COLUS needed a little time to go through each of the reports we "procured" yesterday, carefully, along with OROTHO, to determine the nature of each. I hadn't managed to look at the headings of any of them, but we had managed to get back to base with a total of three reports. It was more than we had initially anticipated, and hopefully contained enough data to give us a good step in the next direction. We all sat around the large table, in the discussion room, waiting for COLUS and OROTHO to return from the lab, having read through them. THEROS had been the only one who had managed to look through any of them before reaching the base, so I asked him about the contents. He seemed to know as little as I did, about two of them, but the third one he seemed to know what it was.
"Well, you know the transcript we found back at the HoN Co. tower that seemed to be a two-way conversation between two unknown people named 'Umbra' and 'Caput'? And one of them indicated that 'Umbra' had sent 'Caput' a file detailing the plans of Project Ext? One of those reports is that file..."
"How do you mean? Is one of those reports a template of an obsidian farm?"
"Not a template as such... From what I could gather, it detailed the purpose of the project, expenses, staff allocation etc. etc. But as far as I know, there was no reference to it being a template... I think it is a single location which they are utilising to farm obsidian..."
"UOPETA cut in ahead of THEXIS, pointing out a possible reason for this, which should have occurred to all of us at some point.
"When we were there, we found that HoN Co. were utilising a huge lake of lava as their main source to create the obsidian. OROTHO said that these are incredibly rare; likely to be fed through the crust from the mantle, so for the report to document it being a template, lava would have to be a lot more accessible than that! Unless of course, HoN Co. is already aware of large pockets of subterranean lava..."
With HoN Co., it was highly likely that they were looking for more places to establish bigger, more productive obsidian farms, to be able to create more portals, and drastically increase the chances of activating the master portal! We had to put a stop to this! The portal chambers was enough, but we had to eliminate the current obsidian farm, and remove any other traces of future sites!
After some time, OROTHO and COLUS came back from the lab, holding the three reports in their hands, sitting down in their respective places, and remaining silent for a few moments.
"After thoroughly going through the reports, I have some good news, and bad news... The bad news is that the portal chamber that Syeonyx, UOPETA and THEROS found was not the only one... There are several of them, dotted around, with reference to future 'Class B portal chambers'... The good news is, we have reason to believe that this report details the locations of each of them, based on a series of coordinates. THEROS and AMPHIS? Can you take a look at these please?"
COLUS passed the report down the table to where THEROS was sitting, and AMPHIS came over and joined him. They opened the report, and flicked through to the section that COLUS had marked. After a few minutes, they nodded.
"I think we can do something with that..."
"Good... As for the other reports; one seems to be a worker rota... We had hoped we could determine whether the workers are actual HoN Co. employees or captured miners. But the report doesn't go into details about the workers themselves. I'm afraid, UOPETA, if you want to know whether the workers are imprisoned or not, you're going to have to find out yourselves. Admittedly having a few more people rallied with us against HoN Co. would be of tremendous help, but we can't run the risk of bringing them straight here... Find out in your own time, and with your own methods. If you find anything convincing though, run it by me first..."
"Fair enough..."
"As for the last one, it is an outgoings schedule for the obsidian output of that place. On average, the daily output of obsidian is nearly 20 tons! Now obsidian is a very dense material, but that's still an enormous output, which cannot continue! We need to put a stop to that place! Me and OROTHO have been discussing that, at great length, and we probably need to bring Amie in on this. We've come up with a series of ways to eliminate this place, but some are rather drastic and dangerous. However, we never said it was going to be easy. Aside from the guards and workers, there is the lava to worry about, and the vast quantity of water sitting in and around it. OROTHO? Please to explain the difficulties..."
"The process of creating obsidian is the sudden introduction of a cooling agent - in this case, fresh water - to a veritable supply of lava. This sudden cooling process starts of a reaction which solidifies the structure of the molten rock, forming a dense, crystal-lattice structure. As well as heat, as the lava cools, the rock begins to reform, and numerous impurities, as well as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, and numerous other gases, to form a dense, purple surface. As well as that, the cool water is superheated into a gaseous form, at greater-than boiling temperatures. The process itself is, as you can see, incredibly dangerous. The obsidian must be left to cool for a short time afterwards, but after this process, the obsidian cannot be reformed back into lava. In fact, it is one of the few substances that can withstand being engulfed in molten lava."
"Not only that, but a combination of these gases is rather explosive when exposed to a naked flame or a spark. Luckily, the super-heated water vapour generates a humid environment to dampen the effects of the gas cocktail. After much debate, we have come to a conclusion that only one option is available to us... We drown the operation!"
"Drown it? I doubt the reservoir holds enough water to do that..."
"You won't be getting the water from there... You said that the building is close to a large body of water. If you are able to mine around the area, you may be able to violently introduce the water to the lava through the ceiling. There would surely be enough water to drown out the entire operation. The water would also cause significant damage to the structures within, and fill the entire place with water! We have access to a limited cache of explosives, which - if placed in the right areas - should easily do the job. With that gone, we can concentrate on other matters such as this tunnel and the remaining portal chambers."
"Talking of which, come with me..."
"AMPHIS and THEROS? Can you get to work with those coordinates first? The rest of you follow OROTHO. We need to demonstrate the function of the tunnel thus far."
Syeonyx signing off
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