Two floors of portals?!?! I quickly made my way around the room, searching for more entrances or staircases leading down, but I couldn't find any... I went back to the base of the stairs, where THEROS and UOPETA waiting.
"How many are there? Does it go even further?"
I told them about the room possessing the same structure as the upper floor, minus another staircase leading down. There were no other entrances either, so it wasn't a complex series of caverns and chambers. We moved back upstairs, and resumed the destruction of the remaining portals. The glowing stones had become visible again after the first set of portals was destroyed, and we each placed them on the next set along. Slowly but surely, the light in the room began to fade, as the number of extinguished torches strewn across the floor increased, leaving us in the inky purple light of the remaining portals.
"How many portals were down there then, Syeonyx?"
I honestly didn't know, but at a guess, I would say roughly the same number as there were on this floor. As another stone faded from sight, blanketing me in a green glow, I began to think about what else HoN Co. may have done to my house and the surrounding area. If this was what they had done with the open-cast mine, god only knows what was being done to my house! I was actually still surprised it was standing at all, to be honest. I had imagined that they would have torn it down, and erected something a lot more sinister in its place. The desire to exact revenge on any an all that followed HoN Co. began to rise up within me once more... It took a lot of effort, and remembering what UOPETA and THEROS had said about everyone being in the same boat, to calm me down again... We finished up on the upper floor, and moved down the stairs, to the lower floor.
I was beginning to wonder if staying in close proximity to a portal for prolonged periods of time could drive you insane... It felt like I had developed a variation of tinnitus, where I could hear the sound of a portal constantly! I didn't think it was possible, and we were in no capable position to test the theory either... Luckily, we had reached the last few portals, and whilst UOPETA and me destroyed them, THEROS went around collecting up the extinguished torches... We could always utilise them as and when we needed them. With the glowing stones activating on the last two portals, we stood back, closer towards the stairs, and watched as the portals collapsed.
"It's odd how a thing of such eerie beauty could pose so much danger to everyone in the world..."
The last remaining swirls of the rift shrank from view, and we were once again plunged into darkness. The only light visible came from above us where the entrance was, and we remained on the lower floor until we could retrieve the stones. Moving back up the stairs, we were careful not to attract any attention. We had successfully destroy two large portal chambers within the confines of my house and surrounding area, without alerting anyone! Moving out to the entrance, we looked up the stairs to check if we had drawn any further attention to ourselves, but no guards were visible... We made our way carefully, but quickly up the stairs, to avoid being caught, and we made it back to the cobblestone shack, where the unconscious form of the guard remained.
"Where to now then?"
THEROS took the map from his bag and began studying it, before stating that we needed to head South East, towards the stone beach close to Jonas's house...
"It's some distance... Is there any way we can use the boat...?"
"Erm... Yes... If we head back to the boat now, we can head North East, back the way we came, and then head towards that small island crossing... From there, it's pretty much due South right up to the actual stone beach itself! Then we can head back to the base, and establish the next step..."
"We better get going then. We want to be done before the end of the night."
We moved out from the entrance to the open-cast mine, and towards the surface entrance to the mineshaft beneath the house, hugging the wall the entire time. We remained hidden beneath the lip of the wall, with UOPETA determining the best time to move out towards the surface entrance. After a few moments of waiting, nervously, UOPETA motioned, and we shot out towards the other side. The entire time, I was thinking to myself "please don't see us" over and over again, and before I knew it, we were hidden in the entrance. From here, it was almost too easy! Moving in through the door, we went up the stairs, and then moved down again, back towards the broken through dirt tunnel. It was odd... There were barely any guards on duty at all... It was almost too easy... I didn't want to say it out loud for fear of jinxing it, but we could almost had strolled in and still got away with it!
"Not far left to go... After this, we can head to base and have a rest..."
Amen to that!
We had decided the likelihood of us returning to this place was incredibly slim, so we decided to not hide the tunnel. We moved up to the top, and then covered up the surface end only. It was unlikely they would find it anyway, but it didn't matter too much if they did. We moved under the lip of the wall for the entire length, past the gate, and up to the corner. We then rounded it after ensuring it was safe, and continued along.We reached another section that ran parallel to the beach, and carefully moved across it... Or so we thought... From out of nowhere, we heard a man shout a single word that shook me to my core!
"INTRUDERS!"
Syeonyx signing off
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