I prepare to leave from Moscow for Nalchik.

I sing this song, which I love very much, for you....

Last Letter

When all the songs which I do not know go silent
In the astringent air my last paper steamship shouts

Good bye America, oh
Where I never have been
Farewell forever
Take a banjo and play to me on my departing

Your shredded jeans became to small for me
We were taught for so long to love your forbidden fruit

Good bye America, oh
Where I never will be
Whether I shall hear a song,
which I will remember forever

In case you are interested, this is the song of famous rock band Nautilus Pompilius - in their height in the 1980s. I made the translation, sorry if it sounds bad!

Lyosha arrived already.
Roma has been here; we arrived together.
See you soon, Natashka. Thanks for starting this thread for me.

We will post progress from Nalchik in this thread as details became available (and declassified)....

That's touching

Sasha, sorry, you are on official standby.

Realistically, you got another week though.

Natasha arrived. If it were not for the headphones permanently attached to her head and that canvas shoulder bag of hers, I would not have recognised her. She cut her hair short - not Brittney Spears short, but short.

Either road, we are settled in at the military base here at Nalchik airport. This is about as comfortable as it is going to get, I guess.

I am leaving today with Roma and Lyosha to shoot some video and pictures for Natasha of some markings found in a cave. Probably nothing.

Just to fill you all in a bit more regarding the cave.

We were able to track down some of safe_house_7's associates here in Nalchik, and it was not long before they were telling us everything we wanted to know. The only problem is that they were fairly low level thugs that did not know very much. However, they gave us some very good leads.

The biggest lead, perhaps, is this cave. There is an underground temple in the cave where at times human sacrifice took place - we believe the Wolf to have participated but that linkage has not been found. They spoke of powerful guardians in the temple area, that sometimes patroled the cave passages. They said that not too deep into the cave, in a smooth wall, there is a large bas relief of a powerful mage raising horrific beasts from the belly of the earth and the ensuing battle in which the mage has his allies crush all resistance and rule the earth.

It is this sculpture that we went to photograph and take video. Other teams are busy looking for other entrances and mapping the cave's passages. One promising event was a water element entering the cave and popping out almost 2km to the north, so I imagine digging has already begun. The more entrances we can find or create, the better, in general. We have to proceed with great caution, especially if there are some heavy hitting guards in the temple itself - which we have yet to locate. The cave is like a spongework maze, so mapping is slow and difficult.

We got the images and video downloaded for Natasha to beging checking. She has almost recovered from the long travel.

Sasha - Galina is preparing your travel itenary now. You will be leaving in the morning, more than likley. She will be in touch with you.

So what's up with this Nalchik situation? I think I missed something somewhere.

When we arrested 'the wolf' (I think this is in war stories) we uncovered something huge that took us to North America, which has taken us back to Nalchik to tie off the loose ends. Certainly, however, we have reached the hardest part of this investigation. We have some idea of what we are facing, but getting to it is proving to be a very hard nut to crack with all the complexities and intricacies of the situation.

Sufficiently vague?

Basically, we are running down the leads we got from the wolf one by one.

Point me in the direction of this story, plz. I've got nothing to do today but read.

You can read Natasha's topics that she started about circles, Alu demon hounds, cryptography, and so forth.

If you can find "the Wolf" in War Stories, that was pretty much the start of all this - at least, of what I have been able to share.

Our encounter with the Sowki was related as well, but I have shared the details of that yet either.

I am planning a synopsis of our time in North America, but for now, I do not have time.

Actually I am already late for a meeting.

I've read over most of those subjects. ... Hmm.. I think its time for a Cat Scan or an MRI...

Operation Baba Yaga, too...

I hope your forgetfullness is not going to require Society intervention

Yeah. Me too. I'd hate to be in Ron's situation.

... I hate being human... well sorta human....

Careful what you wish for!

Well, the CIA doesn't consider me human. They consider me to be a 'mutant'. *Shrugs* I'm already there.

I walk in your shoes...

Really now... interesting.

Well, almost, just say FSB instead of CIA ...

Our guys had dug out an entrance to the cave that we hoped to use to find the underground temple without using the routes and passages that would be traveled by those using the temple.

By far the hardest cave I ever did, and Sasha, who has done caves all over the world, said it was certainly a challenging cave.

Just over 3 kilometers into the cave, we had to set up our vertical equipment. We descended nearly 45 meters into a small crawlway: elbows and tips of the toes crawling for at least 400 meters, and in cold, wet, thick mud. Mud is everywhere and it gets on everything. Fortunately this passage emerged into a room small enough for all of us to sit. We were able to re-adjust the few bits of equipment that would fit through the passage - we had to take our helmets off for most of the way in order to squeeze through - and to clear out the mud as much as possible, which is not much inside a cave.

There were three passages leading out of this little room, not including the passage from which we had just emerged. Lyosha and Sasha both agreed that we should take door number two, and as we duck walked along they were sensing that evil was getting closer to our position, or the other way round.

Our passage came out into an open room, which had signs of life: mostly chairs, trash, and 1000s of footprints in the shallow mud.

We decided to check out the other two passages in the previous room to see if they were connecting. Sasha climbed up in a small hole but it dead ended after a few meters. He returned and checked out another hole that went under our position and popped out in the open room. The final passaged ended in breakdown (cave in).

Although we were in the cave for only a few hours our asses were sufficiently kicked, except Sasha's. We went back through the 400 meter long crawlway and rested there before climbing out of the vertical shaft, where we would have a further 2+ kilometers of walking passage.

Now that we have a pretty good map of the cave and understanding of its passages, we will be returning with gear in boxes that we can drag behind us or push in front of us as we go through that crawlway so we will be able to rig up some recorders and what-not to find just what the hell is going on down there... if anything, although we are certain that something is happening.

Oh yea Bert, Sasha is using the headlight you gave him for our excursions into the cave.

This is right up his alley! Hehe

Awesome! I'm glad he's getting some use out of it.

Now you guys be careful mucking about in the bowels of the earth.

That reminds me of an idea I had for D&D once.

Having my party enter a dungeon that was actually the inside of a Tarrasque... from a really nasty smelling cave...

Razor wrote:This is right up his alley! Hehe

Who is 'he'?

Bert_the_Turtle wrote:Awesome! I'm glad he's getting some use out of it.

Now you guys be careful mucking about in the bowels of the earth.

Yea. So many wonderful ambush sites in a cave. Bottlenecks - such as that long low crawl - turns, drop offs... not to mention, running in caves a real big no-no. Is that rock stable, a flimsy mineral deposit, oh-no you just slipped in mud and impaled yourself on a stalagmite, etc......

It is a dangerous place to go for fun. Conducting military operations is just plain stupid

Ron Caliburn wrote:Why this site attacts so many who are interested in those pointless games I'll never understand.

I know what you mean... I do not get it either.

Kolya wrote:

Razor wrote:This is right up his alley! Hehe

Who is 'he'?

Sasha, dimwit...

We are dealing with some religion I not know about. It could be some local ancient religion/cult/sect. It is not Muslim for very sure. It involves summoning monsters and human sacrifice -- probably where 'the wolf' crossed over from animal sacrifice to human sacrifice. I am still studying the sculpture. I think that once the temple is discovered, I can get a much better idea of what we are dealing with here. In the meantime, I am learning about some of the local history of these lands. People there and settled by the 9th century. The area fell to Mongols, Georgians, Persians, Ottomans, and Russians since then. The collapse of the Soviet Union and regional instability in this Muslim country has ruined tourism and created some degree of chaos here which probably attracted our supernasty friends.... they can operate without anyone really noticing them. Also, for some reason, I cannot push out the importance of Prometheus in all of this. Not sure why, just the intuition I have.

Hopefully we learn what "Saline" is.

Hopefully we uncover the witch's demon master for to destroy it.

Hopefully we prevent disaster because of the soon to occur lunar eclipse.

Yes, and crawling in the cave is extremely painful. As Sasha loves to repeat, "caving hurts... eventually".