Chapter 1: It Begins Here

"The sound of a iron pick against rock echoes throughout the mine. And every stone broken seems to lead to nothing but coal and iron. We miners have been down here for 2 years; and we still haven't found anything valuable in that time span. It feels like we'll never-." My writing was stopped short as a knock came from the door.

"Number 5; your needed on station 13." said Mr. Steen, the Forman of the mine.

"I'll be right out!" I called. I put my quill back in its ink well and closed my journal. I stood up from my bed and put it in my chest, then grabbed my iron pickaxe from the back corner of my room.
My room was very small, it was only 4 block long and 4 blocks wide, with a 3block high ceiling. Everyone who worked here had to live here as well.

I walked outside into the corridor and headed towards the furnace room, where the mine-rails were. I hopped into one and pressed the start button. The Redstone rail glowed and sent the cart flying down into the twisting paths to station 13. As I passed others working they waved at me. At least we still had our humanity; I was surprised we haven't gone mad yet from constant mining and digging.

Finally I reached the bottom of the cave where my station was located. As I headed over, I saw that Beth mining next to my station. Just as I reached my location I heard a familiar voice.

"Hey, glad you could join us Pete!"

"Lucas!" I exclaimed, "I didn't know you were gonna be down here." I turned to face him.

"Yeah, they moved me at the last minute."

"Cool," I had turned back to my work, "So, what did you find so far?"

Lucas opened up his inventory, "Uh, about nine iron, and that's worth about as much as a diamond down here." I laughed. This wasn't a very rich cave, only iron was its product.

We worked for another 2 hours or so till the intercoms sounded for night time, then me and Lucas headed back up. We didn't take the rails though, and Beth decided to join our long walk back to the main hall. "So what did you all find in your station?" asked Lucas. I rolled my eyes, "Same as always, it's not like someone is gonna dig up a diamond or anything soon." Lucas nodded in agreement. We walked for a while longer till I realized Beth was acting fidgety. "Beth is something wrong?"

She looked us in the eyes. Guys, you have to trust me on this but...I found something...different...than iron."