Chapter 1

Overseer Claust gave each and every one of his workers a blistering glare as he passed them by, making sure that they all had a pick in hand and were thorough in their labour. Fear of the Overseer stopping to 'prompt' them made each worker desperate to look efficient whenever the grizzled, apish man approached. He was well known for dealing out dreadful and creative punishments.

The heavy, clacking sound of the Overseer's metal capped boots continued to thunder down the open mining tunnel as he pressed on. For one unfortunate soul, this was the harsh stomping of oncoming doom. To all the miners working in the Echospar Excavation, this was a noise common to their withered ears. A visit from Claust could only mean one thing — that someone had violated the Miner's Code.

The footsteps stopped abruptly as Claust came to a frail old man whose skin hung from his face like tattered rags. He was feebly raising his pick and then swinging down, allowing gravity to do most of the work for him. The well-worn mattock blade struck the wall with little force; no more than a trickle of stone tumbling down with each swing.

The Overseer stood behind the old man with his arms folded, his bushy eyebrows inclined heavily and his foot tapping upon the hard surface of the tunnel. He coughed loudly but the old man gave no response; half deaf he assumed. Claust's arm moved forward and gripped a boney shoulder, squeezing tightly and drawing his lips close to the man's ear.

"I have something of yours, old man," he hissed, expecting the man to drop his pick with fright. But, with startling calmness, thankful for an excuse to be at peace for a moment or two, the fragile miner put down his pick and turned to his Overseer.

"Y-yes sir?" The man said, having trouble to force the words from his mouth. He had the stutter common in places like these spellstone mines.

Claust roughly took the Man's hand and thrust a pale green shard the size of an apple into his palm. "This is yours, am I correct?" he continued, slightly phased by his inability to frighten the clueless fool, "It was you who extracted this specific stone and delivered it to us no less than an hour ago?"

The Old Man nodded and smiled a toothless grin. The miners had been trained to memorize the size and shape of each stone that they pulled from the tunnel walls.

"Well then," growled Claust, his anger slowly swelling, "would you be so bold as to tell me what this is?"

The old man extended a crooked index finger towards the stone in his hand, ready to indicate its properties. "Th-this sir, is an arcane crystal ... a s-spellstone that h-hasn't been identified yet. It's a weapon that the mancers use for the w-war."

Claust tried, and failed, to suppress his anger. "Stupid fool!" he cursed, red-faced and saliva spraying from his mouth. "If you had bothered to look very closely, as you should have, then you would have noticed that this is not a spellstone! It is nothing more than an iridescent amberstone! It's idiots like you who turn in these blasted ambers! And we're all damned lucky that I have thirty men on the upper level checking for faults on all the stones that you miserable lot haul in. If the Indigo or Azure mancers find out that we've supplied them with worthless rocks there'll be hell to pay! It's all of our heads on the chopping block, mine included!" Claust's hands curled into tight fists, and it seemed for a moment that he might hit the miner, but he relaxed as he came up with a more appropriate fate.

The Old Man tried to swallow the lump of fear that was blocking his throat. "I'm sorry, sir, it was a small m-mistake. It won't happen again."

"Oh, you bet it won't," growled Claust with a malicious gleam in his eye, "You're coming with me. Your assistance is required elsewhere."

Gasps from the eavesdropping miners echoed around the dimly lit tunnel. They knew what this meant. It was the one thing that kept them going in the confines of this terrible prison, even against all the pain and torment that they had to endure while they worked ceaselessly. Anything was better than being sent to the research quarter of the Azure Monastery where mancers would use them as test dummies for their latest magical ideas and spells. Some slaves were lucky enough to act as targets for a destruction spell: their end would be quick and painless. However, it was the long term affliction tests that could have one screaming for hours upon end. A victim's soon-to-be fate would be the luck of the draw, just like the Old Man's.

The Old man nodded dumbly. It was obvious that he didn't have a clue about his true destination. "Would I be going h-home by any chance?"

Claust grinned. "If you call your home hell, then yes."

He bound the man's hands behind his back with a length of rope and marched him away from the rest of the miners. There were two common ways out of the Echospar Mine, and they were either death from hard labor, or a short trip to the Azure Monastery of Intellect on the surface above. To the miners neither option was desirable. Their dreams lay on the scenic plateaus that unfurled on the northern side of the Echospar Ridge, all of them wishing someday to be looking down from above to see their graves resting there or beyond. To them, that plateau was freedom.

One of the old man's neighboring miners put down his pick as he watched the two men walk slowly away. Talloran stared passively at the old man's hobbling walk, also giving equal attention to the furious Claust who was struggling to get him to keep up. For once he couldn't decide who to pity, as Claust was a man that spent unknown hours each day stampeding about the stuffy catacombs, filtering out all the slaves that were hindering his operation. The old man tripped on uneven terrain and fell to his knees, his rickety bones groaning in protest. But Claust was right on it, cursing and grabbing the man by his collar, jerking him to his feet. Every miner they passed knew that the Old Man was destined for trouble.

Dark and curious thoughts swirled about Talloran's head, most of them circulating around the Old Man's fate. He understood that his own fate was intertwined with the bucket of stones he had recently extracted from the rocky wall. He knew it would be wise to just take one last look at his collection before he turned them in to earn his daily ration.

He plunged his hand deep into the metal bucket and collected a vast array of different colored crystals. Picking through them, the first he extracted was a blood red color, and a small tell-tale spiritual glow could be seen swirling inside it like a tiny spiral galaxy. From what he could recall, this was a firestone used for the destruction mancers that specialized in the arcane elements of pyromancy, people that had the ability to manipulate fire to however they saw fit. The next stone he withdrew was a deep purple; a common single-use conjuration crystal that would terminate after use. But the third he observed was pale yellow and showed no magical properties. Obviously an amberstone! Talloran gave a sigh of relief and tossed it aside into another empty bucket, thankful that he hadn't turned the dud stone in. The thought of Claust coming back to torment him for such a small mistake was enough to chill his spine. He didn't want to follow the all too common path of the old man that had just left minutes ago. He had survived long enough in the mines without any problems and, with his reputation of turning in at least a dozen stones every day, he knew that his freedom would be granted to him soon.

The thought of freedom made Talloran pause for a moment, for normally he never found the time to think about such a thing of wonder. Mine this or mine that, haul that cart, set up this rigging, polish these stones, and most memorably, dispose of that miner's corpse, were all he could remember the Overseers screaming out from the last few days. He was a well built man, solid muscle earned from years of labor, tall, broad shouldered, and a sturdy frame. In his current state he had the potential to look handsome, though a nutritional deficiency and a dirty working place was keeping him in a haggard condition. Like all the slave miners, he was covered head to toe in dust, and his short brown hair was caked with dried sweat.

He gazed down the tunnel at the miners that were safely keeping to themselves, their minds eaten away by the darkness that loomed around them. Talloran could tell that he was different to them. He could see that the others had sadly come to accept that they belonged in the mine, that their only reason to live was to ensure that the spellstones they harvested were delivered to Azure mancers so they could continue an everlasting war on the surface against a delusional race of combat mancers called the Cerulean kindred. But Talloran felt that he was destined for so much more. There was a life outside this mine that he deserved, and if he wanted it badly enough, he could get it.

Owning a farm and cultivating crops on an outer-regional estate was something that he had dreamed of and knew was possible, but also finding a woman to fulfill his life was something that seemed too far out of reach. Due to the harsh conditions of the excavation, slave women were never brought to the mine, and as a result, Talloran had not had the luxury of feminine company for as long as he could remember. To compensate for this, he often imagined seeing women walking around the mine, gliding like friendly ghosts to those who were lonely, brightening their day. On the days that were excessively dull, he would find himself standing in the tunnel, happily flirting away with one of these beautiful imaginary girls, only to have the pleasant dream shattered when she took the form of Claust or another overseer patrolling down the tunnel to check on him.

The overseers existed solely to drive away whatever hope the slave miners had and turn them into mindless zombies. And so far, they had succeeded with most of them. Talloran, however, wasn't going to succumb to that cruelty. Somehow he was going to find what he was looking for. All he had to do was stay strong and hold out just a bit longer. But for his unfortunate old neighbor, this was no longer an option.

Talloran turned away, gathered up his pick and bucket of collected spellstones and trod down the tunnel in search of a new place to work. One thing he had come to find after working for so long underground, was that a change of location was quite comforting. Most miners saw a new workplace as just another wall of rock, but to Talloran, the different contours and lines he saw in the stone often formed fragments of his past — most notably the palm trees from the tropical islands from where he was raised — that kept him wondering, thinking, and well away from the edge of insanity that had claimed most of the miners that had come before him.

After a minute, the tunnel widened like a funnel until it spanned into a cavern with a small crack in the roof that let in a thin trickle of light. Talloran looked up. He was closer to the surface than he had expected. He found himself engrossed by the stream of light and continued to walk blindly, nearly stumbling into the ravine that suddenly appeared next to the path like a deep broad gash caused by a rusted blade.

"Watch your step!" warned a friendly voice that caught Talloran right before his foot went off the edge and into the pit of darkness.

A circle of light gleaming from a burning wall torch illuminated an aging slave whose arms and hands shook every time he lifted his pick. Talloran smiled at the familiar face and merely waved his hand as a token of gratitude. Because he had never managed to discover this slave's name, he had simply come to remember him as 'Jitters' because of his shaky nature. But that was something he thought would be best to keep to himself.

"Back again?" Jitters said as Talloran set his equipment up nearby and immediately got to work. "It feels like only yesterday that you were here. But then again, time does not exist down here in these mines. Our bodies are the only part of us that age."

Talloran swung hard with his pick and closed his eyes as rock chips sprayed into his face. "My neighbour was taken by Claust," he said stiffly. "I don't think we'll be seeing him again. In fact, I don't think anyone will be seeing him again."

Jitters raised an eyebrow. "You're worried that the mancers up in the monastery above may do horrible things to him? His fate doesn't concern you."

"That's not what I'm talking about," Talloran said and turned to look Jitters in the eye. "I'm afraid that I could be next."

Jitters chuckled and shook his head side to side. "Listen, friend, I've told you this before and I'll tell you again. You need to understand that the Azure Mancers aren't bad people. Yes, the very idea of slavery is horrific, and yes we should banish to hell every single man and woman that enforces it, but the Azure Mancers only use such methods because they have no other option."

"No other option?" Talloran said. "I'm amused at how you have such a soft spot for our captors."

Jitters ignored him. "The Azures don't have enough time and men to do the things that we do, and what we do is vital for their survival in this time of war. The Azures buy us from slavers, get their moneys worth, and then reward us with freedom if we do a good job. It's better than any other slavery system I've heard of. You should consider yourself lucky. The Ceruleans would not come close to offering us the luxury of slavery if they managed to capture us."