It's hour number 112 since Operation Vyzesillus was launched. We're so deep in the cave system now that our only method of communication with my colleague and friend Dr. @Seketus Reed is via trained messenger rat.

"There you go! Good boy! Seketus will have a treat for you!"

"SQUEEEEK!"

Still no signs of @Cameron Vyzesillus, the Calebs, or any of the other students who were last seen playing their bongos in the upper chambers. Likely they were high out of their minds on some kind of fungus or cave gas. I'm looking for samples to take with us back to Geodia to add to my collection.

The throbbing phosphorescent crystals are, however, mesmerizing. They seem to react to the beat of our feet on the hard cold stone -- ripples of psychedelic greens and pinks fluttering through the tunnels. If there was some way to utilize this natural phenomenon to communicate with the upper chamber, it could be faster than trained rat.

"SQUEEEEK!"

Right now we're unpacking the rafts, as we've come to the source of a wide underground river. Time for some quick MRE and then we'll put in. Could this be an entrance to Agartha? The legendary city at the center of the Earth? The very one that Dr. Reed has been so hell-bent on discovering for these many years? I intend to find out.

It’s been a couple of months here in the Gee-org city network, and I’m still not used to the air pressure. Or the heat. 

The old rule of thumb is the temp goes up 15 degrees for every mile you go down, and the air pressure goes up a heck of a lot more. The Gee-org must have some way to mitigate that, because I reckon we're a lot deeper than that here.

Turns out Agartha isn't just a single city--it's a great network of city-states, running throughout the Earth's crust like a vein of diamonds. Great blocks of apartments and promenades, temples or offices or great meeting halls, streets and passageways all carved out of living rock, and lit with bands of glowing crystal so natural you can almost forget you're miles underground.

@Larissa Crufts has been loving it here. Like she was born to it. She's always off to the market with her new Gee-org friends, or visiting one of their many scientific institutes. She’s taken to wearing the native Gee-org costume of a single colorful sash, which may be suited to the native reptilian form of the Gee-org, but is mighty revealing on Larissa. Though I imagine it's a lot more comfortable than my khakis and flannel in this heat.

Tonight we were at one of their magnificent fountain parks--geothermally powered water shooting nearly half a mile up into a mighty cathedral of stone--where we received mind-pictures from the nightly broadcast of the news-teller. The mind-pictures included images of a small number of human youths who had recently shown up in another branch of their mighty city. The images were blurry, but it appeared to include one with pointy ears and three that look exactly alike.

We'll be leaving to investigate following the next rest period.