The pickaxe slammed into the wall again and again. With his enhanced stats, Pierce thought this would be a breeze, but every swing left fresh throbbing pain shooting up his arms. He wiped his brow, noticing the fresh sweat stained his rapidly deteriorating tee shirt. He returned to it; he quickly learned not to be too sluggish, or one of the pitch-black mushrooms would be around shortly. They favor heavy whips that cut through the air as they slammed into the back of one prisoner or another.
The crystal he had been trying to gouge out for the past five minutes finally came loose. The thick teal crystal thudded to the wood Pierce was standing on. He leaned down, grasped the crystal with two hands, and shuffled back toward the ramp. He released the crystal onto a weighing platform that one of the Mushrooms was operating. This one had at least been cordial to Pierce, which was more than some other guards around here had done.
The guard nodded as the weigh-in was completed. Pierce grabbed it and felt his back creak as he lifted it. He cursed as he forgot to lift with his legs again. He took it towards the stack of crystals on the corner of the rock platform. This was miserable work. Sweat was streaming into Pierce's eyes and flowing down his arms, making his grip slip occasionally. He stumbled 20 paces away from the stack, and the crystal almost fell on his foot. His heart thumped in his ears as the relief that it hadn’t flowed through him.
He stepped up to the pile, dropped it near the middle, and started to trudge away. His mind was filled with unanswered questions. What was he going to do? Would the system even transport him back at this rate? And if it did, then what was he to do? He couldn’t lead a dung beetle to a pile of shit. He was lost in his misery and didn’t even notice as he slammed head-first into a tree-man.
“Oh, sorry,” Pierce mumbled out.
Was this the moment that he pissed off the top guy in the prison and was pitched headfirst into the Lava? He looked up, realized the tree man was talking, and forced himself to listen.
In a thick accent of indeterminate origin, the tree-man said, “ Are you okay, little guy? Do you need a hug?”
Honestly? Yes, Pierce would appreciate it more than anything else right now. He nodded, and the tree guy wrapped his bark- and moss-covered arms around him. It was definitely uncomfortable, but he could relate to a tree hugger right now, as there was something to it. He could feel his muscles relax under the grip he was held in. Finally, he was released, and the tree man grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him back to face Pierce.
“It seems like you needed that buddy. The name’s Borag. What should I call you, stranger?”
“Oh, um, I’m Pierce.” He said, slightly abashed, “Do you always go around hugging strangers?”
Borag laughed. “Most of the time, they tell me to fuck off, but, on a rare occasion, they let me. I love hugging people, though. Gotta spread the love.”
He let go of Pierce and gave him a good-natured slap.
“Don’t be so serious kid, it’ll be alright. Come on, let’s go meet my friends.”
Borag strode off, and Pierce stumbled after him. Now that he had a better look at Borag, his strangeness was amplified. He was humanoid, with bark and moss covering parts of his skin, like natural armor. His skin was dark green, and his hair was made of vines in an elaborate pattern braided down his back. He was only clothed in a loin cloth wrapped around his waist. They continued toward two other miners working on some gems in the wall.
As they approached, Borag shouted, “Hey guys, I found the new guy! He seems down in the dumps, so I thought we could cheer him up!”
The shorter one turned around at the sound of Borag’s voice, grumbled something, and turned back around. The other faced them and greeted Pierce as they stopped near their workspot.
“Hi, the name is Skeamish. What’s yours?
Pierce was dumbstruck for the second time that day. All the way toward them, he couldn’t quite make out the man’s features, if that was what he even was. But now that he was closer, the man before him was a lizard. He looked like he was straight out of New York City sewers. Green scales covered his face, and his tongue flicked in and out of a razor-sharp, teeth-filled mouth. The eyes were set on either side of an elongated snout and were bright yellow. Pierce didn’t respond as the lizard man gave him what looked like a questioning look.
“Is he okay?”
“I’d say just give him a second. He’s probably just sad about something.”
Skeamish shrugged and turned back to his gem. Borag said he would do the same and found a crystal nearby. Pierce was half convinced to turn and run back to his previous spot, but this spot was much nearer to the pile. He hoisted his pickaxe and tried to get the freakish image of the lizard man out of his mind. He decided to step up beside the shorter man and work beside him. He nodded to him and started to swing his pick against one of the nearby gems.
Hours passed before the next break finally came, and Pierce collapsed where he stood, leaning against the wall. The others near him did the same, and Borag and Skeamish started exchanging barbs and good-natured jokes. He looked next to him and saw the bearded man lean against the wall similarly, but he didn’t seem to be the talking type. As Pierce gave him an assessing look, he realized the man might only reach up to Pierce’s waist, which was very uncommon.
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“Are you a dwarf?”
The man glanced at him with a look that felt like he had just eaten a lemon and said, “ So what if I am?”
“Oh no, it’s just that I’ve never met a dwarf before, and given that this seems to be a magical creature land, I assumed you were one.”
“You’ve never met a dwarf before, eh?”
“Uh, yeah, I mean, where I’m from, it’s only humans and animals.”
“Ah, so you’re not part of integrated space yet.”
“Intergrated space?”
“Ask Skeamish to explain it later. I’m not in the mood.”
That was the end of the conversation, and Pierce was amazed by his situation. I at least got to meet these guys, he thought. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke: a tree man, a lizard man, and a dwarf walk into a bar. He gave a hoarse chuckle, which led to a coughing fit. The lack of water was getting to him. He hoped he would be able to secure some in his cell. He sighed and leaned back. A prompt started to flash in his vision, and he opened it without having anything else to do.
Mission Updated: Since you have failed to eliminate 30 mushrooms, your new task shall be escaping their bondage. New Mission: Escape! Rewards will be determined upon completion. Notice: you will not be teleported out of the training world until the completion of this mission.
Another screen followed that one:
New Skill Gained: Mining(common) Lv.1- Your persistent hitting of stone has led to you now hitting rocks like an art form. Mining is 10% faster.
Well, shit in the back of his mind, he had been hoping just to stick it out till he got back to earth, but it looked like it would have to be the hard way yet again. He cursed; he wanted to curl into a ball again. Borag approached him and the dwarf, his lumbering footsteps shaking the ground slightly.
“Aw man, what did you say to him, Eldrin?” Looking toward Pierce, he said, “Look, he didn’t mean it, whatever it was.”
“No, it wasn’t his fault, just reflecting on some bad news I got recently.”
“Aw, well, don’t worry about it, ey, it’ll be alright. Sit with us. We’ll share some of our food with ya.”
Eldrin, the dwarf, spoke up, “Why do we need to share with him? We don’t even know him, and I don’t see why we need to share food with strangers.”
“It’ll be fine, Eldrin, don’t worthy there’s plenty to go around, it’ll come out of my half.”
Modified by this, the dwarf grunted and walked toward where Skeamish was sitting.
“Don’t mind him too much; he’s just grumpy, but he’s alright.”
“Hey, listen, thanks for letting me have some of your food.”
“Yeah, sure, no problem.”
Borag smiled and turned toward where the other two were sitting. Pierce hurried after them and formed a square on the ground. They all had bowls that they grabbed from a sack that Skeamish carried. They each took their portion and passed it along. At Borag, he took a little less and passed the last of it to Pierce.
“Are you sure?” He asked, his mouth watering slightly at the dried meats and nuts.
Borag waved him off, and they all dived into it with gusto. Pierce Finished in about a minute, and he never thought food could taste this good. He sat back on his hands, savoring the last bite before it was sucked in by what felt like the black hole in his stomach.
“So Pierce, how’d the Mushrooms drag you down to this hellhole?” Skeamish asked good-naturedly.
“Ah, well, I killed one of their children.” The food that just entered his stomach threatened to come out at that thought.
Skeamish whistled, which had a weird feel with his elongated tongue. “Man, that’s pretty bad; I got captured as a part of a deal that my clan made with the Unified Head. Now I get to work here in this shithole.”
Pierce still had difficulty looking at the Lizardman and returned his gaze to the ceiling.
“ I was captured by the mushrooms because they were interested in my biology. I wasn’t exciting enough to cut me open, so they just sent me here.”
Pierce looked toward the dwarf, but he was silent, looking at his hands. The mood was dampened, but Skeamish told an anecdote about his sister eating the wrong type of frog, which seemed to cheer everyone up. Pierce was glad that he wasn’t alone in this place. Break time drew to a close, so they all returned to work. As he moved to his spot, a giant man shoved his way in front of him.
“Go find a new spot, pissant. Don’t want to have to take a dip in the lava now, do we?”
All the rage and sadness gathered into a pit in Pierce’s stomach, and he launched off his feet and slammed his palm into the man’s jaw. The force surprised Pierce as the man’s jaw crunched under his strike. The man backed away, clutching his face. He looked at Pierce with anger burning in his eyes and charged him. The anger burned away after that strike, and Pierce backed away from what he had started. The man raised his fist to strike, and Pierce stumbled back on a stone, narrowly avoiding the man’s blow.
Pierce resolved that he couldn’t lose, given that the lava didn’t sound like an empty threat. He pulled his fist back and aimed for the man’s temple. He no longer had the element of surprise, but the pain from the previous blow allowed Pierce to strike a glancing blow against the man’s temple. It seemed like that was all that was needed, and the man fell to the ground in a slump. Eldrin, Borag, and Skeamish all looked at him slack-jawed.
“Remind me not to steal anything from you,” said Skeamish. “Seems like that would be a poor mistake indeed.”
Pierce was more than a little chagrined at his success. Borag slapped him on the back and “looked down on the sprawled man and said, “Looks like you’ll need to find a new spot, pissant.”
Pierce smiled at that.