Chapter 263 - The End of Pretending (Patreon)

Zeke hefted an armful of medium-quality blood mithril ore in his arms, and with a grunt, deposited it onto the cart. Once it was settled into place, he wiped his forearm across his forehead and sighed. He’d been at it for a week, and outside of that first skirmish with the reptilian kobolds, his life had devolved into monotony. He’d become so bore that, more than once, he’d considered eschewing Oberon’s hints at ephemeral opportunities in favor of forging ahead on his own path. The only reason he hadn’t was because the rest of his crew depended on him.

That first battle had resulted in four deaths, which cut their numbers down to the point where there was almost no chance of them keeping up with the harsh quotas imposed upon them. Or that would have been the case without Zeke, whose enhanced constitution allowed him to do the work of ten men. Most of his superiority was rooted in his inflated strength, but his endurance and vitality played a role as well, allowing him to keep going long after others had collapsed into exhaustion.

In addition, his path, which was tied to the concept of force, allowed him to swing his pick with even more authority than his strength would have otherwise allowed. The result was that each swing shattered rock and dislodged huge chunks of ore. His efforts were the only reason any of them had eaten regular meals over the past week.

Because, one thing that Jasper hadn’t revealed in his initial introduction to the mines was that if a team didn’t meet their quota of gathered ore, they wouldn’t be given food. Not until they reached their goals, however long it took them. Moreover, they wouldn’t be allowed back topside to spend their contribution points.

It was a brutal system that only took productivity into account. It didn’t matter that they were four bodies short of a full team. The quota remained the same. So, if Zeke wanted to keep going, he’d had no choice but to pick up the slack. Fortunately, he was up to the task.

“Think that’s enough?” he asked Jasper, whose dark skin was covered in dust after heaving a much smaller chunk of ore into the cart.

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” repeated Jasper, bending down to catch his breath. “The quality of the ore is too low. We will come in light, my friend.”

Zeke ground his teeth together in frustration and looked at the other members of his mining team. He still hadn’t learned any of their names. It just seemed pointless when death might wait around any corner, and even if he wanted to make the effort, none of the others seemed willing to share their identities. Aside from Jasper, everyone else wore dejected expressions that told anyone who cared to look that they had given up all hope. They were just going through the motions, doing just enough to survive. And even that much appeared to strain their fortitude.

“We could go deeper,” Zeke suggested. Over the past week, he’d managed to pick up a few things. First, he had learned that the whole system was a sham. The contribution points they were given were nearly worthless, at least in the quantities they had the opportunity to earn. But for the lowest-ranked slaves like Zeke, the points were barely enough to replace the mining picks when they inevitably wore down.

Second, he had figured out that if he ever wanted to progress his quest, he’d have to delve deeper into the mine. That was where the higher-quality ores could be harvested. Unsurprisingly, the deeper areas of the mines, which extended for miles and miles below the mountain, were home to progressively more dangerous monsters as well.

So, it presented a conundrum. Mining in the upper levels was barely enough to get by, but delving too deeply could present the group with powerful creatures they couldn’t hope to defeat. The kobolds were just the beginning, and they’d ripped the group to shreds. Only Zeke and Jasper had escaped mostly unharmed, and a handful of people had died. The others clearly weren’t interested in taking the chance of going deeper.

“I wholeheartedly support that plan,” said Jasper, flashing a cheerful smile. Then, he nodded toward the rest of the group, adding, “But alas, I suspect that we will be in the minority on that count.”

“You think we really need them?” asked Zeke. “They’ve done like a quarter of the work, here.”

“If only that mattered,” Jasper sighed. “We are a team, and we are judged as such. Our efforts will still be attributed to them, regardless of whether or not they assist in the work.”

Zeke ran his hand through his sweaty hair. It seemed that he had a choice before him; either he could continue to usher the rest of his team through the mines, letting them slow him down, or he could leave them behind and allow them to benefit from his hard work.

So, there was no choice at all, really.

“Hey, everyone,” he said, raising his voice. “Once we take this load back, Jasper and I are going to head deeper into the mine. You’re welcome to come, but I don’t expect it.”

In fact, he hoped they wouldn’t. Letting them benefit from his work was one thing, but dragging them into a dangerous area and protecting them was something else altogether. He hoped they would do the smart thing and stay behind where it was safer.

One of the others – a ruddy-faced dwarf with long, stringy hair and a tangled beard – shook his head. “Too dangerous,” he muttered.

The others echoed that sentiment, but Zeke wasn’t surprised. Nor was he really disappointed. He’d long since understood that people who were willing to challenge death and push themselves were few and far between. And even if some of these captives had once been the types to do so, they’d had that attitude ground out of them by their enslavement.

Zeke nodded, then walked around the cart and took hold of the handles. It was designed for three people to push, but Zeke could manage it on his own. He grunted as he bent himself to the task, using his frustration as fuel. Getting the cart moving wasn’t easy, but he still managed it. And keeping it going only took a fraction of his strength.

None of the others, save for Jasper, had even offered to help. Instead, they just trudged along behind him like they were marching to their own funerals.

Slowly, the group climbed through the tunnels, navigating through caves and caverns that had already been picked clean by earlier generations of miners. That was the problem with such an operation. Minerals like the blood mithril in their cart, were a finite resource, so if they wanted to continue mining, they had to keep going deeper and deeper.

And with every step, the danger would increase.

But Zeke wasn’t the sort to back down from a challenge. Nor had he ever chosen the safe path. Instead, he’d thrown himself into one battle after another, even when common sense told him to retreat. He wasn’t sure if that was the person he’d always been, or if it was just how he’d been molded by his experiences in the Radiant Isles, but he had no intention of changing that now.

Together, he and Jasper pushed the cart all the way back to the main cavern, where their haul was counted, weighed, and evaluated for quality. As Jasper had predicted, they came up short, the craggy faced stone dwarf sneering as he told them to go back for more. Zeke wanted nothing more than to punch the short creature in the face, but he restrained himself. There would come a time when he could exact his revenge on his captors, but it had yet to come.

So, Zeke and Jasper quickly turned back around and pushed their cart back into the tunnels. The rest of the mining crew stayed behind, getting strange looks from stone dwarves who ran the place. Still, they didn’t really care what a few of the lowest-tier workers did. If they wanted to give up and wait for the end, then that was fine by the guards.

Truthfully, it was fine with Zeke as well.

He wasn’t so hard-hearted that he could blame them for their apathy. They were slaves, after all. But dragging useless people around was exhausting, and based on past experiences, it was destined to end poorly.

Eventually, he and Jasper made it back to the area they’d vacated only a few hours before. Zeke slowed to a stop, asking, “So, you’ve been deeper, right?”

Jasper shook his head, then picked at his fingernail. “I have not,” the dark elf admitted. “But stories, I have heard aplenty.”

“And?”

“Kobold hatchlings will be the least of our worries,” Jasper stated.

“Those were hatchlings before?” asked Zeke. “What about the older ones?”

“Much more vicious,” Jasper responded with a grin. “But never fear, my stalwart companion. We shan’t let a little danger dissuade us from our duties.”

Zeke narrowed his eyes.

“Too much alliteration?” asked Jasper.

Zeke just shook his head. “So, it’s more dangerous?” he asked.

“I thought that had already been covered,” Jasper answered. “But yes. Very dangerous. Most teams that go any further than this end up losing multiple members. Or they never come back.”

Zeke shrugged his shoulders and cracked his neck. It didn’t matter. He’d already made his choice, and he wasn’t going to back down just because it might kill him. If he was that meek, he would have broken free the first day he’d been captured. Instead, he’d gone along with it because he suspected that Oberon’s opportunities could be found within the mountain. Now, he just needed to be strong enough to seize them.

“Alright, then,” he said. “Head on a swivel. Let’s do this.”

Without any further ado, the bent into the task of pushing the cart further into the mine, the creak of its wooden wheels echoing through the tunnel. Thankfully, the ground was relatively smooth, even if it soon angled downward in a steady descent. The terrain meant that his efforts were focused more on maintaining control of the cart than pushing it, though it was equally exhausting work keeping it from tearing free of his grip and careening out of control.

Meanwhile, Jasper took it upon himself to range ahead, scouting the way so Zeke could focus on keeping the cart under control. Like that, they descended further and further until, three hours into their journey, Jasper returned, a grave expression on his face.

As Zeke wrestled the cart to a stop, then flipped the breaks to keep it in place, he stretched his arms to the sky. His back popped, and he asked, “What’s up? Find something?”

Jasper nodded, a grave expression on his face.

“Well, that doesn’t look good,” Zeke said. “What is it? More kobolds?”

“Many, many more.”

At that, Zeke shook his head. It seemed that his time pretending to be powerless was over. So, he focused inward, embracing his runecrafting path. As he did so, he turned his attention to the shackles on his wrists. In the past week, he’d continued to study and map the runes that governed the restricting enchantments, and he thought he’d found the lynchpin. If he nudged it a little, the shackles would unclasp, and he would be freed from the restrictions. However, if he’d made even the slightest error, things could go very wrong.

The least impactful – and most likely – result would be that the shackles were simply destroyed. He could live with that, even if it would throw off his plans. However, there was also a chance that he would use too much mana, creating a domino effect that might cause a small, localized explosion. And given that those shackles were around his wrists, that wasn’t something Zeke wanted to deal with.

But it was this or keep trudging along like his useless teammates. If he chose to go back and play it safe, the next time would be even easier. And the next after that. Eventually, he’d be one of them, taking whatever scraps the stone dwarves decided to toss his way.

And Zeke refused to let that happen.

So, with a flex of his will, he cut off the flow of mana to a single glyph. In his mind’s eye, it went dark. Then, he moved to the next one, getting a similar result. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he turned his attention toward the one in his collar, but he didn’t let himself hesitate. His will whipped out, cutting that one off as well.

Zeke let out a sigh of relief as he focused on his spatial storage. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d relied on it until it had been taken away. Suddenly, Vorimir appeared in his hand, though the weapon looked very different from when he’d last seen it. Its haft was still comprised of the same glyph-inscribed bone, but the head had reshaped itself into something more resembling a hammer. It still wouldn’t quite fit into that classification, but it was getting there.

Moreover, it radiated a palpable sense of oppressive power.

Jasper gasped, all composure gone. “W-what? The shackles…”

“Those kinds of things don’t really work on me,” Zeke said. He summoned a leftover plate of Mags’ barbecue and handed it to the stunned dark elf, who took it with a stunned expression. Zeke said, “I guess the cat’s out of the bag, then. I’m not here because I don’t have a choice, Jasper. I’m here because there’s something I need here. Once I get it, I’m leaving.”

“What do you need?” Jasper asked, already tearing into the meat. They had been fed each time they went back with a big enough load of ore, but it was never really enough to stave off hunger.

“That’s the thing,” Zeke said. “I’m not sure, exactly. I know some of it, but I think there’s more to it than meets the eye.”

“That makes little sense,” Jasper said, his words barely intelligible around the food in his mouth.

Zeke shrugged. “I’m aware,” he said. “But it is what it is. The way I figure it, whatever I need is down that way.” He extended his mace in the direction from which Jasper had returned. “So, that’s where I’m headed. Are you with me?”

Jasper eagerly nodded. “If you have more of this delectable food, I will follow you anywhere,” he stated with all the dignity he could muster.

Zeke grinned, then said, “That’s what I like to hear, buddy. That’s what I like to hear.”