New System, Who Dis?

Tuesday, April 9th, 2069

“We’ll be there, thank you,” my father said as he hung up the phone. I raised an eyebrow over the rim of my morning coffee, and he explained. “That was Ms. Stovall’s assistant. Your pre-trial hearing is set for next Monday. She says that you’ll need to come in over the weekend to prepare a bit.”

I must have made a face because my dad gave me a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, we’ve been on the phone most of the morning. She said that it was all very standard procedure. It’s mostly about how not to react if something is said that you disagree with. You shouldn’t even have to take the stand.”

“It sure was nice of Ms. Stovall to have her assistant wake up early and get to the office to get us before work,” my mom chimed in as she plated some scrambled Roc egg, toast and vegetables onto plates for all three of us. She took the small side plate as usual and left the big portions for my father, and me.

I noticed mine seemed to have grown and smiled. I don’t know why, but it felt good to get an equal portion to my fathers. Not that I would have been eating it before, but since I’d started Mining—I really could see why my father needed the extra calories. I nodded to my dad, and put on a fake smile as I picked up my phone and pulled up the SwiftGram app.

Sometime late last night, I’d realized that my online content was growing stale. While I still had plenty more pictures from my shoot to use—I also needed to create a direction forward. What direction that would be, I couldn’t decide on.

“Still thinking of trying the sob story approach?” Smegma asked lazily, from his ‘usual’ spot above the hanging dining light. I mentally flipped him the bird, because he had read my thoughts again. Yes, I was thinking of telling my followers what happened. Explaining how I was taking a semester off and Mining in Portals…

It was so much more interesting than the ‘thirst’ trap approach I was using—which also clearly hadn’t been working. I still had only received ‘offers’ for one-time Mana Pulls.

“Why not try combining the two,” Smegma suggested, his voice far more enthusiastic that I thought my current train of thoughts warranted.

I hesitated sensing a trap but mentally asked, [What do you mean?]

“Go with the Hot Mining Shirtless Calendar approach. You know, take a few pictures with the pick slung over a shoulder–give the camera that pouty baby-bird look you do!” I once again mentally gave him the finger but he continued as if he couldn’t feel it. “Oh, what a great thought–I just had! Include your dad, and Willa! Fat Gary too! This could be a real thing. Rub some dirt on eachother–”

[That’s husking enough, asshole!] I interjected forcibly, finally getting the Imp to stop his enthusiastic, and clearly sarcastic rant.

Once I was sure he was done I returned to my initial thoughts of the morning and last night. What direction should I take my SwiftGram? The real sticking point was—

“You don’t want to be a Mana Bank anymore…” Smegma finished my thought, his voice much more serious and this time I only nodded my head slightly as I swallowed some rather tasteless Roc egg. While the Roc eggs were good sources for nutrients, they really lacked almost all flavor in comparison to normal chicken eggs. Of course, Chickens were far rarer after the advent of Portals.

Why?

Well according to first year economics, a great deal of farmland had been overrun early on. Unfortunately, the population out in the ‘countryside’ as it was once called, was just too sparse to make sending Hunters or the Military there feasible. Not when cities needed them more, and had dense populations.

Now the countryside was called the wilds, simply because it needed to be thoroughly cleared of stray creatures before it could be settled again. Thus, why most humans survived off a combination of Farm and Portal products.

Still, some large organizations kept massive sprawling farms and produced ‘old-world’ goods, but they also set the prices. So, was the nostalgia of a breakfast omelet worth hundreds of dollars? Not to my parents, and certainly not to me since I’d never had one.

“Plus, you guys are husking poor,” Smegma added.

[Thanks for that,] I responded, not exactly disagreeing with the statement but not liking the reminder. [We’re considered middle class.]

“Yeah, bottom middle class. Like, I think your parents would still be living out of that junker RV, if they hadn’t had you twenty-one years ago…”

I snorted into my coffee, admitting to myself and Smegma that he was certainly accurate in that alternate history. My parents had told me that a few times before. The RV was the one ‘nice’ thing we owned, and it was twenty-nine years old. Everything else was second hand or rented. Then again, my parents hadn’t ever told me how they got the thing?

[I bet my parents procured it after the Advent,] I answered my own question.

“You mean stole,” Smegma corrected.

[Stole is such a dirty word. Re-appropriated, sounds better. Plus, can it be stealing if no one owns it?]

‘“That’s the first smart thing you’ve ever said. Now you’re thinking like a proper Demon." Smegma grunted and allowed me to clear my plate as I continued to consider my next steps for my SwiftGram.

I wasn’t sure that I liked Smegma’s ‘compliment’ there, but I pushed the thoughts and feelings aside. By the time me and my father stood up to leave, I’d made the extremely important choice—to decide later.

I know, I know; smart, right?

Shaking my head at my own sarcasm, I got in the passenger side. I supposed I could be the one driving every second morning to give my dad a break, but he always knew where we were going. Me on the other hand, I kind of felt like I was, well, a part-timer.

* * *

[What do you mean it’s not going into the Mining Skill anymore?] I asked.

“You know that big metal moon in your Mental Universe? Well, Overflow is no longer feeding into it…” Smegma said, very condescendingly.

[The lack of a penis in this form is really making you cranky…] I responded, even as I attempted to keep sharding the F-rank Crystals, and peek into my Mental Universe.

“Maybe it’s the lack of hormones?” Smegma retorted, and I chuffed out a small cough to hide a laugh. Did Demons have testosterone and estrogen like humans or something totally different? “We don’t call them that, but I can tell by the contextual concept it’s similar.”

Putting aside Smegma’s grudging answer I watched as Overflow did in fact feed the white smoke into a place right beside the metal moon. Curious, but not expecting an actual answer I rhetorically asked, [Where do you think it’s going?]

“You know what would help?” Smegma said, and I rolled my eyes. “If you knew of a way to check on the Skill! Too bad that’s impossible.”

[You really need a release buddy—you’re all pent up.]

I thought back to the drawer in my desk where all the Cards from previous Spent Mana Crystals resided. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to add four more to the stack. Still, this cave wasn’t exactly easy to hide in. The problem wasn’t exactly the size—it was about ten times larger than the largest cavern I’d seen since starting. No, the specific problem was that the size warranted keeping everyone in the same room.

A quick scan of my immediate surroundings showed two people already taking a quick break to eat something—and another one stopping for water. While eighteen people in a large cavern like this didn’t exactly mean someone’s eyes would be on me—it did greatly increase those chances. My scan paused as something in the distance, behind the Miner drinking from a Snowman bottle caught my eye.

It was the color that stopped me from continuing to scan the room. It was the same red as the shop window from Demonic Vault. Shouldering my pick, I moved carefully over the Mana Crystals to the wall where the strange ‘box’ seemed to be anchored. As I approached, I noticed that the plaque grew, and I also discovered two other places on other walls where a similar box seemed to float.

Like a street sign from far away that finally comes into view after squinting. The letters inside the box became readable.

Fool’s Gold

Rank: Low-F

Quality: Very Low

Quantity: High

“Ahh the True Gold caught your eye?” my dad said, as I stopped walking away from the group.

“That’s Fool’s Gold,” I answered absently.

“What? How can you be sure?” My dad blurted as he looked between the distant golden colored ore vein and me. His question startled me out of my musing with a jolt. I hurriedly tried to come up with an excuse but Smegma helpfully provided one.

“The sulfur smell,” he explained, and I repeated. “I noticed it on that first day, when you tried your hand at Mining a ‘True Gold’ vein.

My dad pointed to my left, and I followed his finger to find another golden colored vein. This one had no hovering box in front of it. “Okay but that smell could be coming from plenty of other places. Even some trapped gasses.”

This time I didn’t need much help from Smegma as I responded, “That’s a bit of a misnomer. The smell of sulfur in propane and other natural gasses is artificially added, in most cases, so that you can detect it if there’s a gas leak. Also, if the smell was coming from a gas pocket in here, then the sensors we brought would alert us, no?”

“That still doesn’t mean that that one’s Fool’s Gold or if this one is, OR if both are,” my dad said pointing between the two. Theoretically, he wasn’t wrong, but if the hovering box was to be believed, I knew which one was false, and which one was True Gold.

But how do I convince my father of that?

“I’m going to take a break to eat a sandwich. I’ll walk around and take a closer look to see what other Ores are in here,” I said with a shrug, deciding that I would keep thinking on what to say to convince my father and Willa as I checked out the cavern.

“Okay, take my Lightstone, and don’t mine any of them till after lunch. Willa and I should discuss what our best options are.” I didn’t like that I wouldn’t be included in those decisions, but realized that they were far more experienced than me. So, while it seemed that I could identify some veins of Ore, it made sense that they wouldn’t think I had the experience to do so on sight.

Nodding I turned on the Lightstone my father handed me and put it in a mesh pocket on the front of my borrowed Mining Gear. Then I went to the cooler and grabbed a sandwich before moving off to the next nearest hovering red box, in the distance. Seeing me move away from the group, a Hunter from Snowbirds broke away and accompanied me, along with his Mana Banks.

“You a Specialist?” he asked, and I nodded. He then nodded and followed quietly. I wasn’t even sure of his name but did a once over of the Mana Banks that followed the man. There were three of them and, where the ones for the Lynx Guild Hunter’s wore armor; these three appeared to have dress clothes.

In fact, two were women and I didn’t think their ‘stylish’ dainty slippers were exactly appropriate for a Portal, let alone a Mining cave inside one. Was that a slit in one of their black pants to expose smooth legs beneath? Do they think this is a fashion show?

“With the way they’re giving the Hunter the husk-me eyes, they may just think there will be a muddy orgy later.”

I snorted and then turned it into an excuse to pull up my mask. At the questioning look from the Hunter and banks I explained, “Sorry, just some dust,” while pointing to the mask. Clearly, these three did believe that this was some sort of game. Even the Hunter looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but escorting me through a dark, Mana Crystal filled cavern.

My brain couldn’t help but compare them to Gamonji or any of the other amazing Hunter’s I’d seen in the movie last night, and find them extremely lackluster. One of them; the only other male of the group pulled his necklace out of his v-cut t-shirt as I watched. To my astonishment, it turned out that the necklace wasn’t a simple religious symbol.

Smegma and I kept a side eye on him as he fiddled with the necklace and then held it to his nose before sniffing loudly. Was that a drug?

Smegma moved over and looked inside the man’s necklace. “It’s a white powder. Could be Awake Aid.”

[What is that?] I asked, still leaning towards the man that I was pretty sure just snorted cocaine.

“An Alchemy product. It’s made from bones of certain beasts. Stops the imbiber from falling asleep for about twelve hours.”

I blinked in surprise. I was relatively certain the human race hadn’t discovered that Alchemical product yet. I was also slightly concerned by the wording Smegma used. However, I wasn’t curious enough to ask any further questions, but still concerned enough to think that not being able to sleep was different than feeling awake.

My answer to Smegma though was, [Yeah, well I’m pretty sure that was a drug. We call it cocaine, and it also will keep you awake. I think?]

“Really? I wonder if it’s just a different name for the same thing?” Smegma responded sounding truly interested in knowing the answer.

[Ahh, it isn’t really a product from after the Advent. It’s actually a drug from before…]

“Fascinating! So, you had Alchemy before the System?”

“Chemistry,” I clarified. “There might be some overlap between the two, but I’m neither a scientist nor a magician.”

“Alchemist.” Smegma sniffed in disdain. “Mages are something else entirely.”

“Whatever,” I shrugged.

I explained what I could to the imp, but was forced to admit my utter lack of knowledge multiple times as he tried to dig deeper into the production of drugs pre-System and now. The conversation distracted me enough that I reached the wall almost before I had realized it and began reading the text I found there. The box just seemed to hang there in the air, which confused me. That also could have been a product of me not noticing an actual vein of Ore. I reached out and touched the ‘stone’ even as I read the plaque.

Graphenite

Rank: High-F

Quality: Very High

Quantity: Low

“Ohhh, that’s very valuable,” Smegma said as he either read the plaque or my thoughts.

[Really? It just looks like stone?]

“It is a kind of stone. Still, when you mix it into other metals it can create far stronger alloys.”

[So, it functions like carbon in steel?]

“Ummm. Sure?” Smegma answered, clearly trying to understand what I was talking about. He must have gotten enough from my thoughts because he did follow up with, “We called it BlackRock, but I think it’s the same as a Mana-enriched version of your carbon.”

The Hunter and his Banks were giving me strange looks as I felt around on what appeared to be slightly darker stone than the rest around it. I moved on, hurriedly scanning for my next red plaque.

Red Copper

Rank: Mid-F

Quality: Low-Medium

Quantity: Medium

Tontin

Rank: Low-F

Quality: Very Low

Quantity: Very High

Platinum Iron

Rank: High-F

Quality: Very Low

Quantity: Very Low

That was all the floating red windows I could see in the massive cavern. I had long since finished my sandwich by the time I returned to the group and got back to Mining. I still hadn’t thought of a good plan to convince my father to Mine the True Gold, but we had time.

Plus, I really wanted to find out what was going on with Overflow. So, to that end I mined a complete Crystal—now a very easy task and sold the Mana inside to Smegma. I left the clear Crystal on the ground as I kept working—my best chance to grab it was probably going to be at the end of the day.

Maybe, I’d leave a few more strewn about and then ask for one to take home? Would other Miners want one if there were plenty? It would take a great deal of suspicion off me if they did. Well, suspicion from my father at least, if I wanted a second one of the ‘souvenir’ Crystals.

An hour later, it turned out I shouldn’t have bothered.

Right after a swing into a Crystal stem, I felt a flush of heat that accompanied the strange pinging noise that came from breaking free a whole Crystal. The flush surprised me, and caused me to stagger slightly. Yet, when I tried to firm my legs to correct the overbalance—I jumped unexpectedly.

What the husk?

Was all I could think as I literally left the floor on an angle, and joined the pile of sharded Crystals to my left.

“Did you just Scrooge McDuck into a pile of shards?” Willa asked from nearby. My ‘flush’ intensified as I blushed. I was sure I was bright red, but a screen in front of me was also distracting enough that I chose it over looking at Willa.

Strength Increased by 1.

Strength Stat Unlocked.

Stat Screen Unlocked.

---

Stats

Strength: 2

Locked.

Locked.

Locked.

Locked.

Locked.

Locked.

I waved distractedly at Willa since I could feel her staring.

“Sorry, I slipped,” I said even as I stood up. To Smegma, I repeated my earlier sentiment. [What the husk just happened?]

“There are two orbs currently circling the Mining Skill sphere, so I’m going to say that’s probably where Overflow’s been going…”

[But how?!]

“That’s a fantastic question. Maybe a Spent Mana Crystal will help us figure it out,” Smegma said, with particular emphasis on the part he called me stupid. Well, he didn’t really say it, but I heard it.