Beneath the surface, within the bowels of surprise, Jasson limped along the rusted red remains of civilization. A mine of history, the excavation of ancient power, a quarry of questions which lanced through Jasson like lightning. He’d known that there was some kind of lost power, whatever blew up the mountain above Reflection Manor, but this? This was ancient! Yet…modern? Some aspects felt physics-defying while others, like the rail cars, felt nearly last-century.
Every rail car leading into the building held a wide assortment of elemental crystals, but the mana crystals were kept in separate cars that had rusted covers with little windows to let the light through. The cars that came out of the building were sorted and dark, rusted covers unlit unless they contained Mana crystals. Jasson limped to the closest random mine car and hauled himself up a rung to reach inside. His twisted leg complained and his knee screamed as he knocked it against the side, but Jasson gritted his teeth and dug around inside. Come on…
Sighing with relief, Jasson pulled out a pink crystal the size of his fist and tried to step off the car. His ankle collapsed beneath him, and Jasson sprawled over the ground.
“CHHHHHSSSHH!” Jasson steadied himself, then opened up his phone. He was under 30 percent, but it should be enough to heal himself. Jasson opened the app MADaptation and put the crystal on to-
Duduu.
Jasson’s heart sank as he pulled the crystal off. An error message? Why?
Error. Incompatible crystal. Elemental Crystals required for MADadaption use.
“&^$*&,” Jasson swore, massaging his leg, “There better be an app for this.”
“You’re not going to investigate the building?” Charon said, “Are you not curious?”
“Of course I’m curious,” Jasson said, opening the magical app store ‘DISS’ and looking through the apps, “But I need to heal myself first. And I don’t think I have the time to ex-“
Jasson paused. There was a fitness app called ‘MyHealth’. The description seemed to fit and the pictures were promising, but it cost 100 dollars…
“Hey Charon,” Jasson said, “How much for a ride from here to the girls?”
“Can’t,” Charon said, “Entrance has been sealed in. At least, sealed smaller than my car.”
Jasson rolled his eyes and said, “How much from the entrance then?”
“Around four hundred and thirteen,” Charon said, “Give or take.”
Jasson checked his VenGo account. Just barely enough for Charon’s ride. But not after buying the healing app. He couldn’t afford the time to walk out of these mountains.
I need to deposit more gold, Jasson thought.
Jasson looked through the apps again, trying to find something cheaper. Nothing. Not that he could have bought anything good with three bucks. Jasson swiped to the free section and looked at the one remaining app that he could afford.
Might as well try this sketchy thing, Jasson thought as he tapped ‘install’ on the app ‘SD’.
He read through the scam-heavy description and wished he had an Anti-Virus to scan it with. ‘Downloadable extra storage’? Yeah right. This wouldn’t heal him at all. Just…grasping at straws.
It finished installing and Jasson sighed, hovering his finger over the app. Should he? It wouldn’t help.
“Just press it!” Charon said, sounding impatient.
“All right!” Jasson sighed and made sure both ends of the phone were pointed away from himself.
A rippling hole in space tore beside Jasson, a swirling void behind a magic circle. A whoosh of air filled the place for a moment as Jasson stared, agape.
“Is that a…Locker?” Jasson said.
“Wow,” Charon said, “Yeah, I think it is.”
Jasson said, “You didn’t know? Why did you tell me to open it then?”
“Nope,” Charon said, “I just couldn’t watch you struggling with indecision. Again.”
Jasson rolled his eyes and reached hesitantly towards the space. He touched it, but felt nothing. He reached his hand in, nothing.
“How do these work?” Jasson said, feeling around, “Is there- oh! A floor. And a wall. It’s a square!”
“Probably,” Charon said, “A lot of things are.”
“Cool,” Jasson pushed himself to his feet, “It doesn’t feel that big though.”
Jasson looked at the app on his phone and saw that it had settings. Most notably, a premium button. As well as a button for buying more square footage. And outlandish prices.
“Of course,” Jasson sighed, “Well, I’ll have to buy them later, especially once I start selling all of these.”
Jasson stuck the health crystal in the void and looked at it, then sighed and closed it in the app “I guess it doesn’t move with me. Makes sense.”
“Not particularly,” Charon said, “The motion of the planet should-“
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Yeah, yeah,” Jasson climbed the car again, “I would be in a great situation if I had this Locker earlier. Could have carried all my gold with me. Unless I lost my phone. I still could have sworn that I threw my phone when I fell.”
Jasson rolled onto the crystals, sitting on his butt as his knee wouldn’t accept a petition to kneel. Jasson opened the locker again, and it formed above the crystals without the sound of wooshing air. Jasson reached inside and felt the crystal he’d put in earlier.
Good, Jasson thought.
Jasson shoveled crystals into the locker like a leprechaun in Fort Knox. The wealth of nations piled into his locker, and Jasson stuffed every crystal he could. He didn’t have a ton of space, but Jasson found a way.
He couldn’t stop smiling. This was real! It was really happening. It was too good to be true.
Jasson made sure to check over his shoulder for Karma-based plot. Every story he’d consumed would have this treasure slipping from between his fingers, leaving him only a handful to remember it by. But nothing happened.
“Karma is usually meaner than this,” Jasson said, giggling, “I’m probably going to be unable to open my locker later or something.”
“Nothing that complicated,” Charon said, “This isn’t as good as you think. There is an economist walking with death- i.e. me- in a country turning to communism. He’s been preaching for weeks about supply and demand.”
“What?” Jasson said, doing his best to shake the crystals more compact, “What are you talking about?”
Charon tapped the side of the car, held up a finger, and said “Simply this: The money an item is worth directly correlates to how hard it is to get said item. For instance, if you sold the contents of this car, then rather than being unbelievably rich the worth of each individual crystal would go down insanely. Not to mention you’d collapse the monster crystal industry. It’s why turning lead to gold is useless. The rarity itself provides the value. Of course, consumables like food will always be in demand. But for these? I’m not doing the calculations, but the content of this car would bring the prices down to-“
“So?” Jasson waved a pink crystal, “These are for healing people. It would be amazing if they go down in price. Imagine it! A healer in every house, healthcare with the wave of a wand! One step closer to Utopia.”
Charon looked darkly at Jasson, the weight of eons behind socket and eye, and said “Careful with that word. Utopia. The world’s had enough ‘Utopias’.”
“Oh,” Jasson flinched away, the old terror returning briefly, “I mean, wouldn’t it be good to donate a couple to a hospital or something though?”
Charon grinned, intensity gone as he said “Yeah, I suppose that’s true. Still… You should probably discuss your game plan with your friends. They haven’t consented to the kind of trouble you’d bring by dumping these on the market.”
Jasson nodded and shoved the last few he could into the locker. He closed the locker and grabbed a pocket-sized healing crystal before he climbed down. He hit the ground painfully and groaned, then limped his way over to the Mana crystals.
“Now, I know that these are super expendable,” Jasson said, searching for an opening. The gears that opened it seemed rusted shut, but a corner peeled away with a few hits and exposed the gleaming sun within. They dimmed as Jasson wiggled a few out before realizing something.
“I can’t store these near the others,” Jasson said, “Not that I left any room. Pockets it is.”
Jasson sifted through the ones he pulled out and started stuffing his pockets. It wasn’t that many, and he pulled the healing crystal out of his other pocket to make more room.
“I wish that I could charge my phone with these,” Jasson said, “This whole place and no electric crystals.”
“Who says you can’t?” Charon said, “Power is power, right?”
“I don’t think so,” Jasson chuckled and said, “That doesn’t sound right.”
“Why don’t you try?” Charon said.
Jasson shrugged and held a mana crystal up to the charging port and said “Charge!”
The crystal crumbled in his fingers and the charge indicator beeped up to sixty percent.
“Oh cool!” Jasson grabbed used another crystal and it crumbled. “Fully charged! Eighty percent anyway.”
Jasson loaded his pockets with Mana Crystals and started limping down the cavern. He followed the tracks the refined cars were loaded on and made the first steps in his long, painful journey.
Step-wince-step
“I cannot believe that you’re so slow.” Charon said after tapping his feet for a few minutes, “You can use the electric crystal on your phone, right?”
“Yeah,” Jasson said, “So?”
“So you can use crystals,” Charon said, “Without your phone. So why don’t you heal yourself?”
Jasson paused and said, “You know what, sometimes I feel like an idiot.”
Jasson put the crystal against his leg and envisioned himself not hurting, then said what came naturally to every gaming child.
“Med kit!”
****
An hour later, Jasson clambered up the rocks and into the light streaming in from outside. Finally! Unfortunately, the hole was only a hand wide. The exit had collapsed over the years.
“All right,” Jasson said, looking at the pile of rocks, “How do I get out of here? I don’t have earth…Charon?”
“Don’t look at me,” Charon said, “I already advised you about something.”
Jasson stepped back, then set the health crystal down and opened his locker. He pulled out an assortment of crystals.
“Orange is fire,” Jasson said, “Which sounds like a bad idea.”
“Awww. I would have laughed if you died that way,” Charon said.
“Hush,” Jasson said, “Blue is water. I don’t know what purple is.”
“Wanna try it?” Charon said.
Jasson laughed and said “Absolutely not. Last time I tried something I knew nothing about, I blew up. No, I’m going to try the water.”
“Okay,” Charon said, “Don’t blame me if you drown.”
Jasson loaded the blue crystal in and looked at the options.
“No idea what this can do.” Jasson said after a few seconds, “Still, it’s water. How powerful can it be?”
Conveniently forgetting how much damage light could do, Jasson held the phone out with the crystal facing away. Jasson tapped an icon with an innocent circle on it.
Nothing.
Jasson tapped again and shrugged. Must be a dud. Jasson swiped to the next one to test if it was the crystal, and-
WOOSH!!!!
Jasson screamed as he was thrown back, grinding painfully along the ground as his phone flew out of his hand. It spun, a firehose out of control, whipping around and blasting everything with water. The screen went wild with water drops, tapping and clicking as it randomly glitched through its abilities. Jasson scrambled away from the rapidly rotating font and tripped, falling to the ground as a more focused stream cut above his head. Jasson raised his head to see a stalagmite crash anime-style to the ground.
“Oh ^%$##!” Jasson stood to scramble further, but he saw a chance. An opening.
His phone had dug itself into a crevice in the wall. Without thinking, Jasson dashed for the phone as a stream of cutting water drilled across the tunnel. Jasson caught his phone, but it jumped in his hand at the last second and shot the water straight through his palm.
“AHHH!” Jasson gripped tighter, letting the stream keep shooting through the hole in his hand. Jasson pointed the water stream at the collapsed opening and cut away the opening. Slice after slice crumbled to the ground before Jasson’s phone beeped.
10 percent.
“I guess I found its high power ability,” Jasson pressed the power button and prayed with gritted teeth. He’d never tried to turn it off while MADaptation was still running, but if it wouldn’t turn off…Jasson sucked air through his teeth. It didn’t seem to be getting any weaker until-
“Oh thank goodness,” Jasson said, pulling the crystal from the headphone jack, “I am going to be more careful with you!”
Jasson turned to see Charon holding his own phone and grinning widely as he recorded Jasson.
“This is going on ‘There was an attempt’,” Charon said, “You’re gonna be famous. Uh…you going to stop that bleeding?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jasson pressed the healing crystal into his palm, “Med kit!”
Jasson eyed the exit and sloshed down the drowned corridor. It was a bit bigger than he needed, a now unnatural opening along the top of perfectly cut stone. Jasson crawled carefully from the exit, dislodging some of the cut stones as he emerged into the sunshine.
“Ahhh,” Jasson basked in the late afternoon, “Freedom!”
An bird of prey let out a majestic call above as Jasson stood, reveling in the wind. He was by a dried up river bed between two looming mountains, the sun already set from the sheer vertical horizon.
“Sick,” Charon said, phasing through the wall, “And you’re wanting to hire me? I can get you back around sunset, Smill time.”
Jasson nodded, opening his phone as Charon said, “All right. But you won’t be able to find your way back. It could take you decades to find this place again without the knowledge of how you got out. Are you really okay with that? You’re sacrificing the wealth of a nation for the off chance of saving your friends.”
“Yeah,” Jasson said, waiting for the app to load, “Of course I am. It’s nothing before their lives. But also…YES!”
Jasson showed Charon his phone. Peach Maps was open and Jasson had pinned his location.
“Ohhh,” Charon brought out his keys, “That’ll do. Man, I thought you were about to go through a noble sacrifice or something.”
“Heck no,” Jasson watched as Charon’s car materialized, “Besides, what was the whole ‘risk my life’ thing for earlier?”
I wonder, Jasson thought as he looked at Charon’s car.
“Let’s go then,” Charon, the emissary of Death, opened his trunk and brought out a towel, “Just be sure to keep your dirty self on this. I just vacuumed the seats.”