Chapter 3: In the Mines

Due to the recent crackdown on stories, I removed the OC form for the story off the first chapter, to keep the trolls and flames off my back. However, I will still accept characters. Send me a PM and I will send you the form, if you wish to send in a character.

I am in need of more Tao OCs, plus those who are medics, slaves, herbalists and gladiators. Thank you.

Kephra slumped into the bed of his bunk, utterly exhausted. The evacuation of the cave in had proved more difficult than expected, moving rocks and debris, only to uncover corpses of his fellow slaves. He glanced down at his hands. They were thickly callused in the past two years of toiling in the Black Pit Mines. Now, they were cut up and raw from moving debris for the rest of the day. Blood was caked on his hands and underneath the shackles on his arms. He attempted to pull out a few splinters from his hands, the result from moving the wooden beams, which once supported the ceiling of the shaft, now shattered into tiny bits when the shaft collapsed.

He winced as he managed to pluck another splinter from the palm of his hand. The sky, now turning dark, was still somewhat light enough to work and pull the rest of the splinters out from his hands. Kephra glanced around the confines of the bunk he was staying at. Some of the beds were empty today, including the bunk of the clefable elder. Kephra wondered if he died in the mine shaft collapse or from something else entirely, pertaining to the leg injury.

The door of the bunk banged open and Kephra nearly jumped out of the bed. The sky was even darker now and the guard's face was cast into harsh highlights and shadows from the lantern he carried. It was the same guard from the morning, the rhydon, but now he had someone else with him this time. The rhydon guard rudely shoved the guest inside.

"This is where you'll stay," the guard snarled at the slave. He stomped off, slamming the door behind him.

Kephra squinted at the new guest. He, or she, Kephra couldn't tell from his distance, was short, about a foot-and-a-half-tall, with a thin body, but a small potbelly, and a long whip like tail, tipped with a lightning bolt shape, with two notches. From the lantern light, the slave had been an orange-ish color. It was a raichu. The raichu wandered listlessly down the bunk, between the bunk beds that lined the walls of the slave cabin. He was trying to find an empty bed, Kephra realized. The guard slammed the door behind the raichu, shuttering them in total darkness once more.

The raichu bumped into the ladder of Kephra's bunk bed. "Excuse me," the raichu apologized suddenly, flinching slightly as he said so. He stopped and blinked at Kephra. "You're a blaziken!" he suddenly blurted in surprise.

Kephra nodded curtly. "Yes, I am."

"I haven't seen a blaziken in a very long time, so you'll have to forgive me," the raichu bobbed his head. Kephra noticed that the raichu's ears were ragged and ripped, with small holes lining the bottoms. The raichu spotted Kephra's staring. "The Arceus thrice-demned Taos ripped out my earrings when they made me a slave."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." Kephra replied, not offering much of sympathy for the small mouse like pokemon. At least he didn't see his family killed and enslaved before his eyes. But, he had to offer something. The raichu was admittedly intriguing to him. "What happened?"

"I was once a merchant in the city of Oam, near the border. I was a wealthy goldsmith. I made jewelry and repaired pieces for the nobles and wealthier people of the city. I had a lot of rivals and enemies. My fiercest competitor decided that he wasn't going to stand for my success and told the local authority that I was spying on the nobles of the town for the Sky Kingdom. I tried to fight the accusations, but needless to say, they didn't believe me and I eventually ended up here. The Taos took my home, my livelihood and everything I had worked for for nearly fifteen years. Of course, the Taos decided to have a little fun before they shipped me off here and that pertained to slowly ripping my earrings out of my ears. I had quite a few. Earrings, I mean." the raichu stopped. "What about you?"

Kephra turned away, feeling uncomfortable. "I'm not comfortable talking about it. Besides," he added. "I thought Oam was in the Tao Empire."

"It is."

"So, your own people betrayed you?"

"The Taos were never my people anyway. They don't trust anybody who isn't Tao, so the accusations they pressed, as feeble as they were, stuck. I'm actually from Obliverae. I moved here to start fresh." The raichu sighed. "Now I'll never go home."

Kephra shifted awkwardly on his bed, sympathy coming to him in a rush. The Tao soldiers were worse than he originally thought. "If it is any comfort," he said quietly. "I won't be able to go home either."

The raichu decided to clamber on the bed and sit next to Kephra. "What happened?" he asked again.

Kephra looked woefully at the raichu, now feeling obliged to say something. "The Tao soldiers took my father's estate from us and killed my family, including burning my father and oldest brother alive. Then, they captured me and brought me here, to work in the Mines."

"I am so sorry to hear that," the raichu reached out and placed a small hand on Kephra's leg. Kephra nearly jerked his leg away, startled by the gesture, but decided to keep it where it was. He was unused to a touch that did not pertain to the crack of the whip over his back. "Wait, did you say "estate"?"

"Yes, my father owned Vulkanus estate and by proxy, Vulkanus Wines."

"I may have had one of your father's wines once," the raichu said thoughtfully, recalling an old memory. "It was very rich and sophisticated in flavor. Very delicious."

"Thank you. My father would have liked to hear that. He sold a lot to the Tao Empire before the war. He liked to say that emperors were drinking his wines."

"And they probably were," the raichu said, eliciting a faint, ghostly smile on Kephra's face, before it vanished to the darkness once more. "What is your name, if I might ask?"

"Kephra. Kephra Vulkanus."

"I'm Micah Aurum." Micah stuck out a paw and Kephra took it, enveloping the mouse like pokemon's hand in his own.

"Nice to meet you, Micah."

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Kephra wiped away sweat from his brow as he worked in the shaft. He had been assigned to work in the mines for the past three days now, and the blaziken was in need of a change of scenery, rather than just staring at a black stone face, searching for the elusive vein of metal. The wake of the mine shaft collapse made him somewhat wary about staying underground for too long. At least he had Micah to keep him company, he realized with a half scoff. The raichu was very talkative, talking almost constantly about his life and questioning Kephra's about his. Kephra was reluctant to talk about his own history, but was curious about Micah's, especially since he lived in both Obliverae and the Tao Empire and the blaziken was intrigued about how different the two places were from his own home.

In the aftermath of the shaft collapse, over fifty slaves and nearly a dozen guards died in the shaft collapse. The slaves were buried in a mass funeral pyre, to save space and to decrease the amount of time lost if they decided to bury them. The guards were placed in wooden coffins and shipped to various parts of the Empire, to be buried with their families and loved ones. The pair had worked to help move stones and shovel away dirt from the wreckage. If they came across a slave, they would toss the poor mangled corpse into a cart to be rolled away. If they came across a guard, they were not allowed to touch the body, for fear of purloining items like knives or keys off their corpse, giving the slaves a chance to escape. Instead, they were to immediately inform one of the guards on duty and they would deal with the body accordingly.

Kephra picked at the vein with his pickax in quick, steady, and short strokes, to minimize fatigue. He glanced over at Micah whom was working right next to him, a few feet away. He was using the pickax in large sweeping strokes, raising the pickax over one shoulder and swinging it down in an almost dramatic fashion. The pair had been working at the vein since they arrived and neither of them knew how long time had elapsed.

Kephra finally spoke up. "You're doing it wrong."

Micah nearly stopped mid-swing. "What?"

"You're doing it wrong. If you swing it like that, you'll get tired a lot faster and will slow down, thus attracting the unwanted attention of the nearest guard and a whip."

"I will?"

"Yeah. Use shorter strokes and just chip away at it, don't swing it like it's a battleaxe."

"Well, I am getting tired," Micah admitted. "But I saw the other slaves use their axes like this."

"And they're the most tired and they're the slowest later in the day too. Trust me on this one."

"Hey!" a guard barked from a few yards down, the very same krookodile that had antagonized Kephra a few days earlier. "Keep it down!"

Kephra clamped his mouth, not wanting to press his luck. He went back to mining the ore, quiet, occasionally glancing from the corner of his eye to make sure that Micah was doing it correctly. Micah chipped away at the ore as well, but was beginning to slow down, the dramatic swings taking its toll. Unfortunately, the krookodile guard noticed as well. The guard came over, whip in hand and eager to use it.

"Faster!" he snarled, cracking the whip once over Micah's head. Micah winced and the guard spotted it, flashing a crocodilian grin, sending a chill down Kephra's spine. The guard was a bully and was going to make sure that Micah, the new slave, would know it. He cracked it once again and Kephra tried to ignore it, hoping to not draw attention to himself.

Micah's hands then slipped on the pickax and the tool dropped from his hands, clattering on the floor. The guard seized the opportunity. "No slacking off on the job! Keep working!"

"It just slipped. . .," Micah began but the crack of the whip across his back silenced him. He yelped in pain when the whip snaked across his back, leaving an angry welt across his back.

"Don't talk back to your superiors, you Sky scum!" the krookodile guard struck him again with the whip.

All Micah wanted to do was curl up into a tiny ball and pray for the beating to pass. "Please, please make it stop," he begged to himself. The whip had struck once, then twice. His back felt like streaks of fire were racing across it and he guessed that he was bleeding as well from the wound. Micah tensed up, waiting for the third blow to set his back alight once more.

But the third blow never came.

Kephra watched the scene unfold, feeling an anger bubble up in him as he watched the guard cruelly beat the poor raichu for simply dropping the pickax; the guard was just waiting for the opportunity to beat someone today. He switched the pickax to his right hand and shot his left hand out to snatch the whip. He stopped it in mid-swing, the leather whip then curling around his hand with the momentum. The krookodile snarled, flashing his long fangs in rage.

"Let go scum!" he warned.

"No."

"Let go, or I'll teach you the meaning of pain, Sky scum!"

Kephra gave a dangerous smile and his eyes glinted with an unknown light, daring the guard to go through with his threat. The blaziken didn't even notice how quiet the area had gotten, the slaves and nearby guards watching and waiting to see what will happen next. The pair stared at each other for a long while and soon, the krookodile guard gave in, his eyes turning away and the whip going lax in his grip. Kephra let go and watched as the guard stormed off, inflicting his wrath on those in his way, guards and slaves alike.

Kephra held out a hand and Micah gratefully took it. Kephra helped him back up. "Thank you," Micah whispered raggedly.

Kephra shook his head. "Don't thank me." he went back to mining. "I just don't like bullies."

Micah was skeptical of Kephra's reasoning, but decided not to push it. He flashed a small secretive smile to himself. Maybe he had made a true friend after all.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

The pair stuck with each other the next few weeks, Kephra helping Micah in the various chores of the mines, including helping clear out the collapsed mine shaft.

A few weeks later, after Micah had fallen into a steady, if brutal rhythm, both Kephra and Micah were soon assigned to help with the smelting facilities, helping to melt the iron and copper ores they obtained and then removing the impurities from the rough ore. Micah had never operated a large scale smelting facility before, only smaller ones when he would buy gold ore and melt it down to purify it, then, construct jewelry. Kephra operated the majority of the two smelters, a pair of massive stone, cylinder-like structures, with a large fire burning inside, fed by wood and charcoal. One smelter melted the copper ore, while the other melted iron; both metal had different melting points and therefore had to be separate. He would move the crucibles, ceramic bucket like objects filled with the crushed ore, into the smelter with a pair of tongs and wait until the ore had melted into molten metal, the impurities either burned away or resting on top of the molten ore, to be removed easily. Since he was much shorter than Kephra and could not operate the smelter nearly as well, Micah helped by feeding the smelter with wood and charcoal. There were about three dozen large scale smelters throughout the Mines, Kephra and Micah operating one of them.

Kephra had another batch of molten iron in a crucible, held with a pair of long tongs that supported the crucible in three different places, the sides and bottom, to keep it from tipping and splashing molten metal everywhere. Kephra had seen that occur twice before and the results were often gruesome. He reached in with the long tongs and pulled out a second crucible that had been in there for a while, and inspected the molten iron inside. After he deemed it worthy, he moved the crucible to a large slab with one-pound ingot molds at regular intervals. Slowly and carefully, Kephra began to pour the liquid metal into each mold, taking caution to not splash nor slosh the metal. There were two dozen ingot molds and eventually, he managed to fill them all, with not a drop to spare. He could breathe a sigh of relief. The smelters could hold about six crucibles at a time and currently, there were five crucibles, with the metal inside at different stages of smelting. He could take a break.

That was the fortunate thing about working the smelting facilities; due to the horrifically hot environment, those working them could take more frequent breaks than those working the mine shafts or elsewhere. Besides, a large portion of smelting was waiting, waiting for the metal to melt and burn away the impurities. Kephra flopped down on a squat stone bench and reached for the bucket filled with water, taking the large ladle that went with it. He dipped the ladle into the lukewarm water—there would never be cold or even cool water in this environment—and took a deep sip, looking around for any guards. The guards usually kept their distance from the smelting facilities; again another blessing from working the smelters.

Micah, who had finished restocking the smelters with wood and charcoal, sat down next to him and Kephra passed the ladle and bucket to the raichu. The pair had become close the past few weeks and Kephra might be able to call the short mouse like pokemon a friend. He learned a lot about Micah the past few weeks.

Micah had been from the Island Nation of Obliverae, an island chain to the east of the Tao Empire. He was the oldest of a large family of jewelry merchants and when he got old enough, he moved to Oam, a large city near the mountain pass of Sylph, the very same mountain pass that the Tao army went through to invade the Sky Kingdom. He remained ambivalent to the conflict; to him, business was business, no matter the customer. He had provided his jeweler services to both kingdoms and he became a well known jeweler. Unfortunately though, he made some rivals along the way and his fiercest rival decided to use the Tao/Sky Kingdom conflict to bump his rival off. He accused Micah of spying for the Sky Kingdom and had created some false evidence to back his claim, including bribing some false witnesses and forging documents.

The Tao soldiers, known for their sentiments against non-Tao citizens, believed his rival, who was a natural born Tao citizen. Through a farcical excuse of a trial, Micah was convicted of spying for the enemy and lost his home and passion due to it. To make matters worse, his rival ended up getting Micah's shop as a "reward" for telling the authorities. The guards, before they shipped Micah to the Black Pit Mines, decided to have a little fun with Micah, slowly ripping out each and every one of Micah's ear piercings, gambling on the earrings when they were done. Micah had eight piercings in all, thus explaining his ragged and scarred ears.

"We could escape, you know," Micah said, after taking a large draught of water.

Kephra coughed. "What?"

"Leave here, escape."

"You're insane, you know that?" Kephra glanced around, making sure none of the guards could hear Micah's crazy talk. "And keep it down, before the guards hear you."

"I'm not crazy," Micah argued. "I know a guard."

"You do?"

"You know the one called "Absalom"?"

"No, not really. A guard is a guard to me. I don't make an effort to learn my enemies' names."

"He's the charmeleon with the dark red pelt. His family lived near my shop and they would come over frequently for meals. In Oam, the biggest meal of the day was lunch, so they would come and eat lunch with me, to keep me company. Large family, very nice and giving. Absalom was the only one who didn't evolve to a charizard, if I remember right."

"He is a Tao," Kephra spat, bitter. "No Tao would be willing to help the likes of us. No unless he wishes to be branded a traitor, or worse, head to an early grave with the slaves.

"He could help us," Micah whispered to Kephra, insistent. "Maybe we could free the other slaves too. Take this place down."

"Now I know you're nuts. The guards would slaughter us."

"Not if they're outnumbered ten to one. There's two thousand of us, plus fresh slaves coming in every week. There's only about two hundred guards and the Tao magistrate won't increase their numbers, because all the available soldiers are needed on the front lines. That's a ten slave to one guard ratio."

"How do you know this?"

"I pay attention to the rumors and gossip floating around.

" Well, don't give me the math, I was never good with numbers." Kephra laughed and got up from the bench, to check on the crucibles in the smelters. He inspected each of them, adjusting as needed and removing one of them with the tongs, headed to the ingot mold. "Besides, how are we going to get all of the slaves to rise up?"

"Have you ever been in the north?"

"No, I have not."

"Well, in the northern mountain ranges, snow packs on the mountain sides in tens of feet. Occasionally, some of the snow at the top of the mountain will fall off and head down the mountain slope. Then, as it's going down, it brings more snow with it and creating a massive avalanche."

"So what you're saying is that the slaves will rise up when they see others do the same."

"Exactly. A chain reaction."

Kephra shook his head, just finishing up pouring the molten metal into the ingot molds. "You're crazy. No slave would do such a thing." He went to one of the carts full of iron ore and took out a handful of large pieces. He placed them in the now empty crucible and grabbing a large pestle, began pounding the ore into smaller pieces, making it easier to melt

"And no slave would ever stand up to one of the guards, stopping from from brutally beating a slave. They did though "

Kephra paused, his hand just hovering over the crucible, recalling stopping the krookodile guard from whipping Micah. He sighed gustily. "Fine, I'll help, but only to keep you from getting in trouble."

Micah laughed, his arms now full of kindling and charcoal for the fire. "You know, the slaves look up to you, for standing up to the guard."

"I'm no hero."

"You might not think so, but some of the slaves are starting to stir and stand up for themselves. This might be easier than expected."

"I doubt it."

The process of the smelting is mostly accurate. Admittedly, it can be difficult to find a page with the medieval, older way of smelting, so some is made up. Perhaps if I get a chance to watch a smelter in action, then I'll redo that part of the chapter to be much more accurate.

Micah's name, like Kephra's also has some meaning behind it. Micah sounds like "mica", one of the minerals known as fool's gold. Since Micah is a goldsmith, this it very ironic. Also Micah's last name is "Aurum", which is Latin for gold and is why gold is listed as "Au" on the periodic table.