Velnor hated the tunnels. Every time he climbed up one, felt like he was suffocating. He could hear his breath coming in ragged gasps through the respirator, see the little puff of smoke disappear outside of his helmet. He winced in spite of himself at the trouble miner 273 would find himself in when his suit was discovered missing. However, the thought did not stop Velnor as he made his way, hand over hand, upwards. Like the tunnel itself, taking the suit was unavoidable. Without it, the nether would steal his soul.
A burst of steam shot out of one of the pipes going from the mining tunnels to the rest of the world, startling Velnor. He lost his grip on the rung, the large fingers of the gloves made grabbing difficult, and swung from one hand next to the endless ladder. His bag, the reason for this mad venture, crashed into one of the pipes, sending echoes back to the world below.
For a while, Velnor hung there, fearing to hear the sounds of technicians arriving to check on the noise. The tunnels were off limits, save for the miners and the convicts. If they found him up here… Velnor did not want to think about what the Pryarchs would say, let alone what his father would do to him if he were caught.
With images of people scurrying after him, Velnor resumed his efforts and continued climbing. Gradually the soil around the ladder changed from the deep purple of the world to a reddish brown as he neared topside. The climb up was nearly an hour long, and even in as good of shape as he was, Velnor still had to stop and rest a few times. He secured his feet against the rungs and leaned back against the soil, giving his arms a break. It was tiring climbing to topside, and not just because of the climb. The bulky suit needed to protect him from the nether weighed him down and made each of his movements slow and stiff. On top of that, the condescend atmosphere created by the suit tasted flat and stale.
Eventually Velnor reached the end of ladder. There were dozens of mining tunnels around him, but Velnor took the one that headed to his left and started walking along it. The tunnel quickly sloped up as he walked through it, making the scramble over the ruble difficult. Eventually the tunnel leveled out, and Velnor walked out of the end and found himself in the nether.
It was dark all around him, a black deeper than the hides of the Crayla beasts. And it was cold too. Even with the mining suit on, Velnor could feel the cold invading his bones. He remembered the cold scaring him the first time he had come here with Jeonob and Beyla. Of course he had known it would be cold, without the holy fires of the All-Being, nothing could be warm. Velnor had just never realized that there could be a cold that cold.
The three of them- Jeonob, Beyla and Velnor- had journeyed to the nether about five ages ago, soon after the hole was discovered. One of the mining tunnels collapsed, and when rescuers came to help, they found that there was hole in Mir, a hole to the nether. The Pryarchs had demanded that the hole be sealed, lest we lose the fires of the All-Being. There were arguments for weeks about what to do. Some claimed that by studying the nether, we could learn more about the All-Being and why he created Mir about himself. Others cited the Mi’Bruk, about how the nether is the absences of good, about how not even the All-Being could stand being in it.
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While everyone around them argued about what to do, the three friends decided to explorer the nether. The air around the up deep mining shafts was thin enough to be nonexistent, so it was a logical thought that when going to a place with no air, a mining suit should be used. They quickly stole three sets and began the long climb up.
After all the preparations, all the work, their trip to the nether lasted less than a minute. The cold and darkness quickly terrified Beyla, and Velnor could see Jeonob’s face grow pale. They fled back down the tunnels, heading for the safety of the world, but not before Velnor saw something that his friends had missed. The darkness around them was not complete. Instead of the inky blackness his friends saw, Velnor noticed that there were small lights scattered in it.
When he had returned home, he questioned Pryarch Necor about the nether. With all of Mir talking about the opening, the Pryarch did not find Velnor’s questions suspicious. He told Velnor that the nether was a dark void, as stated in the Mi’Bruk, and that there was nothing in it. When Velnor asked, as off handedly as possible, if there could be any lights in the nether, Pryarch Necor said no. Then, after a moment’s thought, he changed his mind. There could be lights in the nether, he supposed, the light of the lost souls, trying to find their way back to the All-Being.
His mind drifted back to the present as Velnor looked around him. All around him, nearly filling the nether, Velnor could see the lost souls shinning down. He set down his bag, glad to be free of its weight for a moment, and removed his farseerer. Normally he used the farseerer to help his father keep track of the Crayla beast herd on their ranch. Now he hoped to use it to see a soul. It was difficult to use the farseerer through the helmet, but when he got it aligned properly, the sight made him forget about the stale air and the cold.
When Velnor imagined what the souls would look like, he had thought they would look like people. Maybe pale, ghostly people, but people none the same. What he saw through the farseerer was nothing like that. Instead of the people, the lenses revealed beautiful floating orbs. Some were yellow, some blue, some even had rings about them. It was the most wondrous thing Velnor had ever seen. None of them though, could compare with the largest orb. It was blue, green and white, full of swirling colors and shapes.
Velnor was staring at the colored orb when he saw a small, white light shoot out from the orb. It was too small for him to make out with the farseerer, but he followed its path anyway as it made its way past one of the grey orbs. He wanted to see where it was going, he wanted to know why a soul would shoot anything out, but the cold was becoming unbearable. Already his feet and fingers had turned numb, and the idea of staying to long in the nether frightened him. He quickly packed up his farseerer and headed back down the tunnel to the warmth of the living world.