“The Rasts had guided him. Here, where he stood, he would meet the Wisest Rasts. He was not yet worthy. He was to be tested. He would not be given knowledge without the wisdom to use it. The Wisest Rasts told him: ‘perch until the light shines.’ He did as he was told. It was the middle of winter.”

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“Puppets, puppets everywhere, but not a single string to cut.” He murmured to himself.

John sat on the ground leaning against the wall, observing another one collapse from exhaustion.

He stood up to move him out of the way, lest he be stepped on, but sighed when he noticed the blood dripping from his mouth. Dead.

He was numb. Numb to it all. This wasn’t what he wished for, not at all. He wanted to go home.

He’d been in the mine for an entire week. His hope for survival slowly seeping out of him with every death he saw, numbering almost 2 dozen. He didn’t count.

He’d long since gotten past thinking that this was a game. The reality of what was in front of him was too strong. Too heavy.

Every day, when the sun rose, they were given a hearty meal, unlike when they were carrying rocks, a thick but tasteless soup full of meat, or what he assumed to be meat, who knew what existed on this new planet he was on.

Every slave ate mechanically, chewing exactly 6 times with every spoon before swallowing, and finishing almost at the same time.

Puppets.

Then, without being prompted, walked over to the rack where the pickaxes were, took one, and walked down the mine.

John followed suit, and like a robot, mimicked what the others did, before sitting down when they reached the bottom, watching the slaves die of exhaustion.

The guards kept a tight watch over the surrounding area, something he’d missed on the first day.

The entire mine was surrounded by a fortified encirclement, barbed wire, mounted machineguns, watchtowers, and more guards than he could count, at least in the triple digits.

And in the middle of it all, they were mining directly under a mountain. You’d be incorrect to assume that there were different minerals and layers of rocks. It was all just one uniform and unassuming brown-grey layer of solid stone.

John had tried and failed several different methods to stop the slaves from working. All of them had failed. If he forcibly held them, they started to struggle tremendously after a period, hurting both him and themselves, if he didn’t let go. The only thing left to try was knocking them out, but he didn’t know how much strength to use.

The only time he’d ever knocked someone out was against another trained boxer, and they were probably more durable than someone about to die from exhaustion. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself. If he accidentally killed someone instead of knocking them out, the final little light of hope inside him that had yet to give up, would be snuffed out.

His one solace in all this, was that the girl he’d comforted was still alive, her arms had given out before her body could and wasted time trying to pick up her pickaxe instead of hacking away, something that likely saved her life, although it was a minor thing in such bleak circumstances, and that she’d likely torn her arms up so badly that she was disabled for life, John took it as a positive thing that she wasn’t dead.

Whenever someone collapsed and was unable to get back up. Someone else would eventually take their place and they’d drop the collapsed person into an empty cart to be transported up and disposed of.

No guard, grunt, soldier, or supervisor was here, just slaves. No, that didn’t fit them anymore. They were puppets.

That was perhaps the biggest mystery he couldn’t figure out. Was why did they only send slaves down here? For what reason did no one come to make sure they were working? Were they that confident in their mind control over the puppets that they just left them to it?

He adjusted himself into a meditation pose, after quickly making sure no one else had collapsed.

If he looked at it selfishly, something he was more and more inclined to do as his hope started to fade, he was in a better position than he was when they were carrying rocks, he could relax and even sleep down here provided he wasn’t in the path of the other slaves, getting 2 large meals, one when they were woken up and one when going to sleep.

He was still skinny but looked less like a starving child, and unsupervised as they were, was somewhat confident they wouldn’t notice him as he gained weight.

He was still far from the point of being able to exercise, however.

He mostly spent his time in stretching out his worn body and meditating. The only other choice was despairing at his current situation, and that wasn’t a very pleasant option, so he avoided it with a passion.

He slowly moved his attention to the monotonous clinging of the pickaxes and let himself get lost in the sounds.

This was just standard meditation from back home, really, it was just focusing on the sounds around you, then yourself, then finally landing on the movement of the breath, he could practically do it in his sleep, since he didn’t have much else to do besides meditating.

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Thoughts of hopelessness and despair came, he accepted them and let them go. Then a memory of his brother, one that very likely looked quite different now, and he let it go as well.

Memories, emotions, hopes, dark thoughts, all of it came and he let it go, choosing to simply feel his breath, the air traveling in through his nose, moving down his throat, and settling in his lungs, as he felt them expand.

Releasing it gently through the mouth, feeling his muscles relax.

A jarring ‘clang’ shook him out of it. A very different clang than what usually sounded when the pickaxes struck stone.

His thoughts were mildly disarrayed, because he was brought out in such a rough manner, but he nevertheless searched with his eyes trying to locate the source of the sound.

His eyes landed on something emitting a soft green glow, easily seeing it due to the contrasting background.

He stood up and approached it, wanting to inspect it further.

When getting a closer look, he recognized what he was looking at.

It was a Jewel.

The jewel.

The same one that he’d seen the evil commander guy hold when he conducted the magical ritual to make the pit disappear.

That jewel.

The slaves had all stopped what they were doing, dropping their tools and simply staring straight ahead in whatever direction they were facing at the time.

He reached out to touch it, ready to jump back at a moment's notice, should the jewel prove to be dangerous.

It was still mostly covered by the unassuming uniform rock, and but even with just that, he realized it was larger.

Much larger.

The other jewel that the evil commander had wasn’t larger than what you could comfortably hold inside your fist, but this one, was way larger, he couldn’t tell exactly how big, but he knew for sure he had no chance of moving it. Glowing softly, unlike the smaller one, which remained a dark green until it was used.

His outstretched hand was inching closer to it, hesitatingly letting a finger feel the smooth surface.

He suddenly jumped backwards, scrambling to get as far away from it as possible.

It was like putting his hand in a fire, a pain that instantly engulfed his hand when he touched it.

The burning pain disappearing just as quickly as it came. It was so sudden that he was starting to doubt he even felt pain at all, though his gut told him otherwise.

It started shining brightly, just like the other one had, but the green light had an ominous hue, some part of it making John very uncomfortable.

Sounding like thunder struck him. It was deafening, growing louder and louder until he wasn’t sure he could hear anything at all.

In a flash, several dozen strings shot out from the jewel, instantly piercing everyone there, ignoring any obstacle in the way, going straight through them.

John felt fear.

Genuine fear.

He hadn’t been able to react to it. From one instant to the next, they appeared and pierced everyone.

Including himself.

He looked down and saw it go straight inside his chest. He froze, unable to move from shock.

He didn’t know how long he’d been staring at it, but it finally occurred to him he wasn’t feeling any pain.

Shakingly, he raised his arm to touch the string, not really knowing what else to do.

His hand passed straight through it.

Not really comprehending what had just happened, he moved to touch it again.

And again, his hand passed straight through, like it didn’t exist.

He did it again, to confirm a third time, then a fourth time, a fifth time.

Repeating it until he was certain he wasn’t harmed.

Being able to see the string, but not being able to touch it.

He sat down as he felt his tense body relax and slumped against the wall, even though the thundering sound emanated from the jewel just as the strings did, never quieting.

The string followed him as he sat down, attached to the centre of his chest.

He had the attention to look around him to check on the others. They, like him, had a softly glowing string piercing into the centre of their chest, they still hadn’t moved, vacantly staring straight ahead, like they’d been paused.

He could still see them breathing. He felt a little comforted knowing they weren’t dead.

And that they were getting a break, so perhaps some of their lives would be saved.

His relief was short-lived though, as the jewel pulsed with light, a light that came like a wave through the strings.

The strings started growing in size, becoming thicker and brighter, still attached to their chests.

Swiftly turning from being slightly bigger than a yarn string to becoming almost as thick as John’s forearm.

Suddenly, a wave of light come from John’s body, instead of from the jewel, he watched in terror as the light wave travelled from the chest of all of them into the jewel, and as soon as the wave of light touched them, they collapsed.

Like puppets whose strings were cut, they all collapsed.

His face was no doubt as white as paper, having no idea of what was happening.

The strings retreated into the jewel as quickly as they appeared, and he stared at it as an explosion of light knocked the air out of him, flinging his body backwards away from the jewel, before smacking his head against something and everything going dark.

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He tried his very best to lie as still as possible, hearing the heavy footsteps entirely ignoring him, murmuring in the background and the casual conversation just beside him, he directly faced the wall, unable to see what was going on.

“Hahah, we finally found it, boss has been searching for it for ages. I wonder what it is, do you know?”

“Be quiet, let’s not ask too many questions, a sorcerer’s powers are mysterio-.” The voice choked.

Everyone went silent, even the murmuring, he could practically feel the tension in the air.

Barely perceptible footsteps were heard. So light that he felt he could be imaging them.

“It is not a problem; we are curious creatures, after all.” An ethereal voice said casually, cutting the silence.

“And to answer your question,” the voice continued, “It’s a Mountain Jewel.”

“Something magical.” The voice finished. John couldn’t tell if the voice was male or female.

John did everything he could do to not move, whilst his captors slowly and carefully dug out the Jewel from the wall and moved it onto the rail cart and listened in agonizing terror as they worked on the pump trolley, hoping the person with the ethereal voice was leaving, as he couldn’t hear their footsteps in all the commotion.

He felt a gaze land on him.

The gaze of a predator.

And knew at once he’d been caught.

The gaze knew he was alive and conscious.

It smiled.

And… Moved on, barely perceptible footsteps slowly walking up the mine.

He didn’t dare move.

He was shaken to his core.

It knew he was alive. It knew.

And yet it let him go.

Not knowing how much time at passed was scary but he could still hear tons of activity at the top of the mine if he strained his ears, so he laid there, as if he was dead.

Too afraid to move, not daring to even adjust his position until the noise had died down, lest he be discovered.

He waited at least a few more hours after that, just to be sure.

Then he extremely carefully lifted himself up from the ground, cold, and in pain from lying in such an awkward position.

His worst fear came to pass when he looked around him and saw all the slaves lying on the ground too, knocked away from the explosion.

Scrambling over to them, hoping, no, wishing they weren’t dead.

He almost cried tears of joy when he saw the girl’s chest rising and falling softly.

She was still alive.

He checked each and every person there, totalling 52 people. Everyone was alive but comatose.

“They’re alive!” He shouted, the only positive thing he’d said in a very long time “They’re alive.” He repeated. “They’re alive…” He said a third time, barely whispering the words.

‘Alive but dead.’ A voice said to him, coming from within.

No matter how much he shook or pinched them, they didn’t react at all. The only proof he had that they weren’t corpses was their slow heartbeats and weak breaths.

He turned all of them on their backs, lest they start breathing in dirt, and looked towards the exit of the mine.

Not seeing any sunlight shining in through the entrance, only that it was pitch black. His only source of light were the lamps hanging on the walls.

Not daring to venture out, yet left with no other option, he hesitatingly began the walk up the mine, unsure of what he wanted to find.

Nothing was different on his walk up, besides the pump trolley and carts being missing. Even the corpses were untouched, just more decomposed than on the first day.

Carefully approaching the mine’s entrance, he slowly saw the dark night sky.

As his view finally levelled with the ground above, he saw…

Nothing.

No lights, no soldiers.

Nothing and no one was there.

He took a step outside to properly confirm what he was seeing.

In the large clearing, formerly protected by a fortified camp, was nothing.

An empty semi-circle with no trace of human activity bordering an unknown forest.

They’d left and removed any proof that they were ever here.

Not quite comprehending his current circumstances, he turned around back down the mine and walked all the way to the bottom, promptly finding a comfortable position and falling asleep.