Day 98: Portal map

     Amie, OROTHO and COLUS spent the better part of yesterday afternoon and evening discussing the portal situation. They all agreed that the secondary portals were top priority, as we could essentially take out forty standard portals in a single shot, regardless of how many replicated portals they set up. As long as the "disappearance" of Professor Fenrii from the HoN Co. labs is enough to stall the progress into the primary portal replication research, we might just make it. THEROS has been working with AMPHIS collating the data that everyone else managed to run off, and me, UOPETA and THEXIS have had little to do but sit around waiting. I was happy to know, once I woke up, that they had created an updated map showing the location of portals we have destroyed - both secondary and standard - and the locations of any more know secondary portals. We're not bothering with primary portals as they are considered "a waste of time and effort"... At least that's OROTHO's viewpoint. COLUS has pointed out though that if we're primarily going for secondary portals, we'll need to be prepared for guards and more Affinitas cages setup nearby. So far, we've outlined the definite locations of five additional secondary portals. Amie cannot verify if they are active or not, but we are to assume they are and they are not. Going with one assumption means leaving either the Solus stone of the diamond pickaxe behind. And the last thing we need is to find an inactive secondary portal, and no way to destroy it! OROTHO has come to the conclusion though that most, if not all of them will be active, especially if HoN Co. have been activating more of these replicated portals. After we take out these next five, UOPETA, THEROS and myself will be checking at the conducting tower again to see if it has made any impact at all on the currently active primary portals... Amie has informed us though that at least half of the connected secondary portals must be destroyed or deactivated for the primary portal to become deactivated, however, this is often compensated by other secondary portals which may already be online. Well, five secondary portals is definitely a start!

     COLUS has refused to allow us to begin the operation today as he believes that HoN CO. guards may still be more abundant than usual. THEXIS verified this a while ago. He had been monitoring communications traffic from HoN Co. guards - without giving our position away - and he says that they know she's missing. They're performing a wide search area in all directions, paying close attention to portal locations. They haven't found her, obviously, but the patrols are likely to cross by our base by the end of today. COLUS has assured us that the base is secured; it is securely locked down, and no-one can find the lever to access the hatch. Even if they could, the hatch would remain locked. Besides, from an external point of view, the base looks like a pool of water in the midst of a few high climbing cliff walls. Nothing suspicious there. We do need to ensure that we aren't spotted at night though; I remember when I first found the base. There had been a light emanating from the centre of the pool when it was dark, which made it a little obvious. We've taken down the torches close to the hatch, so the closest light source to it now is the lava trench, and it's unlikely the light is going to get that far. Unless the guards decide to go swimming!

"Tomorrow, before you head out, THEXIS will monitor radio chatter to determine an approximate direction and distance the search is heading. If it's safe, you three will go out and remove the known secondary portals. Once this is done, report back for an update about the search teams, and we'll try to negotiate a safe path to the conducting tower. We don't know what the guards will do after they stop searching, nor do we know how far they are likely to go before they give up. As usual, we shall assume the worst, and act accordingly. Until then, try to determine the plan of action. What you do, and how you do it is up to you, but as long as those five portals are destroyed, we should be good!"

I followed THEROS and UOPETA to the library to plot a course, and decide on a plan. We essentially had two options: go for the furthest portal first and work our way back to the nearest, or do the opposite. It seemed more logical to do it the first way as we needed to come back to the base to get an idea as to what the search teams were doing. The last we needed was to run into a whole squad of HoN Co. guards! Provided the teams were still searching when we got back to the base, we would have an easy path to the conducting tower. Once there, it was likely to be heavily guarded though considering the recent events. It's not every day a top scientist goes missing from HoN Co. ... Who knows what they were thinking right now. Chances were that the research into secondary portal replication would be put on hold until she had either been found or replaced. Well, it definitely wasn't going to be the former.

"We'll start with the secondary portal off to the far North, and work towards the one closest to the base, by following the arc that they create. Then we double time it due South back to the base, hopefully evading any returning search teams. Once back, we determine the current operation the search teams are performing and either go to the conducting tower, or wait until they pass. Here's to hoping that they don't give up the search until after we return from the conducting tower. I have a feeling that once they give up the search, they'll all converge on the conducting tower. Not an ideal location to be pinned down in!"

Well, that was the plan then. Take out the portals, check on the search teams and determine the situation at the conducting tower. Then return with some data Amie has asked us to acquire which should hopefully allow us to locate the next set of secondary portals. We were going to be very busy over the next few days!

Syeonyx signing off