**
​This place is absolutely incredible. Now that we have settled into our new residence in one of the apartments on the first tier, Somin and I decide to explore the rest of the complex. It takes about three days to explore. The university's walls stretch triangularly, point to point between triplet mountains, it’s arches settled firmly into the solid rock of the Rue. Each of the three tiers of arches holds a large, thriving community. Each community is connected by a spiraling road upwards, equipped with a pulley system to help motorcoaches and the occasional oxen pull heavy loads up the corkscrew ramp. There is also an adjoining staircase to the road and 20 elevators around the circular inner rim for smaller loads. There are even staircases spiraling upwards through the tiers of the University, jutting through the floors in thick columns. One column is placed in each point of the university’s trigonal plane. Each of them are 3m around. The University’s campus rests on top and within the thickest and uppermost tier, its buildings short and close together to avoid wind damage. A town on the second tier teeming with Amira powered automatons, market stalls, and restaurants support the population of the university, complete with farmers and shepherds who frequent the mountain valleys and manmade terraces to raise crops and livestock. The bottom tier holds housing, where Somin and I now live. Avalanche barriers cut into the mountainsides adorn the three peaks like circlets, directing melting water into aqueducts and waterfalls that drape down the mountainsides, irrigating the terraces as well as pleasing the eye. And then there is the famous Library of Rue, which Somin and I have been waiting to find since our arrival. The main library within the thick walls of the uppermost tier is stocked with only a fraction of the books the true Library holds, kept safe from decay and aging. I hear scholars have been at work in the true Library day and night for 200 years transferring books to Codex crystals, or Codices, and still do to this day! How many books must be in there?! Ahh, I think I could die happy here.

    ~V

My son and I have arrived at the University of Rue at last!! It has been over a week since we have departed Mureia and traveled across the Rue mountains. Mother would have scolded me for gawking for so long at the architectural marvel, but I could have stared at those arches for an eternity. The three-tiered arch wall seems to be immeasurably tall, maybe up to 600 meters in height. It is dominated by one single massive arch that spans its entire face. Each of the intersecting three arches on the closest wall are must be just over 200 meters tall, and an equal distance at the base. I heard that thehousing on the lower level can hold up to 1,500,000 residents! I feel that architecture of this magnitude should be impossible... and yet, here we stand, toe to toe with one of, if not the greatest architectural achievement in mankind’s history.
​
~V

Traveling through the many tunnels and passes on the road west from our advanced city, the spring snow still clings to the mountainsides and makes me somewhat nervous. There are homes and terraced farmlands covering the lower mountainsides, either dug from the stone of the mountain or made out of blocks of native and imported stone. Many of the homes are painted bright colors around their windows and doorways. Ladders and ropes link levels of homes together. Yet, with all of these homes, many of them are abandoned. The people all have Readers embedded in their skin, just like in Mureia, and one or two automatons help serve the village. What surprised me, however, is the appearance of the automaton they call ‘Tod.’

The automaton is made from the retired organic material from 60 years ago, rather than plated orichalcum. I see why the organic ones are so rare to find… It is difficult to discern how to behave, although Somin seems to be fond of the thing. It’s not human (it barely looks human) and still runs on the basic task-programmed Amira as every other limbed automaton. Nonetheless, because it has had an actual lifespan… I hate to say it, but it is almost like I’m being served by a monster. It makes me uncomfortable, so I can see why they retired such a creature… I suppose it is better than to have mechanical automatons doing work than automatons with the bodies similar to people. By the Hand, the simple thought of it is repulsive! The notion of returning to human slave labor is equivalent to setting the clock of our society back to the middle of the 3rd era, over 7,000 years ago! To think we actually had slaves back then, the barbarity! Everything about back then is barbaric. Even only about 2,500 years ago were we able to pull ourselves from the equally barbaric profit-oriented society, and into the enlightened, resource-based society we live in today. Even the religions of the past were a joke. Despite all the lessons learned in the academies and in Primary, I still can barely grasp the notion of so many people blindly following some dogma without questioning it.
Ah, but it seems I have digressed to some pointless history lesson to empty my troubled mind. Somin seems to enjoy ‘Tod’s’ company and climbs on his large, inhuman shoulders. He does not seem to understand that ‘Tod’ is just another automaton when I tried to explain it to him. It must be nice to be a child again.
 
Somin drew a picture of ‘ Tod ’ before we left the village, and asked that I put it in the journal to keep it safe for him.
~V

​We slept under the starry sky and warmed ourselves with an open fire. The fire took several unsuccessful attempts and cost me some small amount of dignity. However, I have come to believe it was more than a proper price to pay in exchange for this… uncommon experience. Somin was the one to finally start the flames. I will forever be proud of that boy.
​
~V

Researcher Annotation:
**
According to my source, the Mauaev, or the Nomads, decendants of  Mureian peoples, believe in something called Amira, roughly translated as "Heaven". Amira is essence, it is energy. It is active and inactive, and encompases all forms of energy including spiritual and physical. It also the place from which all souls come and where all souls return to be recycled.  (This was a very difficult concept for me to wrap my head around, I assure you.)
Their technology in 5E was based on their ability to program, store, channel, and release this energy to accomplish certain tasks.
ADC's, or Amira Data Crystals, are a crystal storage device that acts to store memories of a person through an embedded Reader Crystal in the back of the neck. My source was unable to explain the exact process, but somehow the Reader's Amira is programmed to be able to translate the Amira of a person's mind into data and send it to the ADC.

I desperately wanted my son, Somin, to experience the joy of rustic traveling, so I insisted on purchasing horses for the trip rather than take motorcoach or rail. With bags strapped to the horses in the fashion that the stable keeper showed us, we traveled on the backs of animals through Mureia’s square. Somin was beaming with the brightest smile as we received confused stares from the city’s people, with their various mindless automatons and motorcoaches. They gawked in awe, and I haven’t the slightest doubt that some stored the image into their personal ADCs (but not one would write the experience down on paper, Reason knows. Likely, these people have not touched parchment since primary education).

~V

I am immeasurably excited! An old friend of my mother invited me to study and teach at the University of Rue! I received the transmission early this morning and bought myself this new handmade journal from an elderly woman in the room next to mine to celebrate. It’s her hobby and not a profession, so the journal is not perfect, but it does meet my needs. I am not the most dedicated writer of diaries, but maybe this little book will be historical someday.
​
~V