Deep within the earth of an unknown land lies a cave. Correction; calling it a cave is overstating it. It is instead a very small hole that is less than the size of a small human child and in this small hole lay a small brown gemstone.

The gem had been laying in the ground for decades but the hole was only a recent addition. An addition that came about when a small while light cut through the earth like a knife and somehow entered the gem. If anyone now look at the gem, he can notice that there are numerous small lights whirling within. These lights are spirits and they are currently not very happy about their situation.

“That‘s it! That’s as far as we can go.” A spirit said. “We’re wasting energy. Let’s pull it back.”

Several of the spirits within the Hive grumbled but the new Hive know that the spirit who spoke was right. The Hive withdraw their senses. It had been spreading its senses upwards towards the surface, hoping to know how far underground it currently is but so far it is an exercise in futility.

“By the 99Gods, just how deep are we?” Another spirit asked. “How did we even end up here?”

“Because we lost! That crazy old human blew herself up and took us with her.”

“Actually, she took out our old Hive with her. We are spirits. We are still here.”

“Yeah, only here means a different place in a different Hive. A Hive that’s weak, small, and that’s miles underground!”

“We don’t really know how deep we are.”

“Oh come on! Look at that tiny hole us, can you see any light from it? Did we sense anything just now? Accept it; we are lost and we are lost so deep underground we have no idea how far down we are. It will take forever to dig out of here!”

On that, the rest of the Hive had to concede the point. The spirits remember the old female human and how she had gathered so much energy that she blew herself up. It was no accident but a deliberate act on her part to kill the Hive. The Hive respect that. The fact that she failed is beside the point.

When the Hive realized what she was trying to do, the Hive gathered their energy to block the blast. It was a sound idea and several of the spirits insist that the idea would have worked if they had held their nerve. The problem is that most of the spirits within the Hive believe that they had used up too much energy beforehand. Between creating the dragon, blasting the hole to the surface, killing the humans who jumped down the hole, improving the Porkasus, creating the Boss the human killed too quickly; the Hive did not have a lot of their energy left and the majority of the spirits worry that they would not be able to block the blast. So the Hive devised an alternative.

The Hive had four lights that constantly float around it. It used to be five. The fifth light was used years ago to save and repair the Fire Hive and the spirits within the Hive thought they could do the same for themselves. They can’t stop the blast, so why not just take the damage and then immediately repair themselves with the lights. It was as good of a plan as any.

The Hive gathered what remained of their energy and focused on the four lights. The spirits knew that the lights need to do their work quickly so they tried to order the lights to restore and repair their crystal once the old female mage exploded. Since the Hive did not know how badly they would be damaged, they sent their orders to all four lights and made it that the lights could do the repair without any input from the Hive. When the old female mage explode, the Hive felt ready but something unexpected happened.

The explosion was bigger and more powerful than what the Hive had expected! The blast blew apart the Hive the instant it happened, before the lights could do any repair! Luckily for the spirits, the energy released by the explosion affected the lights in another way. Instead of repairing the Hive as the spirits wanted, the lights instead shot up into the sky and flew in four different directions. The spirits do not know how long the light they were in flew but it was a long while before it crashed into the ground. The light burrowed deep into the earth before entering a brown gemstone that was buried deep underground. A small explosion occurred creating the hole and the spirits then realized that they were now inside the gem.

It’s hard to tell time deep within the earth so the spirits do not know how long it had been since they first entered the gem but they had been gathering energy since they arrived and been trying to figure out what happened. In truth, the spirits could only speculate but this is what they believe.

The orders the lights had was to repair the Hive but once the Hive was destroyed, the lights couldn’t do that. However energy do not die, that is a fundamental fact of the world. When the Hive exploded, the energy the spirits gathered in the lights did not disappear and they still had their orders. So the lights did the next best thing. The lights travelled and search out for a crystal to repair. It was an unexpected but fortunate turn of events for the Hive. Now they just have to figure out what to do. Its boring to be just buried deep underground!

“Guys, maybe we are going about this all wrong!”

“What do you mean?”

“Why must we dig out? There’s no reason for that right?

“Yes there is. We are bored! Do you intend to just lay here forever?”

“No but there’s no reason for us to do the digging. Why don’t we use the energy we had saved up and then create a creature to do the digging for us?”

“That’s…not a bad idea but the creature is going to be very small. We don’t have a lot of room right now. How much digging can a small creature do?”

“So we enlarge this room first. Is that going to take a lot of energy? No! All we need to do is to enlarge the room, then create a creature that is good at digging.”

“That is a better idea than just digging out by ourselves but what kind of creature should we create?”

“A strong one that can dig a lot. It don’t need to be tall but it need to be powerful enough to break through all these rocks. I think the term used is stocky.”

“Don’t the humans have a job for digging?”

“That’s right! The job is called Miner. Do we give that job to all these short stocky creatures?”

“You guys are thinking too far ahead. Let’s enlarge the hole we are in first then we can worry about the creature.”

It was a good point so the rest of the Hive quickly agreed. The spirits now had a plan and began enlarging the hole they were in. However the Hive was still weak so they soon had to stop to feed. As they were feeding, one of the spirits couldn’t help but wonder, “Where did the other three lights fly to? Do you guys think we’ll ever meet again?”

THE END…OF THE BEGINNING