Chapter 6
The Mine

Harry pulled the stiff brush through the thick coat of his mustid as he cleaned away the mud and twigs that somehow always got caught despite the fact they were following a dirt road to the mining town Hermione was guiding them towards. He had already set up three tents for the night, and once Dudley came back with water and Hermione with wood he would use a touch of magic to start the fires they needed so Dudley could make dinner. This was the last night they had before they arrived at the town, and their catgirl companion had estimated they they should reach it late in the morning if they rode at a good clip.

A frown crossed his face at that thought. Hermione planned to get back into fights with who knew what monsters only days after watching her party get wiped out. She had done okay – more than okay, really – on the way here, but that was nothing more than pulling out her bow and sending arrow after arrow into whatever monster popped its head out long before it was close enough to sink its claws in them. It was wildly different than getting into another fight for their lives. The fact that she was holding together so well actually worried him more than the alternative. People who tended to bottle up their emotions inevitably let them out at the worst possible moment.

He knew that from personal experience, and it was something he was still working on.

His plan took a few minutes to come together, and by then both Dudley and Hermione were back from their allotted tasks. A quick casting of Flare got a small fire going so Dudley could start cooking, and he gestured for Hermione to come with him as he went to the second cone of logs they had built and started a larger fire that should last through the night. "How are you doing?" he asked, deciding to go with the direct approach rather than any kind of subterfuge. Deception and guile were not his strong suits.

"With what?" she asked. From her expression, she seemed legitimately confused, as though she could not think of any reason he was asking this question.

"Just… everything that happened in that mansion," he said weakly, not wanting to appear too blunt. "Losing your party. I know you don't know either of us very well, but if you ever need a friendly ear—"

It was not tears but a sad chuckle that cut him off. "I appreciate you trying to look out for me," she replied, "truly I do, but you don't need to handle me like a vial that will shatter if you so much as look at it wrong. I'm sad that Geoff and Mikaela are dead, but that's more or less it."

"They were your teammates," Harry reminded her incredulously. If Dudley were killed, he would not be doing nearly as well. Doubly so because Dudley was, to be frank, the only member of his 'family' he could stand.

Hermione shook her head. "Not in the way you're thinking. We weren't a permanent party. We all grew up in the Grange, but no one would describe us as friends. I'm a freelancer more than anything else. They asked me to help them find everything for Geoff's sister, and I was willing to lend a hand, but it was a temporary arrangement for the sake of a little girl. That's it."

Harry's brows rose almost of their own accord. It sounded to him as though she were still going to a substantial length to help this girl if she were really as unattached as she as portraying herself. "Didn't you say you knew about that guy's talent for finding hidden rooms and treasure? That doesn't sound to me like something he would tell every single casual acquaintance or one-time ally."

"I helped them out on other occasions," she said, her tone dismissive. "This may have been the… fourth or fifth job I've worked with them on over the course of nearly three years? It was also the only one I've ever done with them where I didn't charge them a percentage of the reward from the job. Like I said, we were acquaintances, nothing more."

"So you mostly work alone, or do you tag along with other groups more often than not?" The way she shrugged and looked away as though in embarrassment answered his question for him. "Why? You certainly don't seem to lack for options. Just from what little I've seen, just about any group would be happy to keep you on."

Hermione was quiet for several seconds, staring into the fire as though it will give her another answer than the truth. Finally she admitted, "I haven't found a group I like yet."

"How come?"

"Because it's hard to find anyone who is truly openminded nowadays." She took a thin stick that had fallen to the side when they were building the fire and poked the newborn coals in the center of the flames. "Humans tend not to treat Stellis as equals, at least not in my experience. No offense to you or Dudley, but other groups who hired me were less than subtle in their opinions that I was not the same as them, and 'different' often goes hand in hand with 'inferior'. It's a large part of the reason why I always ask for my share of the reward upfront; I've been cheated out of pay before. Not that such an opinion is isolated to humans. Osgul, Eddek, Kobolds; they all think their own race is inherently better than the others, even though the Transition threw us all into this world together at the same time, and we're all trying to figure everything out." She scoffed gently. "We are no more innocent in this than anyone else, of course. There's many a Stellis who thinks themselves the greatest race to ever walk the face of Gaia and that all others are beneath them. I just want to find a group that is composed of decent individuals who don't make assumptions based on someone else's race, that's all.

"As for Geoff's group, they weren't terrible people. I just didn't want to stick with them because we share a common history. I became an Adventurer so I could get out of Riverland. I'm not eager to join up with people who still consider it home."

She stood and brushed off the seat of her pants. "Maybe I'll find a party I like one of these days. I can't rule it out. But until then, I quite enjoy being the master of my own fate."

The sun was reaching its highest point in the sky when they crested the the top of a hill and caught sight of a low wooden palisade surrounding a town built around yet another hill. "Here we are," Hermione said, leaning forward on her griffon and looking out at the rooftops visible over the pointed ends of the wall. "It's not as impressive as Aurum or Goldwater, but it's our best chance of getting the foslyrite."

Harry looked over at her in surprise. Those names were familiar ones, cities many knew of even though few were allowed inside. They were both huge mining towns that were crucial to the founding and growth of the League of Free Cities, the closest thing to a proper nation that had sprung up in the ten years since humanity had appeared here on Gaia. Most towns and villages were still operating as self-sufficient entities. Glasgow, the minor city Harry and Dudley had made their base of operations for the last month, was on the southern border of the League's reach. If she was comparing this little town to those cities, it could only be for one reason. "This town is built around a goldmine?"

"Mm-hmm. You know how mythril is commonly found in pockets alongside veins of silver? Foslyrite has a similar relationship with gold. The League sells foslyrite for an exorbitant price, but this town isn't part of that nation, so we can hopefully negotiate and work for the mineral rather than paying outright."

"You've mentioned that this stuff is expensive. How much are we talking about?" Dudley asked.

That question brought the Hunter to a halt with a grimace. "At League prices? It's six thousand dimma a gram." Harry whistled in stunned appreciation; that kind of money was not easy to come by at all. Hermione, unfortunately, was not done yet. "Brewing Sandalphon's Sigh requires three grams of it."

"Eighteen thousand." Dudley shook his head. "Yep, now I understand why we're all the way out here in the middle of nowhere."

Hermione nudged her mount back into motion, and the trio descended into the valley. The iron-reinforced gate pulled inwards when they got close, and they had their first chance to take a good look at what awaited them. This town – named Gimli according to the sign hanging just past the gate, which got a snort out of Hermione but flew over his and Dudley's heads – was far larger than Scunth and was even noticeably bigger than where they had grown up. There had to be over a thousand people who called this maze of wooden buildings and alleyways home, many of them already milling around. A few looked the Adventurers' way before turning back to whatever they were doing.

A barn-like building and an open pen filled with mustids sat a short distance from the gate. They stopped there first so Harry and Dudley could stable their giant weasels while Hermione sought directions, and then they began the trek to the mayor's office near the center of town. The longer they walked, the more Harry began to think his read on the mood of the residents of Gimli was more than a little off.

"Anyone else feel like there's something wrong with this place?" he finally asked.

"What do you mean?" asked Dudley in turn.

He waved his hand towards some of the people walking past them. "This town is a literal goldmine. It should be rolling in wealth, and we've all seen rich people act like arrogant snobs. I can't say for sure, but I would think that a town full of them would be even worse."

"I can vouch for that," Hermione said with noticeable bitterness. Her childhood in the Riverland Grange had undoubtedly put her in close contact with a number of obscenely wealthy individuals. "But just because a town has money doesn't mean that everybody who lives there shares it equally. Farmhands and miners, for all that they do the vast bulk of the work required to create product, rarely see the profit of their labors."

"I guess you're right, but…" He looked at the townspeople again. The looks they were getting were nothing like those he and Dudley had received from the inhabitants of Scunth; where those glances were merely curious, these had more of a worried edge. "It if was just that they were poor, they would have adjusted over time. They would be used to it and would get by day to day without focusing on it. Look around you. These people are on their guard about everything around them. This isn't poverty. It's fear."

Harry's words ate at his companions as they continued onward, eventually reaching a building slightly larger and more grand than those around it, though not by much. Inside and down a short hall sat a secretary, who bid them sit after Hermione requested a meeting with the mayor. Only after the woman vanished through the door on the other end of the room did Hermione turn back to Harry. "I think you may be right. Something is off."

The secretary popped her head out a moment later. "Ma'am, sirs? Mayor Richardson will see you now."

"Isn't a mayor supposed to have stuff to do all day, not meet with anyone who walks through the door right then and there?" Dudley muttered.

Richardson was an unremarkable middle-aged man, and he was clearly of the old-fashioned breed if his thin suit was any indication. It was easy to tell who had accepted the new reality of the world from those people who, even ten years after the Transition, still longed for what used to be. Harry, Dudley, and Hermione for example – all adventurers, really, Marked or not – were in the first category; they wore sturdy clothes of leather in addition to thick cloth, a set of fabrics that worked well with the hard life of traveling from city to city and fending off whatever beast or monster decided they would make a delicious lunch. Even people who did not seek out hunts dressed like this because no one could ever predict when a fanged wolf would pop out from behind a bush, and inside cities there was still hard work that had to be done.

People like Richardson, people like Dudley's parents, refused to give up their memories of Earth. Instead of changing their lives to match the different demands on Gaia, they insisted on pretending that everything was as it once was, no matter how silly and foolish it made them look.

"Good morning, Mayor Richardson," Hermione said, taking charge once again. "I am Hermione of the Riverland Grange, and these are my colleagues, Dudley Dursley and Harry Potter. I was hoping we could discuss making a purchase of foslyrite."

The mayor's expression had not been been what Harry would have called enthusiastic when they walked in, and at her words it simply fell further. "I am afraid I will have to disappoint you, then. I can't sell you any foslyrite."

"I realize that it is expensive. That is what I wanted to discuss—"

Richardson shook his head and cut Hermione off with a raised hand. "That is not what I mean. It isn't that I don't want to come to some arrangement. It's that we don't have any of that mineral to sell in the first place."

"How is that possible?" she demanded. "I spoke with several people whom I trust to give me good information, and they all agreed that you have an active gold mine and were producing foslyrite. You sold a large shipment to the Alba cooperative just a couple of months ago."

"We had an active gold mine. Had." Richardson leaned back in his chair and held out his arms in a helpless manner. "Four weeks back, monsters started coming out of the mine shaft. We don't know what they are or how they got there. They killed a dozen people before we were able to close off the mine and kill them. We hired people to deal with them, but nobody who went into the mine ever came back out. The shipment to Alba was the last of the foslyrite we accumulated before we had to shut the mines down."

"What kind of monsters are we talking about?" Harry asked. If the mountain were somehow sprouting behemoths and underdrakes, he could understand how whole parties of adventurers could be lost. If it was just some dire rats, on the other hand, they must have hired a bunch of novices who did not know one end of their swords from the other.

"I don't know what they were. They were big, had teeth and claws."

Well, that was less than useless. Just about everything dangerous could be described like that.

Hermione frowned, but then a faint smile lit up her face. "Perhaps we can make a deal."

"Some other adventurers said they wanted to make a deal, too," Richardson said immediately, "and they took the coins and ran."

"It's a good thing we aren't after money at all, then. We'll go in, kill the monster, and plug up whatever hole they're coming out of. In return, the first three grams of foslyrite you find belongs to us. Simple as that."

Richardson moved to say something, but then he hesitated. "Worst case scenario, you never come back just like the others. We wouldn't be any worse off than we already are," he finally mused out loud.

"Best case scenario, you get your mine back, and everything goes back to normal. Not a bad investment, if I do say so myself." Hermione held out her hand. "Do we have a deal?"

The barrier that had been erected in the mouth of the mine looked exceedingly similar to the gate they had come through when they entered the town, and it took four men to pull it open. Dudley looked into the tunnel as far as he could and rolled his neck on his shoulders. "We sure these lamps are going to last long enough for us to get in and out?" he asked, patting the lantern hanging from his belt.

"I asked around to get more information from the miners," Hermione replied. "They said there should still be torches and barrels of oil in various stashes throughout the mine. We can refill our lanterns there and light the torches as we come to them."

"Assuming we don't get eaten in the meantime," Harry pointed out. "Dudley, take point. Anything that comes your way, you hack into pieces. Hermione, if you're in the middle, you can fire at anything ahead of us without getting into claw and fang range."

Her mouth twisted into some indeterminate expression, almost like she was trying to force a smile through a scowl or vice versa. "So you're taking the safest position in the rear?"

"No. I'm taking the rear because of the two of us, I'm the one with a sword, so I can hold back anything that tries to sneak up on us." Her teeth clicked together, and she gave him a nod. It was clear she had not worked with Fencers very often before running into him and Dudley. Harry might prefer casting magic, but he was not unskilled with his rapier.

"Let's get a move on, then," Dudley suggested as he started walking down into the mineshaft.

The men behind them shut the door after they were only a short distance inside, which was not a surprise. They had been warned that the people of Gimli were not willing to keep the entrance to the mine open when the monsters within had already proven willing to run out and kill indiscriminately. It did make the mine that much more eerie, though.

The pathway leading deeper into the hill twisted and turned, and here and there were short dead-end tunnels were the miners had clearly followed a vein of gold as it branched off the main route. Hermione raised her lantern as they found each one, and Dudley peered down the tunnel to look for anything moving within. "Clear," he said as they found yet another.

Even though Dudley was already moving on, Harry hesitated. Something did not feel right. He could not see anything lurking in the tunnel, but still he could not get rid of the sensation that something was watching him with eyes full of hate and hunger.

An arrow zipped by his face close enough that he could almost feel the fletching brushing against his nose, and a roar answered the attack.

He spun to the right to find a sinuous form lurking right at the edge of his lamp's light and batting at the arrow that found its shoulder. "Shite!" he yelled. The monster leapt at him, but his sword was already raised in a guard. He plunged the sharp blade down the monster's throat and flung a hasty handful of fire into its eyes when it kept sliding up the length of the sword.

It shivered and spasmed a couple of times before going still, blood welling up and pouring out from the corners of its mouth. The beast sagged towards the ground, and its top fangs clinked against the steel mere inches from the guard and Harry's hand just beyond.

"What the hell is that thing?!" Dudley demanded.

"One of the monsters that killed the townspeople, I expect." Hermione looked over at Harry while he pulled his sword out of the creature. "If you're going to be in the back, you need to keep your eyes peeled just a little more." She paused and shrugged one shoulder. "It was a good idea, though. It's just bad luck we're dealing with something smart enough to stay out of the light while it hunts us."

"I'm more interested in what it is and if there's an easier way to kill it," Harry told her. This was an odd-looking monster, nothing he had ever seen before. It had the basic shape of a large cat, its fur a drab and dirty brown with moss growing in large patches. What made it so strange was that rather than whiskers, it had two tentacles as long at its body that it had been waving in the air along its sides. Harry reached down to squeeze one only to find it thick and tough like muscle.

"It's… no. That doesn't make any sense." Hermione brushed her hair back from her face and took a step closer. "It's a vine panther."

"Why doesn't it make sense? Do these things roar and run down whatever it wants to eat?" Dudley asked.

When Harry dropped the tentacle, the monster's head shifted to reveal a darker brown something on its neck. He bent down to take a closer look and blinked in surprise. "Hey, guys?"

"No, it's an ambush predator. That isn't what's strange. Vine panthers don't live in caves. They're a jungle monster."

"So how'd it get here of all places?"

"Guys!" Dudley and Hermione looked over at him. "I don't know much about these things, but…" He slid his fingers under the leather wrapped around its neck and lifted it and the animal's head with it. "Do they normally wear collars?"

"A collar? What are you talking— It is a collar." The Stellis adventurer blinked as though she expected the collar to vanish, and when it did not she shook her head. "To answer your question, no. They don't. Not unless they have been tamed or at least captured." She frowned. "That would also explain why they're so far from their normal habitat. Someone brought them here and stationed them as guards."

Dudley glanced back and forth between her and the vine panther. "I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to try catching and training one of these things. They don't look like something that would enjoy learning how to play fetch unless it was somebody's throat they were after."

"Most people wouldn't. Not unless whoever is responsible for this is a Conjurer. Conjurers are best known for summoning small creatures to attack and defend for them," Hermione explained to Harry and Dudley's confused expressions, "but they also have the ability to charm monsters to obey their commands. I've only ever worked with one Conjurer, and he did not use the ability a handful of times to distract monsters we were fighting. It is possible that with repeated castings, a monster could be tamed just like a normal pet."

"And someone decided to leave a dangerous pet here because…?"

Hermione turned to Harry with an almost disbelieving face. "What are we inside right now? A literal gold mine. That's what he's after, all the gold. It's a clever plan, really," she said as her expression turned more thoughtful. "He sneaks into the town and enters the mine at night— No, that's not it. He gets into the mine by carving out a second opening out of sight of anyone on the walls. Unleashes his monsters the next morning to drive the miners out and cause them to block their end of the mine off. Then he, any other monsters he has with him, and anyone working for him start mining out the ore and carrying it out through the entrance he made. From there he could ship it anywhere he wants."

"Great. We're fighting more bandits, except these have a bunch of monsters helping them out. That basically it?" Harry summed up.

The cat-woman stopped and nodded after a moment. "More or less."

"Look on the bright side, Harry," Dudley told him as he hefted his axe. "Between them and us, we're the only ones who know what's up. They don't know we're here. Let's surprise them."

Silently Watches out.