Friends! CLD research has been progressingly surbarkingly well lately with all the Cloud activity! I've never seen the Cache Lines so lit!

Since my last update, the strange haziness in the Cloud has slowed, but there was a bit of an uptick in noise during the GHAGAFAP event weekend. And by the way, I am so excited about my Portal Tracker in the GHAGARACE for next year's event!

Anyway, perhaps it was because of the risky mission we had you take on to push back against that transdimensional rifting that threatened our world. I mean, it can be a very odd feeling, sensing memories that aren't our own, and somehow digging out cryptic signatures from each.

The Cloud is a mysterious wonder like that! Every day my band of Treasure Troops face that unknown, jumping in and surfing through the Cloud to geocaches waiting to be found, to ensure that they have treasures in them to help boost a bit of that positive excitement when they're found.

But you are new to all this. And new can be strange. I was there once. Hesitant and apprehensive about this unknown frontier. But now, all I see are lines and waves - and adventure - as I travel the Cloud!

Well I do need to warn you: the increase of intermittent haze we've been detecting at HQ has raised some flags. And lately we've even had some internal struggles with agents who aren't quite on the same page about our mission here. But I can assure you every precaution is taken for the safety of our Agents, for Line Keepers, for my Troops, and for you. The Cloud is an endless realm of positive energy! And as long as we don't poke the bear, then everything should be just fine.

Moving forward, we'll be making adjustments in our Portal tech to make sure we don't risk more rifts in the mainframe again. I'm sure our Tech Troop Lily will have some valuable insight. And maybe those changes could also hinder the annoying influence of that Species NULL creature.

Here is what we learned from the transdimensional rift incidents:

• Each weak zone concentrated around the event seemed to be most categorized by one of the fortitudes, identified by its rune symbol, except for the zone affected by all of them, with its own unique rune.
• 
• The memories included reference to code rings on the cipher disc, including roman numerals, letters for geocache types, four terrain type colour quadrants, descriptive attributes, and search indicators (find, dnf, and whether it's a waypoint or a container)
• Certain memories pointed to elements on the cipher disc that in sequence resolved to specific letters when aligned with the alphabet cipher ring on the artifact. We use this cipher disc to translate the Cloud energy and data we observe and record.

I asked for the decoding instructions to be documented below:

Zone readings:
While exploring the area of these ruins, Linus had a very strange feeling, like he was remembering things from a geocaching trip, but not one he'd ever been on. Some kind of Meowja vu? Linus stopped to lick his fur while visions of geocaches danced in his head. Three of them really stood out, though, along with a number. Very strange, his little romp at the ruins, he thought. This meowja vu was nothing like he'd experienced before. Then, he spotted a squirrel, forgot everything, and chased after it.

1st: A Virtual with zero finds.
2nd: A Multi with 5 stages.
3rd: A Letterbox he felt he'd seen at least 50 times.

Zone readings:
Gustov twitched, staring out through a hole in the cage wall. He was en route to something, but he didn't know what. He never knows. All he watches for are the bits of feed that sometimes scatter by his feet when a human spills them. Buc-buc-buc-beeelicious. Well, at least, that's what he'd have his human believe. You see Gustov is also a very smart professor of all things puzzly. And he loves geocaching. A good combo. Except that he's a chicken, and can't really do all that much. Nonetheless, he watched outside as his human made some stops. For some reason these stops far away from coop sweet coop felt very familiar.

1st: DNF at a waypoint in the yellow glow of the city.
2nd: In the forest green a Found cache container.
3rd: A DNF, still in the green forest

Zone readings:
Linus and Gustov met here for the first time. It was a stormy evening, and the clouds rolled overhead. Thankfully it cleared just as they arrived here. Their humans had planned to do some scouting for a wild, intense four-stage adventure. They had no idea what they were in for. This cache was to be a smorgasboard of experiences, each waypoint highlighting a different attribute before reaching the final cache. But Gustov and Linus enjoyed their time, becoming good friends while visiting the three waypoints and watching out for their humans' safety!

1st: They were taken on a boat.
2nd: They waited until the coast was clear.
3rd: Their humans worked together.

Zone readings:
Gustov and Linus don't like water. Linus hates his fur being matted down, and Gustov, well he's just a chicken. So they sat here at beach, watching their humans depart over the lapping blue ocean of fear. They didn't know whether to fear for their humans' lives or fear the thought of having to go rescue them if they needed help. They watched from afar... and no help was needed. Except for maybe one of their stops where they spent a lot of time but didn't seem to leave any happier. After the third stop, the humans returned and they were off to a final. The duo were overjoyed to leave the presence of the wet blue horror.

1st: A scuba dive for a redirect waypoint.
2nd: A boat to a small island but a DNF.
3rd: A short swim for another redirect waypoint.

Zone readings:
Be careful as you approach this zone. CLHQ is reading a heavy influx of energy here, as if being fed from multiple directions. Gustov and Linus never made it here. They were too fearful of what might happen. There were at least three dangers they didn't want to face because, well they may have just been bad geocaching ideas - for them. But those memories must have had a lasting effect because this transdimensional stress point seems extra compromised. As you approach you analyze the area and get a sense of what kept them away.

1st: Thorns for a frustrating DNF.
2nd: A waypoint needing climbing gear.
3rd: A swimming waypoint - water?! Just no.

All together these signatures allowed us to properly sync with the affected weak zones and strengthen the mainframe there.
But something still doesn't sit right with me. I feel like I'm missing something. Maybe you sense it too?

Why were the CLD stress zones repeating these memories? Clearly Linus and Gustov have some close-knit ties to the locations given the start to their GHAGARACE.

Were these memories truly random, or have some meaning? The signature letters have been haunting my dreams.
Does ZGNFGLZFZVYVRFZ mean anything to anyone?
I'll keep at it with my peers. I hope you will too!

May smiles light your line and lead you on.

Woofly,
Sir Tiny Tim

Y'all, you won't believe what I just experienced!

Okay, so I dove into the Cloud to test some improved tethering hardware I've been developing for the Navdiscs. I was surfing the lines - and then I spotted something. It was hard to tell what it was way off in the distance of the cloud, but I thought it might actually be one of those weird NULL creatures.

I swung around over some lines to make my way closer and realized it was much bigger than I thought. It was a shadow that looked a lot like the Species NULL creature, but I couldn't find what was casting the shadow; and it was big. I jumped over to a line near it and spotted a few more smaller shadows, more NULLs! I was really excited - this might be the closest any of us have been to a NULL creature, whatever it is.

The smaller shadows were fluttering, like a flock of them, around the larger shadow. Are they invisible or something? What in the Cloud are they??

That's when it happened - something must have spooked them, because all the shadows started scattering; even the big one seemed to 'take off' from its perch on that line, and disappear. Then I saw what they must have been hiding from my view. The spot they were on had a bit of a blue hue, a smudgey spot. But, it was moving - it looked like a small cloud of blue fog, and it had wisps that seemed to form small tendrils.

I was stationary next to it on another line now, trying to get a good view of it. Then it started to hover toward me, the tendrils reaching in my direction. I felt a ghostly cold pass in front of me, and something did not feel right, not at all!

I wanted to get out of there right away, but it was hard to look away. A tendril was nearing my foot! I spun up my navdisc and it prepared an exit for me just down the line a bit, and I barely managed to accelerate away in time just before it tried to wrap around my ankle!

I'd looked back and it wasn't following. It shrinked back to where it started and looked like it was trying to maneuver down the line it was on. Thankfully, it looked like it was fading slowly too. I don't know what that thing was, but I wanted to KEEP my foot, thank you very much!

This is unprecedented. I just got back to HQ to write this up. The Troops need to know and be aware, we may not be alone in the Cloud!

Signing off for now, Lily

P.S. I sketched what I could remember I saw of that thing. Maybe someone else can be more prepared for a closer study next time.