Chapter 10: A Civilized Mine is Full of..?

First came the shaking.

The frulid family had been nervously travelling through the tunnels for some time, making sure to use their pointer-shard to pick out a more likely way back to either their village and/or the surface.

The tunnels increasingly revealed their true nature.

They were not mere tunnels, but mine shafts, not dug out by the munching of chompers or other beings that can eat earth, but by tools, by magic, by denizens of higher will and thought.

As they went on, the shafts became sharper in angles and more supports were scattered throughout the shafts, and these supports, while rough at first, became as metal spines and ribs. Here and there a vein of this metal or that metal, a kind of crystal or some other material could be seen, just uncovered but slightly, left for later harvest.

The natural lights of darksorbing vegetation and various fungi were gradually replaced by more reliable crystals, or perhaps it was less that they were reliable, and more that the makers of the supports recognised the havoc nature is able to inflict on construction if left unfettered.

Not all of Elconic denizens know how to twine and twist nature to garden, and thus live in peace with normally merciless nature, who in most dimensions, grows without care for man or beast, or even it’s own leafy or vegetable like spawn.

“I don’t much like this” Kejo said, eyeing the ordered supports distrustfully.

“Oh, don’t be like that, we’re coming to civilization! We aren’t going to get eaten by some wild creature in a respectable mine like this!” Yerdl pish poshed.

“No dear, we might instead get eaten by some civilized denizens instead, and that my dear is far better” Ismi retorted sarcastically.

“I hope this one isn’t filled with dead people” Kejo said.

“If they were dead, it wouldn’t be a problem” Ismi chided.

“I hope this one isn’t filled with risen” Kejo said.

“Oh, this is great, a vein of fruit” Yerdl said.

He hopped off the caravamel and reached out to grab a purple juicy globule, and Turmeric, stretched out his neck to do likewise, jerking the whole caravamel and almost pulling it over.

“Stop!”