Drop in the ocean...

     It was good to back as a three! I felt, with UOPETA in lead, we were safer than when it was just me an THEROS, although I got the impression it was because I didn't like being responsible for someone else's safety... I watched UOPETA intently, monitoring his behaviour patterns, and admiring the speed and skill with which he scoped out an area before proceeding. That was how was supposed to act, but I couldn't help but think that I was missing a lot! We continued heading practically due West the entire time, staying within the shadows of the trees. Around each corner, and behind every tree, I was expecting to see a Creeper, but there we didn't see a single one! I wasn't complaining about the lack of danger, I just felt on edge... Within an hour or so, the great grasping claw-like antennae came into view above the treeline, and a few moments later, the base of the tower revealed itself from behind the trees. UOPETA had managed to create a pathway which made sure we were facing the entrance side without skirting around the edge first, and we were able to see the guards straight away! There were three guards posted on the front entrance, but we couldn't see the other sides. We waited a few minutes to see if any would materialise, but none came. Eventually UOPETA got an idea!

"I'm going to go around to the Southern side to see if there are any more guards. We need to be careful at this stage: once we're in, there's not much of a problem, but it's getting in that's the biggest trouble..."

With that, he slunk off to the right. Me and THEROS sat there for a few moments, watching UOPETA, but after a few seconds, he completely disappeared fro view! We couldn't see any sign of him at all, which was good because if we could see him, so too could the guards! After some time, we heard a rustling, and I immediately readied my blow pipe! UOPETA's face then appeared through the bushes and I let out a sigh of relief...

"Good! Always be alert... I could have been a Creeper for all you knew... Or a guard! Pay attention to Syeonyx, THEROS!"

"Sorry, I was busy watching those guards there..."

"You should have your eyes and ears open everywhere! You never know... Right, there are no other guards located to on either the Western or Southern sides... Chances are, there won't be one on the Eastern side either, so there's only these three. Luckily for, there's three of us too! I'll take the one on the left, Syeonyx, the one on the right, and THEROS takes the centre one. If any of us miss, hopefully one of us will spot it, and take them out quickly for them... Good luck!"

     We all crept closer, trying not to make too much noise. It was still very dark, and the glare from the torches would reduce the chances of the guards seeing us! With blow pipes ready, UOPETA counted down, and then signalled to fire! We all blew violently into the base of the pipes: the guard on the right dropped, quickly followed by the guard in the centre, but the guard on the left remained standing. He looked a little puzzled at the random collapse of the other two guards... I panicked! I inhaled sharply, ready to fire another, when another sharp blast was heard from my left and the guard dropped... That was a hug sigh of relief.

"Nice one THEROS! I fluffed that one up a bit..."

UOPETA had missed!?!? I was incredibly surprised, but more so by the fact that THEROS had hit his target first time, and then taken out UOPETA's! Not wasting any more time, THEROS was the first to stand up and carefully walk towards the entrance, quickly followed by UOPETA, and then me, still in shock... Once we got to the base of the tower, UOPETA checked the guards and nodded after checking the final one.

"That was a close one... I don't know what happened... I think I went a little too wide to the left..."

UOPETA looked a little confused by the whole matter, but still continued with the mission as always. He flicked the lever and the wall slide open. He walked through, followed by THEROS after he leaned over and whispered to me:

"He was wide..."

UOPETA had already swept the room for guards or civilians, but for the third time, there was no-one here! Knowing all of the valuable data was kept in the large chamber holding the master portal, UOPETA began his way down the stairs, after checking no guards were on their way up! We followed at a safe distance, and managed to get all the way down to the bottom without meeting a single guard... Leaning over the fence, UOPETA spotted a guard down sitting down near on one of the chairs centred around the pillar, and quickly took him out. The guard slouched down in the chair, looking a little uncomfortable, but unconscious all the same. As we made our way down the final flight of stairs to the bottom, UOPETA stopped, and crouched quickly! We both followed suit, and waited as UOPETA crept slowly down the stairs. Then we heard a voice enquire a name... "Pete...?" From the railings, I spotted a woman in a lab coat walk slowly towards the guard slouched on the chair. Before she got any closer, so collapsed in a heap on the floor, unconscious.

"Back in the game!"

UOPETA whispered and then continued creeping into the room. After a full sweep of the area, we found no-one else, and we went back to the woman on the floor... Bending down, I rolled her over, taking the dart from her neck, and finding a tag on her lab coat pocket... "Amie"... Where had I heard that name before...

"Odd... Why is there a civilian here now? Why have we never seen one down here before?"

I was still deep in thought, but UOPETA shrugged and went over to the table where she had come from. It was located underneath the staircase, so if the guard hadn't been there, she may have seen us!

"No idea... But looks like she was working on something big... Look, a load of new reports!"

Amie... Amie... I had definitely heard that name before now... Amie... AHA! AMIE! It was the name of one of the crew members of the HoN Co. ship that had crashed into my beach! She had wrote the diary I found at the camp near the dig site! Well it couldn't be coincidence... As I suddenly realised who it was, I stood up right sharply and noticed something else... The portals... More of the primary portals were open... But it seemed that THEROS had already realised, as he was looking at them too

"More of the primary portals have been brought online! But how? We've destroyed... How many? At least two active secondary portals... Surely the number of active primary portals would have gone down... Not up...?"

"I think I know why... These reports say they've increased their operations to activate portals... They've activated hundreds of portals within the past week alone! They don't seem to differentiate between secondary portals and normal portals though... Come on, we need to make copies of these reports and leave as quickly as possible!"

     We began the same routine of copying the reports with my camera, trying to pick out the more vital ones. Once again, I had hundreds of images of each report, each with multiple pages per report! We found reports that related to the primary portal frequencies, and hoped they would help OROTHO to determine a rough estimate of how many secondary portals were linked to each primary portal, and how many it would require to take one offline! We were already worrying as there had been an increase of three primary portals changing states! We would have to find a more efficient method of taking out the portals!

"Right, is that all of them? We need to be as thorough as possible..."

"Hang on a minute..."

THEROS went over to the desk where Amie had come from, and began searching through the drawers. He found a stack of papers, and brought them over to us. UOPETA began leafing through them, photographing them individually, whilst myself and THEROS looked through them... Then THEROS found something... Something very dangerous... Something very worrying!

"Erm guys... This report seems to detail experiments in portal replication technology... The last entry says 'Test 347: successful'... We could be way in over our heads..."

Syeonyx signing off