Victor followed the old, blue Ardeni man to the back of Lam’s barracks, where he’d promised to hook him up with a belt. It was cool that he was allowed to have a club, considering he was basically a slave, but he didn’t like carrying it all the time. When he’d mentioned it to Gris, the guy that Captain Lam had ordered to show Victor around, the man had laughed and said that Victor just needed a belt. “All right, Victor, let’s see here,” Gris said, throwing open a big wooden chest and rooting through leather scraps, burlap, tattered old clothes, and worn-down boots. He finally pulled out a length of leather with a tarnished, bent tin buckle. He tossed it to Victor, who ran it through the loops on his black pants, and buckled it with about seven inches of leather to spare.

“Yo, how about a pair of old boots? The assholes that sold me took my good ones.” Gris looked Victor up and down, then shrugged.

“Ain’t coming out of my pocket!” He laughed, digging around and throwing a bunch of boots at Victor to try on. Victor held a few that looked about right to his feet and, after trying on several pairs, settled on two boots that were mismatched but fit him passably. “Look at that! You’re ready for delving!”

“Alright, thanks, Gris. So, what’s next? We supposed to go get some ‘quests’ or some shit?”

“That’s right,” the old guy reached up to scratch his white stubble, running his fingers around inside his collar to let his skin breathe. Victor noticed that his collar was a lot more ornate than his own, made from something more like a bronze alloy than iron, and covered with a lot more weird letters. “Yeah, let’s go do that now. I need to turn one in, anyway.” He started walking back through the hall, past a bunch of the others in Lam’s unit, including some other veterans giving the other newbies their version of orientations. Lam wasn’t around, having left to handle some business shortly after Victor and the others had arrived. When they got outside and started back toward the tunnel entrance, Victor was surprised that he couldn’t see the enormous tunnel exit. It had felt like they’d walked straight in, but the slope was deceptive, and, in the distance, the only thing he could see was more tunnel and the ceiling with huge globes of glowing Energy throwing orange-yellow light down.

“Dude, this tunnel is fucking huge.”

“Hah, wait ‘til you see the deep vaults.” Gris strode ahead, moving quickly for a guy with such short legs.

“Hey, is Lam one of those, um, Ghelli? You know the people with the dragonfly wings?”

“Oh, aye. She’s a rare sight, though. Her race is up into advanced stages; she can even fly with them wings.”

“That’s pretty badass. What’s she doing in these mines?”

“Hah, you got a lot to learn, Victor. These mines run deep. When they chased the amber-ore vein with this tunnel, they started running into ruins, and the deeper they went, the bigger the ruins got. All kinds of ancient shit was buried down here. Lam works for the Greatbone Mining Consortium, but she’s also hunting for artifacts for herself.” That made sense to Victor; she’d been something from another league compared to all the other people he’d met in this world. Even the lady at her mansion hadn’t had anyone around that resonated like Captain Lam. They started running into other mineworkers as they walked up the tunnel, and after a few more minutes, they came up the curving path to the big central area where most of the shanties and buildings were concentrated and where the weird black stone rose into the air.

“What is that thing, anyway?”

“What?”

“That big fucking stone with all the weird letters all over it.”

“Really? You didn’t have a Village or Town Stone where you came from?”

“No, man. I’m not from this world.” Gris gave Victor a good long stare with his bright red eyes, then grinned.

“I guess that makes sense. Well, it’s a Settlement Stone, where this ‘community’ is directly connected to the System. It lets the people running the place buy things from the System, build structures, and set up stuff like a Contribution Store for us workers.”

“Ahh, gotcha. So that’s where we get the quests?”

“Right, because we’re not free employees, our rewards are pretty small, but it all adds up.” Gris led Victor down the slope to the cleared area around the Stone, and they joined one of the queues of people waiting to interact with it. Victor passed the time waiting by people watching, and he saw plenty to keep him entertained. He noticed that many of the people milling around wore belts with pouches attached and that the pouches all had a pickaxe branded on them.

“What’s with those bags with the pickaxes?”

“Those are people on mining detail. They get a dimensional container to carry what they dig out each day. Those bags are enchanted specially, though; they keep track of what the miners put in them, so there’s no funny business when they drop off their haul each day.”

“They think of everything, huh? Hey,” Victor slapped the metal baton sticking out of his belt, “what kinda shit we gonna have to fight down there?”

“I’ve seen all kinds of creatures deep down: giant rats, Yeksa, zombies, ghouls, the list goes on and on. Captain Lam killed a Yovashi the other day, too.” Victor didn’t know what the fuck some of those things were, but he was a little tired of playing the dummy, so he just grunted and acted impressed.

“So, am I going to be fucked? I mean, my Core got basically destroyed. I can’t do much beyond swinging this club around.”

“Ahh, I was going to ask you about that collar but didn’t want to be rude. So you really don’t have much Energy, huh?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Well, Lam’s a good Captain. She’ll probably put you with some of the stronger guys and just expect you to help out as best you can. Um, I won’t lie to you; deep delvers suffer a lot of casualties. Hey, here we go! Our turn.” He laughed and walked up to the vacant facet of the octagonal Settlement Stone. “I’ll go first. You just put your palm on the Stone, and you’ll see some menus and stuff that you can go through. You want to go to the quests section; it’s the second option on the first page.” Victor nodded and watched as Gris went about his business, and when the old man stepped back and nodded to the Stone, Victor slapped his palm against the flat surface.

He immediately saw a menu screen pop up in his vision, much like when he looked at his status page. He only had two items on his menu: Contribution Store and Quests. He touched the Contribution Store first, just to see what it was, and he found a menu with a dozen subheadings from things like food to clothing to approved weaponry. Victor clicked on the weaponry list and found a menu with three different items: basic baton, artificed baton, and heavy artificed baton. Victor grunted and said, “Just batons?”

“Oh, you’re checking out the store? Yeah, they don’t like us with real weapons up here, even though some of the guys in our unit could really massacre a lot of people with a baton. It doesn’t make sense, but it keeps the administrators happy.” Victor looked at the prices, and the cheapest baton was fifty credits, and the “Heavy Artificed Baton” was 500. His balance was zero, so he shrugged and backed out of the Contribution Store and clicked on the Quests button. A menu appeared:

Quests for Victor Sandoval in Greatbone Mine:

Slay 100 denizens of the deep

Reward: 1-3 credits per kill based on creatures slain, determined by System calculation.

Recover Energy-rich materials

Reward: 1-1000 credits based on Energy level, determined by System calculation.

“One hundred? I have to kill a hundred fucking things down there? Are there that many monsters?”

“Hah! Yes, and then some. They keep coming, too, no matter how many times we kill them and beat them back. I suppose if we stopped going deeper, chasing ore, they might stop coming. Who knows?” Victor sighed, pushed the green “accept” button next to each quest, and then turned back to Gris.

“All done, man. What’s next?”

“Now we should go get some shuteye because Captain Lam doesn’t hardly ever sleep, and she likes to wake our asses up early.” He turned to leave, and Victor followed. They returned the way they came, meandering through the little clusters of soiled humanoids. Some of the denizens of the mine cast sidelong glances Victor’s way, and a few even seemed outright hostile. He felt out of place, as usual in this world, but more vulnerable than ever. At least when he’d been in Yund’s warehouse, he’d had Yrella and Vullu watching his back at first. He tried to avoid making eye contact with the larger, more dangerously crazy-looking individuals. He felt some relief when they finally passed out of the more crowded central settlement area and into the quieter, darker stretch of tunnel that led to Lam’s barracks.

When they walked up to the doors of the barracks building, Gris motioned for Victor to be quiet and then opened the door slowly to avoid making any noise. A few dim lights showed members of the unit huddled over whatever sort of strange hobbies kept them busy during the bedtime hours, but most everyone was sleeping already. Gris pointed to an empty cot near the door, and Victor took his meaning, going over to it. The mattress was thin, something like burlap stretched over scratchy hay or grass, but he had two wool blankets, so he lay down on one and pulled the other over himself. He’d kicked his boots off and looped his belt with his cudgel over the little bedpost but otherwise slept with his clothes on. When he closed his eyes and stretched out, Victor realized it was the first time he’d slept in a bed since coming to this world. It might have been a shitty, uncomfortable bed, but it beat sleeping on a hard, hay-covered floor.

He was deeply asleep, dreaming of watching his grandma cook breakfast, when someone gave his cot a good shake and said, “Time to move out! Get up!” Victor yawned hugely and rolled onto his back, looking around. The barracks hall was brightly lit, and the entire unit was lining up by the door, a few people still straggling into the line. He didn’t know what would happen to people slow to move, so Victor jumped up and jammed his feet into his boots. Gris walked up while he was pulling his belt tight.

“Don’t forget to make your bed. Captain Lam doesn’t like a sloppy barracks.” He helped Victor fold his blankets and said, “just fold them neatly at the foot of the cot every morning.”

“Got it, thanks.” Victor hustled over to the line, following Gris, and was happy that he wasn’t the last person; a thickly-built red-skinned Shadeni guy lined up behind him, looking disheveled and stressed.

“I didn’t sleep at all!” he groused quietly to the back of Victor’s neck.

“That sucks, dude. You’ll do better tonight.”

“If I live that long! I can’t believe I was assigned to the delvers!” Victor glanced over his shoulder at the stout man and shrugged.

“Yeah, here’s hoping.” They’d only been lined up for about a minute when the far door opened and closed, and then Captain Lam was striding through the barracks toward them.

“Good! I don’t have to beat anyone this morning. Yet. The beds look alright, and you’re all lined up. This is how we do it every morning. Now move out! Sergeant Fath, lead them to forward delve six-fourteen.”

“Right, Captain Lam!” a massive, hulking Shadeni man with an eyepatch shouted, pushing open the door and marching out. The line of club-wielding prisoners followed him out, and Victor was surprised when the sergeant started booming out a march cadence, and the veterans echoed him. It reminded him of an army VR he’d watched a few years ago, some comedy about a rich guy who had to sign up for basic training.

Marching through the deep dark!

Always in the deep dark!

People know us!

Monsters fear us!

We are the delvers!

The mighty Lam’s delvers!

We drive back the darkness

and the hiding creeps!

Tough Lam’s delvers!

Rough Lam’s delvers!

Marching through the deep dark!

Victor had never marched before, but it wasn’t hard to figure out that he was supposed to step with his left foot when the guys in front of him did so. He didn’t know the words to the march, but it was easy enough to repeat after the humungous voice of the sergeant. They made good time, and he had to admit that the cadence made it more fun than just walking along in a bunch. They went through a dozen different verses before repeating, and Victor started to think the sergeant was just making them up off the top of his head and felt rather impressed by it.

After an hour or so of marching, he noticed that the lights were less frequently hung in the high tunnel ceiling and that the tunnel was growing more narrow. It was still large enough to drive a few trains through, but it was definitely tapering. Another twenty minutes brought them to a circular wooden platform surrounding a massive vertical shaft that descended into even greater depths. Captain Lam, whom Victor hadn’t seen on the entire march, was standing on the platform and gestured to a long rope hung through some pulleys. Sergeant Fath screamed, “Grab hold, unit!” pulling the rope’s loose end toward the column. Victor hustled to comply, grabbing the rope with a dozen other sets of hands, and then the sergeant screamed again, “Pull!” Victor pulled along with everyone else, and they started to haul the rope back down the tunnel. They hauled it for what had to be five hundred yards before the word came from down the line to stop.

“The fuck is this for?” Victor asked Gris, who had also helped haul the rope.

“Whatever delver unit that went down last night didn’t return. They left the lift at the bottom, and it ran out of Energy, so we had to pull it up by hand.

“They didn’t return?”

“Yeah,” Gris shook his head, “probably found a nest of something nasty.”

“Jesus.” They walked back to the shaft, and Victor saw that a circular platform was now hovering in the open shaft. Captain Lam was standing on the platform, holding her hands against a shimmering white and yellow crystal about the size of a basketball mounted at its center.

“She’s recharging it,” Gris said.

“Huh,” Victor grunted and moved over to the crowd of other delvers waiting for further instructions. After about five minutes, Captain Lam straightened and motioned for everyone to board. Victor followed after the others, hopping over the two-foot gap between the deck and the floating platform. He didn’t look down while he jumped because he had a feeling he didn’t want to see just how deep the shaft was. The platform hardly moved with each additional delver, bobbing almost imperceptibly under their combined weight. When Captain Lam and her twenty-two delvers were all standing on the platform, she touched the crystal, and Victor’s stomach dropped out as they descended. It was like riding on a huge open-air elevator, and he wondered how many people fell off to their deaths every year.

Victor watched the stony sides of the shaft blur past for a few seconds, and then they were slowing, and the platform came into a huge underground space that boggled Victor’s mind. Energy globes hung from massive chains shedding light over the broken, stony landscape filled with strange fungi and glistening plantlife. A river cut through one corner of the cavern, flowing quickly enough to form rapids on the tumbled stones scattered in its bed. As the platform gently came to a stop atop a small hill next to a large rectangular building, Victor noticed movement out among the giant fungi stalks. He strained to see what it was but only caught glimpses of something pale and furtive. “What’s moving around out there?”

“Probably mulsii. They’re like fat, pale worms with legs, and they have the temperament of a rabid dog. They’ll eat anything,” Gris responded.

“Sounds great.”

“Good news is, we can grill ‘em up. They’re pretty good.” Gris smacked his lips.

“Alright, time to look sharp! Get your sticks in your hands!” the sergeant hollered. Victor, happy to comply, gripped his baton in his right hand and looked around nervously. “We need to cross to tunnel fourteen, and that means we’re going through those shrooms. Be on the lookout for mulsii.” He turned and started marching, and the unit followed, keeping the same line order as when they’d been up in the tunnel. This time, however, there wasn’t a loud marching cadence. When they started across the massive cavern, Victor became aware that his bird’s eye view from the platform hadn’t given him an accurate perception of its size. They hiked for nearly fifteen minutes before coming to the first fungi stalks, and as they approached, Victor could see that they were like big, pale, creamy-gray trees.

When the column moved into the fungi forest, Victor reached out and touched one of the rubbery stalks, amazed by its size. “Careful, youngster,” one of the other veterans said, “some of the shit that grows down here is poisonous to touch. That one’s alright, but don’t go grabbing everything you see.”

“Right, thanks.” Victor wiped his hand on his pants, though there wasn’t anything on it. They hiked for a few minutes, but then a rumbling sound accompanied by a strange chorus of hoots brought the column to a halt as the sergeant screamed, “Mulsii pack!” Victor lifted his club and stood shoulder to shoulder with two others as the unit formed a loose circle, facing into the mushrooms. The rumbling grew louder, and then Victor saw the long, pale-white forms of the mulsii charging between the stalks. They had worm-like bodies, six long stick-like legs, and broad heads that reminded Victor of his cousin’s pitbull, though without the fur and friendly mammalian eyes. If these things had eyes, they were too narrow and pale for Victor to spot, though he saw their long nostril slits flexing as they surged over the spongy ground.

He couldn’t make any more observations because the things were on them then, and Victor became too busy methodically smashing his baton into hard skulls, bendy bodies, and brittle legs. The two members of Lam’s unit on either side of him seemed to know what they were doing, and Victor found himself able to focus entirely on anything that approached him directly, ignoring his flanks. The baton might have been a simple weapon, but it was heavy, and Victor was strong, and he had no trouble smashing the occasional mulsii that charged him and sending it skittering off along the ground. The furious melee was over as soon as it began, and the delvers were left heaving for breath while the surviving mulsii hooted and howled, charging away into the fungi stalks.

Victor looked around and was surprised to see that one of the delvers was down; a massive chunk of his neck above his collar was gone. Several others sported bite wounds on their arms and legs, and some of the veterans were starting to move among them, passing out bandages. Victor cracked his back and then felt a surge of Energy as the downed creatures began to emit golden motes. He looked at his Energy attribute on his status page and saw that he now had forty-four over seven. Hadn’t he had a maximum of five before? Once again, he felt a little surge of hope that his Core wasn’t wholly destroyed. Maybe it was healing, and maybe he could do something to help it along. He resolved to spend some time trying to cultivate or at least manipulate the little pools of Energy where his Core used to be next time they rested.

Sergeant Fath was exhorting the delvers to move faster as they buried their downed comrade when, with a gust of wind and a shower of glittering Energy, Captain Lam came out of the darkness and landed among them. “Damn! Already lost one, Sergeant?”

“Aye, Captain. It was a bigger pack than we expected.”

“Well, finish the burial, then we need to get moving. We’re supposed to clear six-fourteen today, and you’re not halfway there yet.”

“Aye, ma’am! You heard the captain, worms! Dig faster!” Victor tuned the sergeant out as he watched Captain Lam walk down the line past him and then up the path toward whatever tunnel was their goal.

“Don’t let her catch you staring like that, Victor,” Gris said with a chuckle.

“I can’t help it; she’s amazing.”

“Yeah, she’s something to see, that’s for sure, but she’s the most dangerous thing in this mine, so mind your manners.”

“Right,” Victor said as he knelt to pull up another handful of airy soil to toss into the pit where they’d planted the dead delver. Victor felt a little bad that he didn’t even know the guy’s name and that he was disappearing into an unmarked grave, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. When they resumed their march, the sergeant made them move a lot faster than previously, and it was only a few minutes later when they moved out of the fungi forest and into a big stone tunnel, but not nearly as massive as the tunnel up above. This tunnel didn’t have light globes in the ceiling, so a few of the delvers were given bright, glowing lamps to hold. Victor figured one of the veterans must have a dimensional container because he never saw anyone carrying gear. Still, somehow things like these lamps and shovels seemed to appear out of nowhere when needed.

They followed the tunnel on a winding path, past several other tunnel openings, and always on a downward slope. They’d been traveling for about an hour when word made its way down the line that they were almost to delve six-fourteen and should get ready for a fight. Victor looked ahead and thought he saw Lam talking to the delvers in the front, and he wondered if the captain would be fighting with them. Thinking about Lam fighting made him smile, and it was with some surprise that he noticed his lack of stress or anxiety. He supposed part of it was that he didn’t know what to expect, so he couldn’t properly freak himself out, but a significant factor had to be that he’d been fighting for his life for weeks now, and this just didn’t seem like anything worse than what he’d already been through many times in the pits.

Victor gripped his baton and surged forward with the rest of them, happy to see Lam’s glittering wings up in the lead. Suddenly the sergeant started chanting, in his huge, bass voice, “Now we kill! We kill for Lam! Now we kill! We kill for Lam!” The other veterans picked up the chant, and Victor, feeling the mob frenzy, screamed along with them. They charged chanting, roaring, batons waving in the air, down the tunnel and into a wide, open cavern filled with half-buried stone buildings. A bright orb of energy blazed, hanging from a chain in the vaulted ceiling, shedding light on the scene, and skitters and shrieks echoed from the shadows as they burst into the open area in front of the tunnel.

Swarming, dark forms poured from the collapsed buildings and surged toward the band of baton-wielding delvers. “Form up! Shoulder to shoulder!” the sergeant boomed, and Victor found himself once again in a loose circle, facing out toward a much larger force of enemies. He still hadn’t gotten a good look at them, but as he crouched, baton ready to swing, he saw a cluster of dark shadows erupt from a nearby collapsed building toward his side of the circle. They were about as big as a person and moved almost like shadows, sliding along the ground with gleaming red eyes. Still, they were definitely solid because he brought his baton down on the first one to slide toward him, and he felt it crack, and a shower of hot liquid sprayed onto his fist and forearm as he pulled his baton back for another swing. He smashed it into the creature again, and it twitched and thrashed, and that’s when victor realized they were like long stick-men with perfectly black carapaces. Their heads reminded him of something he’d see on a praying mantis or a grasshopper.

“Stickmen!” one of his neighbors grunted, swinging his baton. Victor smashed aside another one and another. He wanted to ask what the fuck a stickman was but never got a moment to catch his breath; they just kept coming, sliding over the ground in waves, and now that Victor had seen one up close, their movement freaked him out even more. It was like they were crawling along the ground the way a person would crawl up a ladder. While he was fighting, he heard a tremendous shriek, and when Victor glanced toward it, he saw a massive black-carapaced form crawling out of a dark crevice about halfway through the cavern. He didn’t have time to worry about it, though, as more stickmen came at him.

As he battled on, he heard a clear, piercing shout echo through the cavern, and when he looked, he saw Lam diving through the air, streaks of glittering light trailing behind her. She smashed into the top of the giant carapaced head emerging from the crevice, and a tremendous crack resonated through the cavern. Victor had to look away to fight again, but, throughout the battle, whenever he got a moment of respite, he’d glance toward where he’d seen Lam, hoping to watch her do something cool again, but she just stood at the edge of the crevice, a colossal hammer resting on her shoulder, watching the fight. None of the smaller stickmen approached her.

Victor grew tired, and he found himself wishing he could call on his old rage, but he had to settle for his weapon skill and good old-fashioned strength and endurance. He’d just smashed aside another wave of the creatures when the guy on his left fell to his knee, a stickman crawling up onto his back, gripping with its hooked hands and biting into his shoulder with its black, razor-sharp mandibles. Victor cracked it on its hard head with his baton but then fell back to fight off another two that were coming for the gap in the line. He screamed, “get that off him!” to the girl fighting on the other side of the downed man. She kicked out at the stickman she was fighting, sending it sprawling, then she turned and helped to finish the one on the guy’s back. By the time they were both back in line, another wave of the creatures was coming. “Where the fuck? How many of these fucking things are there?” he yelled to no one in particular, and no one bothered to answer.

Victor’s arms were numb, and he felt like he was swinging a lead telephone pole by the time he smashed the last of the creatures, looked around for his next victim, and found nothing more coming his way. He turned and looked around the scene. Piles of black-carapaced bodies surrounded the knot of delvers. They stood with hands on knees, huffing and puffing for air or kneeling over fallen comrades, trying to staunch bleeding. Just then, a thick fog of golden motes coalesced over the mounds of defeated creatures and began to stream toward all of the survivors. While Victor stood transfixed, absorbing a thick stream of Energy, he saw a shimmering golden and sparkling purple river of Energy come out of the crevice and smash into Captain Lam’s chest. She rose off the ground, her entire body glowing and sparking with golden-purple light. He’d long since finished absorbing his little stream of Energy when Lam finally floated back to the ground, and her glow subsided.

He’d been so amazed by the sight of Lam’s Energy absorption that he hadn’t noticed the System message that had popped up in his vision:

***Congratulations! You’ve achieved level 12 Spirit Champion. You have gained 7 will, 7 vitality, and have 7 attribute points to allocate.***

“Holy shit,” he said, despite himself.

“What, Victor?” Gris asked, limping over and holding a hand to a bleeding bite on his shoulder.

“Oh, nothing,” Victor didn’t know if he should mention that he’d leveled, so he deflected, “I mean, did you see Lam floating in the air?” Gris started talking about something like high-tier Energy rewards, but Victor tuned him out, looking at his status sheet. He’d somehow convinced himself that he was broken, that he couldn’t level anymore while his Core was “fractured.” He’d leveled, though, and when he turned his eye inward, he saw that more of those red droplets of rage-attuned Energy had moved toward his tiny, pulsing Core. He looked at his Energy and attributes on his status sheet:

Energy Affinity:

3.1, Rage 9.1

Energy:

289/23

Strength:

28

Vitality:

34

Dexterity:

19

Agility:

19

Intelligence:

10

Will:

24

Points Available:

7

His Core was healing; there wasn’t any other explanation. He had a shit-load more Energy in his body than his broken Core could hold, but he knew he could work with it. If he got a chance to do some cultivating, he felt like he could really start to heal, and then maybe he’d have a surprise for the fuckers that put the collar around his neck. He was thinking about where to throw his seven free points when the sergeant hollered, “Alright! Let’s bury our dead, clear the corpses, and we’ll rest before heading back for the day. Good fight, Lam’s Furies!”