K'veer

K'veer is an island mansion in the lake of the main D'ni Cavern. It was owned by Veovis and his father for generations before the fall of D'ni, and later became Gehn's home for a time. Gehn also locked his son, Atrus, in one of the mansion's lower chambers after he tried to escape his father's control.

Appearance

K'veer is a corkscrew-shaped island, with rooms spiraling up the terrain both inside and out. A garden at the top provided gathering space and views of the D'ni city. Little of the interior spaces have been opened to explorers. Areas still inaccessible include a wedge-shaped kitchen/dining room, a large circular study, a private library, several bedrooms, and a boat dock. The DRC has provided access to other areas, including the chamber where Atrus was held captive by his father, a large ballroom-like room with a wide view of the lake, and the hallway connecting these two rooms. Within the ballroom is a Nexus terminal, allowing visitors to register the location in their KI and access the Nexus rapid transit system.

Architecturally, the ballroom and hallway are very different from Atrus's prison chamber. The ballroom uses delicate buttresses and faux columns made from up-facing lamps. The floors are polished stone tile, and the walls are mostly plain, with occasional simple ornamentation. The hallway features bare rock, buttressed by intricate stylized rock formation designs. By contrast, Atrus's prison chamber uses heavy columns around the perimeter of the circular space, with ornate decorations and almost Romanesque features. The floor is a much smaller and poorly-maintained stone tile, with a large, decaying mosaic of Ri'neref in the center of the room. This room is described in The Book of D'ni as being one of the oldest rooms in the mansion, located near the base of the island. It is unclear why the room was in such a poor state of repair compared to the rest of the mansion, and why its design is so dramatically different from its surroundings.

History

K'veer is one of many island mansions dotting the cavern lake. At one point these islands were owned by the D'ni government, but many were sold to private owners for large sums starting in 5095 DE, during the reign of King Emen. It is likely, though not confirmed, that K'veer was one of those sold during that time.

Rakeri family ownership

There is no record of exactly how long Lord Rakeri's family owned K'veer, but Aitrus explains to Anna in The Book of Ti'ana that it has been in the family for "many years". Rakeri and his son, Veovis, owned the island up until the fall of D'ni in 9400 DE. After Rakeri's death, Veovis used the island as a base of operations for himself and A'gaeris while they plotted how to strike back at the nation they felt had wronged them. In the days after their final revolt, after A'gaeris killed his co-conspirator during an argument, he kidnapped Aitrus's wife and son and took them to K'veer. Aitrus followed, and tricked A'gaeris into following him into an unstable Age, where both of them died.

Gehn's ownership

At the age of eighteen, Gehn left his mother and newborn son, Atrus, and returned to D'ni on a deluded quest to rebuild the fallen empire. He used K'veer as his home, and eventually returned to the surface to bring Atrus down to D'ni to live with him and learn about the Art. He kept a mute servant, Rijus, whose origins are unknown, and who seemed to know more about the island than Gehn did.

When Atrus concluded that his father was a power-hungry madman, he attempted to flee back to the surface, but was ultimately captured and brought back to the island. Upon their return, Gehn locked Atrus in one of the oldest rooms in the mansion, intent on teaching him a lesson in obedience and coercing him into repairing Gehn's fifth Age, Riven, whose Book had been left on a desk inside. Atrus tried to escape using a discarded cutting tool that had been left in the room, but only managed to collapse a portion of the ceiling, sealing off the exit entirely.

Abandonment

After Atrus and his new wife, Catherine, trapped Gehn on Riven, they moved to Myst, but kept a link back to K'veer locked in a secure location in their library. They burned the Myst Linking Book that would have been left behind in K'veer to prevent Gehn - or any other dangerous person - from finding their new refuge. Years later, their sons, Sirrus and Achenar, devised a plan to get rid of their parents in order to plunder the Ages of Myst. Though they did not know where the link back to K'veer went, they knew it was somewhere that didn't have a link back to Myst. After convincing Catherine that Atrus had used the Book, they sabotaged Atrus's backup Book to prevent either of them from returning. Atrus was once again trapped in his prison on K'veer, while Catherine had continued on to Riven and been captured by Gehn. The two were reunited when the Stranger, who had discovered the Myst Linking Book lost during Gehn's imprisonment on Riven, gave Atrus access to Myst and rescued Catherine from Gehn.

For the next twenty years, K'veer again sat empty. Eventually, Atrus recruited assistants from the Age of Averone to help him drill through the collapsed rock blockading the exit, giving him access to the rest of D'ni for the first time in forty years. The island was once again left vacant while Atrus and his companions worked to find refugees from the fall and rebuild the nearby D'ni capital of Ae'gura.

Present day

Almost 200 years later, in 2004 CE, Atrus's daughter Yeesha gave explorers from the surface access to Atrus's prison on K'veer as part of her "Path of the Shell", wherein she revealed herself as the Grower. The following year, Dr. Watson assisted Yeesha in freeing the bahro by releasing them from the Tablet, which was being held in K'veer's ballroom.

In 2007, the DRC officially released the Age of Ahnonay, giving explorers the ability to complete Yeesha's Path of the Shell once more. As before in 2004, completing this journey brought explorers to K'veer. This time, however, they were able to access the ballroom, in addition to Atrus's prison. Several days after the Path of the Shell could once again be completed, Yeesha appeared in the K'veer ballroom to warn explorers of the impending threat posed by the bahro civil war, before leaving to draw off those bahro intent on destroying D'ni.

Linking Books

Current

• Nexus
• Myst

Historical

• Riven
• Age 37
• Inception