On borrowed time

     Finishing up for the day, me and OROTHO flicked the safeties on the two rifles, before taking the target down and closing the door behind us. We had managed to test both of them quite thoroughly, rectifying a few issues as and when they came up, and continued with the testing. We had had quite a lot of fun over the past few hours doing so, but we had reached the limit of how far we could test them in a controlled environment. Over approximately one hundred metres, the darts lost barely any height in the flight from the end of the barrel to the target, which suggested they were accurate to within at least that distance. That was much better than we had expected, and allowed us a lot of leeway to work with when actually putting them to use. The only problem now was that we had to test them in an unknown environment which was susceptible to change. Anything from a slight breeze to it raining slight could have massive effects on the flight path of the dart, but we would hopefully have another day of testing before we had to make the final preparations before moving off.

"How do you think Amie managed to get on with the construction of the other rifle? She seemed to be getting the hang of things before we came down here."

I had to admit that Amie did seem to be getting on with things pretty quickly when it came to constructing the rifle; she had only glanced once or twice at the blueprints for the prototype during the construction, whereas I had found it was almost always close to me for reference. She was a little faster with the build than me as well, which just goes to show out of touch I am with crafting things... Hopefully we would soon have HoN Co. on their knees, crushed by our victory, allowing us to get on with our own lives. It would definitely mean heading out to a new area and starting again, most likely, as they would be baying for our blood. Nowhere would be safe for long, but we could always hide like we were now. I had to say that we had done a brilliant job of that so far and they didn't have a clue where we were. Then again I had to admit that SERVERE had had a large hand in that as well. It made me wonder how well we would be able to stand hidden against them without his help... Would they have found us by now if SERVERE wasn't pointing them in odd directions? Without his intervention, would we already be dead? It wasn't something worth thinking about... We moved into the lab, closing the door to the tunnel behind us, and I began to look for Amie, but she wasn't in the lab at all...

"Maybe they're all in the discussion room with SERVERE. It must be pretty important if everyone else is there..."

If that was the case, why hadn't they called us...? Shrugging it off, I went towards the entrance of the lab, slowing down to admire Amie's handiwork on the completed rifle that lay on the table to the side. It was done so in a very similar fashion to the others, taking on an almost identical look as well, except it was missing an optical scope which OROTHO could sort out later. Continuing to the discussion room, we found everyone else seated around the main table; COLUS saw me and OROTHO enter and had a slightly worried look on his face.

"Ah good, you're here. SERVERE had some news for us... And it wasn't good... It's about HoN Co. ... They may have found us..."

----

     We sat in silence, listening to COLUS go over everything that SERVERE had told the others in our absence. SERVERE had since left us behind for the HoN Co. HQ after imbuing the others with this information, and from the looks of everyone else's faces, it definitely wasn't good news.

"We were going under the assumption that HoN Co. were not aware of the purpose of the Eyes of Ender, only that we were looking for them and they wanted to stop us. It has now been revealed that they are fully aware of the purpose of the Eyes of Ender, and are also aware of the Keystone and its alternative use on the master portal. This means they have accelerated their search for us, and recently made a discovery that does not bode well for us. They may well have found the base."

"What?!?!?! How?!?!?"

"When we returned from the Nether, they found our base camp and followed the passage down to the portal. After passing through it, the ended up in that mossy chamber that we managed to seal off with a combination lock. They haven't found either of the locks so far, but are suspicious about what is hidden in the surrounding area. Unfortunately we did not bury the original opening to that chamber well enough, as they found their way out and have found and seized the boat. They are now setting up a sentry base camp of their own close to us, on the far side cliffs beside a flow of lava. They consider themselves very close to us, and are waiting for confirmation to begin excavating large sections of area around us."

"But how can they know that for sure? We haven't made any mistake or indication that we're here! What about SERVERE? Surely he's tried to put them off and lead them somewhere else?"

"He says that he's tried, but doesn't want to come across to desperate. They have a strong feeling we're close by, and for good reason. that means that we're going to have to act as quickly as possible! Once we have finalised all of the preparations, we'll head out to the HQ and attempt to take the two Eyes they have. Once there, we're going to need to gain access to the portal through the cliff mine. It may be worth attempting to go directly via the cliff mine entrance rather than through the base, as they may have found it by then. We'll need to be quick! Tomorrow is the final day for preparations before we head off, so make sure everything is sorted and finalised by then! For now, rest up. We're going to need it!"

We all left the table silently, heading towards our rooms, as though we had just been told that one of the others had died. How could HoN Co. have found us so easily? We had been so careful! I knew we had been taking a risk when connecting the portal chamber to the base long ago, but at the time it seemed so remote a chance that they would find us, I didn't give it a second thought. If they managed to either find the two levers for the combination lock, or smash the wall down, they would have a direct route to our base. Let's hope it never got that far. Or at the least, let's hope we managed to begin our journey off to their HQ first. Once we had the Eyes, we would need to head straight to the portal, and then to The End for the keystone. Once it was ours we would have to make a beeline for the conducting tower and destroy the master portal. Then I would find out whether any of my dreams was true or not... I let Amie into my room before closing the door, and we settled in for the night; an odd silence had drifted over the base since SERVERE had informed us about HoN Co., and despite all of the progress we had made so far, a small part of me asked the one question that I had tried to keep squashed down: "what's the point any more...?"... We would need to get the Keystone before HoN Co., and luckily we had more of the Ender Eyes than they did. Carrying all of them would make us massive targets on the way to the HQ, but leaving them behind at the base would be worse... I suppose we would just have to decide what to do when the time came...

Syeonyx signing off