Hole 9: The D'ni Archives

Welcome to our final hole in the EDGE series. Our journey to CYAN headquarters in May of 1998 yielded many experiences, pictures, surprises and opened up the inside of CYAN headquarters to fans around the globe. We appreciate their support and hope you enjoy the final hole in our series.

Our visit to CYAN was almost at an end, yet there was still one last discovery necessary to make our trip complete: The chance to get inside the elevator, and maybe even discover where it could take us. As the normal business day drew to a close, several of the Cyan employees began to leave for the day. If we were ever to get a peek inside, now was our chance. Because the elevator doors on the upper floor are near the busy main hallway, we decided that we'd have a better chance if we tried to enter the elevator from the lower floor.

Al and Richard were taking care of a few work releated details, and we had not seen Rand since he'd disappeared in the elevator. Since our two guides were preocupied, we explained that we a little film left, and wanted to get a few more pictures of the downstairs area. Al and Richard were going to be busy for a few minutes, so they didn't mind. We ran down the stairs, and headed towards the lower elevator doors. Upon approaching them, we noticed that unlike the elevator doors on the upper floor, the button pannel outside the downstairs elevator doors had both an "up" and AND a "down" button.

With a great deal of anticipation, we called for the elevator, which seemed to take an unusually long time to arrive. Finally, with a ding the doors opened, and we stepped inside.

Once inside the elevator, we didn't really notice anything out of the ordinary. The lighting and reflective interior was just like the inside of any other elevator. The music of the Riven Soundtrack could be heard playing softly over the speakers. The doors closed behind us, and for a minute we were disappointed...until we saw the button panel: In addition to the buttons for the first and second floors, there were ten additional buttons with D'ni numerals next to them.

Certainly this was something! Of the allusions and shadows that we'd found up to this point, nothing provided such concrete evidence of Cyan's further knowledge of D'ni like this elevator. Where would these additional levels lead, and what further evidences did they contain?

We had come this far, and we weren't about to back out now. Gordon reached over and pushed one of the D'ni buttons. The elevator didn't move, but something else happened.

In the panel above the buttons, red words lit up.

The message simply said: "Restricted Floor"

We pushed each of the ten D'ni floor buttons, and each time got the same message. Next to this message were several keyholes, one of which certainly matches the key that Rand used. Without that key, it seemed that whatever lay below the Cyan building would be beyond our reach.

Excited by what we'd found, but still somewhat disappointed at not being able to follow Rand, we pushed the button to open the elevator doors. As Gordon stepped out of the elevator, he looked through the crack and into the fissure at the side of the elevator. We couldn't be sure, but we thought there might have been a faint light coming from far below us. Not having much time to investigate, Doug stood over the crevice and took this photo. Maybe we would be able to see something in this image later.

Immediately after taking this final picture, Doug noticed something we'd missed before. Just to the left of this picture, in the very corner of the elevator, was a small piece of crumpled paper.

..which leads us to our most amazing discovery, something we often wondered but could not begin to believe until now.

This piece of paper contained four prominent details: the phrase "The D'ni Archives", a drawing of an object, a D'ni word we did not recognize, and a stamp or seal of some kind embossed into corner of the paper.

Our trip had fulfilled a need many fans have and yet it also created hundreds if not thousands of questions not yet answered. Maybe after a few weeks, months, the relevation of the D'ni archives would set in...but there was still more to come.