Erroneous translation...

     We headed off to the cliff mine through the main entrance, still pondering what AMPHIS had managed to translate from the book we found. None of it seemed to make any sense at all, and the conclusions that AMPHIS had jumped to seemed unfounded. Then again, we weren't the ones who were able to translate from Latin to English, so maybe he was interpreting the bits he couldn't directly translate. A lot of what he had said disturbed me a little; the image was meant to be some being or creature, possibly called an 'End Man'... AMPHIS had then stated something about there being a moment in time called 'The End', which we assumed he meant was some sort of apocalypse-style end of the world scenario. That phrase he read out... 'The beginning of the End is near. It is but a short time until they are here.'... That linked the two key pieces of information, and suggested that these End Men either began The End, or were present beforehand... It was very chilling, and I wasn't made to feel any better when AMPHIS then made mention of portals. The possibility that HoN Co. could merge the Nether and Minecraftia together is worrying enough to the point where we have to throw everything we have at them to stop them. But to then find out that they may have misinterpreted the purpose of the master portal; the possibility that the master portal didn't merge dimensions together, but instead brought about The End!

"How much do you think of what AMPHIS said was true? Do you really think we have bigger issues to worry about than HoN Co.?"

"I don't know... I'm still a little unsettled by those End Men... That image will stay with me to the grave!"

I echoed those feelings! The odd figure; tall and thin, with a minute body, and disproportionately long limbs... But the eyes... The eyes were the worst bit! Piercing purple eyes, that seemed to shine and shimmer off the very page it was printed onto! That purple... The same iridescent purple seen that forms the rift in a portal... Could it be that these End Men and the portals are actually linked? Did they create these portals and scatter them across the world to enable long range communication...? Or was it for some other more nefarious scheme...?

"I doubt it's anything to worry about. We could be misunderstanding the book entirely! It could be completely innocent, or the context could be completely different to what we assume it to be... It could be the fictional ramblings of a random person!"

"The fictional ramblings of a random person... Written in Latin...? And then coded with a pig-pen cipher...? Actually, now that I say it like that, it doesn't sound so unrealistic..."

"Then again, there is the matter of the Codex Solis... That book stated that an act of sorcery was performed on Creepers to enable them to walk around in full view of the sun without being burned... Look at the first time we ever found a Creeper...? We only ever saw them at night, and they weren't hostile or volatile. They were inquisitive... Now look at them! They blow up without a moments hesitation when threatened..."

"I'd forgotten about that... But that's one thing, this is something else entirely! This seems so deeply embedded in the realms of fiction, it's hard to see it possible, let alone plausible!"

"There are many mysteries out there that we don't have answers for , and trillions upon trillions more that we don't even know about, or have the ability to comprehend... In light of everything we've experienced in the past few years, I can't deal with any situation lightly. I need to know all of the facts before making a decision, and even then, if it's against what I've experienced before, I'll still doubt it until I can be sure of otherwise..."

"It just seems so... So... Unreal..."

"We're a group of rogue miners set on toppling one of the most prosperous and influential companies in the world, who are attempting to merge two dimensions together through a mysterious portal of unknown power... Yes... Unreal... That word doesn't really carry any merit with us anymore. Certainly not the circumstances we find ourselves in anyway..."

We reached the end of the mine stairs, and went our separate ways down our own shafts, to begin extracting more iron for the tunnel structure. Although I doubt any of us will have our mind on the job. Me especially, as the chamber where 'Finis' was found was down at the bottom of my shaft...

     After a day's worth of mining, we emerged from the mine and headed back to the base. Despite spending hours apart from each other, we resumed the conversation about the book we found as though there had been no time lapse at all!

"What if all of these assumptions AMPHIS is making are true...? What if The End is indeed the end of the world, and these creatures, these End Men are the bringers of The End...?"

"Then on that basis, stopping HoN Co. has just become the single most important task on the planet! However, there is so little we can understand from this book though... It's hard to gauge what The End truly is... It all sounds a little too over the top to me..."

As we entered the base and went into the discussion room, AMPHIS jumped from the table, as though he was delighted to see us...

"Ah! You're here! Get the others, I think I made a break through! Something I missed, something I overlooked! It was so simple! A slight translation error! Something so..."

"Calm Down AMPHIS! Now what? What is it?"

"The End... It's not a time! It's a place!"

...

Syeonyx signing off