“There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stone; it all depends on how you use them.”

Frederich Nietsche

“We started mining here through the side of the quarry because of the discolouration that came through the rock in this area. We weren’t looking for metal at the time. But once we found some your uncle Aaron back by your Grandpa Smit insisted we continue.” Uncle Cephas explained as he led us into the rock face.

“Uncle Karl provides the lumber needed to prop up the tunnels,” Ferris explained as he patted the wooden supports on the way in.

“What do you do for . . . light?” I asked as Uncle Cephas lit a torch ahead of us. That was not dangerous at all. His torch flickered a little before catching fully.

“These are pine resin torches soaked in oil. They last a long time.”

“Are they safe?’ I asked a little worried about taking an open flame down into the dark.

“Safe enough up here near the exit. Ventilation is good and we have driven some shafts to the surface throughout the mine to keep the air flowing. But new areas can be a little dangerous if you’re not careful. But we have been doing this a long time, so you have nothing to worry about.” He reassured me as he led us further in.

“Now some miners get sick of their jobs because it was just boring. But not me.” He paused to wait for a laugh but all he got was a groan from his son. “You’ll have to be patient with my children, their chips off the old block but they all have their faults.”

I sniggered at that one.

“Don’t encourage him. I’ve heard them all before but you haven’t so if you're not careful you’re going to end up the entire tour listening to him attempting to be funny.” Ferris complained.

“What it takes a boulder man to work his way into the depths of the loadstone.” He continued.

“Are we entering the lodestone?” I asked a little worried about what might or might not be living in it.

“No far too shallow a mine for that. Plus this is a dead volcano. Any paths that existed to it were destroyed a long time ago if they ever existed in the first place. Islands such as ours can come forth from the sea itself and any entrances to the Lodestone Labyrinth are beyond rare once venturing out to sea. The entrances have to be naturally formed as even the base races are not about to flood their land with the sea above by creating new ones to the bottom of the sea.” He explained.

“Still worth it to keep an eye out. There are still a few minor monsters that could cause you problems if you fell asleep in here.” Ferris added.

“Again far and few between.” Uncle Cephas moderated his son’s answer. You know the old saying – igneous is bliss.” It appeared that he couldn’t help himself with his new captive audience.

“I’d really rather know,” I said accompanied by Ferris’s continued groaning at his Dad’s jokes.

“Well, the main problem we have are rockworms but only because they are hunting the same things we are, blue sapphires.” He continued to lead us in without a care in the world.

“What are rockworms?” I asked cautiously.

“Worms that eat rocks. It is fairly self-evident from the name. They grow up to an arm in length, tunnel through the stone and like to eat our sapphires when they find one.” Ferris explained without resorting to puns. “They blend into the rockface and you don’t notice them much unless they are moving. Also, their skin is rocklike and you’ll need your pickaxe to get through it.” He added.

These things were sounding worse and worse by the minute. At half my body length they would pose a far greater risk to me than them standing at twice my height.

“Are they dangerous?” I asked.

“Only if you fall asleep. They are not fast but their mouths have a way of dissolving rock either through magic or some sort of saliva. It wouldn’t be good to get it on your skin. But like I said they aren’t particularly fast. Mainly they aren’t interested in us just the sapphires hiding beneath the surface of the rock. The main danger is that they can damage the rock around our tunnels leading to cave-ins so if we see some we kill them.” Uncle Cephas lectured.

“Anything else down here?” I asked a little worried that this was only the beginning of the list.

“No that’s it. Not a lot to eat down here other than rocks and if you don’t want them, then there isn’t much point being down here. And we’ve arrived.” He gestured at the rock face in front of us. The tunnel had expanded into a small cavern.

“This is where we have found the most sapphires so far,” Ferris explained pointing out the places that they had worked on the rock’s surfaces. “Here you go.” He said as he handed me a small pick to have a go mining. “Let’s see what you can find.”

They both separated and headed to their own spots to work over the wall looking for the hint of blue that might suggest a gemstone hidden in the wall somewhere. The torch sent our flickering shadows over the rock in front of us adding to the complexity of the task.

Ignoring my sight which due to my supersenses handled the darkness easily I focused on the wall with my skills sense mana. I searched as deep into the rock as I could looking for the blue mana that I had seen in their jewellery. Eventually finding some hidden in the wall. Now I just had to get it out. I raised the pickaxe and swung it at the wall. My strikes were lost in the echoing strikes of my cousin and uncle.

Something was satisfying in digging my way deeper to the gemstone I suspected lay just out of sight under the earth’s skin of stone.

Strike, crack, pull and chip. I worked my way deeper into the earth ignoring the pieces that fell by the way sure in my knowledge that they did not contain what I was after. The hole I had made was growing deeper and the glow seemed to be growing brighter to my senses. Finally, with a last crack, the gemstone was pulled free of the rock face.

Ding! Mining (Lv1)

“Uncle Cephas,” I called. “I’ve found one.”

“Of quartz you have!” he exclaimed either delighted to have finally been able to sue that pun or by the fact that I had found my very first gemstone.

Ferris came over to see the gemstone I was holding up. “That’s a fine one.” He nodded in confirmation of my find. The stone felt large in my small hands. “Gemma or Alaina will be able to polish that up nicely for you when we get back if you're interested.”

Although the gemstone shone in my mana sense to my eyes it was a dull blue stone. Unpolished and uncut it did little to reflect the light of the torch.

“That was fast, a lucky first attempt.” Uncle Cephas commented. “Can you do it again?” he asked.

“I think so,” I answered before I started staring into the rock again. Rock had always been harder to see through than anything else. But I was getting better at it as my mana sense continued to level up. Echolocation also gave me a little info from the top layer of stone whenever I tapped it and held my hands to the wall. I continued to push my senses as I worked along the face of the cavern they had been working on.

Sense Mana (Lv 42)

I might have got lucky with my first find. I got right up to the face of the wall seeing if I could push my sight deeper into the wall.

Echolocation (Lv 36)

I continued to tap the wall fingers pressed up against it seeing if I could get a sense or feel for any differences in the wall ahead.

Ding! Seismic Sense (Lv1)

Finally, something gave and my view into the stone expanded a combination of Sense Mana, Listening, Echolocation and Detect allowed me to see or feel further into the stone than I had ever managed before. Uncle Cephas and Ferris found my excitement contagious as I rushed over to a new section of stone and said I think there is one here. I was not completely sure as it was slightly too deep for my mana sense to notice but my Seismic Sense was saying that something was different a foot in from the spot I was pointing at.

“Okay, we’ll give it a go.” Uncle Cephas said before raising his pickaxe. It only took one swing for him to pull out a sizeable chuck of the wall to shatter on the floor and I rushed forward to find what my mana sense was now shining as bright as day.

“Here,” I shouted raising another Sapphire in the air.

“Wow, that is amazingly lucky.” Cried, Ferris. “How are you doing that?” he asked.

“Well I can see the mana in the gemstones and I’m good at sensing,” I explained vaguely.

“What about if you did the same thing as you did in the quarry would that work on the stone here?” He asked excitedly.

“I suppose so,” I answered distracted already searching for the next glimmer of a gemstone or the spot that vibrated differently to my Seismic Sense.

“I think there is another one here,” I answered Ferris. “Would you like to see if I can use my magic?”

“Cool.” Ferris answered, “This is so much quicker with you helping out.”

I placed my hand on the wall in front of me flooding it with my mana until it had reached deep enough to where I suspected the gemstone rested in a pocket of stone. Flexing my will I used the skill of stone shaping to make the stone flow out of the area. Running out and down the wall leaving another sapphire nestled in the newly created hole in the wall.

Mining (Lv2)

It appeared that I did not necessarily have to use a pickaxe to level the skill I just needed to find and retrieve the resources I was looking for. It probably helped the levelling up process that the gemstones were so valuable.

We spent the rest of the morning pulling out gemstones from the wall. I would point them out then Uncle Cephas, Ferris or I would work at getting them out. We split the stones equally between us. They seemed to be thrilled that they had found so many in a single morning.

“This will keep the girls busy for a while.” Uncle Cephas commented on all the polishing and cutting the girls would have to do. I thought about introducing different types of cut stones but thought I might not bring that up on my first day working with the Silverstone family.

“Well, Kai. That was a productive morning. Probably time to head home. I hope we can see you back here in a bit.” Uncle Cephas said as we wound down from our busy search for sapphires. “Your probably a bit young to be thinking about this yet, and your parents probably have their own plans for you, but what do you want to do when you get older?” he asked as we turned to leave through the tunnels the torchlight finally beginning to run low.

I paused for a moment, considering before answering, “I want to make an impact on the world – I do things for the crater good of humanity.”

The dead silence in the cave was broken by Uncle Cephas, guffaws of laughter and Ferris’s groans.

“I’m doomed. There are two of them now. I’ll be thrown out of house and home only for my cousin to be adopted in my stead.” Was Ferris’s theatrical response.

“Don’t be silly son. I’d never take you for granite.” He reached out to give Ferris a crushing hug which might have been just to hold him in place for his final punch line, “I lava you too much.”

I wasn’t sure if I was chuckling at the pun or the pain that Ferris seemed to express on hearing it. But then if he had heard them a million times before I could kind of understand.

Uncle Cephas still chuckling led us through the tunnels heading home.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “I couldn’t help it.” I defended my actions.

Ferris replied, “It’s okay, but I’d rather not chalk about it anymore.” He whispered out of his father’s hearing.

. . .

We were heading to the exit and nearly cleared it when suddenly a rock fell from the roof and landed on the floor in front of me. I looked up to find a moving column of stone falling towards me.

“Look out!” cried Ferris as I leapt back. The column of stone landed on the floor and coiled before leaping at me one more. I raised my pickaxe to block it only to find it had a mouth that was now biting the pickaxe I had brought between us. I threw it away. The rockworm wrapped itself around the pickaxe as it flew through the air and landed on the ground.

I turned around to sprint back into the tunnel away from the monster blocking the exit when there was a splat. Uncle Cephas had buried his pickaxe into the beast.

Heart thundering, I shuddered, “I thought you said they weren’t dangerous!” I exclaimed.

“Well, that one was a fair bit quicker and bigger than usual. Plus, it got the drop on us. Normally they aren’t quite so . . . aggressive. But then you are hauling a month’s worth of sapphires, so I suppose you looked particularly tasty.” He theorized.

I went to pick up my pickaxe only to be left holding the blade and the bottom of the handle the middle part having melted through. Whether the mana or saliva whatever it was it was particularly potent.

“I’d like to go home now,” I said the adrenaline still rushing through my system. That had been a little closer than I would have liked.

“Sure thing. Straight home it is.” He answered as he wiped the deceased rockworm of his pickaxe onto the floor.

“We don’t normally see one when mining.” Ferris consoled me. “But then we did find a fair few more sapphires than normal. Who knows maybe my father is right.”

The experience put a damper on what had been a hugely successful morning. We were quiet walking back to the town and through the northern gate.

As the Silverstone family said their farewells to Aleera and me, Uncle Cephas took me to the side, “Don’t let it put you off. We’d love you to come back and do a little more quarrying or mining of sapphires with us. We didn’t even get round to showing you the tunnels where the ores are.” Uncle Cephas, he said before adding his parting words. “I know it was a joke earlier but if you truly want to make an impact and do things for the greater good of humanity money helps. The sapphires hidden in the stone much like your pearls are just money waiting for you to pick them up.”