The sounds of clanking could be heard all around, along with huffing and puffing. Whips hitting skin and the sounds of groans, yelling, crying, anything that sounds horrible. Jet was soaked in sweat and trying for everything not to collapse. He could use his magic to enhance his body. The bracelet seemed to just make magic, not leave the body. But he was certain he had a few cracked bones.

"Jet, pick up the pace." Jeff tried to get his attention.

"Seriously? I'm out mining all of you. Problem is my body doesn't like the hard work." Jet just hoped he wouldn't break a bone.

"Yes, why don't you slow down. To a normal fast-ish pace." Jeff didn't want Jet to get a beating. The guards did not let people slack off.

"No, I'm not going back to the smaller cells." Jet said and kept mining.

"Then make some of these other bums work harder. Even I do more than them." Jeff mumbled pointlessly since no one understood him.

Jet looked around at the other three half-dead helpers. "I don't think they're up for more labor." They had been mining for a week now. The first thing they learned was that the better mining groups got nicer cells. He just wanted the nicer cell because it had a bed for all of them.

"I know that. But you could just force one of them to sleep on the floor. You know before you kill yourself from overworking." Jeff said while lifting his pickaxe, trying to keep up with Jet.

"How long have we been at this now?" Jet asked.

"I don't know. We have been fighting like an old married couple all day." Jeff replied.

Jet stopped, and his brows creased. "I meant, how many days have we been mining?"

"Feels like years. But that may just be the manual labor we're doing." Jeff stopped and looked at his arms. "How long does it take muscles to appear?"

"Month and a half. That's how long it took my muscles to appear." Jet felt at his body where the cracks should have been. Most of the bruising were gone now.

"Same, when I first started to work out. How much longer until you can jump back to Earth?"

Jet reached out, and it felt far away. "Still a month or so away." He wasn't sure why that was, though. They had to have been mining for over a month.

"How many times have we slept?"

"I'm not sure. Three, maybe four times." Jet turned to one of the others. "Hey, how long have me and him been here?"

"What? How would I know?" The man asked.

"I get that you stop counting your days. But surely you know how long a couple of new people got here." Sure, Jet had no clue where here was.

"No, you can't keep track of time down here."

Jet fully stopped mining and turned to the man. "What do you mean?"

"You two really are dumb. Do you even know what your mining?" The man looked Jet in the eyes.

Well, no, Jet didn't know what he was mining. They had mined some metals, but not the ones the metal they wanted. "No." The guy turned away, shaking his head. "So, Jeff. I don't know how long we been here, and I didn't get a solid answer."

"Why do you look worried?" Jeff asked.

"We may be mining something that messes with time. Possibly, the guy didn't explain." Jet didn't like the look Jeff was giving. "I'll ask the other guy." Jet turned to the woman behind him. "How long have me and my friend been here? Also, what are we mining?"

She just tilted her head and frowned. "I just got here. You two have been here longer than me. As for what we're mining, it's Heliotic."

"Never heard of it." Sure, Jet only knew about basic metals. But he was certain Earth did not have the stuff.

"Not surprising, the metal is used for the Alteras games. It's used to open the gate." She didn't go on and started working again.

"So, do you remember when she started?" Jet asked.

Jeff looked at the woman chained to them. "Not sure when she got here. I thought there were three other guys chained to us." So neither of them remembered her joining.

"Alright, stop chatting and head back to your cells." One of the guards told them. His name is Fred. Jet asked him a few times before the man had answered. Jet was stubborn about some things.

Once they left the mine, it was almost night. The place was half modern buildings and half looked like an old western type. There is a hole in the ground with stairs. That's right, the miners leave a mine and go to their cells in a hole in the ground. Jet asked why they didn't just put the cells in the mine. He never did get a straight answer.

"Jet, another group mined more than us. So we're getting a smaller cell tonight." Jeff pointed at what was mined.

Jet looked over to find the piles of mined metals. Sure enough, their pile was the second largest. How they mined so much in a day made no sense. Have they ever mined so much in one day? Some days the piles are much smaller. Something was terribly wrong with their situation.

"Jet, you have to take one of the beds. You're practically our leader." Jeff patted Jet's shoulder.

"How did we mine all of that? Something is very wrong here. Not only that, I don't recognize our three helpers." Jet needed to stop thinking of them as just helpers. So far, the people hadn't been much help. Then again, the girl was new and hadn't done too bad.

"You mined half of that pile." Jeff turned to the girl. "And she almost did as much as me. She's kind of scary how hard she works. Ask her for a name."

Jet obliged by asking. "My friend wants to know your name."

She just looked at Jet started to walk off. That hadn't got her far. They were chained together. "None of your business."

"She said her name is none of your business. So I'm thinking we call her Of." Jet looked back at Jeff. But something caught his attention out of the corner of his eyes. Did she just scoff at what he had said?

"Of, I guess it isn't too bad of a name. Short, Simple, and to the point." Jeff added.

Jet, however, was still watching her out of the corner of his vision. The girl made a face at Jeff's comment. 'So she can understand us. Going to have to keep an eye on her.' Jet thought. "So we do need to pick who gets beds.

"Yeah, I don't mind sleeping on the floor. I spent quite some time sleeping on hard dirt, and rocks, sometimes sand." Jet's mind went into the gutter when he remembered taking baths with the girls.

"Get a move on." Fred poked at Jet, who was off in his own world.

They made their way down a hole to the cells. Sure enough, they got a room with three beds. To Jet's surprise, all four of them looked at him. 'Great, when did I become a leader?' "Ok, we can play paper, rock, scissors." To Jet's surprise, what he said seemed to relay to everyone. He wished he knew how that worked. Jeff and Of had a raised eyebrow. The two men seemed to be confused. In the end, Jet let the two men and Jeff have a bed. The woman was young like them, so he chose her and himself for the lovely floor. Of didn't look too happy, but she did not complain.

'Alex, you there?' Jet thought at her. There was only a slight twinge from her. Not knowing what to do, Jet tried to get some sleep. However, sleep would not come. Too much on his mind to sleep. Like why the time difference in the mines. How long had they been on this world?

Jet had just about fallen asleep when he heard a small click, or it was a clack. Whatever the noise was, he could not fall asleep. Taking a look around, the girl seemed to be making the noises with her mouth. It looked like she was in a deep sleep. He realized her teeth were clattering. It was cold in the room. Getting up, he walked over and covered her with his blanket too. After Jet went and leaned on the wall waiting for morning to come, luckily, he could warm his body with magic.

Waking up the next morning, Jet was stiff. He had not been thinking when he gave the blanket away. His magic did not keep him warm while he slept, or at least not enough. As a new ritual, he tried to talk with Alex. No one else had woken up yet, so he tried not to make too much noise. No point in getting them up to another miserable day. Looking at his hands, they had callouses all over from the mining. 'What is with the time here?' Jet thought as he tried to remember how long he had been on the world. To his mind, it had only been a week or two.

"Alright, wake up, guys." A guard started to beat on the door.

Jet looked out the window. The sun wasn't even coming up quite yet. "Aren't you a little early?"

"Oh, your group doesn't need as much rest today. We found a new tunnel to explore."

That didn't sound too bad to most of them, except the two older gentlemen in the group. They looked horror-struck.