That was freaky.

I linked down to the Cavern on lunch today. One of the advantages of linking books is you can be down to the Cavern and back again before the rice burns. Or a server finishes jumpstarting. But I digress, perhaps because I am still somewhat shaken.

The DRC were having a Town Hall to announce some new open areas they were about to unveil - perhaps they'd planned on finally letting us into the Guild Hall! - and it was packed down there. I took one look at the crowd list on my KI and decided I was better of just staying in my neighborhood, where I was joined by a number of other exploerers eventually.

We were staring out over the water, waiting for updates from some of our friends who had been brave enough to go into the mob and wondering if we were imagining that the light was getting brighter, or just having our eyes get more and more adjusted as we looked out at the dark, when...

I'm getting shivers now just remembering.

There was an AWFUL Bahro scream, directly above me. I sort of flailed around and saw everybody linking out - but most people didn't have their hands to their Relto books. I didn't have my hand to my book either when the Link hit me. I was just...gone. In Relto, suddenly, and alone.

I've never heard a Bahro scream like that. I couldn't bear to go into my hut and try to link back to the Cavern. It took me a good five minutes to just get to the shelf, and I was litterally shaking when I put my hand to the surface book and came home. Would it work? (There have been speculations that the Bahro are the reason the D'ni had the Linking books at all, after all...)

It did work. (Obviously.) I was...relieved is a weak word for what I felt, but I was relieved.

Only to find news all over the Forums that the scream had been heard by everyone, everywhere - in all the Ages. Not on the surface, but anyone who had Linked. (Everyone who carries a Relto book? I don't think so - there were some explorers not in the Cavern who didn't hear the scream.)

Nobody knows what's happened to the DRC - Kodama apparently had just a split second of warning, as he said "What the --" before the scream hit - but Robbie the Rebuilder was down in the cavern testing out his new camcorder, and he got a film of the last minute or so he was down there. Including the scream. It still sends shivers down my spine - what would make a Bahro scream like that?

And then there have been whispers. Destruction is coming. Find a way, make a home. We had a way - is it still there? Has destruction come? Is our home - ten miles below ground - gone now? And what about him, the one Yeesha is said to have spoken of, who is coming too...

I will have to muster my courage and try to link to the Cavern tomorrow to see what has been left for us. And then...I don't know.

But I can find a way.