Gahreesen I:

Here are maps of the two floors of Gahreesen I.

When you first link to Gahreesen, you arrive in a pentagonal shaped room that is open to the sky. This room is called the Well. The arrival point is in the exact center of the room, and is marked by a plate on the floor bearing the symbol of the Guild of Maintainers. In one of the walls there is a second-story opening overlooking the room that is nicknamed the sniper's window because of Simpson's notebook. It allowed maintainer guards to watch arriving visitors. The room has a single armored door that leads to the building interior.

The linking area.

The sky above and the sniper's window.

After leaving the arrival chamber, visitors entered a reception room where they were directed to the window on the left, where they were inspected by guards with ink beetles. The beetles could smell the ink used in linking books and would become agitated if they did. Visitors with linking books had to turn them in at the right-hand window for storage. Once cleared, the visitors were allowed into the corridor outside to continue. Through the open door, the "down" elevator is visible. The "up" elevator is farther along the corridor, and if powered has a lit maintainer's symbol on it to show it's ready for use. Each elevator is one-way only for security.

The doors are heavy, and extremely thick. They operate via electrical motors, and have sensors built into them. The sensors detect KI devices, and determine the security level assigned to them. If the KI device has authorised clearance to access the room or corridor beyond, the door opens. If the KI device does not, the sensor flashes but does not open the door. KI devices given to explorers have a high enough security clearence to open all of the doors on the first floor, but can only open the corridor doors on the second floor. They also will open any of the doors in Gahreesen II.

There are nine corridors in Gahreesen I, five on the first floor and four on the second. The doors are relatively simple double doors that slide to either side, and are about four to five feet thick.

This room is where the guards stored confiscated linking books. Visitors were not allowed here. The books were returned just before visitor linked out to the Nexus Age. Considering that the books in the lockers were the ones they had on the day of the Fall of D'ni, the amount of visitors they had in to process a given day was remarkable; there is a very large number of confiscated books. There must have been a long line of citizens waiting to receive a KI device.

This is the guards' side of the linking book confiscation window.

In the locker room, a forgotten maintainer's helmet can be found on the floor. This is the standard pattern of helmet worn by guards while on duty.

Maintainer's marks were set in every Age approved by the Guild. In the locker room in Gahreesen I, there is a supply of marker units that had not been used yet. In the picture, the one lying on the floor is fully assembled. There are nine shafts standing behind it without caps. Maintainers marks were not only proof that an Age had been approved for release, they also had electronics inside that served as the point of origin for the cylindrical coordinate system used by D'ni for navigation.

Because the caps contained the valuable components, they were kept inside locked up. There are three lockers in the room where caps are stored. Here are the two closest to the shafts.

KI devices were only issued to Maintainer guildsmen at first, according to some sources. However, shortly before the Fall they began general distribution of them to the rest of the D'ni people. The dispensing room was the only one visitors could enter other than the waiting room, and even then it was most likely under strict supervision. After receiving a KI, the visitor's confiscated linking book was returned, and then he or she had to immediately link to Nexus using the book next to the dispenser.

KI devices got their name from Victor Laxman, who was the person who discovered them. The D'ni number 3 (3) was inscribed on the back of the first device he found, and it looked like the letters k-i to him. Simpson thought that the locker room was set up to impress visitors, but that's not very likely. The contents of the room were too sensitive for the Maintainers to have allowed anyone else inside.

This room is across from the "up" elevator. Visitors could only go here or into the elevator, and nowhere else. The elevator was an express to the roof with no stop at the second floor of the building. The "down" elevator worked the same way. Only very important visitors who were authorized to go to Gahreesen II would have been permitted into the elevator.

This room is empty now, and has a large fissure in the floor across the middle. The DRC seems to have moved the equipment found here somewhere else, but it's not written where that might be.

This is the ink beetle cage room. Currently, it can only be reached through a crevice torn through the corridor wall. Originally, it appears that there was a doorway from the warehouse room, but that is now blocked by rubble from a collapsed section of the ceiling. Simpson evidently did not climb over the rubble and find it.

When the DRC first found it, there were remains of dead beetles in the cages. Victor Laxman had them cleaned out.

One of the explorer myths floating around is that the ink beetles were native to Gahreesen. However, the beetles were an ingredient in the ink used in linking books. If the beetles came from this Age, how did the Ronay or D'ni make the ink before 8500 DE, when the Age was written? The myth arose from explorers having learned that Gehn visited Gahreesen and found surviving beetles. When he wrote Riven, he included them in his description so that he'd have them for making ink.

My best guess is that the beetles and trees known to be used in making ink and paper for linking books were all native to Garternay, and were written into other Ages for the same reason Gehn wrote them into Riven. They knew that Garternay was doomed, so making those resources available elsewhere would just be common sense. The Guild of Fine Artists had Ages devoted to the production of the materials they used, as an example.

However, on Gahreesen, it may just be a case of them importing the beetles to use in detecting linking books, and a few escaping and flourishing in the outside world.

Their importance to the maintainers in Gahreesen lay in the fact that the beetles could smell the ink used for linking books and reacted strongly to it. A guard would stand here with a small cage of beetles to check incoming visitors for books. If detected, the visitor would be escorted across to the other side of the room to the locker room window to turn them in.

Simpson's note about the elevators not having a stop on the second floor can be confirmed. Walking around the corridor on that level, there are no doors for the elevators to be found.

This is the sniper's window, which has a commanding view of incoming traffic. While it's unproven except by Simpson's notes, this was probably a guardroom. Due to a higher security level requirement for KIs, none of the other rooms on this level can be entered by explorers.

Simpson mentions beds and couches, but there are none around currently. Either the DRC moved them, or they were in other rooms. This space was once two separate rooms, but the dividing wall collapsed into the lower level.

There is no sign of the lockers he mentioned in the two rooms we can reach. They must be in one of the sealed rooms.

Through this crack in the outer wall of the building, you can see the wall of the socket. We are moving; the wall is holding still. You can see the teeth and depressions cut into the socket wall for the gear to engage.

The second floor of the building was forbidden to visitors. Simpson thought that the only way to get there was by means of a linking book used in conjunction with precise timing. The rooms were also restricted. When an explorer walks on the second floor, his or her KI will open the corridor doors, but will not open the rooms. Note the center lights. Doors you can open flash a blue light once, then open. Doors you cannot open flash a green light twice and do not open.

This is the room holding the generators and electrical switches. The building is turned by water flowing through a tunnel under it. This gigantic gear engages teeth carved into the stationary wall of the socket the building is set into, and turns a generator to make electricity.

This is the panel with the master switches to send power to various parts of the building. From left to right, the first switch turns on the power panel itself. The second connects the panel to the generator. The third powers the "up" elevator. The fourth powers the "down" elevator. The building's interior doors are automatically powered when the generator is running.

To provide maintenance to the main generator, all the power would have to be shut down. This weight system operates a small emergency generator which was used to reboot the system after the main generator was serviced. One man would operate the emergency generator while others activated the main generator.

The roof of the building has layers of defense, all pointed outward. This leads me to believe that the D'ni were very worried by the local wildlife. In this picture, you can see a guard tower with firing slits, spikes, and electrified wire strung around the building.

The creatures mentioned are very rare, it seems, and may have been passing through the area when Simpson got a look at them. No explorer has ever seen one, although occasionally you can hear them in the distance. There are recordings of their calls.

   

The central well of the building with the landing stage at the bottom is also protected, which means that it is likely that at least some of the danger seems to have came from the sky.

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