Welcome to "The Diary of a Miner"; a blog detailing the adventures and mysteries that I, Syeonyx, embark upon in my quest to further my mining and survival skills! It'll be tough, there will be good times and bad times, but I'll always be alive to post my adventures... probably...

Day 104: False start...

     I had hoped that today would the day we would head out as a trio again, just me, THEROS and UOPETA. I was ready and raring to go, but Amie has insisted that UOPETA spends another day resting... He was obviously more upset than me, but I think it's because he has less of a role when he's here then I do! I wander around seeing if I can help with any random job, but UOPETA's speciality requires him to be out in the field, proving intelligence for future operations. He can hardly do that stuck in bed, or confined to the base... Once again, COLUS has denied me and THEROS permission to leave and continue without him, but I'm less upset than I was before. I was hoping UOPETA would be able join us, but I suppose it's for the best if we wait until he's well... I decided to do the usual thing, and go around looking for someone to help. As always, I started with AMPHIS down in the library. He was always busy cataloguing something that the others had created; reports, maps, research and data. Although OROTHO hadn't been submitting much in the way of the latter in some time. Maybe it was due to the vast amount of knowledge we had accumulated from the tower. Unfortunately this still meant a job for AMPHIS, who had spent a lot of time whilst we were out destroying portals writing copious notes from the images of the reports. It was easier for him if we could just have taken the reports, but then that would have been noticed and security would have been stepped up a notch.

     When I got to the library, I actually noticed that AMPHIS wasn't buried beneath the usual stack of papers at his desk. In fact I couldn't find him initially, until I descended the stairs to the bottom floor. He was there, with Hermes at his side, browsing through the reports stacked on the one side of the room. He hadn't noticed me until Hermes had begun wagging his tail and panting, and he turned to greet me:

"Oh, hey Syeonyx. What's up? Any sign of UOPETA getting up and about any time soon?"

I told him what Amie had told me, and then what COLUS had said as a result. He could empathise with UOPETA's difficulty to accept the decision the same way I could. He was being stopped from doing the one thing he was good at. That would make anyone a little upset. On the plus side, an extra day's rest may prove very helpful to him, as long as he took their advice. Talking more with AMPHIS, I learnt that he had finally gone through all of the images we had taken from the tower, and compiled them into a single report, using other images as verification.

"It took quite some time, I can tell you that! Next time, try to be a little more concise with the images..."

I left AMPHIS, now knowing there was nothing I could do to help, so I went to the lab to speak to OROTHO and Amie. I wonder if he has got anywhere with the telescope/binocular project I suggested to him...?

     When I walked into the lab, Amie was fiddling around with some of the displays on the wall, holding a notebook, whilst OROTHO was busy looking down the end of a strange tube.

"I can see you...!"

He had managed to make something! Excellent! I went over to see him, OROTHO tracking me with the telescope the entire time. He handed it over, with a very smug look on his face. It seems he took this as a challenge, and he had successfully completed it! I asked him how it worked, and whether it had multiple levels of magnification...

"This is a simple telescope bearing in mind... I can't get it to do all of the fancy things those other ones can, but it can actually increase magnification by twisting the end tube, thus altering the alignment of the lenses."

Holding it up to my right eye, I peered through, and found the other side of the room leap forward! It did work! It was surprisingly focused as well considering the conditions it had been compiled in. Looking around the room, I was amazed at how well it had been put together, and decided to test the magnification. Screwing the end end of the tube clockwise caused the other side of the room to zoom closer towards me, whilst counter-clockwise did the opposite, retreating from my vision. That worked perfectly! I think UOPETA was going to get a lot of use from that, which may make our lives easier. OROTHO said there was still some tinkering to do with the lenses; something about smoothing them down for a clearer image, but I thought it was fine. Ever the perfectionist... He did say that he was also working on a clip-on attachment to allow me to take images through it for use in reports. It would allow us to survey from a distance and take evidence back. I thought that was a great idea, and left my camera with him to get it fitted. As it was technically the easier bit, it would likely be ready by the end of the day, so if we needed by tomorrow, we could try it out! I left him to it, and went to find THEXIS.

     THEXIS seemed very busy, but he said he was just monitoring radio traffic at the tower. He had to be careful doing that because someone could find out he was eavesdropping and attempt to trace it back. But luckily he didn't do it for extended periods of time, and never to the same radio. He was making sure that there wasn't an increased presence when we went over there, and to ensure there wasn't any "comm chatter" that involved us. If we did, he would tell COLUS, and we'd remain sealed inside until it blew over. That hadn't really happened yet. But I had a feeling that as we progressed into this campaign against HoN Co., we were going to attract more and more attention to ourselves. COLUS was already thinking about establishing a second base somewhere so we had a backup location to fall back to if we were ever discovered. It was a good idea, but a lot of work. First we'd need to scope out an area that was suitable, then excavate most of the inside. COLUS had actually thought about extending through to the cliffs above and around us through a secret shaft. It was a good idea, but require a lot of planning. OROTHO had drawn up some plans already though, and he had come up with a simple but effect way to mask our progress whilst we continued. I quite like the idea of that. I had seen the cliffs surrounding us, and they would make an excellent fallback position! We could have a small rustic bridge crossing from each side to the other, and I'm sure OROTHO could wire something up to make it look natural...

"Well I think OROTHO is working on something privately at the moment in the lab. It's essentially a door that forms part of the wall! He's based it on the door you found at the base of the conducting tower, with some of his own little tweaks. He's keeping it a secret though... Probably so if it goes wrong, no-one knows. Don't breath a word of that. Not even I'm meant to know. But when you spend all day snooping in on secrets, it becomes part of you to apply the same methods to everything!"

A secret door eh...? I hadn't seen it... Then again, that's pretty much the point! He hadn't mentioned any of this to me, so presumably on me, THEXIS and OROTHO know about it... Would he have told COLUS...? I would assume he knows, he spends as much time in the lab as OROTHO does! I might ask COLUS about the whole expansion idea though, and see if it leads onto what THEXIS just told me about the hidden door... I would like to find it, but there are so many buttons and levers in the lab, I'm afraid one of them sets of the built-in TNT... That would be disastrous...

Syeonyx signing off

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