"From here, we can either go back the way we came, through the tunnel, and hope to find a way through the back gate. It's dangerous, time consuming and is unlikely to get us anywhere, but it's safer. Or, we could head up the wooden stairs to the area beneath the basement, and head out towards the surface entrance an little further back. It would put is right outside the front entrance, within visual range of the towers, but it's faster. Or lastly, we could head all the way back up to the basement, and go through the house... That is probably the quickest route, but most dangerous... Syeonyx?"
Knowing the layout of my house and mineshafts well, I knew the best option was to head up the wooden staircase, and backtrack through the surface entrance and come out near the front... We'd have sufficient cover from the greenhouse, and provided we timed it right, we could rush to the wall and hide beneath the lip. As long as there were no guards patrolling beneath the wall, we would be fine. I voted for the second option...
"THEROS...?"
"I'm with Syeonyx. It makes more sense because we can always rely on the blowpipes if we get into a tricky spot..."
"Surface entrance it is then..."
Moving up the stairs one by one, we eventually came to the wooden barricade - which was still in place - and passed through the splintered entrance... There were no guards around here, and we made it to the surface entrance without detection.
After moving through the surface entrance, we all kept an eye on the guard still stationed in the South West tower... Thankfully he had his back to us most of the time, looking out facing the water... We were able to quickly move out towards the wall, whilst keeping our eyes open for more guards. There seemed to be a surprisingly small number of them, considering the size of the wall! I would have posted guards on every tower, and on every stretch of wall... But we'd only seen one so far... Luckily, that was working to our advantage, and we made it around the corner, and out of sight within minutes. Remaining quiet, we moved around until we could see the fence surrounding the open-cast mine. Then we stopped abruptly, and UOPETA motioned for us to get low! Pointing up ahead, he motioned to a guard that was walking around the outside of the fence, not paying attention at all...
"We'll see what he does, where he goes, before progressing. There could be more guards around the corner, and we don't want to alert them..."
Luckily there were no more guards in the towers at this end of the wall, but that didn't mean it was entirely safe...
Remaining still for a few moments, we watched the guard move around to the entrance of the mine, and then begin to descend the steps. UOPETA chose this time to make his move, and he approached the steps, with his blowpipe drawn. Once we got to the steps, we saw the guard move into the small cobblestone shack I had erected at the top of the mine that had a minecart track leading from it to the forge... UOPETA told us to remain near to the top, whilst he crept forwards. Leaning around the entrance, there was a sharp, high-pitched whistle, and UOPETA motioned us forwards. He entered the shack to remove the dart from the guard, and we continued onwards. As we passed the outside walls of the shack, the full extent of the open-cast mine hit me, and I couldn't believe it! It was cut out along the sides, incredibly deep!
"Did you do all of this, Syeonyx?"
I shook my head... There was no way I could have done all of this on my own... How long had it taken for HoN Co. to dug all of this out? And where was the waste? Had they done the same as me, and thrown it all into the lava pit...? It must have taken ages!
We slowly made our way down the cobble steps that I had put into place, with the advantage of being able to look over the side to see if there were any guards coming back up. Luckily there wasn't a guard in sight, but that didn't mean it wouldn't be dangerous... There could be Affinitas cages placed within the portal chamber itself, using the creatures from the Nether to protect the chamber... We hadn't spotted any yet... Nor ha we for some time... Maybe our luck was beginning to turn... Then I remembered that we hadn't been to the conducting tower in some time, and asked UOPETA when it was likely we would be checking out the master portal situation.
"We don't know. Obviously, COLUS is thinking that the obsidian farm is more of a threat at the moment, so it's best to concentrate on that element first. Provided they don't have a plan on the far just yet, we could probably check the status after we destroy the last portal chamber..."
I would prefer to do that, rather than wait longer. For all we know, we could be losing... They could be one primary portal away from activating the master portal! I doubt it, but without knowing the state... This was going all Schrödinger's cat theory... I decided to concentrate on the matter at hand. We neared the end of the stairs; we had wound around the outside, and were on the last straight section, when I saw something I had totally forgotten about... Another wooden barricade... I had explored this far and found a small chamber that lead into a passage where I had found a mossy chamber... After being attacked by the undead, I had sealed it up with a wooden barricade... But as I drew closer, I now noticed that the barricade had been broken down; splintered wood facing inwards suggested HoN Co. guards had investigated what was beyond...
"What was this?"
You don't want to know...
Once we reached the bottom of the open-cast mine, I found the path to the right was still there from when I had found the buried portal, but now a large hole took its place, with stone brick walls leading down.
"I think we've found the right place..."
Moving down the steps, we began to hear the sounds of portals all around us, and the distinctive purple stone became visible close to the bottom of the stairs... At the bottom, we looked out upon a large chamber, with every wall lined with portals, and like the first, a small central column. That was a lot of portals...
"How many do you think there are?"
I don't know... Twenty or so... It's hard to tell..."
We took out the glowing stones, each of which was now giving out a brilliant yellow light. Placing them on the closest portals, I stepped back. THEROS moved into the central column and started on those. Within minutes, sickly green light was flooding the chamber, and after the first set of portals was down, we heard a shout from THEROS. Worried that something had happened to him, we moved to the centre of the column.
"What? What is it?"
"Erm... Stairs!"
THEROS was pointing to a set of stairs that led down from the central column. Nervously, I made my way down them, already knowing what I would find... At the bottom step, my prediction came to fruition, as I stepped down onto a whole new floor full of portals! Each of the walls was adorned with them, much like the upper floor... So many portals!!!
Syeonyx signing off
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