A breakthrough

A breakthrough! The images of the Talocan Ten - sculptures and stone carvings in Jakri - have found a match in our library's database. They appeared in the work of Reinhart Novan, explorer and member of the Societas.

Novan investigated the Takmahl and their connection with the Ametat and Avetat, before disappearing about seven years ago for deepspace explorations from which he has not returned (yet). Not only has he left a log of his explorations, but also extensive records and documentation material. I remember having studied those before, and this is probably why I subconsciously recognized the imagery. 

In Novan's documentation the Talocan Ten are shown in a different place: apparently the Jakri chapel was not the only place devoted to them. I am eager to read up, and I am forwarding the information I already found to Munan, but for now I must go and enact Saint Nick the Destroyer for the kids...

Negative result

We are bumbling like a bunch of amateurs.

One of the Talocan statues' fingers broke off. It is supposed to be one of the axles on which the cogwheels should be fitted. Probably it broke from putting these things on and off to test the various combinations. Although Munan is in all states and would like to have the slave responsible for this drama flogged, personally I think that this just proves the appendages weren't axles at all. 

Moreover, the initial scans (not conclusive yet) do not reveal any hidden passages or doors from the chamber.

I'm starting to think there is no secret mechanism leading to a hidden chamber. Munan disagrees, though, and wants to continue the search.

Meanwhile, I'll have to interrupt this search to go to Tanoo, and play Saint Nick for the children there. First, I'll drop by Nasreri to consult the library and do some research there, try to cross reference the Talocan imagery with our databases.

Exploring the chamber

The slaves, graciously put at our disposal by a local Holder, are starting to complain. They cannot keep up the high pace of testing one combination per second, it takes them about ten seconds and they make a mess at keeping up the systematics - they confuse which combinations they tested and which not. 

Moreover, the chamber becomes unbearably hot. It is deep below ground, not ventilated, and has a lot of slaves crammed in there to swap the cogwheels. This approach is not going to work.

The scanning equipment has arrived and we are transferring it to the chamber. X-ray will be used to see if there are hidden doors in the chamber. To find hidden rooms that lie deeper in the structure, we have a muon tomography device. Its only drawback is that we can not probe for cavities below the chamber, as it uses cosmic ray muons.

During the scanning phase, the slaves can not continue checking various combinations, as the bulky equipment makes moving around in the room more difficult.

Appendages

Munan pointed out that there are ten portraits of Talocan in the room, and ten cogwheel artifacts. Upon closer inspection, each of the carvings or bas-reliefs appears to have a protrusion that can be an axle of some sort, on which the cogwheel fits. These are fingers that stick out, tongues, toes, and another more inappropriate appendages of the human body.

Ten axles, ten cogwheels: the question is which one goes where. Munan believes the correct combination may unlock another chamber. There are 3628800 possible combinations. If we get the slaves to try out one per second, working day and night with crews relieving each other, we should be done in about two months.

Having set the slaves to work, in the meanwhile we are bringing in scanning equipment, echo, ultrasonic, and x-ray, in order to detect hidden chambers nearby.

The Talocan-Takmahl link

We were able to access the chamber where the artifacts were found. It is a Takmahl chapel - although that word may be misleading. A space like this had many functions, only part of which are related to religion. It is a place to reflect in silence, a place where some rituals take place. In their case, blood sacrifices. It also is a place where a certain knowledge or information is stored. Ledgers, administration, scientific information. Rather than keeping it in a central location, the Takmahl often tended to keep it decentralized and sorted by subject, and put in a chapel dedicated to that subject.

The room has statues and depictions of men and gods, but the peculiar thing is that most of the stone carved figures depict the Talocan. Or at least, how the Takmahl thought the Talocan looked like: people wearing a space suit and helmet in the shape of a snake or monster.

The Talocan are a civilization that existed long before the Takmahl. When the early Takmahl (descendants of Sani Sabik fleeing from Amarr) settled in the Araz constellation, they found abandoned Talocan technology and this gave them the tools for survival, and a boost to change their colony into an empire of its own. So, later, the Takmahl included the Talocan in their mythologies. They considered the advanced technology to be a gift  from their blood god, left behind by the snake-helmeted servants of the blood god.

The chamber was clearly dedicated to the Talocan, and to preserve some knowledge about them. How do the cogwheels fit in? I have to cross reference the depictions, carvings and statuettes in this chamber with the information on the Talocan we have at the Society's library.

The lower chambers

With the tunnel cleared of debris and reinforced, we can finally access the parts of the site where Lord Or'nold found the artifacts. The tunnel leads down and narrows, but its ceiling becomes higher. Near the ceiling, the walls move apart a bit. The changing aspect ratio gives a strange impression, as if you are entering a place made for thin giants. At the same time, you feel small and your eyes are drawn downwards as you descend the stairs at the end of the tunnel. These narrow trapezoidal passages are typical for Takmahl temple architecture on Jakri, according to my guide.

At the bottom of the stairs you arrive at an intersection, in the middle of which stands a thin column, engraved with horizontal lines at the bottom and swirls at the top, evoking some sort of creature that splits the space in two. There are traces of earlier reinforcement work above the walls. The place corresponds to the descriptions of the Or'nold expedition. However, the footage was low quality, so it is certainly worthwhile to see this in person. The chamber where the artifacts were found according to the reports, is sealed - presumably by the Or'nold expedition itself, to enclose its atmosphere and protect it from oxidation and decay. We are taking no risks, though, and are first carefully examining the composition of the air in the sealed room before opening it up again.

The tunnel

Part of the passageway connecting the upper parts of the temple to the lower level has collapsed since it was last explored. It is filled with rubble and one would need to crawl through like a spelunker.

Munan blames the collapse on the expanding city above. Construction and heavy machinery cause underground vibrations that harm the complex. Somewhere above this deep tunnel, there's a new metro line.

We started with mapping drones. These can fly through the tunnel taking footage and measurements. This confirms that the chambers beyond are still intact. With some funds that I was happy to donate to the local Holder, we now can use a team of slaves to clear out the tunnel and reinforce it. They're reinforcing it with synthetic fibre concrete, and Munan complains they're just building a modern tunnel with no respect for the old stone walls.

Sunken Plaza

The old site consists of a large building, the "New Temple", which is now a tourist attraction. It used to be isolated in the plains of the barren world of Jakri IV. However, the expanding city of New Tuz engulfed it, and it is now hard to find in between the houses of a newly developed residential area. Some residents turned their house into souvenir shops and mock Takmahl restaurants, serving blood sausage and other "paleo-diet meals".

However, below the streets and houses of New Tuz, the complex extends deeper and further than the New Temple. The Jakri Archeological Society identified several structures beneath the level of the New Temple. With my guide Munan, we'll be heading to the Sunken Plaza, accessible from the Circular Plaza between the New Temple and a collapsed gallery of the Old Temple. There we'll access tunnels under the lateral platform, where Lord Or'nold found the cogwheel artifacts.

Guide on site

My mail to the Jakri Archeological Society bounced around between ten different persons, leaving a growing trail of messages each appended to the next, a chronicle of the search for the right person to help me. 

It landed on Munan Aabacyon, a very friendly man who would be first in any alphabetical name-calling. Munan is passionate about Jakri's history and the Takmahl, so once we got in touch we got along very well. He can guide me around the site where lord Or'nold found the artifacts long ago. It's now a tourist attraction in the city of New Tuz on Jakri IV, a temple complex. The Or'nold expedition's excavation is not part of the tourist parcours, as it is not easily accessible. But now I've found me a guide.

Post-apocalypse Jakri

When the Amarr exploratory fleets finally arrived in the Araz constellation, the Takmahl empire had long collapsed. The collapse of their civilization was so complete that the survivors reverted to an uncivilized state, keeping the form of some traditions without knowing what they meant or what their origins were. Cannibalism was rampant, and they scavenged for food and tools. Medicine and science had been forgotten.

At first, they must still have remnants of the technology from the pre-collapse Takmahl. But they did not know how to repair this technology, nor how to produce new items. As nature started to take over the buildings and temples in the cities, the survivors were not much more than tribes of wildlings wandering around amongst the ruins. Violence for the scarce resources further reduced the already decimated post-apocalyptic survivors. For nearly a thousand years, the post-collapse tribes wandered or settled in the decaying ruins of the once-advanced Takmahl civilization, from time to time finding artefacts of great power. What a strange magical world this must have been to live in!

Impression of ruins on Jakri IV, with encampment, at the time of
its discovery by Amarr explorers. By Brandon Gobey.

In some way, this is a small mirror version of what must have happened to the cluster during the dark ages, when we lost the capability to go to space and while the abandoned jump gates stood idle. Humanity's speculated parent civilization never came back for us, and we were left with its decaying ruins and artefacts to build new worlds of our own. But for the inhabitants of the planets in the Araz constellation, who had long forgotten their origins, Amarr came back.

Back to the Araz constellation

I've more or less recovered from my recent assassination. Not much hope to get justice, and I'm not very driven to pursue the matter accross the border from the Federation. Let's call it capsuleer indifference to our own death. Boulette keeps claiming I never made it to the appointment.

I haven't heard back from the expert in the matter, dr. Valate. Perhaps this is for the best, she's Sani Sabik after all.

In stead, I've been preparing to head out to Jakri IV, in the Araz constellation, where the artefacts were found centuries ago.

Yes, again.

I knew it, from the moment I woke up without the constant nagging pain in my right knee. 

This is a fresh clone. 

Which can only mean one thing: I am the victim now of a double homicide. Murdered twice by the orders of the same criminal. I refuse to identify my body back in Oursulaert, in Federal space. Who knows what I suffered before. Perhaps I've been tortured. I don't want to know. I don't want to be exposed to my own remains any more.

Boulette actually tries to get away with it: he contacted me to tell me I never appeared for our appointment. I told him I woke up in a clone backup I made because I didn't trust him. He said that dying is an acceptable excuse to be late for a meeting. I answered we would not be meeting again, and he acted all offended that I would think he got anything to do with my demise. 

I'll continue to research the artefacts without asking the help from criminal kingpins.

Preparations

I made an appointment to meet mr. Boulette and bring him the cogwheels tomorrow. The place where we'll meet is again his horrible restaurant on Oursulaert. I've made myself a clone backup just in case.

In parallel, I've made appointments with the cluster's outstanding experts on Takmahl history. Hedion ones. There's also a famous Sani Sabik researcher, dr. Valerie Valate, that I would like to consult on this finding. 

Sometimes science has to transcend the geopolitics of the moment - I understand this can not be the case when one investigates things that can have military applications. Or, perhaps, even any applications at all. But Takmahl history is fundamental science and may relate in the end to problems -like he Triglavians- that we face as a cluster, as a common group of nations. Is it not good then that academics of the entire cluster get together? Isolationism is counterproductive in the search of our common origins, in the fundamental truths of the universe.

Biting the bullet

I'll have to meet that unpleasant mr. Boulette again. He has been sending me messages, alternating between kind and angry. Sometimes he talks about offers of money and prospects of gold mountains. The next mail he'll be uttering death threats. Ultimately, he wants to complete his collection of the cogwheel artefacts and he knows I have made progress there.

I have not made progress is in understanding the meaning of these artefacts. My first intuition is that it is a kind of starmap, but I haven't found anything in the archives of old charts. Perhaps it plots a course through Anoikis? Did the Takmahl understand enough of Talocan technology to build a wormhole?

Here's where Boulette comes in. He claims the pieces are part of a larger machinery - one that unlocks a vault to the gold bullion of the Takmahl empire at its end. I need to find out how he came to this conclusion.

Starmap search

A busy week - there is a strike of the hangar workers and crews in Tanoo, and I was asked to relay their worries to the directorate at LUMEN.

Apart from that, I've been puzzling - trying to decipher the meaning of the numbers on the ten cogwheels. The different numbers link the different cogs, even though they do not seem to fit. They do create a network: assuming the numbers on the edge of the cogs refer to center numbers, I've come up with the following graph:

The wheel labeled nine has a link to a final marking. I have tried to map the nodes on to stellar systems and the links to jump gate connections between them. I have not yet found a correspondance, but this will require more poring over ancient starmaps.

The tenth cogwheel

Only historical documents, which have been released to the public domain, are freely accessible. Even then, the help of an expert in navigating the obscure databases is more than useful. I would not even have been able to navigate the most basic query forms, but Fifth and Sixth knew the acronyms and the jargon and were able to find the record of lord Or'nold from ages ago.

The tenth and final piece of the puzzle was bequeathed to a local museum documenting the history of human settlement on the Jakri system. We also found out that, unfortunately, the museum burned down, and probably the final cogwheel is lost. However, the will was very nicely documented with pictures of all of the items, including the one I was after. The picture is good enough to make out the numbers on the wheel, and although it is not clear what its dimensions are, it is probably the same size as the other nine.

The collection is complete (well, virtually at least).

The Lumen Effect

"Yeah, it's all about one year old, plate armor and battle drones got installed when you lot moved in", the Fifth Assistant to the Scrivener General said, casually, after I remarked the place looked new.

He continued, "Nasreri office was a quiet place before. Stable power structure in the station. No major Holders about to die and have their will be read out. Lady Tigith was the next one we all supposed would pop, but she's probably still decades away."

I asked, "But that didn't change when we moved here, right?"

Sixth answered, "Actually it did. The Imperial Bureau of Statistics has found a significant correlation between the presence of LUMEN headquarters and vicious Holders dropping dead prematurely in the neighborhood."

"Yes, especially Holders that have a... bad reputation about their methods of reclaiming", Fifth explained, "so, when you got here the office was expanded and we installed a special reinforced room where Lord Dalgray's last will and testament could kept safely."

Sixth muttered "You capsuleers really have no idea about the amount of administrative nuisance you bring along, do you?"

Indeed, the Scriveners do make you feel guilty about asking for a favor.

Meeting with the notaries

Among the noble houses, disputes about inheritance can become really vicious. The Amarr civil law notaries (or scriveners as they are known in the Empire) are often the ultimate victims of such fights. I had no idea notaries specializing in inheritance were under such pressure and threat in the Empire. They do set up the final will and oversee its signing, and when family members disagree or want to pick a fight, the notaries are usually blamed for fraud and they or their families are attacked personally.

Probably that is why I was thoroughly searched for weapons, and then led to a place that looked like a blast-proof interrogation room with stun gun turrets. And why I was met by two masked notaries wearing full defensive body armor, and carrying guns. 

They introduced themselves as the Fifth and Sixth Assistants to the Scrivener General, Folders of the Gilded Frock, and Certified Fellows of the Worshipful Guild of Scriveners of Upper Genesis. It's an ancient profession, with ancient titles.

The Sixth Assistant immediately started shouting at me, telling me that I should tell him what the heck my problem is, and I'd better do that right now or he'd beat me to pulp. He was held back by the Fifth assistant who then pulled him back into the hallway out of the interrogation room so Sixth could cool off. The Fifth assistant then told me that his colleague has been under some strain, he lost a family member after a scrivener's error was found, and also he is known to be very aggressive. The Fifth assistant continued by telling me he liked my face ("very Amarrian", he said) and he would help me, but I'd better comply because he didn't know how much longer he could keep Sixth in check.

Clearly, they were playing good notary bad notary with me.

The tension immediately eased when I told them I didn't want to contest any inheritance or will, and agreed to sign a written statement asserting just that. Although they did not completely trust me, they agreed to help.

Appointments via galnet

Scandalous. The bureau for heritage matters can only be reached via a website, and appointments for a face-to-face talk need to be booked via the website too. The earliest appointment is on December 12th! That's partly because you have to make the appointment in the region where your current home station is now and perhaps the Nasreri office is understaffed, seeing that the Holders on station are not about to die and have no heritage feuds amongst their heirs expected in the near future.

On-line complaints desk connected me to some snooty fifty-year old kid in a comms center, who works every day for another corp. Probably he did Quafe complaints desk yesterday and the bureau of heritage matters today. Needless to say he couldn't help me. 

Thank God the Amarr Civil Service is in the same station as SFRIM's current headquarters, so I could march down there. It is a bit shameful that I used my capsuleer credentials to demand to see a bureau manager: I don't see how a commoner would manage and that is plainly wrong. Anyway, I got an appointment with an inheritance notary warden in a couple of days. I was asked to come unarmed, I wonder why.

Movie night

The movie night went well, I think the movie about faith and friendship was generally well received. And it offered our capsuleers some well earned relaxation.

Perhaps I had hoped that the movie would help Haruka Lightrain to realize that her attempts to force a friendship with Praefecta Isimazu are not working out, but she's a hard nut to crack (I mean Haruka). 

The purposefully confusing title 'Sense of Faith' will work in our favor when trying to supplant the heretic movie of similar name in the most used search engines. A large sum of money was paid to these search engines to make it so...  

It also helps that Nugoeihuvi corporation agreed (again, ISK flowed) to help on the distribution of the movie. They were also kind enough to provide comfortable armchairs to turn our multipurpose room in a movie theatre for the evening.