“I really wish they had jackhammers in this world” moaned Jack, as he and Isaac sat drenched in sweat.

“Why, what is a jackhammer?”, asked Isaac, curious. He’d done the bulk of the picking at the rockface, but Jack had relieved him a few times, so both were exhausted.

“It’s a tool they use for this back home”, he said, gesturing at the hole they had painstakingly worked at for well over an hour. “It’s like a powered pickaxe”.

“Powered?”, Isaac probed, unfamiliar with the term.

“Yeah. They use compressed air or electricity to work. Heavy, but make short work of breaking up rock like this”, he explained.

“Air? Sounds like elemental magic to me”, nodded Isaac.

“Uhm, something like that”, Jack decided against trying to explain the science behind it.

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“At ease. Report”, Captain Ishmeal instructed the soldier that he had summoned to his office. He was one of the soldiers on guard duty at the mining camp and had been tasked with monitoring their latest arrival.

“Sir. Prisoner Isaac has taken prisoner Jack under his wing and is showing him the ropes, taking him down into the mine with him”, the soldier reported.

“Any strange behaviour from him?”, asked the Captain.

“None Sir. I’ve spoken to the soldiers on duty in the camp and so far he’s been a model prisoner. Eats. Sleeps. Follows prisoner Isaac around like a lost puppy”.

“Continue monitoring him”, the Captain checked a small notebook on his desk. “Bring prisoner Isaac to me the morning after tomorrow. Dismissed”.

The soldier saluted before leaving the Captain’s office.

“Why are you really here?”, mused the Captain, before continuing with the admin that took up most of his day.

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Jack took a large gulp of water from his half empty canteen, and then picked up the last chunk of rock that they’d managed to break loose. He had been checking the direction of the energy that he could feel after each chunk had come loose, and could feel that the energy he sensed was coming from this chunk.

He turned the rock over, hoping to spot the Earth Element easily, like the first piece they’d found. “Guess it’s not always going to be that easy”, he sighed as he reached for the hammer.

This time it was Isaac that pocketed the pea sized chuck of Earth Element that they had uncovered. Even that piece had required an exhausting amount of effort to retrieve, and both men were curious to see if this one also lost its power over the course of time.

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On their return to the tent they shared, Isaac retrieved the Earth Element and they both observed it - it was still a deep brown, and Jake could still feel it pulling on his senses in a way he couldn’t describe.

“Here, you take it”, said Isaac, passing the little bead to Jake. “Maybe you need to be closer to it for you to do whatever it is you did to the previous one?”

Jake took the bead and held it in his hand for a while, but it didn’t appear to be undergoing any kind of change in such a short span of time. He pocketed it and the two of them headed out for their evening meal.

Jack didn’t want to advertise that he had a piece of Earth Element on him, so he couldn’t take it out to check on it while they sat and ate, listening to the soft murmur of conversation around them.

As soon as they returned to the tent, he retrieved the Earth Element from his pocket - it was immediately noticeable that the bead was clearer than it had been before. His sense of it was also considerably fainter, confirming that it was losing its power.

“I think, tomorrow will be an interesting day”, remarked Isaac after they were both lost in thought for a while.

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“Report”, snapped the Captain as a dejected looking Isaac was helped into his office.

“It was my fault, sir”, Isaac replied in a monotone voice.

The Captain tapped a finger on his desk, waiting for more from the dejected captive. Isaac was starting morosely at his hands, caked in blood and dust, not really focused on what was being asked.

“I’d warned him about the dangers of the mine, Sir, but he wouldn’t listen. He was insistent about heading down one of the passages marked with the danger signs and...” Isaac paused.

“And?”, prompted the Captain.

“And it looked stable enough. He only wanted to go in a short distance, nowhere near where it was supposed to be truly dangerous”.