Chapter 11: The Dangers of Food Mining

Yerdl glanced at Ismi, who had just prevented him from plucking a purple globule from the fruit vein. Kejo also restrained Turmeric who unlike Yerdl did not instantly stop, but strained against Kejo for a time, the twipstrider’s heart wasn’t in though, after all, if Turmeric really wanted to, there wasn’t a hope of Kejo holding him back.

Yerdl looked back longingly at the plump segments.

“What is the problem dear? Surely taking just a bit of fruit would be fine? It is terribly dusty going through these tunnels” he pleaded.

“Forget your thirst and think for a moment!” Ismi commanded.

Yerdl paused, then slapped his clay pot with a finger.

“This is a mine, a civilized mine! I can’t just take some of the fruit!” he remembered.

“What civilized people do to thieves is much better than wild people do!” Kejo helpfully added.

Given the way Elcon was a thief was likely to just get a beating and then be stripped of all their valuables. In the wilds and fringes, it was likely that the meat of a thief was more valuable in the short term than whatever they stole.

“They might be civilized cannibals!” Ismi warned.

Yerdl paled at the thought and backed away from the fruit vein.

However, as he did so, it seemed to pulsate.

Now, underground veins of fruit must be explained somewhat, rather than being the buried fruit of some great plant, they are deposits left by distortions created by the food dimension. Elcon for whatever reason (many suspect Mr. Honey has a direct gate) has a strong connection to the food dimension.

Fruit deposits are the most common kind, but sometimes miners would find bacon, and perhaps more disastrously break into a pocket of boiling hot soup.

Of course, it cannot be forgotten that the food dimension has living denizens of its own.

“It’s a juice!” Kejo yelled as Turmeric bowled both him and Yerdl away from the fruit vein.

Purple liquid burst out from the vein condensing into a wobbling wave with a vague head-like shape at the top. It sloshed back and forth, looking around it, clearly confused at finding itself in such an inedible environment.

“Quick tell it a joke!” Yerdl advised and then he and Ismi vanished under their pots.

Kejo looked uneasily at the fruity creature, but dutifully committed an atrocity against humour.

The juice bubbled ominously, but apart from that showed no sign of comprehension, other than the fact that it had locked onto Kejo, and was washing over to him, fully intending to give him a fruity drowning.

“Oh dear!” Kejo said. “What do I do now?”

Yerdl and Ismi of course could not hear him, which was kind of the point of hiding in their pots from the deadliness of Kejo’s ‘jokes’.

The juice flowed closer and closer and Turmeric valiantly stepped in front of Kejo to try and defend them.

However, just as that happened, a loud clanking echoed out from further inside the mine.