Lucky escape!

     There, in the bottom of the basin was the small, spherical object that we had spent so much time looking for. It rested against the side, as though it were staring at us, and as we moved closely it seemed to move along with us, constantly gazing in our direction. THEROS motioned to me to pick it up; I was a little creeped out by the whole idea of picking up an actual creature's eye. It felt wrong, but I bent down closer to the basin and took a better look at it. It was almost reptilian in appearance; shades of dark blue skimmed the out edges, with lighter blues and lime greens filling the centre, as though layered like an onion. But it was the central slit that drew my attention; it was long and dark blue, an inky blue, and ran the length of the Eye itself. It wasn't how I had expected the eye of an Enderman to look like at all, but we had never really had the chance to look at one properly. I was surprised though that it wasn't entirely purple, much like the Endermen themselves, but the other Eyes of Ender weren't purple either. They matched the same appearance the object before me, so at least we knew we had found the right thing.

"Just pick it up. The sooner we retrieve it, the sooner we can get out of here..."

I lowered my hand into the basin and scooped the Eye out, expecting it to be slimy or wet, what with it being an actual eye, but instead it was cold and hard, much like a smooth stone or a marble. It was quite large, sitting rather heavily in the palm of my open hand, with the slit facing me, as though it were staring at me. Turning it over with my other hand, the colours continued around to the other side, and much like any animal eye, it only had one slit. I stood up, still continuing to look at the Eye, wondering how such an object could cause so much trouble, before passing it to THEROS. He studied it for a few moments before passing it to THEXIS, who then studied it in turn, before carefully placing it into the bag he was carrying.

"One down, four to go... I suppose we had better get a move on to the next place before HoN Co. move in and take it before us."

"It doesn't matter anywhere near as much now, the pressure's off to quite some degree. If they have possession of all of the Eyes of Ender, they could activate the portal and take the Keystone for their own use. With one of the Eyes in our possession, they're in no position to do any of that!"

"That's a good point. If they're looking for the Eyes as well, then we're both at a stalemate."

We turned to head back out the door when we heard strange noises coming from either side of the room behind us. Turning to look, our mouths dropped as a huge cloud of smoke snaked its way through the bars of the Affinitas cages and began to circle the room. Huddling closer together, we watched as the smoke circled the room a few times, before settling into two distinct clouds on either side of the back of the room. There was the smell of burning, and iron in the air, which was quickly accompanied by the sound of metallic breathing. The smoke the began to clear, and in its stead were four of those strange creatures that we had encountered before. They remained motionless apart from the slight hovering and the continuous expelling of gas, staring right at us. Did they know about the Ender Eye? One of the creatures hovered forward and stopped a few feet away, before bursting into flame!

"RUN!!!"

As I turned to run, I caught a glimpse of the other remaining creatures spontaneously alight, and we were chased down the passage by echoing screams! We literally sprinted the entire length of the passage, following the torches to find the way back out. Once we reached the small area with the forks, we found the exit and ran the short distance across the bridge onto the Nether stone hill. The adrenaline still pumping, I continued to run with THEROS and THEXIS long after the structure had disappeared into the distance behind us.

----

"They're called Guardians. They're a distant race that apparently lived alongside the Endermen back before they were sealed away in The End. The Endermen made the decision to allocate them the task of guarding the twelve Eyes of Ender and ensure no-one possessed all of them to be able to reactivate the portal to retrieve the Keystone."

We had run all the way back! After leaving the structure behind, we ran a good distance back in the direction of the base camp. After reaching a secluded place, we stopped to catch our breath and determine the next step. We had all pretty much determined that it would be a lot safer and more logical to come back after retrieving each Eye and leave it with the others. It'd be far too dangerous carrying five Ender Eyes with us on the way back. At least this way we have the upper hand of keeping at least one Eye from HoN Co.

"How do you know about all this?"

"Whilst you were gone, we ran an expedition to find out more from the HoN Co. base. We managed to find some data they had taken with them pertaining to the initial discovery of the Enderman city. They mentioned the Guardians as a security system to ensure that no-one would either find or take possession of them all to be able to activate the portal."

"We've got at least one, and the good news is that there were only ever twelve Eyes of Ender. So HoN Co. can't stumble across a spare and put our possible bargaining chip to waste."

"Obviously we're not stopping here; I want you to head back out there, in your own time, and retrieve the other four Eyes of Ender."

When we had got back, Amie was ecstatic to see me back on one piece. We embraced each other for ages, not wanting to let go, and after calming down, we sat together holding hands whilst giving our accounts of our own tales. The others - Amie included - had ventured back off to the HoN Co. base and retrieved more data about their supposed operation set up in the Nether. It seemed they were indeed after the same as us, after interpreting the messages differently, finding out that the Keystone could be used in a different manner.

"If the Keystone is placed within the opening of the inactive master portal, it will be activated almost instantaneously, which means we can't let HoN Co. get a hold of it. With one of the Eyes of Ender in our possession, that's considerably less likely to happen."

"So we head out to the next location and begin to look for the remaining Eyes of Ender? What will you be doing whilst we're gone? Is there more to be learnt from the base?"

"We are hoping to stage another expedition to find more information, as they certainly aren't lacking any there. We also found out what the rest of the base is used for."

"So it's not all for the purpose of retrieving the Eyes of Ender?"

"Not exclusively, no... They have established a training centre for the guards there; there is an archery range, combat arena and a small area that seems to be devoted to high tech armour..."

"High tech armour? Like the Elites armour...?"

"Quite possibly, but we can't say for sure. Additionally, we found that they are performing experiments on specific creatures of the Nether, which definitely seems to support the lack of any fauna around here..."

"We believe they may be using them as additional security for certain areas of the Nether. We found Affinitas cages around the room where we found the Ender Eye, and up near the bridge system..."

"Ah, well that's the thing. We've found out something about those cages. They're not Affinitas cages... They're spawners... They spawn creatures into the world through those cages!"

"What?!?!"

Syeonyx signing off