This chapter was not beta read, so please forgive any and all mistakes.
Red Stone
She had dark, dark hair that fell in limp, loose strands. Her head was bowed and her whole body was shrouded in black silk. The world was dark around her and tall, thin shapes moved restlessly, grabbing chunks of the world and ripping them up. They wandered aimlessly all over the bleak, black landscape.
She called to him. She would not look up. Something blood red glittered from her fingertips.
For a fleeting moment he thought he recognized her. He missed her, his soft, gentle shipmate.
Violet eyes opened behind her. Enormous. There was an inhuman rumble, like the roar of a lion, only bigger. They glowed in the pitch black, like liquid poison, like the violet haze of insanity.
Something crashed, and Simon cursed.
His bones sizzled electrically.
A rumble shook the world and every thing started to shake apart. He started to fall.
Lewis sat up in bed letting out a half squelched yelp. The room was dark, forebodingly so. The bed under him, a sturdy frame and woolly mattress, felt insubstantial. The whole world felt dull, lifeless, like there was no reality to it. As if at any moment it would crumble away. Fall like sand through fingers.
He ran his shaking fingers through his hair and shook his head, trying to clear it. The sent of wood smoke caught his attention and he looked up, his fingers tangled in brown strands above his right eye. Past Simon's empty bed he could see the row of furnaces glowing. Past them a mine had been started. He saw tools scattered about and dusty footprints leading in and out of it and to the row of furnaces.
Still dazed from the vivid dream he forced him self up and out of bed. Even standing and moving about in the waking world he could still feel the charge of energy that had raced through his bones.
He had no idea who the dark woman was, but he wanted it to be some one from his ship.
Grumbles and snarls floated up from the mine shaft.
"Simon?"
"Ah, ah Lewis!" Some thing slammed into some thing else and the sound of falling rocks echoed up. Moments latter dust erupted from the shaft. "I didn't wake you up did I?"
"No." Lewis backed away from the dust cloud and watched it settle. "I just. . ." He stopped and swallowed the rest of that sentence. His nightmares weren't some thing he was eager to talk about.
"What?" Simon called up. "Sorry, I have an ore wedged in my ear!"
Lewis smiled a little. "How did that happen?"
"What? I can't..." More clattering sounds echoed up. "I can't here you!"
He shook his head and started to descend the stairs. The strong broad steps were straight as an arrow and marched down with almost mechanical precession. They were dark, however, and getting darker as he went down. He suppressed a shudder and forced him self to keep going. Once he hit the lowest step he spotted Simon only a short ways away, pick in one hand, a loaf of bread in another.
"Hello!" He waved with the bread, took a bite, then swung the pick ax haphazardly towards the stone wall.
"What are you doing?" Lewis asked.
Simon chewed for a moment, then waved the bread around. "Stuff." He looked a lot better than he had when they'd come off the steps.
Lewis looked the newly carved cavern over. "I can see that." Most of it was neatly done, but just as much was smashed and shattered with our any straight edging or detail at all. "It looks crooked down here."
Simon set the pick down and shrugged. "Yeah so?"
Lewis turned and looked him over to see if he was teasing or not. He looked rather blasé at the moment. "That fuss you made on the stairs... I thought you'd want every thing, I don't know, ruler straight or some thing."
"This is a hole, Lewis." He took another bite of bread.
Lewis rubbed at his temple. It was a hole. A large, dark one at that. "But. . ." Nothing was making sense any more. "Why are you down here digging?"
Simon just chewed and stared at him, one fuzzy brow snapping up towards the rim of his helmet.
"Dwarf." Lewis said. "Right." he shook his head. "But all that talk about energy and sounds and stuff and then you make this... mess." he waved his hand around.
Simon picked up his pick again and swung it around lazily, pointing around the hole he had made. "Energy doesn't really matter in air, Lewis, it matters in the structures in the air. Every thing solid, but sand and gravel, has a little energy in it. If the rock was here then it's got it's energy going the natural way already. Making a hole in it isn't going to change that, just reduce the energy a bit. It's only when you build some thing with solid stuff does the energy twist and change."
"So..." Lewis started, but his brain wouldn't latch on to any of that. "So..." He tried any way.
"You made a crooked roof." Simon said past another bite. "The world made this. It's how it's built, not out of what, or where, that matters." He crammed the last of the bread in his mouth, dusted his hands off, and pulled some stone from his inventory. "You remember when we built the shelter and the wood just snapped in to place?" He set the cracked bit of cobble down, then set more on top of it. "Every thing does that. If it lines up the right way, it flows." He started to press chunks of stone to the pillars side and they held on. "If you jam them in all Willy-nilly the energy will go all crazy on you. But if you poke a hole in it the way they are all lined up says the same. No energy difference."
Like a jigsaw puzzle then, where the little pieces had to be snapped together. Lewis nodded slowly, absorbing the information. "I think I get it." He looked around. "But is rather dark in here. Won't monsters show up? Don't they like the dark?" He suppressed another shudder.
Simon turned about. "Hm." He nodded. "Might. I ran out of torches. Here," he tossed some coal over, "go make a bunch of em' and light the place up!"
Lewis caught most of the flying black chunks, but some slammed in to him and exploded in thick clouds of dark dust. He coughed. "Can't you hand stuff to me like a normal person?"
"Nah, tossing my chunks are more fun!" Simon grinned and started for the stairs. "There is wood in a chest some where around here."
"Where are you going?" Lewis fumbled with his hand full until he could shove it into his almost full inventory.
"Food! All of this work is making me hungry!"
Lewis started at the back of the ascending dwarf. "But you just ate an entire loaf of bread!"
"Snack!" Simon called back. "And my ore is almost smelted! I'm going to make a better pick!"
Lewis sighed, dusted him self off, then set out to find the chest. Torches, he had enough coal to make dozens of them. He glared in to the dark, defiantly. He'd light the whole hole!
Because if he didn't he was afraid his dreams might become real.
The ore was done and in a few moments Simon had a whole new set of tools. The new pick felt good in his hands, strong, and ready. The ax and hoe also felt good, but they didn't really speak to him like the pick. The shovel stood slender and eager in his other hand.
"I could take the whole mountain apart with these." He said to him self, satisfied. The joy only lasted a moment though, because he knew if Lewis did get home he would be taking a mountain's worth apart. The tower was ugly, and the world creaked in unpleasant ways around it.
Any dwarf, or elf for that matter, within a hundred paces would feel it. It was like a beacon, calling out to any one. Some who might find it would not be as understanding toward Lewis' plight as the man deserved. All they'd want was what ever they could gain from raiding the camp. Some horrible creatures wouldn't even be understanding towards the cow.
Simon glanced out the window at the thought of her. It was dark, but not so much so that he couldn't see some thing if it came for him. He was eager to see the little calf, as he rather liked animals, especially the babies, but he was just as eager to make sure the mama was OK.
He quickly tossed him self together a sword, just in case, and then headed out. The sky was amazingly clear, and filled with soft twinkling stars. The moon gave him half a face, and winked at him. He was so absorbed in the glitter of the night that he nearly walked in to a tree. The branches warned him, and he stopped with his beard only an inch away from bark. He chuckled at him self, and glanced around.
No monsters tonight. At least not any in the aria. One dark shape was moving slowly around near the shuttle, but it was far to big to be the undead, and far to tall to be a spider.
"Hey cow." Simon called softly. He started walking towards her. She was clearly still pregnant, but didn't seem to bothered by the fact. As she was slowly grazing her ears were gently twisting in all directions.
Simon reached in to his inventory and pulled an apple out. "Hey girl."
She lifted her head, spotted the treat, and waddled over to meet him. "Moo?" She sniffed hopefully.
"Yep. It's for you." He held it up and watched with satisfaction as she snatched it gently from his hand. Not so gently she crunched it down in an instant. "Don't take too long with that lil baby of yours." He patted her neck. "I want to see it soon."
She huffed, and to Simon it sounded like an agreement.
"Simon, who are you talking to?" Lewis asked, his voice drifting up from the communicator.
"The cow."
There was a moment of silence. "Did she get in again? She's too big! Did she have the baby?"
"No, I'm out side with her."
She turned away and huffed again. Her ears flattened back and she closed her eyes.
"No baby yet." Simon sighed. "She's working on it though."
"Awe, poor cow."
She cracked one eye open and grunted. It sounded like another agreement. Then she relaxed and walked back towards the shuttle. There she lowered her self down into the grass and started to chew her cud.
"She's still eating." Simon noted. He turned back towards the cave-house.
"She is a cow." Lewis mumbled, distracted sounding.
"Lets not be calling names here." Simon teased.
"Names." Lewis hummed. "She needs a name."
Simon stepped in through the door, then closed it tight. "What? Name the cow?"
"Yep."
Simon kicked one of the chests open and emptied his inventory into it. He had gathered quite the collection of stone. He decided to smelt it in the morning. "OK, naming the sun is crazy, but naming a cow?"
"Do dwarfs name anything?" Lewis asked, a little surprised sounding.
"Our tools. And mounts." He thought for a moment. "Sometimes dogs. But only crazy people name cows."
"She's a pet." Lewis argued. "A pet. A pet cow. You name pets."
"A... Pet?" Simon tried the word out, not sure if he had heard Lewis right, or if the translator was failing him. He closed the chest and walked up to the new mine entrance. "Pet..."
"Haven't you ever had a pet?" Lewis asked. "Do dwarfs have pets?"
"I don't know what you are talking about." Simon admitted.
"Oh." There was a short laugh, then Lewis cleared his throat. "Pet. A domesticated animal kept for pleasure rather than utility."
"You sound like you are reading that from some dusty old book." Simon started down the steps and noticed right away that there were several torches strewn about. There wasn't any rhyme or reason to them, but there were an awful lot of them.
"I am."
"Oh, your computer?" Simon asked.
"Yeah. It also says a pet can be a pampered and usually spoiled child, or a a person who is treated with unusual kindness or consideration."
Simon stopped mid stride at the last part. "Wait, you keep each other as pets?"
Lewis laughed. "No? I don't. I think... I think that's a very old definition. No we don't keep people as pets. I don't know, maybe..." He though for a moment. "Maybe you can think of a girl friend as a pet?"
"I'd like you to suggest that to some poor woman, Lewis." Simon grinned. "Or try to tell other people about it. 'Hi, this is my pet cow, who I have named, and this is my pet girl friend, she already had a name when I found her'."
Lewis laughed out loud at that. "Oh, I'd have my head served on a silver charger for that, wouldn't I?"
"And right fully so." Simon made it to the bottom of the stairs and looked around.
The cavern that had been so hastily carved out, and tossed together, was filled with light. Torches glowed from every part of the sprawling cave, spanning overhead like stars. Simon looked every where, trying to take them all in, trying in vain to make sense of the pattern. There was none, it was a sky under the stone. A heaven carved from granite. "Whoa."
"What?" Lewis asked, his voice coming from a distant part of the cave.
"You really lit the place up!" Simon turned about again, truly amazed at the sheer number of them. "Where did you get them all? Did you use all of the coal I gave you?"
"Mm, yeah, it was too dark." Lewis said. "Oh!" His voice echoed a little. "I found red stuff. Simon, what is this? It's glowing."
"Redstone." Simon peered around a corner. More torches. It almost looked festive. When grand dwarfen holy days came caverns were lit up like the surface at day time and colors were tossed up every where. Simon could almost see the dyed wool sheets draped along the walls, if he only squinted.
"Why does it glow?" There was a moment of silence, then in a lower tone he asked, "Why does it look like blood?"
"What?" Simon snapped out of his amazement and followed the winding hall. At the end of it another cavern opened up, and like wise was filled with constellations of torches. Sitting in the middle of the floor, looking disheveled and a little cold, Lewis was turning a chunk of redstone over and over in his hands.
"Oh, I must have dropped that when I mined it."
Lewis looked up, a thin frown forming. "What is it?" His brows knit.
"Redstone." Simon answered again. "Why? Don't you have redstone where you are from?"
Lewis looked back at it and stared, silently, for several moments. "No." He rolled it over in his hands, looking a little disgusted. "It's strange, it's like it has energy or something. I feel it."
"Yeah, it does." Simon sat down next to him. "You can make all sorts of stuff with it!"
A much deeper frown appeared and he looked up at Simon, "Like what?"
He could feel the static charge zipping over his skin as he held the odd red substance. It was like very dry dough, almost. If you squeezed it it kept it's shape, but if you crumbled it it turned back into dust.
"I don't know." Simon said, answering his question. "Complicated machines and things. I'm not good with it my self."
"Machines?" Lewis dug in his pocket and pulled out his scanner. To his amazement he got a reeding. The latent charge in the redstone was incredible. It seemed to be feeding off of the energy inherent in the world and amplifying it.
He couldn't be sure but he suspected that this was the key to the whole mystery. He turned to Simon and held it up. "Why?" He was trapped, and if this substance was bountiful then the tower may never be large enough to get through. "Why didn't you tell me about this?!" This blood red material could seal him here forever. The realization nettled, and he glared. "Simon!"
Simon leaned back, a little put out. "I didn't think it was important." He replied. "It's just redstone."
Lewis stood and tossed the red stuff down at the short native. "I could be trapped here forever. It IS important! This stuff, this..." He lifted his hand and saw that it was covered in blood red that glittered all over his finger tips. "This is what killed the crew on that shuttle. This is what scrambled the navigation system!" He heaved a breath.
Simon was silent.
Lewis looked down. The dwarf next to him had his head bowed. He was toying with the redstone absentmindedly. "Simon..." He held back the rest of what ever he was going to say, because he wasn't sure it would be of any use. Starship Commanders can't accomplish their objectives if they succumb to every emotion they felt. He swallowed his anger as best he could.
"I really don't know any thing about it, other than I have to go really deep to find it." Simon glanced up once, bristling just a little. "It's in the same layer as Diamonds. I didn't find any of them, though." He frowned, clearly troubled, guilty looking. "I don't know how it could have done that to your ship!"
Lewis reached up to run his hands through his hair, aborted the move, and turned away. He took a slow breath and looked down at his coated fingers again. "You just don't get it. I'm not from here I don't belong here and I don't understand this world. You can't keep things like this from me." He glanced back.
Simon was curling in on him self, his hands working the red substance over slowly. His eyes were hidden by a tangle of red hair.
"Is there any thing else you can think of, any thing at all, that has power? Any thing?" Lewis asked, just nearly growling.
Simon shook his head a little. "No."
Lewis knelt in front of the red headed, dirty dwarf, and glared. "I want to go home, Simon. If this is what's jamming the signal then..." His throat closed before he could finish the sentence.
Trapped. He'd never see his people again and that.. that thing that had beamed on board would take his place.
"Then... then we'll find away to unjam it, or something." Simon finished with the stuff, and held it out. "Wire." He looked up. "And a red stone torch." He offered them over. "I don't know what to do with them, but this is the basics. Here."
Lewis reluctantly took them. The wire felt very solid and sturdy. He tried to crumble it, but it held, like any metal.
"It has to be worked, and nudged with your own energy, but it can make machines."
Lewis stared at the objects in his hand, and then sighed. This wasn't enough to do any thing with. This would never be enough to get him home.
"I'll mine more." Simon stood, dusted his hands off, then turned away.
Lewis watched him go. The anger was fading, being slowly replaced by a deep foreboding.
The night passed out side of the mine, but Simon was still deeply entrenched in the dark for an hour or better after the sun had risen. Once he did ascend to the over world his inventory was full to bursting.
"Lewis?"
There was no answer. He didn't blame the man, Lewis had been upset about the redstone. Simon hadn't meant to forget it, and he knew Lewis knew that, but that didn't make what had happened to the other four humans any better.
Simon trudged up to the furnaces and dumped in as much stone to smelt as he could fit, then tossed in some coal. Satisfied with his haul he dusted his hands off and poked around the cave for his taller, human friend. A part of him didn't really want to find Lewis just now. He didn't like having Lewis loom over him and glare at him from under dark bangs. Simon was content to let Lewis cool down and come back on his own because they were connected. If Lewis needed him, or if he needed Lewis, then they could call for help with the com badges.
Simon stroked his com, thinking of how special it really was, then heard a chirp from Lewis' bed. He trotted over to investigate and saw Lewis' com was sitting on the blanket. He scooped it up and held it for a long moment, torn.
It wasn't so far from Dawn that stray zombies or archers had all burned yet, and danger could still lurk in the dark places. Lewis was still new to the land, and no matter how much experience or training he had gotten before coming here, he still wasn't ready for this world yet. He wanted privacy, which Simon was more than willing to give him, but not at the expense of getting killed.
Simon clutched the communicator and turned towards the door, mind made up. Snapping the door open he scanned for any trace of Lewis, and saw a shimmer of an aura not to far away. Quietly he made his way over the grass and came up next to the taller being.
Lewis was still, and his gaze was fixed on something in the distance. He still looked a little troubled, but not angry any more.
"Here, you really shouldn't be out here with out this." Simon held the badge up.
Lewis glanced down, took it, and pinned it back to his chest. "I didn't actually intend to come out this far." His gaze returned to what he'd been staring at. "Thanks." His hand stayed on the comm badge, fiddeling.
Simon stood on his tip toes, and tried to see what Lewis was looking at. He saw the cow, all black and white and eating, but near her was a smaller, black and white creature.
The comm Badge chirped a few times. "Come on, turn all the way on." Lewis grumbled.
Simon's eyes widened. It was the calf. He forgot in an instant all of the troubles and worry from the last few days. It was too, too cute. He felt giddy excitement bubble up, and before he could stop him self, and just as Lewis managed to fully activate his comm badge, Simon let out a cry of pure joy.
The sound caught between the two badges and screeched to life in a horrific feedback loop. Lewis screamed and jumped back to try and create distance, tripped, and crashed backwards to the ground.
"SIMON!"
He couldn't help it, he laughed.
Lewis grabbed a hand full of grass and tossed it at him.