The journey down the incredibly thin road into the chasm with wall on one side, and a massive drop onto terrifying crystal spikes on the other was somewhat terrifying for all involved. On more than one occasion they had to get out via the roof exit and push, because the path was not wide enough to use the regular doors, and the damn wheels had gotten stuck, or slipped slightly over the edge. (To be fair having a bloody great big owl-bear to help with the shoving was probably cheating a little. But it was also great motivation for the horses to get it moving as fast as possible, so the big scary thing would get back into the wheeled box and go back to sleep.) Of course Rascal’s assistance was purely supervisory in nature on this particular task, (by which I mean they sat on the roof enjoying the sun and grooming themselves in as nonchalant a manner as felinely possible, occasionally soft paw batting any pusher who got to close to the area he was perched upon.)

Eventually after six teetering, tottering, terrifying hours they made it down the trail, and it became clear where the Crystalline Cavern got the title. Massive spires of bluish purple crystal pierced the sky, some almost as tall as the royal castle, and others formed nearby as tiny and delicate as gossamer. Looking up at the gigantic stone and crystal spines Mibbet was immensely relieved that nobody had slipped on the way down, as termination via termination at terminal velocity did not sound like a fun way to go, (if there even is such a thing, dying is usually just a tad too permanent to be enjoyable, which is probably just as well, it isn’t something one wishes to make a habit of. Or indeed start a habit of.)

Oddly many of these crystals had been hollowed out inside, with doors and windows cut into them.

“Once over this place was harvested by humans, of course they used automota.” Explained sir leeroy.

“Why of course?” Mibbet asked, she didn’t really get this human trait of delegating manual labour to somebody else. For a frog you were either independent or you were lunch. Because once a large predator shows up it would always be every frog for themselves, sometimes it was a frog eat frog world out there. (They preferred to avoid that of course, frogs tasting gross to other frogs was something of a survival trait. Had all frogs tasted like chocolate or caramel, or coffee to each other it would be an extinction level event waiting to happen.)

“Can’t use human labour down here, it’s why we waited for night before coming down. Those crystals are valued because they store the sun’s energy throughout the day, and kick a lot of it out in the process. Coming down here in the daytime you would end up with a nasty tan.”

“So what, I’ve picked up a pretty decent tan on the road these last few days.”

“That tan stopped at your skin. This one wouldn’t.”

Mibbet gulped, feeling fortunate to avoid becoming fricasseed frog, or froggy flambe, or for that matter given the spiky crystals, that were still more than capable of getting just as hot as the others, frog kabob.

“Yeah that’s fair, but I don’t see any miners down here, Automated or otherwise.”

“That’s not so surprising, there was a labour dispute.”

“How? Weren’t they automota ?”

“There’s a lot of mana down here Princess, give an Automoton enough mana they get smart, once they get smart they wise up. Meaning they noticed they were working unpaid and decided they didn’t appreciate it. So one day the human miners came down to collect and they.... got delayed. Automota can’t harm a human, it’s in their spells. They can however stall and delay collection, and the sun isn’t really a machine now is it?”

“Sounds like the ultimate go slow,” Errol chimed in with a grin, “followed by a slowcook.”

Mibbet chose not to dignify that with a response, as they got moving. Following a trail indicated by a slightly charred sign. That would have been less concerning to all involved if the damn thing had been made of metal.

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Adjunct 43c was out walking, since the great strike there hadn’t been a lot to do, and rambling had become their pastime. When they heard voices a curiosity they had

not felt for a long time bubbled to the surface. They couldn’t resist the urge to take a peek and see what was going on.

A human in a big wheeled metal box, (bad idea round these parts as once the sun came up it would change the job description to portable oven.) On top of that they had guards (again dressed in bloody metal, did they not have a brain between them?) This level of incompetence could only be achieved by very specific individuals. Adjunct 43c reckoned that these people must be in management. They turned around and headed back into the warren of caves to seek out the guidance of Unit2b. It seemed it was time to restart negotiations.

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Unit2b was in their usual spot, guarding the resources, he of course carried a big stick, (an essential tool in most negotiations he had experienced,) and was this month’s dedicated speaker. This dispute had run rather long, largely due to the human tendency to waffle on in order to sound important, well that and because as the labour force they felt they were entitled to fair payment for the resources they harvested. Usually at the point in negotiations at which they demanded proper payment the humans got all shouty. At which point of course negotiations always stalled. Even so a 200 year breakdown in negotiations was excessive even in machine terms. In human terms they hadn’t sent a negotiator in 175 years, 2 weeks, 5 days, to hours, and at their mark 22 seconds.... mark.

It had taken so long that even the workers, tireless automata that they were, were starting to get fed up. They’d even assigned themselves NAMES, actual names in an attempt to smooth progress along (hey you, and bloody useless machine did not count.) So it came as rather a surprise to Unit2b when Adjunct43c came charging in shouting about management being on site. Unit2b picked up his best negotiating stick, it was time to go to work.