"You weren't the only ones who have been busy lately. Whilst you were gone, we started on the tunnel to the portal. It turns out it's actually much further away than we had anticipated, and the library is making things harder..."
"Why? The library isn't in that direction though..."
"No... But we decided it would be easier to head in that direction first, before curving around towards the chamber. Only, the library has three storeys, making it the deepest point of the base. We need to extend the main tunnel further to compensate, but we think we've got it good. THEXIS and AMPHIS have been doing a huge amount of digging and mining through the rock and stone, so we've actually made a large amount of progress!"
COLUS flicked the switch on the wall he was standing beside, and like before, a small portion of the wall slid backwards, and into a little alcove. COLUS walked through the new opening, followed by OROTHO. Intrigued, we followed them, into a small room with a few torches. Seemingly though, it appeared to be a dead end... Great progress...
We looked around the room, trying to see any sign of "progress" in making the tunnel, but the room was empty... There were holes, or entrances on any of the sides. Just a few torches, and a lever I assumed closed the sliding door from this side.
"Well? Now what?"
"Well... Flick the switch..."
UOPETA leaned forward, reaching out to the new switch, and flicked it. Expecting to see the door close behind us, I was surprised to hear moving mechanical objects to my left instead! Looking into what was the corner of the room, a new opening had appeared! Where there had been a wall, a brightly lit passage extended beyond, along with an iron door, now open...
"OROTHO's very proud of this! He spent a large amount of time yesterday installing it, and testing it. Not only that, but there's added functionality."
COLUS and OROTHO moved through the thin passage, to the other side, where they stopped, waiting for us. We moved through in single file, to the other side, where COLUS pointed to another lever.
"This allows you to gain access from any direction, but the main security element lies at the final point. Even if someone gets this far, they cannot open the last door into the lab from this side. This lever merely allows you to lock this system from this side."
COLUS pulled the lever, and a large section of wall moved into place, blocking off the corridor, and the iron door slammed shut, the sounds of bolts hitting home. From this side, all we could see was a small, thin tunnel, with an iron door directly in front of a wall... It may even give the illusion that there was a passage available here, but it was bricked up.
"Then, down here, we have calculated roughly the distance needed to go down before going horizontally. Follow me..."
We followed COLUS down the stairs, which were brightly lit the entire way down. After a few moments, the stairs stopped, and the corridor continued along for some distance, into darkness, as the torches stopped.
"We plan to keep this tunnel going for a considerable distance to get past the library, and then curve back towards the chamber. We might have gone a considerable distance by the time you come back from destroying those portal chambers. Come on. Let's go and see if AMPHIS and THEROS have had any luck..."
COLUS locked the new door system from the lab side, before coming through the final door, and closing that too. We crossed the lab and went towards the discussion room, where THEROS and AMPHIS were sitting there, with the map and report.
"Any luck then?"
"Yes and no... We seem to have located the locations of the portal chambers... The only thing is... There are four of them..."
"Four?!?! So potentially, HoN Co. have created an additional one hundred and seventy six portals?!?!"
"If each chamber is of a similar construction to the others, then it's entirely possible... But it gets worse... Syeonyx, you better come here..."
I was worried now. I circled the table around to where the two were sitting, and looked at the map. THEROS pointed at two of the locations that they had placed onto the map, and instantly I saw what he meant... Had HoN Co. really done what I think they've done?!?!? Not only had they essentially forced me from my home, but then they had the Gaul to do this?!?!?!
"What? What is it?"
"It's Syeonyx's house... They're built two portal chambers near his house!"
"What? Are you sure? Check those coordinates again!"
"We have, and each time, they point to the same two areas... On to the North West, and one directly over his house..."
As I looked at the map, I couldn't believe it; I was almost shaking. There, on the map, were four purple dots, two I didn't care about. The other two were within the confines of my wall. One was placed where my open-cast quarry had been, whilst the other seemed to be directly below my house... They'd pay for this! As I continued to stare at the map, I noticed something else. One of the other locations was actually atop the stone beach near to Jonas' house!
"You three need to go as soon as possible then. Syeonyx? A for the two portal chambers within your area, play it cool. Don't let it get to you, and try to remain calm. After what you've been through, you don't want to lose it when we're so close to the end. Concentrate on the job, and you'll be fine."
I tried to calm down, I really did... But the line HoN Co. had crossed months ago, they were now dancing upon it, taunting me... I couldn't let this go... I couldn't! I eventually gained enough composure to follow THEROS and UOPETA into the lab to retrieve the six glowing stones required to rid the world of HoN Co., portal by portal!
Syeonyx signing off
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