Sybella

Vlad Helsing: on est en voice je ne sais pas si tu nous entend

So, you know how I'm always on at you about 'we have to do the Safari in Local Chat and not in Voice', bla bla bla, because Voice tends to exclude a lot of folks whose English is pretty good but who, in the evening on a weeknight, aren't up to following a full conversation at top speed; not to mention those of us who, for one reason or another, can't join in with anything audio during the tour, and you all secretly (or not so secretly) think that's a terrible idea...  

Max the Guide, on Sybella

That's why it's always fun to meet with the frenchies, who absolutely don't care that the majority of Safari visitors can't follow a thing being said in Voice. It's good for your souls, to see things from the other point of view, and it gives me a delicious opportunity to say I told you so. But that's not the main reason we hopped over to Ignis Fatuus Grid this week. 

We went to see Sybella. Not a person, a region, built by the great Max Well. HG Address is of course, at the end of the post. We were delighted to see tat his companion Nadir Rae was also there, she was taken ill this week, so it was a lovely surprise to find her present with us - though she wasn't feeling up to being guide and left that role to Max. You may remember Nadir gave a talk at the recent HIE conference here's the video of that - go into settings and choose auto translate to get subtitles in the language of your choice. It's worth it, her talk 'Once Upon a Time' was very interesting. And hey, throw her a Like while you're there.

Lots of lovely Frenchies were on hand to support Nadir (left)
and Max for this special Safari tour of Sybella

Thirza Ember: ils arrivent

Kelso Uxlay: Bonsoir Nadir. Ravi de voir que tu vas mieux

Star Ravenhurst: Hi Max! Hi Nadir!

Prodyck Theas: https://www.twitch.tv/prodyck

Max Well: hi everyone

Vanessa VanHelsing [fr -> en]: good evening everyone

Francisco Koolhoven: bonsoir

nadir rae: Bonsoir à tous

A great crowd at the landing point

Thirza Ember: wow this is a big crowd

James Atlloud: Yes... wonderful windlight

Laure Azalee: ah que coucou tout le monde

nadir rae [fr→en]: Tonight Max will take my place to guide you

Akila Mobian: Oh, finally found the region. :D

Max Well [fr→en]: Welcome to you all dear travelers!

Max Well [fr→en]: I built this place, some time ago already. It took me 2 weeks to try to reproduce the architectural style of the city of Markarth located in the video game The Elder Scrolls - Skyrim. I created each building in Prims.

For those not familiar, The Elder Scrolls is a free form adventure game, the first iteration of it came out in 1994 - an amazing thirty years ago. It's an adventure set in a world that owes a lot to post-Roman and Medieval architecture and magical thinking, and the sense of lost civilization, limited technology, and tough guy chivalry that makes the perfect landscape for a Hunt, which  is basically what this sim offers the visitor.

You do need to turn on Hover Text and sounds if you want to have any hope at all of finding the treasure... there, you've been warned.

James Atlloud: I've been bumped by a butterfly!

Max Well [fr→en]: To make the textures of walls, stones, doors and others I took photos with my mobile phone while I was playing, then I retouched them in Gimp.

Max Well [fr→en]: This city of Markarth is not an exact representation of the original.  Being a fan of this game I just wanted to reproduce an atmosphere.   Dibella's temple and its tower are only like outside,  The other buildings are purely imaginary. Under the aegis of the red moon was built Sybella.  A mysterious origin? Well not at all, this island had to be named  Dibella, but I just made a typo!

James Atlloud: Oh I know Markarth.  Skyrim and ESO.

nadir rae [fr→en]: So you will enjoy James.atlloud

Laure Azalee: grouikkk grouikkk

Max Well [fr→en]: In old highlights the us and customs were no doubt be different from ours.  Also, as we are in my imagination I like to think that men, in order to protect their families decided together to isolate themselves on the earth of Sybella to do their work. It was a peacetime. Their families sheltered, they devoted themselves to their tasks with a lot of strength and courage.  All their resources for their survival were well kept on Sybella.

Inworld, Max was dropping into Local Chat the explanation of the build in French, and the Translator was doing its thing, but Max was also reading in Voice the French version, for the benefit of, well, all of us. It made the build even more oolala. 

Thirza Ember: I want Max to narrate all our safari tours

Sweety Jefferson: yes thirza he have a nice voice

Alan Scot: j'ai besoin d'un translator

nadir rae [fr→en]: Alan when you arrive you receive a request

Max Well [fr→en]: I invite you to discover them through this visit.  They come in the form of a treasure hunt where There is no Indian on this earth, but many arrows to help you find the way. And if you are lucky, what of course  we wish you, maybe you will find a treasure.

Off we went, across a bunch of rope bridges, heading towards the mountain. PLaces like this acquire a completely different character when you visit them alone, and then you visit with a big crowd. They come alive. Translators can be iffy things, the one here kept giving up on us, but we just went with the flow and got the odd phrase translated for us, enough to keep us going. Pretty soon we were all at the Old Goat Inn - such an ambivalent name - and you'll notice the arrows on the ground, red and black. 

Max Well: There's a clue in the tavern

James Atlloud: So many quests in the Old Goat Tavern!

Thirza Ember: so many old goats...

nadir rae: you have to follow the trail to get to the treasure.

The black arrows are the main route through the build, while the red ones will take you into many of the detailed sections of the build - but not all. 

One of the neatest parts of the build is the stair and ladder TP helper. There's a lot of climbing here, and to assist you in getting around, when you approach the bottom of a ladder or a staircase, you will be instantly teleported to the top.

Steep steps? No problem on Sibella

 These TPs only work in one direction, thus helping you to keep moving towards the final goal - the prize - and to do the tour of the whole island in the way Max intended.

Max Well: I invite you to find the statue of Talos which will give us another clue to find the treasure

James Atlloud: all stairs are not equal - lol

Star Ravenhurst: These are the best stairs

Tosha Tyran: they are knee saving stairs

Forest Azure: hi talos... at least i think you are talos

Max with the god of the place, Talos. And dragon.

We passed the house of Yarl, the big boss around here...

... and I guess a shrine to someone woodlandy, I think the goddess Mara...

Mara... or it might be Twiggy

... until finally we came to the marketplace. There was a clue there that suggested prayer might help find the treasure... but the Max stepped in and said we had to go through the temple of Mara, seen here behind Nadir. There was some talk of going through one temple to find another - confusing...

... best to follow someone smart, like Akila, from Mobius grid and SL. Akila is a fine builder, and is getting busy with projects over on Mobius had come along to check out what others have achieved in Opensim. Importantly, without PBR or other really fancy tech - making it accessible to all.

Akila leads the way

Turns out that yes, at the back of one temple there's a passageway and then another, and another. 

This place is just full of surprises, doorways and tunnels and dungeons and you had to look behind this statue - not took at this statue's behind, that was an error, sorry - to find more hidden sliding doors.

I'm not going to lie to you, nobody found the treasure, unless you count the fun of being in a big happy group rushing around a beautifully built sim. Considering how many people were leaping all over the build, touching off scripts left right and center, we should have all been struggling to get around at this point. But no...

Thirza Ember: do you guys have lag? I have none, amazing.

Sweety Jefferson: laughs

Kelso Uxlay: no lag

James Atlloud: I have no lag at all.

nadir rae [fr→en]: Neither do I

Star Ravenhurst: I don't either James

'are we there yet?' 'not sure...'

The rest of the tour took us out intot he mountainside, along dodgy plank walkways, down everso tight spiral staircases... if you got lost you could just tp to the group, but life is a journey not a destination, so any way you get around is OK by us.

The brave who stuck with us got to visit this waterfall...

 and then a windmill and associated grain caves - everything is so picturesque it's hard not to snap photos every few minutes here.

 but we were all wowed by the Forge, down in the valley...

No safe place to sit here

and of course, further around the island, the saw mill.

From trunk to plank, with wind power

Star Ravenhurst: Love all the moving parts... brilliant!

Thirza Ember: they need a lot of lumber to maintain all the bridges and I guess teleports are wood-burning here...

Star examines the machinery

Max Well: There is much more to see here, but you would need the entire evening to discover it all. You can come back and explore further. Thanks for visiting.

Star Ravenhurst: Have a great week everyone! See you next Safari!

HG Address:  ignis-fatuus.no-ip.biz:8002/Sybella