Bookworm

     Despite distracting OROTHO from finishing the fourth security door with Joe - which we initially thought was a bad move - he's actually in higher spirits than he was before! This is likely due to his conceived idea of the security door for the entrance to the tower, which we have yet to decide on a positioning for. But OROTHO has a series of blueprints drawn up, and has practically demanded that AMPHIS copy them for future reference. AMPHIS didn't seem to mind that much; it seems OROTHO demands a lot of him anyway, and at the end of the day, it was another way to distract him from his woes... It seemed now though that everyone had accepted AMPHIS's sighting as fact, rather than analysing it with a certain degree of logic, like COLUS has. Then again, I get the impression COLUS feels happier thinking that AMPHIS did indeed see SERVERE down in the chamber... Even if it is just to prevent the need to think that he's actually dead. They only knew what I had told them, based on what I had seen and read in his diary. It hadn't sounded very promising for him, but if SERVERE was such a thorn in HoN Co.'s side, it would make more sense to try and get him to work for them. A cruel twist of irony in that SERVERE also thought the same of the position he would be placed into. To be able to use his position effectively, but not for the benefit of HoN Co., for us instead. If HoN Co. were unsure of his new allegiance to them, it wouldn't be unfounded to assume they have someone following him, and if he knew that, he wouldn't risk attempting to contact us...

We're continuing with the tunnel... Still! We're still making great progress, but after flicking through my diary over the last few entries, I get the feeling that's all I'm writing about. I can't actually think of anything else we've done, but I suppose it's better than risking our lives continuously going from the base to the tower via the surface entrance. COLUS is right; even if it's not a HoN Co. spy or guard watching us, it's still dangerous to go out on the surface. We've definitely drawn attention to ourselves recently with the destruction of the obsidian mine, so it'd be suicidal based on the predicted number of guards they'd post at the tower now, not to mention how many there could be between the tower and us. Me, THEROS, THEXIS and UOPETA were all working on the tunnel, OROTHO and Joe were finishing on the fourth security door, AMPHIS was drawing up a reference version of the door blueprints OROTHO created, and last I checked Amie and COLUS are retrieving the last small amounts of iron ore from the cliff mine. It hadn't occurred to me how much we had actually collected until it was all smelted into ingots and stored away in the corner of the lab. OROTHO wasn't very happy about it, but he wasn't there most of the time so it wasn't really a major concern. We were all just getting on with our work that we had been assigned to, and hopefully we would be breaking through to the surface, and giving OROTHO and Joe another job...

----

     I'm such a fool! I don't know why this hasn't occurred to me sooner, but a few things that have been said have clicked slowly into place, and the strength with which I believe AMPHIS has just increased drastically! AMPHIS says he saw SERVERE in the chamber close to the wooden shelter filled with books written using the pig-pen cipher and then translated into Latin. I can't remember who, but someone told me that SERVERE was good at Latin. Better than AMPHIS even! It's possible that the two are connected, and that SERVERE did survive the encounter with HoN Co. and is now on the run, or is in hiding or something. Not stopping to inform the others, I threw my pickaxe down and ran off down the tunnel to find COLUS. I had to tell him, because there may be a way for AMPHIS to prove that SERVERE was behind all of this! Finding him talking with Amie about something - I wasn't entirely sure what about - I went up to him and told him about the connections I had made. I didn't know if SERVERE had been one for code and secrecy, but I knew that he was meant to be almost fluent in Latin, which when you consider that a lot of, if not all of the books in the wooden shelter are translated into Latin... It doesn't take much to piece it all together!

"We can't prove that Syeonyx. Yes we know that SERVERE was great with Latin, but that doesn't prove anything. Anyone could have written those books. Remember that book you found? Codex Solis? That was written in Latin, and somehow I doubt SERVERE was involved in writing that!"

I explained though that there may be a way to prove who lived down there. If someone was able to write so much in Latin in whatever period of time they had been given to achieve that, they would likely have made some reference to themselves, or their surroundings or environment which would give some more insight as to who they were. I knew COLUS would agree with me, and I noticed that AMPHIS was now listening in.

"That's a good point... But what do you suggest? We go back down there, and translate all of the books...?"

"Why not bring up a few at a time, and have AMPHIS translate them...?"

Everyone turned to Amie, and I smiled. Tat was exactly what I was getting at! I doubted AMPHIS wanted to go back down there for some time due to the shock he had had, but there was nothing stopping me or someone else going down there and getting them for him!

"It depends on AMPHIS. Are you up for that...?"

AMPHIS just nodded. That was enough for me!

"Alright then, but I'm only doing this because you seem intent on proving AMPHIS right! Go down there are retrieve as many books as you can carry. Take a bag or something with you. The fewer trips we need to make, the better."

"Is it alright if I go with him? This place is beginning to get a little stuffy for my liking..."

COLUS agreed, and I went towards the entrance of the base, to where we had set up the connection to the cliff mine, and began to make our way towards the wooden shelter via my mineshaft. I hoped that something god would come of this! If we could prove that SERVERE was still alive, then there may be a potential way of trying to contact him!

     We're on our way back with as many books we could take from the shelves that we could carry. We avoided taking the ones that were sprawled out across the floor as it was likely AMPHIS had already looked at those. We were easily carrying about forty books between us; we had attempted to choose books that looked like they might contain something useful to us in terms of information, but with most of them either lacking a title, or with it being written in Latin, it was hard to gauge which ones were the best to take. In the end, we took three books from each shelf, hoping that we had covered a decent spread of the shelves. That was based on any system they might have used to catalogue them.

"What are you hoping AMPHIS will find in these then...? Information linking to HoN Co., or indications of whoever wrote them, stuff like that?"

More or less. It would be best to distract AMPHIS from thinking about it too much if we gave him something to do. It seemed counter-intuitive to give him the task of translating the books that are linked to what we're trying to distract him from, but we're hoping he'll concentrate more on the task at hand, rather than the actual content. If there was anything to indicate who wrote these, we might be able to tie SERVERE to them...

"Let's hope for yours and AMPHIS's sake you're right! I get the feeling that COLUS is being reserved about it to maintain a level head. I mean, who can blame him. It's likely the recent events have hit him the hardest, but he's got to ensure that everyone else remains on task without generating unnecessary amounts of hype over something that could be nothing..."

That was the conclusion I had come to as well. COLUS wasn't purposely denying what AMPHIS had seen. He was rationalising it, to ensure that we didn't begin assuming accusations were that of truth, rather than unfounded theories. We left the wooden shelter with the bag of books, and headed for the mineshaft entrance. Amie stopped short, as though she was looking at the area around us. She seemed impressed with the work we had done, but when she turned around to face me again, her expression told a slightly different story.

"Did you hear that...?"

Syeonyx signing off