Heading into the main kitchen area, I found everyone already awake and up, seated around the table eating. They all looked up from what they were doing and looked at me. They all seemed a little put out by my sudden appearance...
"Syeonyx? What's wrong? Is it AMPHIS...?"
I nodded... And then I shook my head. Stepping further into the room, I told them about AMPHIS has translated from the books last night. He hadn't even attempted to get some sleep, instead preferring to stay up and work. It had paid off though as what he had translated proved more or less that whoever had lived down in the wooden shack and wrote all of the books was not on HoN Co.'s side. The mentioning of portals, and the attempts this person used to try and destroy them were proof enough, surely. And the ones they hadn't managed to destroy were tagged with their destination for future reference.
So you're saying that we have a place to work form? We had a lead?"
It seemed that way... AMPHIS had translated parts which appeared to be the coordinates of these remaining portals, but we would need THEROS's help to verify that.
"That's excellent! I was afraid that we were going to have to start guessing where the portals were again... If we've got a lead, we can start making tracks. How many portals has AMPHIS managed to identify from the book?"
I didn't know, AMPHIS hadn't gone through that just yet, but he's determined that this person colour coded the books based on their content, and there were many more where that had come from!
"So this person had a whole collection of books they had written dedicated to portals and their locations? How many books of this type are there?"
Once again, I didn't know. Ten or more, maybe. We were potentially sitting on the locations of hundreds of active portals spread out across the land, lying hidden, although AMPHIS gets the feeling that most of the portals identified were underground, which could pose as an issue...
"How did AMPHIS make that out? Did the person mention that?"
There was no indication where exactly the portals were in terms of being beneath the surface or otherwise, but the lack of a map pinpointing their exact location suggested either that they were underground, where maps would be more or less useless, or that the map had not yet been found. If this person had made a map, then they would likely have kept it with them at all times, which a reasonable enough assumption.
"Well they may not have made a map because it might be misplaced very easily... However, I would have thought it would make more sense to use a map..."
After further discussion, we all moved to the lab where we spoke with AMPHIS for some time about what he had found so far. OROTHO and Joe meanwhile had drafted Amie in to help them with the new door system at the conducting tower end of the tunnel. Luckily they had everything set up at that end, and it was merely a case of installing and configuring it.
AMPHIS has fully explained to everyone the state that we have arrived at in terms of understanding the books. We're all agreed that they cannot belong to a person who is allied with HoN Co., and therefore there is a chance that they could ally with us instead. Provided they are still alive, and we can find them... AMPHIS has shown THEROS the coordinates that he had translated, and spent some time looking at them with a confused look on his face. After some time, he just announced that he had never seen coordinates like this before, and we all helped AMPHIS to search through the books hoping to find a map drawn out somewhere that we could use. THEROS was unable to relate the supposed coordinates back to the map that we were using, which still meant there was either no map, or it was encoded as well, which wouldn't surprise me...
"What if the coordinates mean something else? What if they refer to parts in other books which might have small map pieces which you have yo piece together...?"
"I doubt that very much... We would have stumbled across something like that by now if that was the case. I've been through about ten books, fully translating everything, and many more just flicking through, and there isn't a single image. Except for that one image of an Endman... That weird creepy one we found at the beginning..."
A cold chill ran down my spine as I recalled the image, and how eerie it had seemed. An odd figure with creepily thin arms and legs, a squat body, and a tiny head with iridescent purple eyes... I don't know where this person got the image for that, but I certainly hoped it was only from their imagination. I think I could just about put up with Creepers and the undead actually existing, despite thinking for the entirety of my life that it wasn't possible... Only, since joining HoN Co., the number of things I had seen which I wished didn't exist could fill a library!
"What is the likelihood that there is a map that exists which could tell us where to find the portals?"
"I would say quite likely, although I can almost guarantee this person would have kept it with them at all times. Which means there is very little chance of us acquiring it..."
"Is there any way you can make sense of those coordinates, THEROS?"
"I don't know... I'm beginning to wonder if they even are coordinates... They don't seem to suggest anything... It just looks like a string of random numbers..."
"Looks like we'll have to make use of the predicted portal locations after all... It's not very helpful but it'll..."
"Wait! They are coordinates! I was reading them wrong!"
"How do you mean? I thought you were meant to be good with maps...?"
"It's got nothing to do with me, it's the way the coordinates are written! They're written backwards! As they are, they are meaningless as they don't point to any position on any map, but backwards they actually indicate locations that I could pinpoint..."
"Brilliant! Let's get cracking! We need to start making some headway again, otherwise HoN Co. are going to activate that master portal, and we'll have lost..."
"Oh hang on... It's not for this current map... None of the points here are represented on this map... I'm going to nee to go through the maps I've made, but this one isn't any help to us..."
"Well any step forward is better than no progress at all..."
THEROS went off to the library to find his other maps archived by AMPHIS. The fact that none of the points linked to the map we were currently using was both odd and a little worrying. We knew that the portals covered a massive area, but the further we went away from the tower, the harder it would be to check up on the progress of the master portal. We would have to settle something out though once we find out where these coordinates lead us...
Syeonyx signing off
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