Day 113: Information relay

     We had carefully made our way back through the tower, hoping not to meet any semi-conscious guards on the way. Luckily, the sedative seemed to be working very effectively, as every guard was still out for the count! However, due the length of time we had taken to retrieve that small snippet of data, UOPETA was worried about a potentially lethal dose administered, and so went and checked the pulses of every guard we had introduced a dart to. We were at the last guard now, next to the last door before the stairs and the entrance.

"This one is fine too. I just wanted to make sure... I don't think I could deal with another on my conscience..."

Another? What wasn't UOPETA telling us? He saw the look on my face and said:

"I'll explain another time..."

Just then, we were given a whole new reason to hurry, as the guard UOPETA had just checked the pulse of began to wake up! He began to groan, moved his hand, and started coughing! We bolted towards the door, closing it behind us. The guard was going to be severely disorientated, so the last thing we wanted to do was get caught! We set of towards our boat, pushed it back into the water, and THEROS rowed us far East, back to base... That moment when the guard regained consciousness had put me on edge, and my heart had still beat very hard after that. Once we got to the base, we found everyone was actually resting already. Oddly enough, even OROTHO was in his room! We thought it best to leave things until the morning. They weren't going to lose anything by telling them tomorrow...

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     Once everyone was awake, we all assembled in the discussion room to update the others about our findings. Amie seemed particularly keen. More so than COLUS! We informed them of what we found there; the tower, the guards, the strange rooms etc. I passed around the few photos of the place I had managed to take, and Amie confirmed that was the right one.

"It's the only other tower that I know of that HoN Co. controls. What did you find in terms of useful information? I see you didn't bring any reports back..."

"We found out a few things, including their acknowledgement of your disappearance."

"Well, that's a given... It'd be more strange if they hadn't. What about us as a whole? Are they aware of us?"

"Without directly making reference to us by name, appearance or anything else, they state that 'random occurrences' have caused a few portals to go missing. We know where they've gone, but it makes me think that they aren't entirely aware of the glowing stone... They might be for all I know, but there was very little to go on. Also, Amie? Do you know anyone of the name 'Umbra' or 'Caput'?"

She shook her head. The names seemed very obscure, and from the way the messages between these individuals was phrased, they didn't communicate too much with other HoN Co. employees. UOPETA then moved on to the actual message that gave us what we needed.

"We found a few notes that seemed to hint at the possibility of such a place as the predicted obsidian farm. As usual, those words were not used directly, but there was reference to the portal replication project, and something about an extension... I don't know what that refers to, but I assumed it was about the obsidian farm..."

"Possibly... Or it could indicate that they've started research in secondary portal replication. If that's the case, we need to stop that immediately! Did they say where it was? What type of place it was?"

"No, but this 'Umbra' had sent a report or a file to this 'Caput' stating the more relevant details about the project. They referred to it as 'Project Ext'..."

"Great... So no locations? Do we know where this Caput is based? We need to find that report!"

"Well as chances would have it, it sounds like they're based at the conducting tower! There was reference to storing the report in the portal data room under the search string 'Project_Ext'..."

"Excellent! That's a good start, and you've managed to get in and out of that tower numerous times. This should be easy!"

We talked a lot more about how to handle the operation; COLUS was giving us permission to simply take the report once it had been located. There was no point leaving it there. Then, we were to come back to base with it, and assess the next stage. We left the base shortly after, and set off towards the tower. Let's hope this doesn't lead to a dead end...

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     We've just arrived at the tower and something odd has happened. There appears to be an increased guard presence here now... As we arrived, we passed the Western side, and could already see two guards. When we moved around to the Northern side, two more were posted on the entrance. How were we going to get through this?

"This is no more difficult than before. We take out the two guards there, and then remove the ones patrolling around the edge. We're going to have to be on our toes this time; if there are more out here, there are likely to be more in there too... Whenever you two are ready..."

Syeonyx signing off