Chapter Forty-Four

Devona stared with all her warrior's focus at the delicate instrument in her hands, counting on Aidan to effectively lead her through the mine shaft while she waited for the pinging sound and flashing lights on the detection unit to indicate they were approaching an Agroium vein.

Of course, the signal couldn't be too strong; that would imply the vein was too rich, and therefore dangerous. Thus her intense focus… the line between a suitable and unsuitable ore was likely a thin one indeed.

However, in this case… the detector stood silent, as it had been for the last three tunnels she and Aidan had explored.

"Maybe it's broken?" She finally suggested, gently tapping the unit on her palm. It didn't rattle or make any sound that something was out of place.

"Or it could be that Agroium is as rare as Vekk and Coran suggested." Aidan offered far too rationally for Devona's tastes at that time. "Could you imagine what this world would be like if something as potentially destructive as this mineral supposedly is was marginally abundant?"

"I suppose…"

He stopped, pondering the fork in the tunnel, and which path might yield better results. He then felt Devona bump into him, nearly knocking his Forward Lighting Apparatus Shining Highly Linear Illumination Gradients to Help Travel from his hand (Aidan had begun to understand why the Asura got into the habit of using acronyms, merely informing their krewes of the equipment manifest of their tasks would wind up taking half the day otherwise).

"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention." She said with a hint of embarrassment that made her seem like she was a mere teenager again.

There was a time that such an action would have been unbearably adorable to the ranger, prompting a visit to his "personal water supply." But this time, to his surprise, he felt no such tug on his heart strings. Instead, he felt annoyed by his guild leader once again losing sight of the larger picture in her intense focus on a single detail and goal. It really was one of her most irritating traits, and a potentially dangerous flaw for a leader.

That observation startled him. The fact that he didn't see an enchanting mortal goddess, and instead simply saw a woman, his guild leader, astonished him for a moment. He had known of her shortcomings, of course, but now, he finally saw them as truly distasteful, and it was a bit of a shock.

Nonetheless, Aidan prided himself on being infinitely adaptable, and his reason once again did not fail him. He was not going to be like Yue; hopelessly attached to someone who really was simply another human being, and not something to be worshipped. Coran could have the girl; and may the gods grant him mercy.

"Aidan, are you all right?"

His vision centered from the space it had drifted off into and back on Devona. "Yes, my apologies; got a little lost in thought myself. I suppose the fork that goes further into the earth would be my best guess, so shall we proceed?"

Devona didn't even have time to agree before the muffled sounds of a particularly loud explosion rocked the tunnel, dropping smaller rocks and dust onto their heads. The pair looked at each other, and instantly had the same thought.

"Cynn." They said in unison, and took off at a sprint towards the segment of the mine she and Mhenlo had been assigned to survey.

* * * * *

Unlike Devona's detector, Mhenlo's device was pinging quite audibly, the display flashing several veins in the vicinity, most of them far too rich for safe extraction. Like Vekk had said, Mhenlo could feel the energy in the air radiating from the ore, which was another sign that what they had found wasn't usable.

Cynn however, was undaunted, enamored by the crystalline blue tinted silver color flecks that were present in the rocks, the hue Agroium took when in high enough concentrations. "So, this is stuff we're looking for, huh?"

"Well yes… and no." Mhenlo noted nervously as he heard the cheer in his wife's voice and the gleam in her eyes. "If I remember the lesson we were given correctly, the percentage of Agroium in these rocks is too high to mine safely."

"These little things?" She asked disbelievingly, pointing towards the end of the tunnel mere feet ahead. "How could they possibly be that dangerous? I think your little toy there is busted."

To be honest, Mhenlo didn't try more forcefully to stop her for two reasons. Firstly; he had to admit that he didn't see how such little things could be so dangerous either, and secondly; he honestly wanted to see if Cynn was actually going to do such menial labor.

With surprisingly no complaint as to the nature of the work she was about to perform, Cynn firmly gripped the mining pick that up to that point she could barely deign to hold up off the ground, and took a solid thwack at the compressed earth in front of her. It took a few more strikes to successfully dislodge a sizeable piece; and true to Vekk's lecture, some of the flecks ignited into small fingers of flame that burned out as quickly as they lit.

"See? Nothing big at all!" Cynn said encouragingly between grunts as she continued her picking. "Sometimes, I wonder if Vekk is overly cautious to make up for the complete abandon the rest of his kind possess."

Mhenlo wasn't quite as certain, especially as the detector in his hand started pinging with greater intensity, likely due to greater purity ore being exposed. "Cynn… perhaps you should…"

He was interrupted by a bellowing plume of flame that nearly caught Cynn directly in the face, and managed to singe the shoulder of her vest. Quickly patting the garment to make sure it wasn't ignited; Cynn peered more closely at the small hole she had scoured. "Ah yes… now I see."

"See what?"

"Much more Agroium in here." She noted calmly. "A vein of it, looks like… about a coin's width across."

"Well, then, perhaps we should load up what we have and look for another site." Mhenlo advised nervously. He didn't like it when Cynn sounded calm. It meant danger.

"No need for that." His wife said, hefting her pick and sizing up her next strike. "I can work around it. Imagine how Coran and Vekk would like samples they won't have to work as hard to get into proper form?"

"Cynn… that's probably not a good idea…"

"Rubbish!" She interrupted, judging the angle she'd need to take. "I have everything under control…"

Mhenlo barely had time to enclose the both of them in the strongest protective prayer he knew before Cynn brought the pick down with all her strength, and set off a violent explosion that engulfed them both in a flash of flame and smoke.

By the time Devona and Aidan arrived on the scene, the fire had died, and both heroes were trying to pull themselves off the ground, caked in ash and burnt residue. The prayers Mhenlo had made had saved their lives… but not much else.

"Dwayna answered my prayers this time… fortunate, because I acted out of instinct rather than beseech Kormir like rationality would have required." Mhenlo grumbled as Aidan helped him to his feet.

Cynn, due to her closer proximity to the blast, was in worse shape. Devona dropped to a kneeling position, and pulled the elementalist into her lap. Cynn's face was cut in several places, her clothing barely tatters. What little skin was visible underneath the blackened soot was bruised or bleeding.

"Cynn!" Devona ordered, brushing away crud from the woman's eyes, nose, and mouth. "Say something!"

The warrior was rewarded with a series of coughs, and a weak rasp from the elementalist. "We got Agro… ium."

Eve and Yue then arrived, their sack barely filled, suggesting they had precious little more luck than Devona and Aidan. Eve surveyed the scene, and sighed forlornly. "Curses. Everyone's alive."

"What was that racket?" Pyre's voice growled from the opposite junction that Devona and Aidan had arrived from. Unlike the rest of the team, his bag and Gwen's were nearly bulging with rocks. "If you six are done fooling around, the mouse and I have everything we need. Let's get out of this cramped mine."