Haven Gold Tunnel
The Haven Gold Tunnel was hardly crowded that day. Only two miner dwarfs, Dirt and Rock were still there. They were still munching through the dirt for gold, their cart was almost full and they could return home soon. They were okay dwarfs but they had awful manners, for example they talked while they chewed through the dirt.
"Hey Rock," Dirt called, "I chewed on something. Hey it's a piece of old shabby paper. It has some writing on it."
Rock grunted in reply, "So what if you chewed on a piece of paper? Is it considered bad luck? If it is I'm havin' in bad enough. I lost my powers yesterday when I entered a mud men's house. So what if I didn't have an invitation. The stupid piece of gold rolled in there, they should have exceptions." Rock was actually a law abiding fairy dwarf which happened to lose his powers.
"How did the piece of gold roll in there?" Dirt asked, then remembering his friends love of aboveground routes he continued, "Big deal I lost mine a year ago and you know that dwarfs don't have much magic and chewin' on the paper isn't bad luck."
"I guess it's no big whoop," Rock said, after he swallowed the last piece of dirt, "So, where's the paper?"
"'Ere let me read it to you," Dirt said obligingly, "By Hlig. A warning sent to those underground, as soon as this paper is found, technology ahead of times will crush thy magic, the machine will be beyond fairy logic, two mud men shall be arriving, only they can stop the rising. Then there are brown spots as the sentence tries to continue. What do you think Rock?"
"Hlig, Hlig," Rock pondered. "Wasn't he the LEP officer who got murdered about five centuries ago?"
"I dunno, I was kinda busy, since I don't know, ten centuries ago," Dirt said, "All I know is that this guy's rhymin' is terrible, he's trying to hard to sound poetic, deep or like the fairy booke."
"Since when were you a critic? Anyway maybe it's a message," Rock said, munching through the mound of dirt and throwing a piece of gold into the cart.
"From Hlig? He went undercover he's not a real hermit. And I mean what could happen, if the LEP start looking for it then we send it to them. I don't think it's a big deal but what the heck? If they want it, they want it." Dirt said starting to munch again.
"I heard that Hlig got pretty good at that stuff. He wasn't too crafty though that's why he got killed. I would have made a better LEP agent."
"I doubt it. Plus, you have to risk gettin' killed. You can't really get killed being a miner dwarf. Cave-ins couldn't even kill us 'cause we can always tunnel out."
"Pay's pretty low too, huh?"
"Oh yeah."
"Think we'll find somethin' valuable after we found the paper?"
"Nah," Dirt began, he chewed through the last mound of dirt. He was sure he saw something shiny. Or at least something, He dislocated his jaw and munched through the dirt once more except this time he missed and hit that 'valuable' thing. "Ouch, forget about the big time I was expecting, 'cause this rock is small. Hopefully it's worth something after the d'arvited toothache it gave me," he said rubbing his cheek continuously.
"It's not a rock and I don't think it's worth anything," Rock said, his eyes widening, "It's a tiny ice cube."
The ice cube melted slowly as the two dwarfs watched, speechless. Something seemed to awaken when the ice finished melting but it was microscopic to be seen by the naked eye. A beeping was heard and a purring began, an engine seemed to start and the water around it disappeared. Dirt and Rock were sure that they felt something touching their skin that seemed to disappear. They were in a state of shock. The last piece of dirt dropped for Dirt's mouth. It was gross and covered with saliva and it even dropped on Rock's foot but Rock didn't care. He was too worried, or feeling an emotion that was similar to that feeling.
"LEP?" Rock asked, finally kicking off the saliva covered mound off his foot.
Dirt nodded, his whole body was still in a frozen state of shock. The ice cube was holding something, he knew it. The ice cube must have frozen a dangerous thing inside, which was what the piece of paper was talking about. He had didn't know what to think after that.
He and Rock quickly ran to the LEP station, they saw elves, sprites shrivelling on the way to the station and people standing over them, this time they knew something was wrong. They must have released something. Something that could destroy the entire fairy population. And it all started from a piece of dirt.