Lux:
Lux opened her eyes, feeling like she hadn’t opened them in days. A cough racked her body, and she could have sworn she saw dust plume from her mouth. She attempted to sit up, but her muscles protested, cramping painfully. Lux settled for turning to her side and curling into a ball, coughing the entire time. Finally, the coughing fit subsided, and she ran her tongue over her teeth and lips. Her mouth was terribly dry and tasted like dust. She was starting to think that the dust cloud she saw wasn’t her imagination.
Lux lay there for a while, her rattling breath becoming easier over time. As she relaxed, she finally became aware of whispered voices behind her.
“Look at all this crystal, Tara! We are going to be rich!” a deep, rumbling bass voice said. It seemed to be muffled, like it was coming from far away.
“If they let us keep it. And what was that noise earlier? It didn’t sound natural,” an alto voice replied.
“I didn’t hear anything, you must have imagined it,” The bass voice said.
“That’s ‘cause your ears are going bad old man! I’ve been telling you to wear those ear muffs your wife gave you,” the alto said, exasperation causing her voice to rise.
“Bah! That’s a load of paste, there ain’t nothing wrong with me ears,” came the gravelly reply.
Lux tried sitting up again, but her muscles failed her again, and she flopped back down on her back. Bleary eyed, she tried to take in her surroundings.
She seemed to be laying on a raised platform of some sort that was surrounded by six square pillars of semi-translucent crystal. Each one had a different color: white, red, yellow, green, blue, and black. Each one seemed to warp the air around it slightly, causing small distortions and sparks to jump off of them. Beyond the structured pillars were more crystals, but instead of solid colors they shimmered with multicolored light and grew in random hexagonal spars capped with tapered points. There seemed to be a narrow path to her right that wound through the crystal spars, leading in the direction that Lux heard the voices coming from.
Lux had no idea where she was, and her brain felt clouded. She was tempted to just close her eyes again and go back to whatever state she was in before, but her instincts screamed at her that it was a bad idea. They also told her that the people she heard earlier were her best shot at getting out of here.
Mustering the little strength that she had left, Lux tried to call out. All the came out was a pitiful croak that almost started another coughing fit. Grimacing with determination, she tried again.
“Help…” Her voice was weak and hoarse, but surprisingly resonant, and echoed throughout the chamber. The effort exhausted her, however; he felt her eyes lose focus as she tried desperately to stay awake.
The voices, which had been quietly talking to each other while Lux underwent the momentous task of saying one word, fell silent.
“Chad, did you hear that?” The alto voice whispered.
“Aye, I did. It came from over there,” Chad, who Lux assumed was the bass replied, “It sounded like a…”
“Don’t say it, you’ll jinx it,” The other voice cut him off.
Lux heard footsteps approaching and tried to focus her eyes towards the path. After a couple of minutes, she saw the owners of the two voices. One was a tall, muscle-bound man with short, close-cropped black hair. Two black triangular ears were visible on the top of his head, and a tail swished agitatedly behind him. His ears and tail were tipped with a grey that also ran through his hair. He was dressed in rough-looking, but sturdy clothes that seemed to be just barely big enough for his burly frame. His bare arms were with covered in thin scars from dozens of minor wounds. In his hand, he carried a large pickax like a club, as if to protect himself.
Next to the man stood a shorter woman who had just as much muscle mass as Chad. Her black hair was braided and pulled back behind her head. She looked younger than the man, with less grey in her hair. Her tail and ears were tipped in brown that matched her light brown eyes. A small silver star seemed to be burned into the flesh under her left eye, standing out sharply against her chestnut skin. She was dressed similarly to the man, but here clothes seemed to be in slightly worse condition, and she carried a shovel instead of a pickax.
Both people stared at the chamber, lingering on the colored pillars before finally landing on Lux with a gasp.
“Five hells…” Chad muttered, his pickax nearly falling out of his hands. His eyes panned around the chamber, taking it all in.
“Look at her hair… I’ve never seen hair that pure white before,” the woman said, her voice filled with slight trepidation.
“An’ what is she doing here at the heart of the bleedin’ mountain?” Chad asked, incredulous.
Lux mustered her strength again to speak. “Please…” Her voice stopped as she coughed weakly, “Water…”
Both miners jumped when she spoke, as if they were expecting her to be a statue.
“She speaks,” Chad said, dumbfounded.
“We should leave,” the woman said, backing away and gripping Chad’s arm.
“What? We can’t do that! She needs our help!” Chad protested, rounding on the woman, “Look at her, Tara! She looks like she hasn’t had a drink in a hundred years!”
“Look, Chad. This is obviously something bigger than us. What in the five hells would a platinum be doing at the heart of a mountain?! There is obviously something shady goin’ on here, and I want no part in it!”
“Fine then, leave! But I’m gonna help her,” Chad said with conviction.
Lux watch helplessly as her potential saviors faced each other down, having some sort of invisible battle of wills. Finally, Tara broke down under Chad’s steel resolve.
“Agh, fine!” Tara said, looking away and reaching for a canteen on her pack. “But don’t blame me when it goes wrong.”
She handed the canteen to Chad, who nodded and accepted it before turning and walking towards Lux. He briefly hesitated, stopping between two of the square pillars and glancing at the nervously, but he steeled himself and walked though. He let out a sigh when nothing happened to him. He carefully approached Lux, who was watching him and breathing raspy breaths.
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“Easy there, lass,” he said quietly. With a gentleness that belied his massive size, he carefully placed his hand under Lux’s head and lifted her up slightly. He pulled the lid off the canteen with his teeth and brought it to Lux’s lips, letting a small amount of water leak into her mouth.
The water ran down her throat, and she coughed, but the water seemed to bring life to Lux. She feebly raised her arms in a feeble attempt to take the canteen and empty the whole thing, but Chad held it out of her reach.
“Slowly now, or you’ll choke,” Chad murmured. Reluctantly, she lowered her arms and Chad let her have some more. Slowly, Lux felt the life return to her, and she felt confident enough to speak again.
“Thank you,” Lux said, her voice still weak but not nearly as raspy as it was.
Seeing that she was more in control of her faculties, Chad gave her the canteen to hold.
“Of course, lass. It wouldn’t have sat right with me to leave a young thing like you down here to rot,” Chad said, smiling at her.
“Do you have a name, girl?” Tara said, approaching Lux from the other side of the platform. She seemed hesitant to get as close to Lux as Chad.
Lux swallowed hard and took another drink from the canteen before answering.
“My name is Lux, I think,” Lux said, looking away from Tara’s intense stare.
“You think? How does that work? And why are you down here? What is this place?” Tara demanded, each question causing her voice to rise in volume. Lux flinched at every question, and a headache started forming as she trying to figure out the answers. Lux felt like she knew the answers, but every time she reached for them, they slipped away, and a spike of pain shot through her mind.
”I… I don’t-“ Lux tried to answer, but the headache reach a crescendo, and she cried out, dropping the canteen and grasping her head with both hands.
“Lay off, Tara! That can wait. We need to get her back to the city,” Chad said angrily. He glared at Tara who threw up her hands in exasperation. Lux didn’t hear Tara’s reply, however. The pain in her head became too much, and her vision faded to black.
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Chadwick felt the young woman in his arm go slack as she passed out and he cursed. Ignoring his fuming partner, he held a massive finger against Lux’s neck, breathing a sigh of relief when he felt a pulse. He looked over the prone figure again and tried to figure out his roiling emotions.
Lux wasn’t very tall, maybe five foot six. She was clad in a simple long sleeved white dress, accented with red stitching down the outsides of her arms starting at the shoulder. It was in a style he had never seen before, beautiful in its simplicity and elegance that accentuated her lithe form. However, her face kept grabbing his attention. Lux was startlingly beautiful, with sharp features rarely seen in the lowborn people Chad was used to seeing. While they were closed now, her eyes were a startling ruby red that caused the strange pulsing lights in the room to dance through them like fire. However, most startling of all, was her hair.
Chad was a member to the Coal caste, the lowest of the castes. As a general rule, the closer to white your hair was, the higher caste you were. Lux’s hair was stark white, reflecting the lights in the room and dyeing it in splashes of color. Her ears were tipped in deep black that seemed to eat the light that touched it. The hair also seemingly had an ethereal quality to it, as if it were lighter than it should be. Chad could feel it in the hand that was holding up her head. It was impossibly soft and slipped between his fingers. Her hair denoted that she was a Platinum, the highest caste and the ruling family of the Feat’ra.
“Chad! Pay attention!” Tara’s worried voice snapped him out of his wonder, and he looked up at his mining partner.
“This is a problem, Chad. What are we going to do? We have a bleeding Platinum passed out on a slab of crystal. This stinks of set up,” Tara said, shifting nervously from foot to foot and gazing around the crystalline chamber. “I mean, look at this place. I can practically taste the magic in this room, and I’m barely a mage. This is probably just another noble’s cruel attempt at a joke or something.”
Chad looked around the room again, his brow creasing in a frown. He hadn’t really looked at the chamber he was in, since his focus was narrowed on Lux. The room was made of the purest crystal that he had seen in his many years. The multicolored spars were in sizes that, if he were to take one back in one piece, he would be able to pay off his considerable debt and then some. He might have been able to even get out of the mines with his family and go somewhere where he could feel the sun on his back. The more cynical part of his mind dismissed the thought, however. The overseers would likely claim it for themselves and put a hole through his head for the trouble.
More interesting were the square pillars. Most natural magic crystals formed with mixing concentrations of the six elements, but the six pillars were pure elemental crystal in a shape that shouldn’t be possible. Even more noteworthy were the inert, blackened runes carved into the sides. The patterns were intricate and small, weaving together in a way that gave Chad a headache just by looking at them.
“I agree this ain’t natural,” Chad said, peeling his eyes away from the odd formations to look at Tara, “But we can’t just leave her here. She’ll die for sure, or worse, someone else finds her who ain’t as nice as we are.”
Tara huffed, but Chad had worked with her for long enough to know she was wavering. He opened his mouth to say something else, but three faint rings sounded from a small device on his arm, the signal of a shift change. He cursed and made a decision. He took the bag off his back and dug through it, pulling out a canvas tarp. He swung the pack behind him again, and gently wrapped the unconscious Lux in the tarp, being sure to cover her hair. He then hefted her into his arms. He grunted in surprise as he did, nearly throwing the girl into the air. She was surprisingly light, even for her small frame.
“I’ll take her to my house, get her a bit more comfortable. Hopefully, after she gets a chance to rest, she can answer some more of our questions,” Chad said to Tara.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she was staring at the place where Lux had been lying. A bright white light pulsed from the crystal, causing her to shield her eyes. When the spots cleared from her sight, she stared at the item that now stood in the place of the platform. Floating a couple inches off of the ground was a magnificent sword in a startlingly white scabbard. There was little decoration in the guard and pommel which was made from a matte white metal that Tara didn’t recognize, with a white braided leather grip. Red peeked out from between the braids. The guard was different from the t shaped ones the Rust guards carried; instead, the guard was a small circle piece of copper-like metal with shapes carved out of it. The carving seemed to be of an unfamiliar bird and was so realistic that it almost seemed alive. The pommel was a flat metal cap with another engraved bird that looked like the same as the one on the guard. The sheath was also made of a dull white material, with a plain copper cap.
Chad hadn’t seemed to notice the sword, as he has already turned towards the exit. With a sigh, she grabbed the sword. It was heavier than she expected, and she nearly dropped it, but it wasn’t anything that she couldn’t handle. She darted up to Chad’s pack and shoved the sheathed blade in it, making sure it was completely covered with the other junk in his pack. For once, she was glad that Chad kept so much crap in his pack.
“What are you doing?” He asked, looking over his shoulder at Tara.
“Don’t worry about it. There was something else that I saw that is probably hers and I put it in your bag,” She replied, readjusting the straps on her own pack, “How are we gonna explain the girl?”
Chad creased his brow and set off along the path that he and Tara had taken to get down. “I was planning on thinking something up on the way up,” he said.
“Just say she was hit by a mana blast and it knocked her out, and you are going to take her to your home to rest for a bit. Old Man won’t look too deeply into it,” Tara said, glancing back at the mysterious chamber one last time before exiting the hole they had carved out.
“Quick as usual,” Chad replied, giving her a grunt of amusement.
Tara didn’t reply, and instead kept walking. Her thoughts were a mess of conflicting emotions. On one hand, she hated royalty, and this Lux girl was obviously not a common girl. On the other hand, Lux was just a girl, and generally seemed like she was confused and frightened at her surroundings. She decided that she would keep an eye on the girl and see what she did.