Pure speculation

     We'd been back at the outpost less than two minutes and UOPETA had already begun to distrust SERVERE again. I know it was hard to believe what had happened to us as everyone had spent the better part of a year assuming he was dead. That was partly my fault by stating that I had encountered the remains of a human in the passage leading to the hidden basement of this outpost way before ever officially meeting and joining the Lone 7. But even if that was the case, the fact that we saw and spoke to him was proof enough. We had remained undetected for this long despite his absence, and even if it did mean he had been part of the Elite within HoN Co. for that same length of time, surely that was proof he had helped us remain hidden from them. He knew where the Lone 7 was based as he was - and still is - a fellow brother, and so if he was a traitor, he would surely have given us up to them by now. We would either be imprisoned or worse...

"That doesn't mean anything! He could be biding his time, waiting for the ideal moment when we're all off guard, or when we're all together!"

"He's had over a year to do that as he knows where our base is. Like Syeonyx says, if he was going to do anything traitorous, he would have done it a long time before now..."

"I still don't trust him. He's been away far too long without contacting us..."

"Enough of the squabbling! We need to remain on track. Now SERVERE gave us a task before he took our map to finish off destroying the portals. We were to decode the writing within the yellow-bound books."

"Book..."

"That's what I said. The ones with the yellow covers..."

"I know, but it's book, singular. There's only one of them. Additionally, it's back at the base. So that'll have to wait until tomorrow."

"Not only that, but we're going to have to find a way of keeping all of this to ourselves. SERVERE said that the more of us who knew about him being still alive, the more danger we were in."

"I can't exactly see how that works; surely if only one of us knows, that's dangerous enough. Besides, it's not fair to leave the others out of this. They must be informed about SERVERE surviving the attack on this outpost. They need to know about him joining HoN Co., hopefully to protect us from the inside."

"Not really. I mean look at when only I knew about SERVERE being alive. You all thought I was mad or had lost it. Just be thankful I'm not rubbing it in your faces about calling it so long ago!"

As the final rays of light drifted over the Western sky, we extinguished the torches and headed down into the basement for the night. How much sleep each of us would get was the big question at the moment, as we all seemed far too interested in talking about finding out that SERVERE was still alive, and hopefully still on our side.

     Just as predicted, we've not even attempted to go to sleep; despite it being warm and cosy in the hidden library, we've spent all night talking about the meeting with SERVERE, and speculating about a lot of the missing pieces that still needed to be slotted into place. Amongst them were:

• What is the Ascension?
• Can we really trust SERVERE?
• Why is SERVERE wearing the armour of the Elite?
• What is contained within the book with the yellow cover?
• Did SERVERE write all of those books in the wooden shack, and how?

And many many more...

"I'm beginning to wonder if we're ever going to find the answers to any of this."

"With SERVERE essentially holding all the information that might shed some light, I doubt we'll ever know. Unless we manage to bring down HoN Co. and destroy the master portal..."

"What do you mean 'unless'? Of course we will succeed! We can't not succeed. HoN Co. must be stopped, no matter the cost. Only then can we finally unravel all of these strange mysteries and potentially unanswered questions."

There certainly were a lot of them. We had speculated the possible answer to a few of them, but with there being four of us, there were many disagreements. the major one still being UOPETA's inability to trust SERVERE. However, some of the points that UOPETA stated made sense, even to me. SERVERE had been missing and presumed dead for over a year, and now he suddenly appears, literally out of thin air, and began making demands of us. He's taken the map that he supposedly drew up, along with a portion of the glowing stone we retrieved from the Nether dimension, and has once again disappeared. On the other side, he was a fellow Lone 7 brother, and arguably still is, taken in by HoN Co. to help seek us out, but has instead protected us from them for over a year. Not only this, but he has been granted the honour of becoming an Elite, which proves his value to HoN Co., despite not finding us. Whatever he's telling HoN Co. about us, it must be really good!

"I still don't think this Ascension business is what we think it is. How is the merging of two dimensions a rise to a higher level? From the way OROTHO has explained it, it's a cataclysmic event that will destroy this world almost entirely, leaving very little untouched."

"Yes, but OROTHO has always been very dramatic... I'm entirely sure we can trust what he says as he knows little more than we do. His speculations generally tend to be a little more... Impending doom oriented..."

We continued talking late into the night; I was hoping that we'd get some sleep, but at this rate, I can't see how we would...

Syeonyx signing off