11 The Mine I : First Rune: Break

There was a question I felt I really needed to know the answer to. What's with this prison and titles? First if all it was Adein the lover, then it was that crappy werewolf that calls himself Uzi the ripper. And then me.

In all of the stories that Teluna and Nisi had told me about my past, they never once thought it was important to tell me I was also known as the 'Lion of Shearath'. It was pretty badass and cool,but why?Now that title became something I had to file under the list of unconfirmed info from my past.

My hands felt sweaty from nervousness, of course Nisi was holding my hands through out the duration of our journey through the tunnel and towards the crossroads. But the sheer volume of people around us, was almost suffocating.

Everyone around me was talking at the same time. Most of them seemed too eager to keep on recounting the moment when I stood up to Uzi and gave him a piece of my mind. While others were eager to recount my glory days as a human and the things I achieved and did under my banner of equality.

I listened when I could, as this was just another way for me to find out about my past. Of course it was not really pleasant, there was just to many people around me. Due to the sheer volume of people in the tunnel,not to mention the fact that they were all clustered around me,it took a bit longer than the expected hour to get to the crossroads.

As soon as I could hear the massive grinding sounds that I have only been privileged to hear once, I felt relief wash over me. The open space and the fact that there were more guards around the area, prompted everybody around me to keep quiet and draw less attention to themselves.

But the crux of the matter was that they all chose to box me in and keep me hidden from the guards to prevent another incidentlike the first one. I was too much of a target that every single guard in this prison,human and werewolves alike were gunning for me.

If I was not being squeezed to death, I would have taken a moment to appreciate my intense popularity. The crossroads was a whole lot different than when I first saw it. The caves were in completely different positions, and right before my eyes I watched the rock shift and bend as each cave entrance were moved to another position.

The only two cave mouth that did not move,was the one we just came out from,and the cave mouth with the word solitary written on top of it. It was the path to the prison that had been my home for almost a year as I made my transition into a vampire.

From where I was hunkered down in the middle of the crowd, I could see Runes over the cave mouth of the tunnel that led to both the Pit and Solitary. I could make out the words STEADY and DETACHED.It was pretty self explanatory, but one of my new guards took the time to explain it to me.

Apparently the dancing caves of Noxis Nyx was like a massive clock. The caves served as the hand or the mechanical wheels that helped it moved. But weavers had detached the two caves that served as cells for the prisoners from the entire system of the caves. Though the Weaving did not seem to be stable as on occasion, both cave entrances also shifted their positions, but the shift was always between the two of them and independent from reshuffling, of the other entrances.

Every other cave however was a little more complicated than the detached ones. They were mazes,each cave had multiple tunnels and paths that led to different places. It was endless and people got lost in those caves every single day.

It was through a lot of sacrifice and death from the vampires unfortunate situation that safe paths were finally discovered. It did not change the amount of danger the caves posed. But it at least gave each and every vampire and a way home.

From where I was standing I could see numerous caves, some where labeled,others were not. One of the caves led to the gnomes Burrow,three of them had the words mine 1, 2, and three 3 on it.There was a cave with the biggest opening and it was labelled wild lands. I could not see anything else,because the crossroads was circular with the caves surrounding and moving around the continuous hub of prisoners and guards. A lot of the caves were not labeled, but I was told that was just because they have never been successfully explored yet.

We slowly made our way to the mine labeled three. Its entrance was guarded by a set of human guards, but the had such huge dogs or was it wolves right beside them. The wolves were completely covered with rocks,with only their heads uncovered,and even then their heads had huge pointed horns like an antelope. But to be more accurate it was not as if the wolves were covered with rocks, it would be proper to say that their skin was made of rocks, or looked like one.

The wolves looked on with fearsome red eyes as they scrutinized each and everybody that went past them into the cave, their gazes were so piercing I felt compelled to hide my body or make sure my clothes were on properly. Thankfully there was no incident as we left the fearsome beasts behind.

As soon as we made our way into the mine entrance,I couldn't help but open my mouth wide. There was a myriad of tunnels that stretched all over the place. Some of them were even placed on the ceiling. A few of them had arrows painted on it with blood. My guess was that those arrows functioned as a pathfinder for the miners. This system of tunnels reminded me of a giant bee hive.

Someone could really get lost in here.

We proceeded on an our journey taking the tunnels that had the arrows painted on their walls. Sometimes the entire tunnelsystem would shift,and we would loose sight of the paths that had arrows painted on it. We would then have to wait for the tunnels to shift back in alignment before we began moving again.

The tunnels was calculated to shift three times every fifteen minutes. With the pocket watch I was given, I was able to help this group of miners properly predict the shifting of thetunnels. It took us longer than expected to get to the main mining site. But after wandering and occasionally stopping we got to the mine after two hours.

The mine was just like the pit, the only difference was that instead of huge pillars that served as towers and homes for the prisoners, there was a literal mountain of black rock that stretched for as far as my superior vampire sight could reach and even further. The roof of this cavern could not be seen, it was almost like looking at a deep black expanse of nothing. The mountain had metal like veins running through its surface, and it was filled with craters and crags, and ravines that vampires were walking into and out of.

It was an intimidating sight,the mountain was shaped like an upside down goblet and was thousands of meters tall, and I could not even begin to imagine how many kilometers long. Although it was covered with craters, and ravines all those were at its base while the surface of the mountain as one looked higher was smooth and polished like a mirror.

I was led to a human overseer, thankfully the man was not in a mood to poke fun or try to humiliate me. So he just assigned me an area,that I was to mine till I could clear it of whatever ore could be found there.

My entourage led me as we made our way to the western part of the mountain.

A few of them separated as they all went to their assigned post,while the others whose post were still on the way stuck with me. The rail car we took was very much unlike the one in the pit, it had to be operated manually and couldn't move unless someone used a pedal to propel its wheels forward. It let off an a ungodly screech every time its wheels made a full revolution that left me head aching and pounding with pain.

And I was forced to endure it for another twenty minutes before we finally got to my post. The part of the mountain assigned to me was an area of about two hundred meters wide and ten meters tall. It was smooth and unblemished and shined in the dark in such a way that I could see mine and Nisi's distorted image on it's surface.

The rest of the miners who still had to go further said their farewells as they made their way forward. Even though I smiled and showed a very amicable if not slightly regretfully expression at their departure, I was very happy for the peace and quiet. I wanted so badly to mingle with people, but all of this people where just like puppies. They looked at me with such worship that any other thing I tried getting out of them only ended up with them telling me how awesome I was.

It was a hopeless endeavor, it seemed the only people I could very well get any information from would be the gnomes that sell it at their market, or the human and werewolf guards who would love nothing more than to rip my innards out of my stomach and strangle me with it.

"Nisi can you work this rock? It seems harder than what the tower is made off." I asked Nisi who was in silent contemplation and surprisingly still beside me.

"It should not be a problem, though it is a lot harder than the tower,and I can feel the traces of different minerals within it. I have to break everything down to dust or at least tiny pieces of rocks. Cutting it into big pieces would drain my Mana faster,so the better thing to down would be to break it down into the smallest form possible, separate the minerals from the dust, then compress it.

This should be a better alternative since I can pick out and filter the minerals from the sand and rocks giving you the purest form possible at my current skill level."

I did not doubt Nisi's ability, to be honest even though I have not met a lot of gnomes or seen the rest of them in action. I like to believe that Nisi had the most advanced ability with the earth element than any other one of them. Of course this could just be me being biased.

"How long can you keep this up,and how much of the basket can you fill." I asked her as she crouched in front of the mountains surface, looking even more smaller than her diminutive height.

"About four hours,and I should be able to fill about a quarter of your basket with orhicalum. I can sense other minerals and metals, and something else that keeps blocking my Mana sense, but those are deeper into the mountain, very deep.For some reason it is easier to break down earth into the most basest form possible than to carve it out of something. Though compression and hardening it back will take a whole lot of energy and Mana,almost as much as carving into it, if not more. But the gains would be a better quality ores and more free time for you to go around and find out what you want. But just to be safe you should also try mining into the rocks, so that we can fill the basket faster and have extra ores to buy some treats later."

Nisi was wise beyond her age, smart and very intelligent. But she was very much still a child and sometimes that child like personality peeked out of her. But she was right. I had to keep up appearance also and above all I needed to keep her capabilities with the earth element as secret as possible.

It was not a rare thing for gnomes to be seen helping other prisoners mine. With their natural aptitude for the earth element, they could unearth a lot of higher quality ore and in much more quantities in a very short period of time. The only problem was that they were quite expensive to hire, they had a fixed rate of seventy percent of the ores mined, and not many vampires could afford such a thing. After all its not everyday that they would hit a vein,and even if they do, it still might not be enough.

I could pass Nisi as someone I hired to help, but I had to limit how much of a help she could be. Of course I did not think I could keep her secret for a very long time. I had too many eyes on me so she would be discovered eventually. Hopefully by then I would have gotten rid of my seal and be capable of fighting.

I approached the smooth wall and swung my pick at it. There was a very loud ding as I chipped a few rocks off its surface. I moved back a bit in shock.

"Are you okay Kael, you look pale." Which was funny considering Kael had dark skin,so it would be really hard to notice if he was pale or anything, but Nisi could see a changein his complexion.

"Are you sure you're okay." Nisi asked leaving me even more unbalanced trying to keep up with her.

I answered her quickly,if only just to keep her from talking again.

"I'm fine Nisi, it just had a little more recoil than I expected."

She nodded in acceptance and went back to turning solid rock into dust at her feet. Technically what I told her was true. But the recoil was a lot more than I expected. When I struck the mountain I felt a wave of energy pass through my pick and into my body and then straight to my head.

This mountain was strange, and this strange recoil was sure to keep all the vampires reeling in pain from the shockwave. It was a sadistic punishment, they needed to mine to be able survive, but to get to the ores they had to endure unimaginable pain. It pissed me off.

I started to hit at the mountain in anger, ignoring everything else. I vaguely noticed Nisi had moved a few steps back and watched me as I went through my temper tantrum. I suspected sheknew about the mountain's reaction to people mining on it, but did not tell me. At that moment however I did not care,I just kept on hitting at it with all of my strength.

Loose and huge pieces of earth fell around me as my anger raged on. I was angry at everything and everyone. And as the shockwaves kept on bombarding my body, my joints began to ache, my muscles began to pull and twist in protest and I could feel blood seep out from my nose,eyes and ears.I could hear Nisi crying and begging me to stop, I could hear other spectators as my rather angry tirade had gotten the attention of three other miners who were close by.

My head was pounding,and so was my heart. I felt like any moment from now I was going to explode. But I did not care, I was frustrated with everything, I was tired of people telling me how I did this or did that, I was tired of the hero worship because that was a responsibility I did not want to carry.

I was tired of the stupid guardslike Uzi the ripper with a stupid name or that fucking jackass of a warden Adein the lover,whose throat I would very much like to fucking rip off.And then there was that fool Asare,with his cryptic messages and questionable actions afterwards, I felt like he was playing me like I was some sort of game. I felt like I had chains all over me,chains that I just wanted to break.

My mining pick glowed a deep dark blue as I swung it, and as soon it hit the mountain's surface there was a huge Boom, as an explosion threw me back from the mountain. Slowly but surely I saw cracks began to spread from the fifty meter in diameter and almost twenty feet deep crater I had somehow made in my haze of anger.

I saw the cracks spread upward, past the crest of the mountain all the way to the top. The light on my pick was fading fast,but before it did I was able to notice a unique rune etched on its handle. It was written in what I would probably call my personal rune language. The language I called English.And written there in fading dark blue flowing script was the word.BREAK.