"The portals... They're linked to the master portal... The active ones show how many 'node' portals are active and receiving energy from other portals?"
There were three portals currently active, two on the left wall, one on the right... The more portals that were active, the closer the master portal was to being operational! Then, all it needed was a surge of electrostatic discharge, and the master portal would open!
"Yeah, sounds about right... According to these reports and schematics at least... Seems like the third portal came online a few days ago, it doesn't mention anything about the other two..."
"Well what are we waiting for?!?! Let's destroy these portals and put a stop to this now!"
UOPETA ran up to the left hand wall. He dug into the small bag and took out the Solus stone.
"Syeonyx, give me a boost. I want to take these ones out first before we deal with the inactive ones!"
I ran over and helped UOPETA up, allowing him to place the stone on the ledge of the active portal. He hopped down and we stood back. We waited, and waited... Nothing happened. Was there a delay? Did these portals take longer to destroy?
"What's going on, why isn't the stone working?"
"There's only one reason I can think of that would be the cause of that... It's a stable portal... They all are! They can't be destroyed!"
"What about the inactive ones? Surely we can destroy them because there's no rift to link to the frame?"
I interjected at this point, telling him that inactive portals couldn't be destroyed with the stone, only unstable active ones. We also didn't have a pickaxe, but I doubt we would be able to destroy it even if we did.
"The report continues with a bit about these portals... '... The secondary portals show remarkable resilience to all forms of intentional destruction. The use of diamond-edged tools and explosives did nothing more to these portals than expected. It is an intended fail-safe, a last line of defense: if the other portals are destroyed, the secondary portals and the master portal remain resistant to damage. This enables them to lie dormant until additional portals are brought online...'. Basically, these can't be destroyed..."
Great! Just as I feared!
What were we to do? UOPETA says the sedative only lasts for a few hours, and the more we stand about wasting time, the less information we can take back. They would see it as suspicious if a load of papers and records went missing, so we've decided to take as many images as possible, including those of important documents. Instead of taking the reports, we'll take copies!
"Remember to get one of the centre of the ceiling. No doubt OROTHO will be intrigued to see that!"
We hadn't been down long, but I was already beginning to worry about the guards. The sedative would work to varying degrees depending on the physiology of that particular guard, so it might not keep them all sedated for the same length of time. Not only could one wake up and discover something is going on, but they may also wake up and see the other guards unconscious! I helped UOPETA look through important looking records and files, hoping to find as much useful information as possible. THEROS was busy examining the master portal itself. Who knew why, but we didn't have the to argue about it. After about twenty minutes of sifting through papers, taking pictures and putting them back in roughly where they belonged, we had all we needed.
"Come on THEROS, we're going. I don't want to risk being here too long in case OROTHO miscalculated with his sedative! We've got all we need!"
THEROS began walking back down the stairs that led up to the master portal. At the bottom, he paused and looked back...
"What? What is it?"
"It's... Erm.. Nothing, nothing. Let's go..."
We headed back up the stairs to the conducting rod, and all the way back up the winding stairwell. A few moments later, we ascended through the last of the stairs, and the unconscious guard's body put me at ease. The sedative was still in effect. We didn't want to risk anything, even at such a late stage, even if it looked like we had gotten away with it. We crept from the base entrance, UOPETA flicking the lever to lock the door behind us. The wall slide back into place, and we cautiously made our way back to the treeline. Skirting around the edge, we checked on the guards from a distance: still out cold! After that, we quickly made our way back to the base. We were carrying very valuable data, and the last thing we wanted to do was get caught with it!
We got back around mid afternoon. As soon as we got there, we transferred all of the images over to AMPHIS who examined them, along with OROTHO and COLUS. Everyone seemed to be showing signs of disbelief, all except OROTHO, who was fascinated by the image of the ceiling construction.
"Is this what you found? How many guards were there? Any scientists? Any other civilians?"
"There were four guards posted outside, with one more guarding the interior. There were no civilians of any kind. It was almost too easy. When we got into the main chamber, we found the master portal easy enough, and then we noticed these portals on the walls... It seems OROTHO was right..."
At the instant he heard his name mentioned, he looked up from the image and beamed! OROTHO's theory of the portal we found being a "node" portal or a secondary portal, whichever you chose, was correct. Or so it would seem.
"Ok, you three get some rest and come find us later. We'll need a few hours to sift through the data and make some sense of it."
We all headed off to our rooms for something to eat. I was famished, not having eaten anything at so far!
A few hours later, COLUS called us all to the discussion room where everyone was currently in attendance, even OROTHO. COLUS told us the news: OROTHO had hit the nail on the head about the latest portal we found. It was a way of linking multiple portals to the master portal without hundreds of connections. It seemed that this was a way to reduce the chances of the master portal being found, if anyone was able to detect the energy signatures given off by an active portal. OROTHO stepped forward now, presenting the information we collected from the reports and files we had taken photos of:
"From the data you collected, I am able to inform you that the additional portals you found within the master portal chamber are similar to the node portals. They are referred to as secondary portals, and perform the same job as the portal you found. However they link multiple node portals to the master portal. This may seem to be a waste of resources, but in fact, it is quite the opposite! It seems their construction is much more rigid, allowing them to stand up to a large amount of damage. It also seems that every one is physically indestructible when enough node portals connect to it, thus activating it. The only way to deactivate these secondary portals is to knock out enough node portals that link to it. The secondary portals cannot be destroyed however. They are the last line of defense. If these portals were to be destroyed, the master portal would be vulnerable, but at its present state, the master portal cannot be destroyed either! As long as a secondary portal is linked to other node portals, the master portal cannot be destroyed."
COLUS took over at this point:
"That means then that the only way to completely remove the threat of the master portal is to remove the node portals. This will knock out the secondary portals within the chamber, and allow us to attack the master portal."
"All of these random names is getting confusing, and it will be very inaccurate to write a report about this when I'm constantly switching between portal types. We need to set out the types, and establish obvious names for them. That will make documenting them easier, and it'll be easier as well for a legend on a map!"
"AMPHIS is right, this will get confusing. How about this: a standard portal is just a portal, the large one that is linked to everything is the master portal. The portals beneath the conducting tower are primary portals, and the node portals are secondary portals. It all links that way and avoids confusion!"
We all agreed to this method of naming the portals. I had to admit it was a little confusing with the word 'portal' being thrown around a lot.
"OROTHO needs some more time to analyse the images of the strange construct embedded into the ceiling. We believe it links the 'primary' portals to the master portal, but we need additional time to verify that from the reports. Me and OROTHO will remain here to work that out. Everyone else, get some rest. We may have a mission tomorrow!"
We all headed off to our rooms again. I was in deep thought, and was wondering about the secondary portals. They were linked to each individual portal and acted as a telegraph pole. It collected the energy signatures from each active portal, and transmitted that to the primary portals. The collection of primary portals all needed to be active before the master portal could be opened, via electrostatic discharge. But for a primary portal to be active, a specific number of secondary portals would need to be linked to it, and for that to happen, a specific number of portals had to be linked to the secondary portals. Logically, the best place to attack this network was at the primary portal, but these were indestructible, so we would need to aim our efforts at the secondary portals. Hopefully OROTHO and COLUS would be able to work through the data a bit more thoroughly by tomorrow, and we'd have some answers. The only good thing about the situation was that in the master portal chamber, only three of the primary portals were active, out of ten... I had a feeling the conducting tower was going to be a regular visiting spot in the future...
Syeonyx signing off
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