Chapter 7

I was still feeling slightly irritated by the encounter as we entered the tube to go home. I was thankful he wasn’t there waiting for us but knew we would see him again rather soon. I suggested to Amenthia and Enti to go collect some food for our day in the Dungeon and I would let Cassandra know we were going in and that we had a quest. My mind drifted to our last quest and the results of that ill-fated mission. I entered the shop to find all three hard at work on their various projects. It was a bit late in the day, so there were no other members in the shop.

Brot’k was busy at the anvil, banging away at a glowing piece of metal, shaping it while it was still glowing hot. Fra’tilia was hard at work at her table, marking and sewing pieces of fabric together. Cassandra had what looked like a piece of her armor on the table, but I couldn’t tell exactly which from my current distance. Brot’k, as always, was the first to notice me. He quickly finished with his piece of metal and quenched it in a nearby bucket. He took off his goggles and gloves, placing them on the anvil before coming over to greet me.

“Ah, Pathios, my good friend” He called out with a warm and inviting smile. “What brings you to our shop today?”

“I am actually here to see Cassandra,” I replied, gesturing to her at her worktable. “We picked up a quest today, so I wanted to let her know the details and see if she would be coming.”

Brot’k nodded and made his way back over to the forge to continue his work. Cassandra finished carving a rune, speaking in whispers over the piece of metal. As the rune was completed, there was an arcane glow of violet that spread across all the runes on the piece of armor. The glow faded to nothingness as she put down her tools and walked over to me.

“So, what mission do we have?” She asked with a friendly smile. “I have rather enjoyed the work we have done in there so far.”

“We will be dealing with a disturbance in a mine on the third floor,” I answered, watching her reaction to that information. “Some of the miners have gone missing and there have been various tunnel collapses. Esmeralda assures me that all the tunnels the Arachni used are gone, making this something new entirely.”

“Do you know if we will be able to mine anything for ourselves?” Cassandra asked in almost a giddy tone.

I shook my head, “I’m not sure, to be honest. But I figure we will be meeting with the people who run the mine before we enter it, so we can always pose the question then.”

Cassandra smiled, “Fantastic. When were you planning on leaving? I need to get some things just in case, but I can be ready within the hour.”

“Ha-ha, it won’t be until morning,” I replied. “We will see you then; have a good night.”

I went to our room and decided to simply shower and go to sleep as the last few days had been exhausting. I didn’t bother bringing or wearing boxers, I simply stripped and wore a robe. I brought my change of clothes, including a new set of boxers, and went on my way. I didn’t waste time, wanting to go to sleep as soon as I could. I was curious as I left the showers, wondering what I would find when I arrived at the cubby I was using. It looked like they didn’t take anything, as all my clothes were there, as were the fresh boxers. I got dressed and made my way back to the room to find Enti and Amenthia had come back.

“Aww, you showered without us?” Amenthia asked with a cute little pout. “I was hoping that we could all shower together.”

I gave an apologetic smile and replied, “ I am sorry, my loves. I just wanted to shower quickly and get some sleep. Between the Dungeon during the day and you two at night, even my youth has its limits.”

They laughed and gave me a kiss before leaving for their own showers. I was asleep before they returned and, thankfully, it was a deep, dreamless sleep. I awoke the next morning with my loves pressed at my sides and felt at peace with what I was fortunate to wake up to. I got out of bed carefully, hoping not to wake them and went to the bathroom. When I returned, they were just beginning to stir. I stood and watched as they stretched and shook out their metaphorical cobwebs. With our plans in motion, we got dressed and went over to Brot’k’s to get Cassandra. As we left our room, we were surprised to find her waiting for us. I could see she was quite excited at the prospect of being in a mine.

Despite her excitement, we made sure to stop in the dining hall to have a meal. We went straight for the transit tubes, but I shocked Cassandra when I set our destination for the top floor of the shops. When we arrived, I explained that I didn’t want us to start at the same place we began with the last quest. We had begun to rely too much on being able to easily defeat our foes and had got complacent. I wouldn’t make that mistake again, so we were going to buy some health options. Enti suggested we visit the shopkeeper who sold us the tracking potion. We followed her lead and soon found ourselves at the kiosk of her friend Ral’talia.

“Hello, Entivala,” the young elf girl said with a smile. “I see you and your friends have returned to peruse my wares. What can I do for you today?”

Entivala smiled and replied, “Hello to you too, Ral’talia. We are hoping to get some health options for our next foray into the Dungeon. We have encountered some situations that have been remarkably close calls and we would like to lessen the chance of failure.”

“Of course,” Ral’talia replied with a friendly smile. “I have potions of various strengths available for purchase. Given your level I would suggest a typical, low level potion. It will heal you for one hundred health points. I currently have twelve in my stock, each running roughly five hundred gold each.”

“We will take them all,” I said, as I quickly calculated how much gold that would be. “I would also like to get another of your tracking potions. One that lasts longer, in case they get away and we need to track them”

Ral’talia became lost in thought, then replied. “I have a greater tracking potion, it lasts twelve hours, instead of the three hours. That I’ll set you back another three thousand gold. Since your bracer was paired to the last vial, you will not need to pair this one.”

I nodded to Amenthia, who began pulling out bags of gold. She quickly counted out the necessary funds and Ral’talia turned to collect the options. The health potions looked like test tubes with corks in the top. Inside was a red, bubbly liquid, typical of the color most video games used for them. The tracking liquid was in a bottle reminiscent of one that contained cough syrup. The liquid inside was yellow, like the previous one had been. This one, however, had a sparkle to the fluid that the other lacked. No doubt it was an effect of the magic that had been infused within it. We thanked the young elf and I handed out the potion to the party, making sure each of us had three.

I put the tracer potion away for further use and we thanked Ral’talia before heading to the transit tubes. A few minutes later, we were in the village closest to the mine, emerging from the Pact House there. It would take about twenty minutes to a half hour to get there going directly. We didn’t waste any time, and half an hour later we were nearing the mine entrance. Twenty minutes into our travels, the ground began to dip down into a valley. As we approached the entrance, we saw it was carved into the side of a large, rocky cliffside. There were various tents placed somewhat haphazardly around the area in front. A small log fence surrounded the tents and created a makeshift barrier.

Looking at our maps, it seemed that the area the miners were camping in was a safe zone. That would make sure that they would be protected from the mobs that spawned nearby or wandered towards them. There was some bustle in the camp as various members moved around it. Some were carrying tools and bringing them to the entrances. Some were in the process of shaving, brushing their teeth or helping prepare their morning meal. There seemed to be three big fires in the center of the camp; each had pots of food cooking on them. If it weren’t for the fine meal, we had had prior to leaving, I’d have been tempted to try some of their delicious smelling food.

All eyes turned to us when we entered the camp. Some were looks of suspicion, others of interest and the rest seemed perturbed. An elderly dwarf walked over to us, and there was a noticeable limp in his right leg.

“Hello there, young adventurers,” the old dwarf said in a neutral tone. “What, pray tell, are you four doing here so early in the morning?”

“Hello, there,” Amenthia said with a disarming smile. “We are here in response to the quest that was given to the Guild. We will render any assistance you may need and will explore to find out the source of your problems.”

The old dwarf smiled, “Well, that is great to hear, young lady. I was worried about how long it would be before someone took it. My name is Gard Snagcarn, and I am the foreman of this mine. We don’t have much to give the Guild in way of payment and we worried it wouldn’t be enough, especially after the Arachni fiasco. We do wish we had more to offer, but this problem has caused serious issues with production and we had to dip heavily into our personal funds.”

I glanced at the others and saw the look on their faces. They felt badly that we would be taking the funds of these people.

“How about this,” I said, drawing his attention to me. “You keep the money. Instead, send some raw ore, on occasion, to the Tyr Pact House. We have gained an in-House smith and the raw materials would be helpful.” I then turned and gestured to Cassandra, “Also, our companion here is a runesmith and would like the opportunity to mine some ore while we delve into your tunnels. We would, of course, follow any guidelines or restrictions you would impose.”

The old dwarf nodded and became lost in thought. A few times we saw his eyes wander to the others in his camp and towards us.

After a few minutes, he nodded again and turned his focus to me. “If you can deal with this problem, we will honor that request. We will send one hundred pounds of ore to your Pact House once every two weeks. While you are here, your companion may mine from three locations within the mine. This mine contains copper, tin, and iron. There is iron in abundance, though we have only come across minuscule amounts of copper and tin. We hope that there will be a larger abundance further down but have yet to get there. If we come across anything new, we may send some to your House from time to time. Will this be agreeable?”

I looked over at Cassandra, who nodded emphatically in response. I laughed a little at her enthusiasm and said we agreed. The old dwarf turned and rummaged through a nearby cart and pulled out an old looking pickax.

“This is a three-use pickax,” Garn explained as he handed it to me. “Please only use this to mine with. This is our livelihood, and since we do not know you, you can understand our slight lack of trust. If you have your own pickax, I will request you leave it with me. I will return it when you leave the mine.”

Cassandra nodded and pulled her pickax out, handing it to the dwarf. He inspected it for a minute and gave her a smile before placing it in a lock box on the nearby cart. I handed the old pickax to Cassandra, who put it with her things. Enti brought up her map, then shifted it down one level to remove the land map and bring up the entrance to the mine and its tunnels. It looked like the main shaft went for thirty meters before splitting in two. Those two shafts continued for another twenty meters before the details ended.

“If you could show us where you had the most issues, we would appreciate it,” Enti said as she knelt down in front of the dwarf.

Garn gestured along the tunnels as he explained, “The main shaft is fine, and the eastern shaft has had no issues so far. That is probably due to it being a newer shaft we started after the western shaft showed problems. Now we have started to see possible signs of the same thing happening in the eastern tunnel, but nothing concrete. I would suggest that you turn left when you hit the fork. That shaft continues for another forty meters before you will reach the cave in. I would start your search for answers there.”

I nodded and said, “I will suggest that, until we know the reason for this problem, you try and keep your people to the areas they know are safe. It may mean smaller yields today, but I would hate for anyone to get in harm’s way.”

He smiled and nodded in reply. Enti stood back up and we began to make our way towards the entrance when Garn called out to us.

“Be sure to take two of our lanterns near the entrance. If you are going past the collapsed area you are going to need some light.”

We thanked him and walked into the mine entrance. The main area looked to be about two to two and a half meters wide and around five meters high. The walls were braced every meter with thick beams. The beams bracing the walls had lanterns in the center, while another hung down from the cross beam bracing the ceiling. They were using lanterns that had crystals inside generating the light. I looked around and saw smaller versions sitting on a cart nearby. These could be clipped to a belt and were more like a flashlight. We took two, one for my belt and one for Cassandra’s as we prepared to head deeper into the mine.

Certain that we had everything we needed, we started following the main tunnel towards the fork. As we made our way deeper into the mine, we passed various workers. Men and women of various ages and races, working at chipping away the rock for the treasures that might lie beneath. We were given the occasional glance or head nod as we passed. No one seemed to look concerned that we were there, though I wasn’t going to discount the possibility that the perpetrator could be a member of the camp. It could easily have been that a member had found a horde of materials but didn’t want to share it with the group and thus made what would look like an attack. I would reserve judgement until we found evidence to support such a claim.

It took about ten minutes to reach the fork in the tunnel. The left tunnel had boards and rope blocking off the entrance. We walked over and heard someone call out behind us. We turned to see a young human, probably only a year or two younger than me.

“That tunnel is off limits,” he called out as he darted to us from where he had been working. “There have been a few incidents lately and it has been deemed unsafe.”

I smiled and replied, “ We know, that is why we are here. Garn explained a bit of what has been happening and told us to concentrate our efforts in the left tunnel.”

“Oh, okay,” he replied, as his body took a more relaxed posture. “Old Garn said he was gonna put out a request, but he didn’t expect it to be filled for a few weeks at minimum.”

Amenthia smiled and said, “Yes, he told us of the problems your mine had had between the Arachni menace and now, this issue. We have worked out a means of payment that will allow your group to keep their hard-earned money.”