels. 

They are often used in speleology but work fine on abandoned stations too. They can create detailed maps of even the most intricate three-dimensional labyrinths. It just takes them a lot of time, since they have to visit every tunnel.

One of these mapper drones entered a surprisingly large space - the outer walls were too far off for its rangefinder. It did start going around the edge of that space, when suddenly its signal got cut off. 

As this is also roughly in the direction where we would like to reposition the scanner, I am taking a team out to go see this space and get our drone back.

Setting up the expedition

Today the Sansha squad was not present in Shastal, at least not in the neighborhood of Mezagorm. 

The Indagatrix descended into the immense and abandoned Grand Hall of the megalopolis-station. It is always a sight to behold, especially without the light-enhancement of a neocom. First one's eyes have to get used to the darkness, as Shastal star's light only illuminates the top part near the entrance to the vast enclosure. As the shades start to take form in the gloomy darkness, the sense of cursedness of this place grows.

There was no luxury yacht at the landing pad of Galactic Tours. I do not know their schedule this summer  and perhaps there is still one cruise on the way. So I chose a different site to land, one closer to the part where my previous investigations seemed to point to. 

With the crew I spent most of the day setting up a base camp, using some of the power generators that we brought along. We rebooted life support in one of the smaller buildings at the edge of the Grand Hall, a place that seems to be on an intersection of roads inside the station. Tomorrow, we will start up the remote radio-isotope fingerprinting scanners and start triangulation.

During our work, Mr. Firth was suddenly called back to Mehatoor by his superiors for some sort of Sedevacantist emergency. I had to interrupt work to drop him off at the 24th Imperial Crusade station in neighboring Dihra. It is quite uncharacteristic of my political officer to leave me and the crew to do exploration alone. He seemed more than a little cross when he left and did not speak to me during our trip. It is understandable, as he will miss all the archaeological surveying fun!

Sanshas at Mezagorm

We went to Shastal in a bit of a hurry, only to find Mezagorm camped by some Sansha frigates, just hanging there and not moving. 

At first, I though these ships were abandoned. Perhaps they could be boarded and then captured? But the option to board them was not there, so they must have been powered up and with crew. Mr. Firth, my political officer, did not offer any suggestions, I think he is still worrying about the tabloid thing. In stead, he called in the Sansha asking for Navy support.

The Indagatrix is not fitted for offense, so we are waiting in a privately owned station in the system. 

It seems as if the Mad Emperor's cursed station is always attracting pirates and other evil creatures. Perhaps they too look for ancient technology still hidden in its darkened halls?

Unwanted attention

There was one good piece of news today. My Permit for Archeological Investigation (PAI) for the exploration of Mezagorm came in while I was in Seclusion. So, I have contacted the hangar with the request of loading the station scanning equipment back into the Indagatrix.

There is unfortunately also a bit of bad news. Libby came to see me all upset. She found me just when mr. Firth was bringing me the PAI. 

Apparently, some blurry picture of her appeared in a gutter-press tabloid. 

The cause of this is my excuse for her presence on the Indagatrix, spoken in misplaced jest, saying that she was an apparition. This seems to have been taken up by some clickbait hungry paparazzo. There exists a type of information vulture that likes to loiter in docking bays where capsuleers berth their ships, looking for any morsel or scandal that they can exploit. 

It is best to simply come clean, and confess to the port authorities my mistake of bringing Libby out to Seclusion without having submitted the proper paperwork. 

However, mr. Firth spoke out against that obvious solution, as he fears it will reflect poorly on him. He had a very strong opinion on the matter, and did not shy away from using profanities. He suggests that we depart as soon as possible for the exploration of Mezagorm, and said - I quote - "Get out of here, shut up, and stay there like a hermit for a couple of weeks, and pray that this sh*tstorm blows over."

Youth nowadays has no respect for clergy any more.

Miraculous apparition

Initially, there was a bit of consternation from the clearance officer at Mehatoor docking. According to their records Libby never left the 24th Imperial Crusade station, so how can she disembark from my ship? 

I had forgotten about that.

I tried to handwave it, by saying that miraculous apparitions have been reported pretty much throughout scripture, and are nothing to worry about. The clearance officer was not convinced.

Mr. Firth, who has a natural inclination to reduce the amount of problems, especially if they are potential problems for himself, helped. He correctly pointed out that there are two irregularities that actually cancel out.

Libby is currently in the 24th Imperial Crusade station. If it is not necessary to explain how she could appear on a docking vessel, then it is also not necessary to find out whether errors were made in letting a slave leave the station without her Holder's permission. 

Mr. Firth's argument sounded much more convincing to the clearance officer, and I am sure saved us a lot of unnecessary paperwork and other unpleasantries.

Time and tide and wormholes wait for no man

In the age of sail and oar, ships on a long voyage often had to wait at port for favorable winds and an ebbing tide. The retreating tide offers the benefit of riding the retreating waters. The rising tide, on the other hand, pushes the ships back to port. Similarly, the direction of the winds could make a voyage impossible or perilous. So there was often only a short window of time when ships could set sail - and once it had sailed, there was another wait before other vessels could leave.

For those navigating the depths of Anoikis, there are similar laws. One has to wait for a suitable wormhole connection to appear, one that leads not to far away from the intended destination. The connections seem to be random, which has fed the heresy of worshipping an idol of randomness, called "Bob". 

Some mariners of Anoikis have taken to the practice of "rolling" the wormhole, collapsing a hole by driving a critical amount of mass through it. This is done in the hope that a new wormhole will respawn with a better connection. However, this generally takes a dedicated fleet with battleships and cruiser using Higgs anchors, complemented with scanners and guards. 

The lone traveler has to use what is at hand, or wait. An when a propitious connection appears, there is only short window of time to use it. That is why, in the absence of a rolling fleet for Seclusion, I had to ask Libby to keep her luggage ready so we could leave at a moment's notice. 

We did get a good wormhole connection, and little time to use it before it would collapse. With no idea how long before it would roll to Amarr again, I made haste, and with success: We were able to make use of it, and made our way back to Mehatoor without difficulties.