"Well... Are you going to tell us what that was about...?"
I told them about the connections I made between what has been said recently about SERVERE, and that I was under the impression that one way to prove who used the wooden shelter was to go through the mass number of books down there and translate it all. It would take some time, but it'd distract AMPHIS from what he had supposedly seen, it would hopefully reveal who was there and what they were looking for, and possibly more useful information that we could use. I stated though that I was concentrating on the idea that it might unveil who AMPHIS really saw; I had already connected those two things together as it seemed to make the most sense. When I finished, the quizzical expressions had gone from their faces, and were instead replaced by expressions of... I don't really know...
"I see... Any particular reason why you didn't inform us about this? And if all you were going to do was tell COLUS this, why did it take so long?"
I then had to tell them about me and Amie going back down into the cliff mine and retrieving as many books as we could carry to allow AMPHIS to begin translating them.
"See, you could have told us then. If you have involved us then we could have helped bring more books back."
With the tunnel progress being slightly behind, and the already cramped nature of the lab, I doubt that would have been a good idea. All tunnel mining would have ceased for a good hour or so, as it would be likely that everyone would want to bring up every book from there. That in itself would cause more problems as there wasn't enough room to house them all. The amount we had managed to collect between the two of us was sufficient for AMPHIS to be getting on with, and we could always retrieve more as and when he needed them. By that time, most of the iron will have been used up, hopefully, to build the bracings and the security doors.
"Fair enough, but it would have been nice to be told where you were going. A little disconcerting to see you run off up the tunnel as though you'd seen a Creeper!"
Trust me: if I had seen a Creeper, I wouldn't be running. I would stand with my fellow brothers, side by side, and put down the threat with ease! Or at least I hope I would. I haven't come across a Creeper in a very long time, so it was likely things may have changed slightly. I began to help with the tunnel again, driving the head of the pickaxe deep into the stone wall before me. We weren't that far from needing to head East, so hopefully we'll be able to start that tomorrow. We've come quite a distance, but I still feel sorry for OROTHO and Joe. After putting in the main entrance to the tower entrance doors, they've got to finish with the security doors through the rest of the tunnel. And this wasn't going to be the only tunnel; COLUS had plans for a whole network of tunnels, allowing us to move about undetected. It seemed odd that this one tunnel is only able to allow us to check on the current master portal status...
----
I am exhausted! I think carrying all of those books took more effort than I had initially given credit for. Then to go straight back into the tunnel and pick up from where I had left off... When COLUS came down to the end of the tunnel and told us to finish for the day, I could have kissed him, I was that tired! Remembering what OROTHO had said, we closed each door after we left that section of the door. They had managed to finish the fourth door, but COLUS had told them not to begin work on the fifth just yet. It was likely that they would become engrossed in that when we burst through the surface and were in need of a door! We closed the final door, and headed towards the entrance which led through to the lab. OROTHO hadn't got to the stage of implementing the bulb security for the fourth door yet, but the other three were off indicating they were closed and sealed.
"How does this work if we plan to have multiple tunnels...? There's going to be a lot of crossed wire..."
"We leave that to OROTHO and Joe to figure out. We're just the manual labourers..."
Heading into the lab, it was odd to see that it was actually empty, aside from AMPHIS, who was furiously writing atop a stack of papers. From the way he had stacked the books around him, he had made his way through two, and was on his third! That wasn't bad work considering he had to first decode it with the pig-pen cipher.
"How goes the decoding AMPHIS? Found anything useful to us?"
"Nothing much yet..."
He didn't even look up from his papers or stop writing as he said that. He had written a lot though, and with a bit of persuasion, we managed to have a look at some of the stuff he had translated so far. Flicking through the papers, AMPHIS was right; there was very little in terms of detail that we could use. Some parts seemed to be suggest a diary, whilst other bits were observations on events, but nothing that actually informed us of anything we could use. Setting the papers back down beside AMPHIS, we headed off to our rooms for the night.
"AMPHIS, remember to get some rest this time. You're no good to us or yourself when you're tired."
AMPHIS just nodded slowly, continuing to write at the same time, whilst we went off to our rooms. Even though Chiron wanted attention when I entered my room, I wasn't in any position to start fussing over him. Oddly, Hermes has started spending a lot of time in my room now too. Maybe he can detect something is up with AMPHIS. Animal intuition and all that...
Syeonyx signing off
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