The next few hours of spelunking were somewhat less eventful. Steve and Fristad mined and lit the cave as they went, every once in a while killing a pack of monsters which would attempt to ambush them from the darkness.
None of the monsters were a match for Steve with his fully-enchanted diamond gear. Fristad, on the other hand, appeared to be holding his own, much to Steve's relief. It seemed that, aside from their rather gruesome way of dying, the underground monsters of this world behaved the same as the monsters in Steve's world.
A while later, as Steve was in the middle of mining an iron vein, he heard a muffled voice emanate from his pocket. Steve put his pickaxe away and pulled out his radio.
"Steve, can you hear me?" the static-riddled voice spoke from the radio, this time louder now that it had been removed from Steve's pocket. "This is Jennifer."
Steve put the radio up to his face. "Okay, so nobody's stolen the radio," Steve replied sarcastically. "This of course is Steve."
"Glad to hear you're alive, Steve," replied Jennifer, her partial attempt at sarcasm cut short by the impatience in her voice. "Listen: I found a small group of soldiers a few kilometers away from our hole in the mountain. They were talking about the crystals, and they are waiting to meet up with someone. I am almost certain that 'someone' is the same muscled man that tried to steal the crystals from us earlier. But it gets worse: the person they are waiting for has a compass-like device which they claim can detect crystals. They also mentioned some mysterious substance called 'booze,' although I am not sure if that is relevant."
"Oh yea, 'booze,' I know what that is…" Fristad remarked jokingly.
"Well, regardless of whatever this 'booze' thing is," Steve said, "that is bad news. Did the soldiers say anything about when the man would come back?"
"No, they didn't. They only said that he was late."
"I'm not surprised." Steve grinned. "We put up quite a fight. Anything else new?"
"Unless you want to hear about the gruesome way in which I had to collect meat from the animals in this world, I'm pretty sure that sums it up."
"As long as there's food in the furnace." Steve replied.
"Alright, then. Take care."
"Same."
Steve slid the radio back into his pocket, took out his pickaxe, and resumed mining out the iron vein.
The existence of the soldiers worried Steve. The man that attacked them earlier was hardly a threat on his own, but if the man really were capable of tracking down crystals, he could easily track down Steve, and lead an army straight towards him. And if that army were anything like that man, they were bound to have evil intentions.
