Chapter 24

They stocked up on essential things before heading out, making sure that they had rope, torches and some food. It wasn’t too pricey, and as Nathan also sold the low-quality weapons he’d picked up, he ended up more or less even.

The walk itself was eventless, although it wasn’t as short of a walk as Bruce had promised. It took them 20 minutes to reach the forest, at which point the path they had followed turned into a small trail. They followed the trail for another 10 minutes before they found the mine as they crested a hilltop.

Nathan wasn’t sure what he had expected, but not this. The mine was on the edge of the hills biome just before the mountain started for real, but most of the area had been leveled and turned into gravel or sand. That wasn’t all they’d done, though. In the middle of the graveled area was a wide pit which he estimated to be the width of two football fields with the depth of a couple floors. The sides were steep enough that they could not be climbed by anything besides the spryest mountain goat.

The surprising part was that at the bottom of the pit, there was not just a mine entrance, but also the remains of a couple of large buildings and rusted scrap which clearly had been tractors and trucks and one point. A narrow rail track led from the largest building and into the mine. This had obviously been a fairly modern operation at one point.

“We are in the right place, that’s for sure. Can anyone see a way down?” asked Margos.

“There’s a zipline or something over there”, RedReaver pointed to the left side of the pit.

Nathan took one look and disregarded that as an option. “That line is rusted through and will probably snap under any weight at all. But there is a road going down along the edge on the other side there.”

The rest of the group looked where he indicated.

“On the other side of the pit?” asked Ashira. “I can’t see anything”.

“Me neither,” said RedReaver.

“I see it. It’s hard to make out as it is the same color as the rest of the pit, but once you know to look for it, you can definitely see that it’s a small road,” confirmed Margos. “Makes sense, as the trucks needed a way to exit the pit.”

“Trucks? What trucks?” asked RedReaver while looking around.

Margos looked confused. “Well, the truck remains at the bottom of the pit. You don’t see them? Beside the old foundations.”

RedReaver strained his eyes. “Oh, those trucks. Sure,” he mumbled uncertainly after a while.

“I don’t see them either,” admitted Ashira.

Margos rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well. You’ll see them when we get down there.”

In no time at all they had walked around and down into the pit.

“Let’s check out the area before we head to the entrance. Maybe there are some clues here as to what we can expect on the inside,” suggested Nathan, and they split up and canvased the area.

On his way towards the biggest of the old buildings, Nathan noticed a discrepancy in the gravel as he walked. He scuffled some of the gravel away with his foot, revealing the rim of a yellow miner’s helmet. Intrigued, they kneeled and started to brush off more of the gravel and sand in the area next to the helmet. First, a skull was revealed, and then the full skeletal remains of a miner.

Margos came over and had a look at the discovery as he worked. “What do you make of this?” he asked thoughtfully.

“He’s been here a long time, that’s for sure. The bones are sun-bleached, the clothes are decayed enough to be unrecognizable, and there is no tissue remaining. For that to happen he probably wasn’t buried or anything like that. The wind probably covered him over time. So, he was left where he fell.”

“How do you think he died?”

“See this here? And here?” Nathan pointed to a groove in one of the remaining ribs, and a fracture in the femur. “The groove could be due to something sharp sliding between the ribs – from behind by the look of it – and the fracture could be caused by blunt force trauma. A club or falling rock. Not immediately lethal, but would cause internal bleeding, in addition to severe pain.”

He stood up and considered the position of the body. “Let’s say something happened inside the mine, and this poor fellow tried to escape. He’d run out and would probably decide to run towards one of the buildings or one of the vehicles, or just parallel to the rail track. Unfortunately, due to the pain or the blood loss, he only made it half the way. He would end up around here, wouldn’t he?”

“Seems like it,” Margos agreed. “Perhaps he was stabbed in the back or brought down with an arrow as he tried to flee. Hard to run with a crushed femur, I imagine.”

“Sure, that’s a reasonable assumption.” Nathan agreed.

Ashira and RedReaver had finished their search and come over to see what Nathan had found. He quickly described what they concluded.

“What does this tell us?” probed Ashira.

“Not much, really. This happened a long time ago, so there is no guarantee that it is related to who or what occupies the mine today. If it is, what we can say is that it is something humanoid, and probably intelligent. Besides that, nothing really,” theorizes Nathan.

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RedReaver picked up the mining helmet, pointing to the light fastened to the front. “This is set to ‘on’, so either it happened while dark, or he didn’t have time to turn it off as he ran from the mine.” He looked closer at the helmet. “The battery is gone.”

“Power crystal, not battery,” informed Ashira. “The game uses power crystals which vanish when they are depleted. Like this large one that I found in one of the vehicles.”

She pulled out a crystal the size of a backpack from her pouch.

“Yeah? I didn’t know that” admitted RedReaver.

Nathan looked at the crystal.

[Large power source]

15/100 durability

A power source of the large variant. Typically used to power large buildings or installations. It will implode on itself and disappear when reaching 0 durability. It can be combined with other power sources of the same type.

“This one is probably too large for the headlight,” said Nathan.

RedReaver ripped off the headlight and tossed it to the side. “It was too damaged to be used anyhow. The helmet itself looks to be ok. Not much durability and the strap has rotted away, but it does give 1 DR. I’ll give it a go.” He dusted it off and placed it on his head.

“A bit loose, but I’ll manage. How do I look?”

“Like an idiot. So, no change, really,” teased Ashira.

After confirming that nothing else of interest had been found, the group walked to the mine entrance. It was dark inside, so they spent some time preparing their torches. They decided that Margos – who’d switched his buckler with a torch – would go first, closely followed by RedReaver, ready to step in front with his large shield. Next came Nathan, also with a torch, while Ashira walked behind.

When they were ready, they quieted down and snuck inside, ready for anything. The rail track continued inside, as the mine gradually sloped downward. It didn’t slope much, but it was enough so that Nathan didn’t envy anyone having to push a cart filled with ore up and out. He did notice that there were wires and lamps on the roof, so perhaps the cars had some sort of energy source as well?

“Whoah!” Margos suddenly blurted out, and everyone froze.

“What is it?” Ashira loudly whispered from the back.

“The ground disappeared! I was so focused on the wall straight ahead, I almost walked right into nothing.”

Nathan moved forward to the edge and looked down while moving the torch around to see how the shadows moved, noticing that there were several cables and wires hanging from the ceiling and down into the hole. He looked to the sides, seeing a mesh wire fence with a large opening where they stood.

“It’s a mining shaft, probably for an elevator,” he concluded. “There is tension on the cables, so the elevator is probably still there, just a floor or two down.”

Margos looked down over the edge. “Can we climb down?”

“We could, although…” Nathan followed the wires from the ceiling, walking over to the side where he found what he guessed to be an electronic engine. “…perhaps there is a better option. Ash, see if the power source you found fits into the slot here.”

“Oh, it’s Ash now, is it? Ash. Ash! Ash?” She tried it out loud stressing different parts each time. “You know what, that doesn’t sound so bad. I’ll allow it.”

“The power source,” Nathan encouraged flatly.

“Oh, right!” She pulled out the power source and tried to fit it in the slot Nathan indicated. “I think it should… there!”

The crystal smoothly slid into place. Nothing happened.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” RedReaver chuckled.

“How about now,” said Nathan as he pulled on a lever next to the engine.

A small ‘durr’ like sound came from the engine as the whole thing started to vibrate. Then it stopped before it started again, the vibration spreading to the mechanical parts surrounding the engine. The light above them suddenly lit up with a ‘zap’ illuminating them in a red glow, followed by most of the other lights in the tunnel they entered through, one after the other. They could also see other light sources radiating up from down the shaft.

“That was… rather climatic, I’ll give you that”, admitted RedReaver with a smile.

“Theoretically, do you think any humanoid would notice all the lights turning on, and know that there is a good chance of company?” asked Margos. “Because I’m thinking we’re not exactly going to surprise anyone now.”

Ashira snorted. “Not like we were gonna surprise anyone walking around with torches as it were. I like this much better.”

“Red, there’s an elevator recall button next over on the wall, there. Check if it works,” said Nathan.

“Will do, boss.” He sauntered over and pushed the button, and to everybody’s surprise, the machinery started to lift something. They tensed as a cage could be seen moving slowly upwards through the shaft, but the positive of it being a cage was that they could see that it was empty. That was confirmed as the cage settled in at the edge, its rail tracks perfectly lining up with the ones continuing outwards.

“Look here,” said RedReaver, indicating a poster on the wall next to the elevator button. He wiped the dust on it away with his sleeve. “It looks to be a map of the mine.”

Hearing that, the others immediately gathered around the poster.

“We are here,” Margos pointed at the top of the vertical shaft depicted,” so that means that there are three levels of horizontal shafts below us.”

Nathan spat on his own sleeve and used it to remove some of the more determent stains. “If I read these notations correctly, all of the shafts are producing as well –or were at the time they were abandoned. The bottom one seems to go much further than the other two, though. Curious.”

“You think they dug too deep, Lord of the Rings style?” asked RedReaver.

“Or too far, in this case. I’d say that is likely. But hopefully,y they didn’t wake a Balrog.”

“If they did, I’m going to go on record and say that I’ll leave Red here to face it alone while I perform a tactical retreat,” stated Margos.

RedReaver pretended to misunderstand and gracefully accepted that as praise. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. It warms my heart, and I’ll do my uttermost to deserve the pedestal you obviously see me on.”

Margos laughed. “Yeah, I’ll be devastated if you disappoint.”

They discussed the different shafts a bit more and decided to face them in the natural order, going downwards. Not trusting the elevator to remain active, they fastened a rope and threw it down the vertical shaft. They also left one of the lit torches standing on the ground, bringing the other one with them into the cage.

“Everyone ready?” Nathan asked while his hand hovered over the button with a downward arrow on it. They all answered at the same time.

“Ready!”

“Punch it!”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Is anyone else nervous?”

He pushed the button, and with a creak, they started their descent.