Four days back!

It amazes me how fast things are coming back to me. Things I've hardly thought of for two years -- like the location of Yeesha's Relto pages, or how to play 'Heek -- simply bubble up in my mind when I need them. I was even able to run through all of Kadish Tolesa from memory with my partner* the day before yesterday! Everything from KI commands to Age solutions, it's all still in there, and merely by being back in that ancient Cavern it's coming back.

And the word is spreading faster than anyone anticipated -- last night the Uru Obsession 'hood had nearly 100 members rejoined, by today they may already be over 100. I saw a lot of familiar 'hood names on the Nexus too, and even more familiar people in my wanderings. I suppose it just goes to show that even without a central gathering place like the Cavern, the Explorers keep in touch. We had scattered to the winds, back to our homes around the world, but we all had our places to check for news. And once it broke, we went to our sources and shared what we had learned, and others there spread it to their sources, until before you know it 3,000 people were scrambling to find their Relto books and Link back down. (Or fly to New Mexico to climb back down, if they couldn't find their books.)

In many ways, it doesn't seem quite real yet. It's like a dream, it feels fragile, like I might wake up one day and find it all gone again. It scares me, that we might lose it again, but at the same time I've got hope. It's like the Restoration refuses to give up, and D'ni refuses to sleep deeply. This is what, the third or fifth go at a Restoration, depending on how you count it? Even if the DRC never takes over again (and really, I hope they don't, I just want them to join us as Explorers), we know how to occupy ourselves, and in time we may be able to restart a proper Restoration ourselves too. Years ago on this blog I posted about a dream I had of the future. The dream has been deferred, but it is not yet dead. The ending will never be written, as long as we continue to heed the Call.

Now I must go catch up on some Surface reading so I can head back underground. See you in the Cavern!

*I met my partner, Amun Aten, 3 years ago in the last incarnation of the Restoration. And we're still together now! He's better than anything the DRC or Yeesha could have done for me.