“Nope,” Ben said casually, a [Kenetic Leap] sending him backwards nearly twenty feet. Then, for good measure, Ben started side hopping, quickly crabbing his way to the other side of the pile of trash. “[Whap].” The pile of garbage was quickly taken, prompting a howl of rage from both the junkie Gray, and the Gremlin. He was just too fast and maneuverable for them to catch, however.
“I’m like a grasshopper in a-” Ben started to say, feeling thrilled with himself, then realized he couldn’t come up with a good way to finish the sentence. “I’m like a grasshopper,” he said confidently, then started bouncing around the Forge District while he checked his map. The quest was complete, and the map was giving him directions to his ship. Ben briefly considered peeking through a window or two and stealing anything his Utility Pocket could reach, then decided that he should save that sort of thing for when he wasn’t at work. He did, as he ping-ponged his way to higher and higher elevations, mark a few locations on his map after glancing inside the red tinged windows and seeing unknown machines and devices. Those were probably worth something!
“And now we go down,” Ben said, clinging to an outcropping near the top of a building close to the ship. “[Kenetic Leap],” he spoke the skill aloud and with barely a wince, launched himself straight at the ground at magically enhanced speed. The flat black super-asphalt or whatever it was they paved the ground with here, did not shatter or even crack, though Ben made a thoroughly explosive slap against it when he landed. The sound was so loud, in fact, that it shook a nearby building, which started to buzz a little bit. Ben recognized the feeling as a psychic disturbance and decided it was time to leave, so he speed walked back to the ship and climbed in.
The old timer was still asleep, and Ben wasn’t inclined to wake him up. He started up the ship right around the time the building he’d shook started disgorging Grays like a disturbed anthill, each one of them buzzing with psychic anger. Though uniform in the appearance of their bodies, these Grays clearly distinguished themselves by uniform and equipment. He’d have liked to take a closer look, but they noticed the ship rising into the air and started pointing at him. Then, their pointing fingers started to glow ominous, magical colors.
Ben accelerated straight up just in time to escape the worst of the magical bolts and blasts directed at him, all while laughing like mad. He accelerated away from the disturbance he’d caused, found a setting in the controls of the ship that allowed him to hover in place, and began flipping through the rest of the pile of quests. Ben still couldn’t quite determine what most of it meant, still being written in incomprehensible work jargon, but he was both learning, and not afraid to wake the old timer up.
“Hey!” Ben shouted, pushing the rough crystal man on his shoulder, “Hey!” he shouted again, louder. No response. “Oh my God, it’s our [Supervisor]!”
“Get back to work!” he was both awake, and fired up instantly, “all of you!” he looked around, then glared at Ben. “That’s a nasty trick. I just burned a daily skill because of you, monster.”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed, “so where to next?” he shook the quests at the old timer, who rolled his crystal eyeballs.
“Next, I want some food. I’ll drive.”
--
After they’d gotten food, Ben’s work day consisted of the following tasks: Turning a valve at the end of an alleyway; picking up more trash in a different part of the city; literally driving by several locations and looking at them to make sure they were still there and then keeping a lookout while the old timer napped for the last three hours of their shift. Ben’d been through less productive work days. The worst part of it was that he didn’t have anything to distract his mind from thinking about ‘The Mines’, which the old timer confirmed were extremely dangerous. The end of his first shift was the mirror image of it’s start, and Ben realized with a mild degree of annoyance that most of the city employees hadn’t even left the building.
Nobody spoke to him, and he was fine with that.
A bell rang, signaling the end of their shift. The group as one got up and shuffled out the door, and Ben began his journey to the outskirts of Solas to confront The Mines.
--
Outside of Solas, in a flat green grass field, a group of nervous looking aliens stood in formation, looking around and wondering where the fuck The Mines were. Their only clue was the group of robed Sunlets and Aeon Slugs who were silently in conference with one another. Ben noted in silent acknowledgement, Vivi, who appeared to be working as a porter or servant for the group.
“Welcome to the first day of your court ordered community service,” a Sunlet in what Ben assumed were [Summoner]’s robes said, addressing them, “and for many of you, the last days of your life. In a few short moments, we will perform the summoning ritual [Summon Magical Mine], which will temporarily anchor a magical mine from The Beyond here. Each of you will enter your own mine, alone, and get as deep as you can. Should you reach the end of your mine, you will find a large purple sphere. That is your goal, retrieve the sphere and bring it back here.”
“What’s the sphere?” someone asked, and the Sunlet [Summoner] scoffed.
“Something for [Summoner]s to worry about, and for you to retrieve,” he said, and behind him reality warped as the [Summoner]s performed their ritual. A shitty looking iron pickax dropped from the sky and landed with a heavy thud on the ground. “Ah, perfect. You there, the one with the questions, go pick up that pickax. The rest of you, listen up! The ritual [Summon Magical Mine] is anchored to the pickax you will receive. When it breaks, you will be forcibly ejected to the surface and the mine will return to The Beyond from which it was called. The fastest and most efficient way to break your pickax, is to use it and dig yourself deeper into the mine.” Behind him, reality warped again, and another pickax fell from the sky. “You, pick it up and start digging.”
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Ben realized he hadn’t been watching the first alien very closely, and could now only see a hole in the ground where he should be.
“While in the mine, you will encounter monsters of various kinds. Some will be appropriate for your level, and some will not be. While in the mind, you will encounter veins and deposits of both mundane and magical materials in large quantities. Feel free to take whatever you can carry with you, but be warned that standing still or failing to proceed deeper into the mine for longer than ten seconds can trigger the [Curse of Instantaneous Death] which makes the ritual of [Summon Magical Mine] so infamous. You will see the [Curse of Instantaneous Death] descending from above you the moment you touch your pickax, so start digging!”
Reality warped again, and another alien was called from formation.
“We do not expect any of you to succeed in reaching the end of the mine. Rather, this exercise exists for the sole purpose of leveling our junior [Summoner]s. Summoning rituals that require living sacrifices are, naturally, one of the fastest ways to level.” He gave all of the living sacrifices a dark look, then resumed speaking. “The only thing we want from the mine is the purple sphere at the end! We have no interest in whatever else you may find, and please do not waste our time attempting to show us whatever nonsense you’ve managed to drag out!”
Reality warped again, but this time, it was accompanied by the sound of a crystal chime. There was a burst of light, and a golden pickax decorated with red gems fell from the sky with a heavy thud. Ben felt drawn to it, and the Sunlet [Summoner] looked up from his clearly rehearsed speech.
“That’s you, monster. Unlucky that you have such a strong affinity for The Beyond, because that looks like it’ll take forever to break. Good luck!”
Frankie appeared on Ben’s shoulder and flicked the [Amulet of Explosion Immunity]. Ben nodded at him and approached the golden pickax, took a deep breath, and picked it up.
[You have become anchored into a summoning ritual! Oh No!]
[Dig down, now!]
Ben looked up and saw a green pane of light slowly descending towards him. He picked up the pickax, underestimated how heavy it was, and dropped it. Much to his great surprise, the ground melted away where he hit it, and he fell straight down into a vertical mineshaft. He looked around, eyes wide as they rapidly adjusted to the new torch-lit darkness.
“Oh shit!” Ben shouted as sensory overload overloaded his senses with the sight of thousands of gem deposits, of rock fat with golden marbling, of cave walls oozing with mercury and ominously glowing chunks of sulfuric yellow and green bits of ore. The ground was riddled with solid coal and gigantic lumps of iron, copper and- Ben looked up and saw the green pane of Instant Death descending. “Oh shit!” Ben yelled, and hit the ground again. It exploded under him, sending giant chunks of coal everywhere, dropping him a few feet down. Ben started hitting the ground as fast as he could, Frankie was bounding everywhere and grabbing all the debris.
Then, Ben hit a gigantic seam of natural gas, which ignited instantly. His entire world transformed into a roar of bright light and sound as a huge vertical shaft was exploded into existence, all the while Frankie and his unseen army of Utility Pocket Elementals gathered up everything that had been blasted loose. Ben laid on the ground, breathing hard, staring up at the now distant pane of death descending down, eyes wide, heart pounding. Pupils fully dilated.
“Oh my God,” he said, grabbing the [Amulet of Explosion Immunity], a lunatic smile on his face, “Oh my God! What is that up there?” Ben noticed, high above him, an exposed cluster of thin blue crystal. “[Kenetic Leap]!” he shouted, and blasted his way to it, smacking it with his pickax and allowing Frankie to collect it. “Wait, what’s that down there?” he said again, seeing another shiny bit that caught his attention, “holy shit, its gold!” Ben went back to the bottom of the mine and began happily destroying the gold seam with his magical pickax, laughing like a madman all the while. He stopped dead when he saw a literal bomb embedded in the rock, then without further hesitation, smacked it with his pickax.
The explosion blasted him clear across the mine, but his amulet protected him from harm.
“Yes! Yes yes yes!” Ben yelled, digging deeper and deeper, the pane of instant death completely forgotten as the sheer dopamine of the situation propelled him deeper and deeper. Every explosive hazard he encountered, he detonated, and reaped the rewards of the devastating explosions. Diamonds, gold, gems and mundane elements, all were present in the mine, and all were sucked up by the seemingly bottomless Utility Pocket.
Then, without warning, his pickax broke, there was a flash, and he was back on the surface, breathing hard, body flush with adrenaline and covered in black soot from practically living in pressurized fire and burning piles of coal.
“Now!” the Sunlet [Summoner] proclaimed, looking at the much smaller group of beat up aliens, “now!” he repeated, “I want you to realize what the consequences of defying Solas are! Each of you has been sentenced to weekly trips into that death trap!”
“Weekly?” Ben said, a frown on his face, “why not daily? Hell, I could do another one right now! You there, aeon slug! Start the ritual again, now!” Ben was shaking with the sheer force of excitement he felt, wanting nothing more than to lay down on a crate of dynamite and survive the explosion again.
“No!” the Sunlet [Summoner] was, like everyone else, staring at Ben like he was a complete fucking lunatic. “You’ll serve your sentence as the court ordered it, and not any sooner!”
“Cheh,” Ben spat, glaring at the Sunlet, “greedy fuck. Imma make Vivi learn that ritual is what imma gonna do,” Ben said, stretching and feeling better than he had in a long time, “holy shit, where there even monsters in there? I think I blew them all up before I could even spot them, lmao,” he said, saying each letter of lmao out loud. Vivi looked at him from across the way, a bewildered expression on his face, before he gave a shrug of his eyestalks. “So I can keep all this stuff, right? Sir, all that stuff is mine?”
“Sure, whatever you managed to stuff into your pockets is yours,” the Sunlet sneered, turning away from him, “now get out of my sight and report here again next week. You are all dismissed!”
Ben had a few hours before he was supposed to show back up at his apartment building and reconvene with his group. So, he took some public transportation and went to Mice Labs. Nick and Atomis were relieved to see Ben alive, but Ben, still in blazing afterglow of his experience in The Mines, wasn’t coherent enough to talk about it. Instead, he dumped a bunch of faintly glowing yellow and green material on a desk.
“Is this uranium?” Ben asked, eyes wide. Atomis and Nick both discretely stepped away from it.
“Yeah, that’s uranium. Why do you have uranium?”
“Boys,” Ben said, dumping more uranium ore onto the desk, “boys! Let’s make some bombs boys!”
The [Mad Scientist] and the [Assistant Mad Scientist] both blinked, and then their eyes went wide.