A Worthless Crown

The next day, two guards escorted me down to the mines and then to the part of the mines which contained the lift, the lift that was said rarely returned with people. They pushed me onto the lift, and said I should only return with valuable resources in my bag, lest I want to get pushed back down the lift.

The lift jolted to a stop, and I stepped into the maw of the abyss. The air was rotten, stale, carrying the sour stench of damp earth and decay. There was a buzzing silence, it felt natural. Probably due to the lack of humans in this place. Odd feelings poked at my mind, noises that didn't exist echoed down the halls. This place reeked of insanity.

The walls of the shaft glistened, proof of the riches held down in this part of the mines, the pickaxe in my arms shone brightly, reflecting the dim flickers of torchlight. Around me, the muffled sounds of pickaxes striking stone echoed in uneven rhythm—like a dying heartbeat. There were a few others down in this part of the mines it seemed, a few as unlucky as I.

I moved forward, my steps careful, each footfall disturbing the centuries of dust that blanketed the floor. It felt as if I was in the wrong place, but the orders were set in stone. There were many passages blocked off by stone and X's marked on the ground below, perhaps my father had been caved in, somewhere around here.

The further I ventured, the more the air suffocated me. My mind became sharper, heavier, as though the world itself sought to crush me. My fellow miners were little more than shadows, their faces hollow, eyes dulled by exhaustion and fear. They occasionaly broke out into moans that spoke of insanity, I tried my best to ignore them.

"Oh the darkness, it calls me."

"Let Death have his wish, my body is already broken."

"How many more days? My mind is but a husk."

Their gaunt cheekbones made it seem as though the hadn't eaten for weeks, their faces quickly became blurs in my mind. None of us spoke. There was no need. Words held no power here, living was far more important.

It was by sheer chance that I found a vein. My pickaxe struck a rock, and the wall split open, revealing veins of deep crimson ore threaded with flecks of gold.

My eyes alone could decipher the value of this vein, unfathomable. It pulsed faintly, as if it was alive. The others gathered around as I called out my discovery, they simply watched and took a break, they were too exhausted to continue mining.

Their sunken eyes quickly bulged out with a hunger that had been long forgotten. This was the kind of find that bought favor from the Vista Family—or so we were told from a young age. 

I dug feverishly and like a man whose life depended on it, hands blistering and skin pulled, I wanted to stop, but my body wouldn't let me. The rock yielded more and more riches as we dug further into it. Each fragment I pried free seemed to come loose in a satisfying fashion.

I held a few shards of the red material, it was hard and freezing yet I could feel it vibrating faintly against my skin. The others whispered among themselves, their envy palpable. I paid them no mind. I was wholly focused on the task before me.

But then, the air shifted. A draft curled up from the depths, carrying with it a sound—a whisper, faint and ragged and pure, like the last breath of a dying man.

"Alcors..."

I froze. The pickaxe slipped from my grasp, clattering to the stone. That voice—it was impossible. The voice was distant but I knew it as well as my own. It knew my name, the voice could only belong to one man.

"Father?"

The other miners looked at me, confusion flickering across their gaunt faces. None of them had heard it.

"Where is he going? Further down?" Their words were pinched by the air and all that remained was a silence occasionaly broken by the calling of my name.

"Alcors..."

The voice was clearer now, laced with horror, beckoning. My legs moved of their own accord. I left the crimson ore behind, venturing into an unmarked tunnel—a place marked with an X . The others called after me, but their voices faded as I slipped into darkness.

The tunnel seemed endless and unreal. The gravel crunching beneath my feet created a soft rhythm, I had no light with me, grotesque darkness clawed at me from every angle, my hope was clinging to one thing, I had heard tales of the mines.

Just like how a necromancer could ressurect souls from death, perhaps magical ores could do similar things. I had always been taught the depths of the mines carried strange powers.

And then I saw him.

He stood at the end of the passage, his face pale, eyes carved out but the face was unmistakably his. My father. Clad in the same worn miner's uniform he had worn the day he vanished, dust clinging to his every crease and fold, along with blood dripping down his shoulders.

"It can't be you," I muttered. My disbelief causing me to blink rapidly, as if hoping to change the sight before me. I had either gone insane or recieved a miracle, and there was no inbetween.

He smiled, but there was no warmth in it, it did not reach his eyes. His eyes held something else—desperation, perhaps, or fear. He soon left and gestured for me to follow. Against every instinct, I did. I was so young, and so desperately lost in the hope that my father could still be alive.

We descended further, into a place untouched by any other for decades. The walls here seemed ancient, the veins within them pulsating faintly with a sickly purple hue. The shadows born from our figures sprawled due to the purple light resonating from the walls.

At last, he stopped and I finally caught up. We had arrived in a new part of the mines, a chamber.

The chamber was vast, far larger than any section of the mine I had ever seen. In its center stood a massive stone, that my eyes could barely fit—an unnatural shade of violet, its surface smooth and lacking any imperfections. Chained to it was a man. His skin was pale as bone, stretched tight over his frame. His eyes glowed faintly, violet like the rock to which he was bound. Under his eyes were strange markings, black like the void. He had hair darker than black, to match the marks on his face. His muscles seemed unnatural, they seemed to all pulse constantly.

"Who are you?" I whispered, my voice on the edge of breaking.

Down in the depths of the mines, was a man. To live down here, he must have been special. No food existed here, no humans stayed for longer than a week.

Was he even human?