After another day of trekking the snowy hills she finally arrives at the mines. It's a large camp with an associated village. The houses are populated by slave masters, store keepers and transporters. The slaves sleep in long halls or in the mines itself.

A stone's throw away from the village are the mine entrances. Misa considers her options but she figures it's better to enter the mines herself to look for the crystals. At least she'll fit in as a slave, she thinks.

The townspeople would immediately recognise her as not belonging there, because of her red eyes, and that could lead to all sorts of trouble.

At dusk most slave masters seem to exit the mine and she sneaks her way inside.

Right at the entrance to the shaft near the main elevator, there is a large room with lots of different altars. There's altars to all sorts of gods.

She recognises some of them, such as the god of life, and that of the god of fertility and water. There is even an altar to the god of death. Out of all the altars it is the most dirty looking. She makes a blood sacrifice to it, and wipes the dirt of the altar.

Then she takes the elevator down. It's very large, it could easily fit 30 men. Everything smells of dirt and coal.

Misa really has no idea where to go, she can't read any of the signs, so she'll have to ask someone.

She exits on the first floor, -1. The large elevator comes to a screeching halt. She enters a poorly lit hall and grabs one of the pickaxes hanging on the wall, that way she will fit in better.

But the pickaxe itself is too heavy for her so she just drops it. She does put on a helmet however.

It isn't long before she runs into a slave carrying a crate of coal. Excuse me, where can I find these crystals, she points at her scroll.

That's on the 7th floor. It's dangerous there. Of course it would be dangerous. Nothing is ever easy or simple is it, around here.

Although Misa is obviously not allowed there, the man cares too little to make a point of it.

She goes to the 7th floor. The odor of gunpowder irritates her eyes. These passageways look far less stable, like they were only just erected.

She has no idea where she is going, so she just randomly decides to only take left turns. Around the 3rd or 4th left turn, she follows a long, narrow hallway. There's someone digging at the end of it. Misa intends to ask him where to find the crystals and does so.

He turns around and the man's mouth is gagged with a metal chain around his head holding his gag in place. He's built like a gorilla. His lower arms have no hands but instead there are 2 pickaxes on metal rods attached to his lower arms.

In her fear she instantly swings her staff forward to cast a frost bolt, but at the same time the man slashes forward, Misa blocks his swing with her staff which breaks in 2. Then the creature violently swings his pickaxes at the ice covering his legs, rapidly breaking off chunks to free himself.

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Misa runs away as fast as she can. She makes a left, then a right. She opens a heavy wooden door only to reveal a group of slaves and their slave masters, one carrying a whip, the other a staff. She quickly runs in a different direction, the slave masters and slave rapidly chasing her. Eventually she reaches a long narrow section of the mining pathways, with a door at the end.

But she can't open it. This is it, if they catch her they'll kill her or worse, they'll capture her and do horrible things to her. Escapees can be tortured for weeks before they get the release of death. They would take her belongings, including her amulet, too.

Faced with no other options, she consumes the flask she obtained from the witch. In mere seconds her body starts convulsing and her eyes glow bright red. The slave masters and slave close in on her.

Nowhere to run now foolish little girl, one slave master says, smirking.

The slave master lashes his whip forward, circling it around Misa's ankle, then in one swoop he flings it backward, dragging Misa across the cracked stone floor towards him.

As Misa draws near without control of her own, her right hand grabs her knife and slashes the whip, then she pulls it with her left hand, tripping over the slave master who falls forward, as he falls she places her knife point up under the man's lower jaw which pierces it and skewers his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

He tries to say something but it is unintelligible. Then she kicks the man's head, removing her knife and ripping out part of the man's jaw and tongue. The gagged slave smashes his pickaxe down in Misa's direction but she dodges it.

At this point several slaves are approaching, who take this as a good opportunity to fight back. The other slave master, not far removed from her, casts an explosive spell which she mostly manages to dodge, but it does severely damage her left hand, wounding it. However, she barely feels any pain at this point. The potion suppressing it.

The gagged slave swings with his other pickaxe, another near miss, and his pickaxe is stuck in the ground. Misa stabs him in his arm repeatedly, in an effort to weaken him. The slave master prepares to cast another spell but she dodges it by hiding under the huge gagged slave, who takes the brunt of the hit in his already severely wounded left arm. Then Misa throws her knife at his feet, piercing it to the ground. At this point the horde of slaves has approached and they use their pickaxes to kill the other slave master and they overpower then restrain the gagged slave. Misa collapses to the floor. The possession has worn off, and everything hurts now. It feels like muscle cramps but three times as bad.

The slaves are overjoyed and tend to her wounds. One of them knows healing magic and restores her hand. You've freed us! We can escape now! They give her some of the gold, gems, and crystals they've found. One of the slaves, a fairly young man, introduces himself.

The name is Amalas, I work for the freedom fighters, we're a group of rebels that fight the evil nobles of Satharak. I was captured and sentenced to work these mines till I would die of exhaustion. But you saved me!

We could use a member like you. Why don't you join us? We're going to use the teleporter on the 10th floor to escape to a storage site in Satharak. Our main camp is in the city.

Misa explains that she has no intention of going back to the city .

Well if you need anything, contact us! We'd be glad to repay the favour. He hands her a drawn map on which he scribbled some information, she stores it in her bag.

The freed slaves grab the slave master's weapons and keys, one of them apparently a skilled wizard and they make their way to the 10th floor. But first they drop off Misa at the entrance.

Perhaps selfishly they had no intention of freeing the other slaves, or maybe they didn't want to take their chances fighting slave masters on other floors.

The whole ordeal probably didn't take longer than 15 minutes.

Misa is outside the mines again, healthy, but still feeling exhausted. Those potions do a number on your body. But without it she would've never had made it. It is a weird feeling, knowing she took someone's life. Although technically the slavemaster still lived after she fought it, he would've died from his wounds not long afterwards. But it's okay, slave masters have no issue taking lives either, she tells herself.

She decides to sleep in the forest, not too far away from the mines. Tomorrow she will start the long journey back to Lycerta. It already took far longer than expected.