Life in the king’s lands is no joking matter. Sure, that sentiment has been hammered into everyone’s head from the age of two onwards, but no amount of lecturing prepared you for the real living. You might catch a glimpse of it on your parents as they came back from a day’s work, you might’ve peeked out of the window before sleeping and curiously watched as labourers shuffled through the streets, intoxicated out of their mind.
Such was life in the Crown Kingdom. The realm of a king and people with an insatiable appetite for prosperity, no matter the sacrifices that had to be made to get there. Outside of its borders, it was a land for the insane. No other people would so willingly devote their whole existence to work, and no other monarch or governing body would even attempt to steer theirs to that.
But the rewards spoke for themselves. All the hard work had granted the kingdom a state-of-the-art military, a cavalcade of new inventions, and made it the richest country on the planet. That alone was reason enough to continue down the path. Even if said path unleashed horrors the world never even knew existed.
It was an early morning in the northern territories. Ramsay den Hertog was preparing for the day ahead. He was a guard at the nearby North Point Mines - a source of iron and ethericite. A vital business for the kingdom - Machines weren’t made out of thin air, and magic manipulation was a bridge too far without ethericite. A vital, and lethal business.
After almost choking on the plate of eggs and bacon he scarfed down in the span of half a minute, Ramsay got himself dressed. A tight blue coat, a soldier’s hat, cotton pants, woolen socks and heavy leather boots. He grumbled on his way down.
“Swear to god, no one can make clothes that fit. Dirty bastards, the whole lot of ‘em. ‘Boosts your concentration’, pfft.”
Ramsay dusted his coat off, before heading out the door into the cold morning. He lived not too far from the mines - no need to spend half an hour walking, fortunately. He was but a young man with dreams of bigger things. Less violent work, better pay, maybe find himself a charming lady and settle down with her. Alas, he was stuck being a gunman at a mine. It paid the bills; that was where the excitement started and ended.
He shuffled his way to the pits in the cold morning air. On the way there, he was joined by his fellow guards and labourers, whose strides were as depressing as his own. The work was never enjoyable, least of all on a day like this. The streets were soggy, the sky was dreary, it was a wasted day. No one would miss it.
“Alright lads, just eight hours of this.”
“Fuck off, you. Like this is easy.”
With the fight of a match against a snowstorm, the men shuffled their way past the iron gate and into the pits. A cloud of smoky vapour hung over the mines, carrying its marked stench of rock and sulphur. It was fed by cracks in the ground, from which steam would spew. The only time it ever went away is when it was raining. How silly it was, that the thing the rest of society dreaded the most was somewhat welcomed in the mines.
He split off from the crowd with the rest of his fellow guards to hear from their foreman. While the miners were all hearing where they were ordered to dig today, Ramsay and his colleagues would be hearing what patrol route they’d be following. Another measure meant to boost morale. No one wanted to stare at the same patches of rock for upwards of ten hours a day, after all.
“Alright sir, what is your tag number?”
“932.”
“932… ah, Ramsay den Hertog. Alright then, Mr. den Hertog, I am assigning you to sector North-2.”
“That’s the one with the recent ethericite deposits, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Alrighty then. This ought to be exciting...” Ramsay said, suppressing the urge to sigh.
“You should be able to follow the signs to get there from here. Watch your step, and good luck.”
“Yes, my good sir, I will be careful.” Careful my arse… as if these people would give a fraction of a damn if I dropped cold the second I stepped into there. All they’d do is whine about the extra paperwork. Bloody bastards, the lot.
Passing by the crowds of gruff-looking miners, Ramsay made his way down the step into the mine. The stairway to hell, as many would often refer to it in mutters whenever no guards were thought to be in earshot. For the next few hours, he wasn’t getting back out. Not even for a tea break. Mine work was too dangerous for the guards to leave their posts for too long. You never know when one unlucky fellow struck into something alive.
He reached the bottom of the step, and followed the signs northwards. On the way there, he inspected his rifle and his munitions. The barrel was clean, the safety wasn’t jammed, and a cartridge of five shots was fit neatly into its slot. Ramsay breathed out in relief, before suddenly being thrown off balance face forward, his foot buckling over a stray rock. The next thing he knew, he had a mouth full of dust, and a few scratches on his hand and face.
“Son of a bitch… great way to start the morning.”
Some distant chuckling could be heard as Ramsay wiped down his coat. Anything to make the job a little easier to endure. If he was in their shoes, he’d probably have laughed as well. Not that he wouldn’t hold it against them. He grumbled curses to himself, and dragged himself off to wherever the signs were pointing him towards.
The terrain in the mine was lumpy all the way through. Ramsay had learned his lesson for now, and treaded with light feet. He couldn’t help but to scoff at the situation. All that talk over morale, and yet no one felt the need to address the steam or the potholes. The only holes that were covered up were the ones too large to ignore, and even then it wasn’t with much more than simple, fragile wooden planks. Perhaps if enough people broke their legs, the people in charge might’ve given a damn. But that moment hadn’t come yet.
Upon reaching the end of the trail of signs, Ramsay patted his rifle. “Alright, here goes,” he whispered.
“I’m working as hard as I can, sir,” a nearby miner said, hacking away at the rocks with a flimsy pickaxe.
“I see that. Don’t recall talking to you, though.”
“Agh, whatever then.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t want to have a sturdier pickaxe than that? Looks as if it’s about to fall into five pieces.”
The labourer lowered his tool from the wall, turning on his heel to scowl at Ramsay. “Listen you. That’s my grandpa’s old pickaxe. He said it always brought him luck, and I’m not swappin’ it out for somethin’ newer just because you say so. I’ll use it until it falls apart, everyone be damned.”
Ramsay raised an eyebrow. “Alrighty then. Any success with it yet?”
“Found me a gemstone and some good ethericite chunks. Won’t be long before I can get the hell outta here.”
“Good to hear. Any plans for the future?”
“Don’t know. Farm, maybe. Send the kids to a good school. Anywhere but here’s a good bet.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“Hah.”
The two men bid each other good luck, before Ramsay dragged himself along into the mines lest he wound up upsetting the foreman. It was food for thought. Miners had it far worse than guards. But if the world was kind upon their souls, they had themselves a ticket in shining metal out of here. Alas, hopes were hopes, and it had no place in the mine.
Ramsay had a large quadrant entirely to himself. It took ten to fifteen minutes to get from one side to the other at walking speed. It was a rather quiet part of the mine; not much in the way of ethericite, the resource above all resources. Just chunks of iron. It was grueling for the miners assigned here; one day thrown into the garbage. For Ramsay, it was tuesday.
The day went along as usual. Ramsay disciplined slackers, endured abuse from said slackers, and had to escort a handful of miners who had received a blast of steam in the face out of the mines. Something that looked harmless - yet it was the prime evil here. The earth’s wrath upon those who sought to defile it. One good blast of the stuff could cripple someone for life. Compared to what else lurked in the earth however, it was child’s play. No one spoke about it. But everyone knew what might lie just a single chunk of stone away.
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It was an hour to the first tea break, when everyone was thrown off balance all of sudden. Ramsay almost dropped his gun, as did the nearby miners struggle to hold onto their pickaxes. A horrible gasping sound echoed throughout the pits. Ramsay eyed the people around him, staring restlessly at their surroundings?
“What the hell was that?!”
Ramsay shook his head. “Don’t know. I don’t like the sound of it, though.”
A miner with a greyed beard stared at him with a ticked off face. “Ye don’t know?! What do ye mean, ye don’t know? Ye’ve been working ‘ere for years, ya bastard! How can ye not know what this is, everyone an’ their mum knows.”
Ramsay shushed the miner with an elbow. “Settle down, you. I’ve been here for a good eight years or so, ever since the military dropped me like a rock. I’m telling you, never heard this sound before, and I’m not sure if I even want to know.”
“To be honest, I don’ know either,” a different, less greyed miner said.
“‘S one of those nasty beasties,” a third miner said, “someone must’ve struck bad luck, heh.”
“‘S no laughing matter, ye arse.”
“Alright, you lot stay here, I’ll go and check it out. Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Can we still mine? Tryin’ ta feed my kids here.”
“I’d advise against it. Last thing I want is two of… these situations.”
“Ah, go ta hell...”
Ramsay scowled. Another howl erupted from the other end of the mine. It was accompanied by screaming. The miners all jumped, some even dropping their pickaxes and falling onto their haunches. Their face was tense, and their eyes were wide; their dirty teeth stuck out like sore thumbs in between their lips.
“I’d best get going.”
“Ye… sir. Have at ‘em.”
He nodded back, before running back towards the central area of the pits. Half a dozen miners ran past him without their pickaxes, their faces as pale as a ghost. He wiped his brow down. Whatever was ahead was nothing to be trifled with, that much was clear. Despite all the booklets and warnings from superiors, he still felt wholly inadequate. Grinding his teeth against each other, he set foot into the danger zone.
There was an awful cloud of mist hanging in the air, far thicker than the usual smog of steam that hung over. An ominous wind passed on through, with a hollow howl that sounded more as if the wind was being dragged along instead of flowing free through the passages.
Other than the wind, it was quiet. Not a footstep or a strike of a pickaxe, just the wind being pulled along. Then, a few shouts rang from up the steps. Afterwards came the metallic screeching of the iron gates being shut.
“Defog, Defog!”
Much as a storm, large machine fans engaged from above. The mist cleared, and what appeared was something unlike anything Ramsay had ever seen in his thirty years of life. A golem like construct of some kind were the only words to describe it. It was a mixture of rock grey and ethericite purple. There was a head, but no face spare two beady eyes. Connected to what appeared to be a torso were two sets of limbs, which were stumpy and rough. The whole body was being obscured by a white smog pouring out from cracks in the torso, which glew purple.
“What in the…?”
A crystalline screech rang through the pits. Ramsay fell to his knees and buried his eyes under his hands, dropping his rifle in the process. If all words had a defining sound, this would be a strong competitor for torture. Ramsay felt as if his ears were being slowly torn off. When the screeching ceased, the construct took one of its large club arms, and slammed it into the ground. The purple crevices dimmed. For a few seconds, nothing happened. The construct stood still. Then shots rang out. Guards from all over the pits opened fire on the creature. It shrieked again, raised one of its massive rock limbs into the air, and brought it down upon one hapless gunman close by. The poor sod crumpled as the arm connected with his body; you could see a very pained look on his face in the split second before he was sent flying backwards into the wall. Alas for him, he wasn’t walking away from this. Before he even hit the wall, Ramsay knew there was no chance in hell for him. He’d wound up leaving a red smear on the wall as his body slid back to the ground.
Panicked yelling broke out on all sides of the pits. Ramsay looked around, growing evermore fearful as the gunshots reached his ears. Everywhere he looked was pandemonium: His fellow guards shot and reloaded their rifles again and and again, yet the towering construct cleaved through them, its crystalline shrieks echoing through the skies. The dogs in the nearby town could barely be heard over the chaos. How little they knew of the hellish nightmare that had been unleashed. Nearly every shot fired either bounced off of the creature’s rock skin, or splintered into tiny bits of shrapnel. On the off times the shots did seem to hit, the construct would always cover up the crevices in its body before angrily charging at the one who fired the shot.
Ramsay’s hands shook as he held his rifle in his hands. The cartridge attached to his gun was full, and the ground around him was as clean as a whistle. It seemed like an act of suicide. Yet this was his whole purpose in life. This is what he had been drilled repeatedly for. Carelessly throwing away his life for the sake of those who couldn’t defend themselves. He took in a deep breath, and raised his gun. The construct had ran off from him to go and kill some other poor sod. His aim was anything but steady. Still, he pulled the trigger.
A swing and a miss. The shot bounced off the rock like so many other shots before. The golem stood still. No one understood why. It didn’t seem to be bothered by the shots that hit it head on. But it wasn’t long before it shrieked again. A purple liquid spilled out of the crevices which had been hit. Ramsay had an epiphany.
“It bleeds, it bleeds! Shoot at the gaps, lads, the gaps!”
Ramsay raised his rifle again. This time, his hands didn’t shake as bad. A clean crevice fell into his iron sights. A second later, the golem shrieked again - furious, it turned its hollow gemlike eyes upon Ramsay and began to charge.
“The holes, the gaps everybody!” he yelled, shooting a few more rounds before turning tail and running back the way he came. The golem was fast - scary fast. It was on Ramsay’s heels, and wouldn’t let up the rage until retribution had been served by its own hands. The golem raised one of its limbs as it got into range. Ramsay dove.
The air brushed by him. The creature staggered, shrieking in pain as the other guards jumped at its heels. It struggled to get back on its feet. Ramsay looked around; there was a bottle of lamp oil left behind on a nearby crate. Before he had so much of an idea of what he was doing, the bottle was in his hand, and the contents were pouring out over the ground.
“This better work out well. If not, I’m screwed,” he said, eyeing the construct. He threw the bottle away, and pulled back the bolt on his rifle. Then, he fired. Fire sprung forth from the oil spill, just as the golem was about to put its foot down. It held back. Ramsay took the opportunity to swap the magazine. All the while, the others were still shooting.
The shrieking became evermore agonizing with each second that passed. Whatever this creature was, it certainly wouldn’t last forever. A torrent of purple fluids flowed from the hit crevices. If it bleeds, it dies, so the saying went. Today it came in use for the first time in the North Point Mines. Many a soul had been lost already. The clouds had to dissipate at some point. Or so Ramsay and the others believed.
But the construct wasn’t done by any means. With the path forward to Ramsay blocked off by the inferno, it turned its attention back towards the other guards which had pursued. They fired their volleys as their foe slowly turned, alas it held on to its strength and raised its arm.
“Watch out! The bastards’ go-”
The arm fell down on a hapless guard. The sheer force of the blow was powerful enough for his bones to audibly crunch as he was thrown away into another guard, who fell and scratched his cheek on a crop of rock as he was sent tumbling towards the ground. The construct shrieked harder than it ever had; the guards flinched, some dropped their rifles. Ramsay bit on his tongue as he covered his ears.
“What… in the name of… What can stop this abomination?!”
Blood in his mouth, he raised his gun up above the flames. His finger on the trigger, he blasted at the golem with rapid fire, repeatedly puling the bolt back as fast as his arm would allow. Each shot landed in the same hole. He kept pulling and pulling, for ten long seconds before realizing that his gun was making a clicking sound.
“What is it doing?!”
The golem’s eyes took on a glow. Most of the guards that still drew breath reached for their ears, before being subjected to a rasped growl. It wasn’t easy on anyone’s ears, but it was a godsend compared to the shrieking.
“Guys, run!” one guard yelled. The golem’s knees were buckling. The men jumped aside and ran in the few seconds they had. With a thump, it entered its eternal sleep, taking the embers of the oil-fueled inferno with it.
The men left standing looked over the body of their foe. Some went as far as to climb atop it before so much as a single word was said. Ramsay held a hand on his forehead, as a pressure was building up. It was the first time a tune much like those which had been sung by the workers of other mines in the kingdom blessed the craggy corridors of the North Point Mines.
Ramsay’s lips pucked inwards, before he spoke. “Lads… am I glad that is over with.”
“Gods be damned, Ramsay. The hell is this all about, even. Where did this… thing come from?”
“Heard from someone that one of the miners chipped a bad piece of rock. ‘Parantly.”
“Oh, so the same story as the other mines then.”
“What do we do now?”
“Probably wait for the guard to come.”
It was then that a trumpet sounded throughout the mines.
“To all personnel inside the mines: Clear out as soon as possible. This is not a drill! Clear out as soon as possible!”
“Well, there you have it,” one guard said.
“Wha’s going on here?”
A group of miners came running from behind Ramsay. The same group of miners he had spoken to moments earlier, when the crisis first broke out. “What the...”
“Here’s the emergency, lads. Before you ask, yes it is dead.” Ramsay said. “Let’s get out of here fast. The civil guard’s taking over for now.”
“What of our jobs?” one in the group asked.
Ramsay shrugged. “We’ll have to wait and see. Now I hope you lot can climb, because we’re not getting over this thing otherwise.”
Soon afterwards, the civil guard streamed into the mines to help with the evacuation. A dozen different thoughts were racing through Ramsay’s mind as he was escorted out. Practice is one thing, and hearing the stories from afar is another. But to actually experience a calamity in the mines was a life changing event. To think that all this time, he was at risk of something like this running amok. For now, he’d live to see another day, unlike many others. One day though, his luck would end.
All that could be done was hope he’d make it out before that fateful day.