"Alright then. Let's do this. Standard procedure applies. Destroy the portals two at a time. That means four each. We should be done in less than ten minutes."
I placed one of my stones on the first portal at the start of the corridor, on the right side, whilst UOPETA took the left side, and THEROS went ahead to start from the other end. It was so noisy! The echoing, dripping noises were incredibly loud when so many portals were in close proximity to each other. It probably didn't help that the corridor was so thin, therefore not allowing the sound to travel.
With my first stone in place, I moved along one, and stood in the centre of the corridor, away from them. My first stone had begun the process, and a small portion of the corridor darkened to a sickly green hue. Then the second stone activated. Then, moments later, so too did UOPETA's and THEROS's! The green light now beginning to slowly fill the corridor.
"Watch out at the end of the corridor. We haven't checked it yet, and I can almost guarantee there'll be guards here... Somewhere..."
I stared down the length of the corridor, waiting to see the head of a confused guard appear, but it never happened... Thankfully! The lights from behind me suddenly went out, and I turned in time to see the torches clattering to the floor, extinguishing themselves, as the obsidian frames collapsed, no longer able to support them. The lights at the far end of the tunnel proceeded to do the same, and slowly but surely, we were left in an increasingly darker corridor. The only light coming now from the remaining portals, and the lit torches. Waiting a few minutes after the portals collapsed entirely, reducing the rift to nothing more than a sickly green dot, we retrieved the stones, and moved along to the next portals.
With all of the portals destroyed, we stood in silence, in a pitch-black corridor, where the only sources of light were at the start and the end. In the silence however, we continued to hear the sounds of portals... The distinctive echoes emanated from somewhere below us...
"More...? How many more?"
UOPETA said nothing, but merely pointed towards the far end of the corridor where we hadn't explored yet. Blowpipes drawn, we crept closer to wards the light, expecting to see a guard appear at any time. We reached the top of the steps, but there was nothing... A few steps led down onto a small open niche with a few torches and a lever... What was this? Was this the same as the other chamber? A little hesitant at first, UOPETA moved closer to the lever, and tugged. The way in which he did it suggested he didn't think it would move, but instead, the lever shifted down, clunking into place heavily... Nothing... We waited a few moments, but nothing happened. We expected the lever to pop back up into its original position, like the others had done, but it remained pointing down... Now what?
"Did we miss a lever? Was there one back in the corridor?"
"Not that I saw... I'll go and check..."
THEROS went back down the corridor, pulling a torch from his bag and lighting it, casting an orange glow across the now bare stone brick walls. He went to the far side of the room, and went back up the stairs slightly, looking for anything that might indicate a hidden lever, but he obviously found nothing.
"Maybe it has a similar setup as the other portal chamber. Maybe we need to find another lever before we can get through..."
We waited for THEROS to return to us, but before he reached us, the sounds of stone grating against stone became audible from behind us, and we lurched around in the direction of the sound! Where there had been a wall, now there was an open passage, with light streaming from it, and a guard with his back to us!
Me and UOPETA quickly and silently backed off up the steps, and hid in the shadows of the now darkened corridor. UOPETA motioned to THEROS, who quickly rushed up to us, and extinguished the torch.
"What's the ma..."
UOPETA silenced him with his finger, and then pointed around the corner to where the guard was. We remained silent, hidden in the new recesses created by the absence of the portals. All we could hear were the footsteps of the approaching guard. He obviously hadn't seen the dark corridor, so he couldn't have rounded the corner yet. A few moments later, after the footsteps stopped, we heard cursing, and then the sound of running. The guard was coming towards us!
"What the bloody... Where are the portals?"
We waited, with held breaths, hoping he wouldn't see or hear us. We half expected to see another guard appear from behind him, or for him to go rushing back and fetch one, but he seemed to be alone... He reached down and pulled a small black box from his side, pressed it to his mouth and began talking into it... A radio! He was warning guards ahead!
"This is SO-17, calling in H To..."
He stopped in mid sentence, clutching his neck. He dropped the black box; its clattering echoing through the empty corridor. He wavered on his feet, unsteady, before dropping to the floor, to join the radio... UOPETA leapt forwards towards the radio, which was now making the noise of a very confused person!
"Hello...? SO-17? Come in SO-17? Is everything alright?"
With a calm, clear voice, UOPETA spoke into the radio, acting the part of the now unconscious guard:
"SO-17 here... Problem H Tower?"
"We received part of a distress call from you... Is everything alright?"
"Yes, sorry. False alarm. Thought I saw someone, but it was just my shadow, and I dropped the bloody radio..."
"Stop wasting time SO-17! Remain on guard, and don't use this channel unless in an emergency. Understood?"
"Sorry about that... Understood..."
There was a sharp crackle of static before UOPETA crouched beside the guard, placed the radio on his belt loop, and removed the dart from his neck.
"That, was a close one..."
Leaving the guard in the darkened corridor, we moved past him, down the steps and into the now open passage. On the wall, where the guard had bee standing, was another lever! Curious, I pulled it, and the stone walls behind me slid into the centre, slamming shut, leaving a seamless wall segment.
"Ah, I see... It has two controls, but if it's active from one side, you can't deactivate it from the other... Clever... Very useful security device, much like a lock..."
"Well, that could have gone considerably worse..."
"It very well could have done... 'just my shadow...' indeed... Quick thinking, I must admit, but sort of portraying a derpish side to the HoN Co. guards..."
"It worked... Didn't it?"
We moved around to the open side, and before us lay another corridor... It too had portals lining the side walls... In fact, I would go as far as saying it was a perfect replica of the previous corridor! Portals lined both walls, with torches placed at regular intervals, only this time, the far end of the corridor seemed to halt abruptly in a dead end...
We set to work destroying all of the portals. In this corridor, there were only ten portals, five adorning each wall. That meant three each with one remaining. Like before, I started at the beginning on the right side, UOPETA on the left, with THEROS starting from the opposite end. Within less than ten minutes, we stood in another darkened corridor; all torches had been extinguished as the obsidian frames cracked and collapsed, and smoking wooden sticks littered the ground.
"Come on, we're done here. We've go quite a distance to go yet, and it'll be dark soon."
We left the corridor in silence, moving back up the winding staircase in single file.
Syeonyx signing off
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