Maggie, Tommy, and Antonio fell out of the portal and landed on some soft ground. Thankfully, the height difference wasn’t significant, so the three of them didn’t get hurt all that much. The soft grains crunched in between their fingers as they clenched them tightly before pulling themselves off the ground.

“I’m starting to hate portals,” Maggie murmured as she shook the sand off her hair.

“Yeah, same here, but where are we, though?” Tommy replied, brushing the sand off his clothes.

They looked around and found themselves on top of a big mountain top, where the clouds appeared closer to them than ever before, almost as if one of them might touch them.

The only other item of interest was a small pylon-shaped rock that resembled the one they remembered from the portal. Antonio could hear his laptop softly humming and went to take it out of his backpack to get a better listen.

“Antonio, can you hear me?” Mandy spoke up.

“Yes, I can,” Antonio replied, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“What a relief, I thought for a second that — well, never mind. I guess we lost connection temporarily.”

“I suppose?” Antonio shrugged. He stopped for a moment and realized something.

Now that they had a connection again, Antonio gave Mandy a synopsis and break down the events that led up to their current predicament.

“Uh, wow...” She said, absolutely stunned by the story.

“I know! We might get out of here earlier than expected, after all!” Tommy piped up.

“I don’t know about that,” Mandy warned them. “You guys might get in a lot more danger than before...”

Maggie looked ahead in the distance and clenched her fists. “I hate to agree, but I don’t trust that ‘alien girl’ either...”

“Uh, you know those crystals aren’t toys, right?” Mandy inquired.

“Yeah? I know...”

“Then, why are you—?”

“Well, maybe if you guys hadn’t taken so much time fixing that machine while we’re out here trying to survive, we wouldn’t have to follow her!” Maggie glared at her and snapped.

Everyone stayed silent in shock. Maggie was about to say something, but decided against it. She turned her head and stormed off. Tommy and Antonio followed soon after her in silence.

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.-.-.-.

Fortunately, as they walked toward the obelisk, they found their perspective of the distance not as broad as they thought. The group got to their destination in no time at all.

The three wondered what they should do since the obelisk didn’t appear to have any entrance visible to their eyes. Mandy suggested that the three of them check and see if they could find a secret passage hidden somewhere.

So the group inspected the outside surface of the pylon for clues until Tommy found an invisible block move as he pushed against it. Maggie and Antonio found something similar, and as they struggled against the stones, it ended up creating a hole that served as their entrance.

The three stepped inside the opening and found the place to be a lot hollower and darker than it first appeared. Antonio thought it would be difficult to see, even as their eyes adjusted to the dark when some lights came on. They noticed that the light source came from a sizeable glowing monitor next to a set of control panels.

As the three got closer, something unnerving dawned on Antonio. The control panel had an eerily similar appearance to the one Amy had back in her base. He thought about pointing this out to the others, but Maggie seemed more interested in inspecting each of the knobs that changed color, many colors even, except for one particular color: green. Maggie sighed in disbelief and defeat.

Tommy noticed her expression and was about to ask what was wrong. She loudly cracked her hands together and moved over to the edges of the gem. She tried to pull it out, suffice to say; it didn’t work.

“Man, why are they stuck like glue?” Maggie questioned.

“I don’t know,” Antonio replied with a shrug. “But I don’t think you should mess with those like that...”

“Why is that?” She asked, leaning against a large gem on the ground with her hand. Without warning, a loud thundering sound came from within the space; it appeared to be at some distance.

“What was that sound?” Tommy panicked.

“I think it happened as I did... this?” Maggie leaned over and pressed onto the yellow gem again. This time, light green lightning struck down from above.

“Will you knock it off!?” Antonio thundered. “Don’t you see? Those are dangerous!”

“Oh, I don’t want to hear that coming from—”

“But it doesn’t make any sense!” Tommy interrupted. “It was sunny a while ago...”

“Oh my gosh, you’re right!” Antonio exclaimed. He moved the laptop closer to his face. “How can that be, then?”

“Shouldn’t you guys do something?” Mandy asked.

“We know, you don’t have to tell us twice,” Maggie muttered, shaking her head.

“But how do we get this machine to work without the risk of further corrupting the land?” Antonio asked Mandy, his hands trembling, as he tried to keep the laptop from falling.

“Hang on; I got an idea! I’ll scan them all!” A flash of aqua green light emerged from the laptop as the scanning process began on each of the orbs, one by one, until the beam disappeared and she got her results.

“All right, press only the tan-colored ones, but do not confuse them for brown or peach, understood?” Mandy cautioned them.

“You got it!” Antonio replied with a thumbs up.

He, Tommy, and Maggie waited for the required color to show up on the gem and then pressed them in no particular order. Within minutes, the monitor created a magic portal for them to jump in. No one knew where it would lead to; all they could see were mixes of light orange and aqua colors blended in a swirl covering the space. The three stood there and watched in awe.

Figuring that's where the gem could be located, Tommy acknowledged they won't accomplish much by standing around, and entered the portal.

“Let’s go!”

Maggie and Antonio exchanged a nervous glance and followed him.