55. Detonating Chaos

        The devastation on Gorias had been catastrophic, after having lost so many of his aribu to the Ebar Colonization project, Halios was short staffed all of a sudden, he had to deploy every soldier available to secure the island in order to clean up and recover anything salvageable. Due to the scale of destruction, Torus had to send all his Security personnel to clean up, too, leaving some departments vulnerable to neglect.

         Overnight, the Underworld transformed into chaos, and without any forethought or preparation guiding the operation, the scene was unfolding badly. Miscellaneous untrained crews swarmed the tunnels, lost in confusion. Overloaded trains overheated, unable to transport everyone, leaving many to walk back and forth from the island with hand dollies, wheelbarrows and wagons.

         ‘THE COMING WAR IS COMING NOW’ were the day’s tabloid headlines the following day, rumors had become reality, the tension had escalated into solid action. Yet the New Empire was poised to blossom from the war, the gods were making sure of that. Up above the milieu they painstakingly poured over the plans and maps of the Underworld, mulling over their options, making final adjustments. Aside from building bombs, there were three bunkers being built for the war. One was a Residence, a beautifully furnished home for the gods and goddesses, one was a Storage bunker, to securely house the historical documents, assets, valuables, research and technologies. The third was a Reserves bunker, simply furnished to house the aribu during the bombing of Mount Ekar.

         "I think we could plant a bomb in each of these mine shafts" Halios pitched, pointing to the locations on the map. "They're sort of perfectly placed around the mountain, don't you think? It ought to rip the top off, delete the beast and then we'll have access to the gold deposits below."

         "Supposed gold deposits…" Atalon reminded, rubbing his chin. 

         "I must remind you of the Oracle divinations..." Bakkon asserted. "We shouldn't just ignore them."

         The table fell silent. Everyone knew the Oracle divination was interfering with Atalon's agenda, they could feel his mood shift from the mere mention.

         "Perhaps we simply misunderstood them" Torus offered. "Perhaps the nest of twigs is Aquilla's lair and the poison is the dogons!"

         "And the Golden Egg is the gold in Mount Ekar!" Halios smiled, joining the dots.
         "According to the Oracle's, flames melt the shell of the Golden Egg." Hedena offered, seeing another side to the mysterious egg prophecy. "What if the Oracles are right? Maybe he has a Golden Egg in there? If we set fire to his lair then we could release some Aquillan Phoenix who could be even MORE dangerous than Aquilla!!!"
         For a moment, the table fell silent, everyone could sense Atalon's rage simmering.
         "I told you, it's not gold, it's a rock" Halios reminded.
         "I say we blow him up tomorrow!" Halki offered.
         "Medel doesn't just blow him up on any old day" Medena scolded.

         "There's an eclipse right before the solstice" Nolan offered. "There's an eclipse written in The Time Prophecy, isn't there?"

         "The eclipse is the Cover Story" Atalon reminded, "given the fact we’re launching such a potentially damaging experiment."

         "Experiment?" Halios barked, insulted. "It's no experiment, it's been tested!"

         Again, the table fell silent. Orius had been gone for almost ten years, and the truth was, so had the research and development, no one had checked on Nolan’s work, now that Dell and Orius were both gone, no one even understood what he was doing, no one had dared to detonate anything bigger than his scaled Engine Chamber experiments. And they were using this technology to blow the top off a mountain?