From Leonard, the road ran left and right. It took less than half an hour to circle the massive, fortified valley. They found other miners who eyed the two suspiciously as they passed. Around the halfway point, they finally met someone who didn't watch them cautiously.
A small man with a long beard stopped hitting a rock when he noticed them approaching. He greeted them with a thick accent that was hard to understand. "Aye, a couple of new ones. Great day for a dig, eh?"
"Sorry, I don't speak Dwarvish." Brando smiled and held out a hand in greeting.
"Dwarvish?!" The man guffawed. "Haven't spoken the tongue of my people for, let's see, it must have been about… A long time that. Ah, I'm getting old, aren't I?"
"Brando, he's speaking common," Fin said quietly before greeting the man. "Hello, I'm Fin, and this is Brando. Sorry, it's kind of difficult to understand you with your accent."
"The name's Heidle. Heidle the Hammer before I got locked in here..." The dwarf uncreased his frown and bowed deeply. "At your service. Can't do none about my speech."
"We noticed that a lot of the people here haven't been very enthusiastic about meeting us. Is there something we should know?" Fin asked.
Heidle waved a dismissive hand. "Don't pay them too much mind. The people on this side of the valley tend to want to keep to themselves. Sometimes new faces shake them up a bit. Which is their own damn fault if you ask me. The other side is a wee more crowded. Maybe a wee rude, but good people the lot."
Brando nudged him with his elbow. "What's he saying?"
Fin translated the conversation for him before Heidle looked at the sky. "Better get back to it. These rocks aren't going to hit themselves."
After they parted ways, Fin and Brando found a secluded spot to start digging.
"What's the plan?" Brando asked while chipping away at the valley's edge.
"You're going to find this hard to believe, but I think I need more enemies." Fin picked up a rock, looked at it, and then tossed it away.
"I think we have enough already." Brando rammed his useless tool into the hardened dirt. "Do you care to explain?"
Fin reluctantly began recounting the conversation he had with his father, the weird displays in his vision, and his system of quests. He also explained how certain things required either food or sleep to upgrade. When he was finished, Brando looked at him like he had expected – like he was crazy.
"I gave my father the same look when he explained it to me," Fin said, holding up two disarming hands. "I guess you have to see the quests for yourself before you understand. But I really think it's our best chance to get out of here."
"And what do these… 'quests' say?" Brando asked wryly. "Fly around in circles and blow fireballs out of your cheeky hole?"
"As soon as I complete a quest, it goes away, but right now, the ones that I have to say," Fin looked at his quests and began reading them.
"Okay, now read them again, word for word," Brando challenged.
Fin reread them all.
"Now read it backwards,"
Fin read his quests backward.
"Okay, now read every other word."
After listening to Fin read his quests in every way possible, Brando relented. "Either you are very crazy or brilliant and crazy."
Fin shrugged. "Either way, I'm getting us out of here."
"How many slavers do you think live in the camp?" Brando traded pickaxes and started searching for gems again. "If you somehow met everyone, there might be more than a hundred enemies for you to draw crazy power from. But you'll need to cut a goblin a hundred times without killing it."
Fin cracked the rock in half with his handless tool. "I don't think I'm going to take the pain route. I know it's the easiest to complete right now, but I don't like where it's going. I don't want to be the kind of person who tortures people or inflicts pain."
"And you want to be the kind of person who makes up crazy stuff about holding the beating heart of your enemies?" Brando pulled out another stone, inspected it, and then threw it away.
Fin laughed. "I want to see what happens when I get to a hundred. If it's more of the same stuff, I'll take the path of pain. Before I go around ripping people's hearts out, I need to unlock some more quests. Then I need to get enough food to upgrade my strength. Hopefully, I'll get a new ability that will help."
Brando asked for the list of abilities, and Fin read them off. After reading them several times, and then backward, Brando became thoughtful. "Okay, I'll play along. I don't know how the strengthened core will help, but the talon abilities might. Do you have any idea how the talons are going to affect your hands?"
"I'm not sure," Fin admitted. "But seeing how we have all this dirt to dig, it might be helpful to get gems."
"And you get the quests by doing dragon things, huh?" Brando blew the dirt off the wall and hit it. "Any idea what dragons do?"
"Besides flying around and blowing fireballs out of their cheeks, I have no clue."
"I'll start thinking of ideas," Brando said before dislodging more worthless rocks. "First, you need to give a good roar and see if that unlocks anything."
"I guess we should start somewhere," Fin said before bellowing out a loud roar.
"Now flap your wings and circle your prey!" Brando encouraged.
Fin began flapping his arms and jumping around in a circle.
Moments later, the dwarf ran up to them and yelled, "What in the Stones of Seger are you two doing?! I thought you were being attacked by a rock troll back there!"
Fin immediately dropped his arms and strengthened into a more dignified posture. "Sorry, I was trying to channel a dragon."
"Dragons?" Heidle asked seriously. "Out of all the lazy, good-for-nothing beasts… Look, if you want to find some gems, channel a dwarf, not an oversized lizard who sleeps all day. You nearly scared me to death back there with your yelling and hollering."
Brando nodded his head. He had only a small idea of what was being said.
"Sorry, I only had to try it once. I won't do it again." Fin said before the dwarf held his finger up for silence.
Fin and Brando stood motionless as the dwarf began listening for something. He lowered his ear to the ground. He then began slowly picking up rocks and holding them to his ear briefly before setting them back down and trying another one. The third rock was seemingly the one he was searching for. He gently held the rock up to his ear and nodded.
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
"This is it," he held the rock for a moment longer before gently offering it to Fin.
Fin lifted the rock, and as soon as he put his ear to it, Heidle made a crude noise and then started laughing. He clapped Fin on the shoulder and walked back to his spot.
"That was funny," Brando laughed. "Did you manage to unlock anything?"
Fin looked up and sighed. "Not yet."
The two chipped at the side of the cliff until the sun started setting. When they realized they wouldn't be able to spot a gem if they were holding it in their hands, they started heading back.
"I guess some situations require a little bit of insanity to get out of," Brando said just as a bell rang out in the distance.
When they arrived at the gate, they returned their worthless pickaxes to Leonard and looked around to see more people than they expected.
The other miners were all covered in layers of various colored dirt and wore simple rags. They sat or mulled around in various groups, appraising the two newcomers with trepidation. Some of the larger miners gave them openly hostile looks.
"I'm not getting the feeling like these people plan on having us for tea any time soon." Fin noticed the dwarf was also standing alone.
The sound of metal keys, rusty locks, and stubborn hinges resonated through the valley. Fin watched as armed goblins followed a much larger, fatter goblin. They made their way through the gate, stood, and grouped up at the entrance until the gate was locked again.
The goblins moved in front of Leonard's cave while the fat goblin walked inside and inspected the tools. When satisfied that all the pickaxes were returned, he yelled out some commands to no one in particular and stood there motionless.
Just when it looked like the goblins were going to grow impatient, a giant cauldron filled with what could only be the same stew from earlier lowered onto the valley floor with ropes and pulleys. The fat goblin began taking gems from people in exchange for loaves of bread and bowls of the watery substance.
"I'm hungry," Brando made forward to stand in line.
Fin rushed to stand next to him. "Didn't they say something about exchanging gems for food?"
"Only one way to find out," Brando's expression became determined. "Besides, the squeaking wheel gets the grease."
"I thought the squeaky wheel gets replaced. We had a wheelbarrow back home, and it didn't matter how much you greased you put on it…"
Fin trailed off as Brando stepped in front of the fat goblin.
"Gems?" The fat goblin asked.
Brando began explaining how he didn't have any gems, but he would have some tomorrow, and he would do a much better job digging if he had food in his stomach.
The fat goblin yelled, "Gems!" which caused the other goblins to hold their weapons in a threatening way.
Brando held up his hands, "Okay, okay, gems. I get it, gems."
"Gems!" the fat goblin yelled again as Brando and Fin left the line.
"I didn't want any more of that flavorless stew anyway," Brando kicked a rock on the ground.
"We'll get some gems." Fin watched lanterns light up, one at a time, around the top parameter of the surrounding wall. It was getting dark. "Let's see how secure this place is at night."
They circled the enclosure in the dark. There was a goblin guard standing watch every ten paces or so. Some glared at the two as they passed; others preoccupied themselves by sharpening spears, picking their nose, or staring dumbly into the distance.
The pair whispered different escape ideas as they walked the loop. They passed shallow cave after shallow cave, where groups of miners set up their pitiful camps to tuck in for the night.
"Ever sleep outside before?" Brando leaned down and felt the terrain with his hands.
"I think I'll manage." Fin being without boots, he didn't need to search the ground with his hands; he could feel the rocks just fine.
"We should settle down before I get too hungry to sleep," Brando walked further down the deeply shaded road. "Should have done this while it was still light out."
"We hardly knew what they were planning on doing with us," Fin found an area that felt like it might be soft. Well, soft enough considering they were looking for a camping spot in the dark on rough terrain. "Over here."
Brando walked over, knelt, and brushed away a few sharp rocks and spare pebbles. "I guess this will have to do. Tomorrow we should find a spot when we can see."
As soon as they were lying down as comfortable as they could manage under the circumstances, Fin began thinking about Hildred of all the people. He couldn't decide whether he would prefer marrying her or if he would rather spend his whole life digging for rocks only to end up like Leonard. His only regret is that his father might think he is dead or, worse, that he decided he didn't want to go home.
Fin smiled. He was going to get out of here, and if he managed a hand full of gems first, he would be even better off than he would have been otherwise. He wanted to review his status to get a clear idea of where to invest his points when they appeared. His status just popped into view when he decided to look at it. He considered what this feature said about dragons. He then shifted his thoughts towards what he would need to upgrade to get out of this place while he read his status.
Level: 1. Class: none Affinity: none Path: none
Strength
Dexterity
Constitution
Intelligence
Wisdom
Charisma
-18
-11
-7
2
2
3
Basic stat points: 3 gold stat points: 1 Ability Points: 0
Passive Abilities: Pain Resist