CHAPTER 15: THE MINE THAT REMEMBERS
The contract smelled like a lie from the start.
Contract 17-D-41
Task: Reopen the Greystone Drift. Clear "structural instability." Recover ore samples.
Location: Greystone Mountains, abandoned shaft 3.
Threat: D+ (environmental, possible earth affinity)
Reward: 600 silver + 10% ore rights
[Note: Bring lamps. Bring silence.]
The mine owner—a thin man named Halric with ink-stained fingers—met them at the entrance with a smile too wide and a purse too light.
"Cave-ins," he said. "Bad luck. Nothing a few strong backs can't fix."
Kael looked at the timbered arch. The wood was new, but the stone around it wept black water. The air tasted of rust and old breath.
'Bad luck doesn't bleed.'
Torven tested the support beam with his axe. It rang hollow.
Lysa sniffed. "Smells like a grave."
Dren was already counting steps from the entrance to the first bend.
They went in.
The first hundred paces were normal, dusty, cold, the usual mine stink. Lamps threw long shadows. The floor was littered with broken picks and a single boot, still laced.
Then the mine exhaled.
A low rumble, like a giant clearing its throat. Dust sifted from the ceiling. The lamps flickered.
Kael stopped.
The rumble came again, closer. The stone under his boots shifted—not a collapse, a 'step'. The mine was walking.
Torven's hand went to his axe. "Tell me that's normal."
"It's not," Kael said.
He knelt, pressed his palm to the floor. The stone was warm. Veins of quartz pulsed faint green, like arteries.
Some sort of Earth mage. This is different, are they controlling the mine?'
He stood. "Stay close. Don't speak unless you have to."
They moved.
The tunnel narrowed, then widened into a chamber the size of a cathedral. Support beams had been replaced by living stone—pillars that breathed slow, in and out. The floor was a mosaic of footprints, every boot print from every miner who'd ever walked here, pressed deep and perfect.
Lysa whispered, "It remembers."
Kael nodded.
In the center stood the mage—or what was left of him. A man fused to the wall, skin turned to granite, eyes glowing quartz. His mouth was a crack in the stone, dripping black water.
He spoke with the voice of the mountain.
"You walk where you are not welcome."
Torven stepped forward. "We're here to clear the shaft. Open it or we open you."
The mage-mountain laughed. The chamber shook. Stone spikes erupted from the floor, fast as spears.
Kael moved first.
He dodged the first spike—side-step, felt the wind of it kiss his cheek. The second grazed his calf, tore leather, drew blood.
'Dense. Fast. Pattern's in the pulse.'
He let the third hit his thigh, shallow. Stone punched through muscle, grated bone.
Pain flared, bright and useful.
He counted the pulse—thump, thump, strike. The quartz veins glowed brighter on the third beat.
'Got you,' Kael thought with a bright smile on his face.
If someone were to witness that smile, you would've compared it that of a child getting candy.
He grabbed the spike, twisted. It came free with a chunk of his flesh. Blood poured, then slowed, then stopped. The wound closed around the memory of stone.
The mage-mountain frowned with his crack-mouth.
Kael smiled.
He moved.
Not a charge—a dance. Dodge, weave, let one spike clip his shoulder, another nick his ribs. Each hit taught him density, weight, the exact tremor before the strike.
Torven roared, shield up, trying to keep pace. Lysa loosed arrows that shattered on stone. Dren darted between pillars, knives flashing.
The mage-mountain raised both arms—now stone clubs—and brought them down.
The ceiling fell.
Kael saw it coming. 'Too slow for me. Not for them though.'
He shouted, "Down!"
Torven dove. Lysa rolled. Dren vanished.
The collapse caught Torven mid-roll.
A slab the size of a wagon pinned his left leg from knee to ankle. Bone snapped like green wood.
Torven screamed once, then bit it off.
Kael was there in two strides.
He grabbed the slab, lifted. Veins stood out in his arms. The stone groaned, shifted, came free.
Torven's leg was pulp—bone shards, meat, blood pooling fast.
Kael looked at the mage-mountain. 'One second. That's all it took. I can't lie, I'm little ticked off, just a little...'
The rage was cold, clean.
He stood.
The mage-mountain smiled. "I hope you liked that."
Kael pulled the wing-shard from his belt.
'Let's test something.'
He threw it.
The shard spun, caught the quartz glow, reflected it back as a lance of white light. It punched through the mage's chest, out the wall behind.
The mountain screamed.
Stone cracked. Pillars toppled. The chamber shook like a dying thing.
Kael walked forward.
Spikes rose. He dodged, let one graze his cheek, tasted the new pattern—faster, desperate.
He reached the mage, grabbed the stone throat.
"You remember every step," he said. "Remember this."
He pressed the broken wing-shard into the crack-mouth.
The mage's eyes went dark.
The mountain exhaled one last time and was still.
Silence.
Kael turned.
Torven was pale, leg wrapped in Lysa's belt, blood soaking the stone.
Dren was already cutting timber for a splint.
Kael knelt. "How bad?"
Torven grinned through pain. "Bad enough I'll limp. Good enough I'll walk."
Kael looked at the footprints in the floor. His own were there now, pressed deep.
'Memory. Fine.'
He stood.
They carried Torven out on a makeshift litter. The mine didn't fight anymore.
Halric waited at the entrance, smile gone.
"No ore," Kael said. "No pay. Mine's dead. So's your luck."
Halric opened his mouth, closed it.
Kael walked past.
Back at Branch 17, the guild healer set the leg. Bone would knit crooked. Torven would limp forever.
Captain Rhen handed Kael a new band—deep blue, five white stripes.
"D+++," she said. "Guild's out of excuses."
'This is starting to get ridiculous now, I should've been C-rank ages ago.'
Kael tied it on.
Torven watched from the cot. "Next time, you dodge faster."
Kael sat beside him. "Next time, I will."
'One second... I'll pay it back.'