Choice of paths

     As we finally caught our breath, we turned to THEXIS who was still holding the Eye of Ender in his clenched hand. Unfurling his fingers, we stood in silent awe staring at the near-spherical object that lay in his open palm. THEXIS slowly and carefully put it away into the bag before we began a long discussion about the next phase of the operation. We narrowed our options down to the two most logical choices we had available to us: either we head back to the base camp and drop the Eye of Ender off, before setting out for the next one, or we head straight for the next structure from our current location. Both options had their advantages and disadvantages, and once again it seemed as though we were all at different minds about which to choose. THEROS wanted to head on to the next location, using the map to support his point, whilst THEXIS opted for the return journey idea, back to the base camp.

"If we head back we'll be wasting valuable time! We can't guarantee that HoN Co. aren't ahead of us as it is, so going back to the camp would be futile, especially when you consider how close to the next location we are..."

"It doesn't matter if HoN Co. is ahead of us or not; we now have two Eyes of Ender in our possession so they cannot possibly open the portal to The End without us!"

True, but the first Ender Eye we recovered is already secure. We have enough leverage against HoN Co. with that one. We don't need to secure two in exchange for precious time!"

"The greater our leverage the better, surely! If we take this back to the base, it can be hidden in a totally separate place to the first one we recovered."

"But what's the point in travelling all the way back to the base camp when it's much easier and faster to head on to the next location? If we head back, we'll have to rest out in the Nether, totally exposed, which is much more dangerous than losing that Eye!"

"There's only one way to settle this then... Syeonyx? Which idea do you think is the next best step...?"

I had a feeling it'd boil down to me having the final vote... I could see the logic in both methods; if we secured two Eyes of Ender then we had a considerably greater leverage against HoN Co., but it was wasting a lot of time. However, if we continued on to the next location, we would save that time we would originally have lost, but we risk either losing or damaging the Eye we have. Looking at the map that THEROS held out to me, he pointed at where we were, and I was surprised at how right THEROS actually was; we were considerably closer to the next structure than we would be if we were to head back and then backtrack to the same point. The remaining three locations spanned the outer Eastern edge of the map, which meant a massive amount of travelling was required. I pointed out that if I went with THEROS' idea, we wouldn't be returning to the base camp for a long time.

"If we head East, we stay Easy, slowly heading South until we've got each of the Eyes of Ender, before returning to the base camp. We have more than enough supplies to last us that long if we ration them."

Thinking it over a little more, I eventually went with THEROS' idea; I could see THEXIS' shoulders droop slightly as he heard my decision, but I backed it up by supporting THEROS' idea about being closer to this than we would normally be. If we stayed on track, we could definitely make the next location before the end of the day.

"Fair enough... I can't say I'm comfortable with it, but I suppose it is a majority vote... Lead the way..."

Putting the map away, THEROS turned off to the East and continued to head over the stone, perpendicular to the bridge we had just crossed, in the direction of the next location. We had a decent distance left to travel, but it was minute in comparison to the distance it would be to trek all the way back to the base camp. Plus I wasn't really going to enjoy the return journey back over the terrain we encountered to get here. It should be easier as we head across to the far East and the slowly heading due South. Once we reach the last one, we can head more or less North West, back towards the camp.

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     We had been walking for some time now, and we were beginning to wonder if THEROS was taking us in the wrong direction. Obviously we couldn't just assume that as he was the best navigator amongst us, but reaching the next structure was taking a long time. We hadn't even seen the large bridges or struts to suggest the structure was further up ahead. At one point after heading East we did take a rather sudden direction change to the right, essentially heading due South now, but we still had yet to find anything where the next Eye of Ender would be.

"Is it possible that it's way above or below us? I know we're quite low as it is, but there is the possibility it's above us somewhere..."

"It's possible, but surely we would see the struts of the bridges spanning down to our level. Each of the structures we've found so far has been suspended above a lava lake, which I initially assumed was for added protection... Maybe I'm wrong..."

As we continued to follow the edge of the massive lava lake, a large portion of the wall just up ahead began to show small cracks and holes in it. As we drew closer, we could make out something different up ahead behind it, and when we were close enough, we realised we had found the next structure! It had been perfectly hidden behind a large surrounding wall of stone which blocked our view from up ahead. But now we faced a similar problem to before: we were quite low down, and the large struts that supported the bridges climber quite high into the air. We were going to have to find a way up to that before we could get in.

Syeonyx signing off