The Crystal Mines

10 Faolan

I took a piss, ignoring the people of the prison around me using the utilities before the mining shift. Today, Nik and her cellmate, Troll, as Trife likes to call him, would be finally returning to the mines. I doubted that was the Fae's name, but the sprite won't use anything else. So much so, that he argued incessantly with Sorin about it, refusing to cough up his real name. Not to mention, we have no idea what 'Troll' means. I shook off my dick and joined the ranks lining up to head to the mines.

Everything hinged on today. We had been planning for the past five days and it had to be flawless. Troll had told Nik that the plan will work based on some sort of information he knew of the place. The four of us were trusting each other blindly. I felt Sorin behind me shift as we walked to our usual place in the mines. We still hadn't gotten the full vein we had discovered a week ago, mining only what was required, give or take a couple of pounds. As we passed the center of the courtyard, Nik and her companion could be seen being escorted to their normal area. They had noticeably looked better than they should have coming from solitary and being half starved. Their backs were completely healed, and their wrists even looked better than the typical prisoner. Trife had been busy with his magical spit. He had helped Sorin and I as well, but we weren't as obvious. Nik flipped me off behind her back and I smiled at her spirit. Next to me, Sorin shook his head.

"That girl is something else," he whispered as we entered our tunnel.

The smile on my face could be heard when I spoke, "You have no idea."

After grabbing our pickaxes, Sorin scoped out the distance between us and the guards at the front of the tunnel. Nodding, we got to work. The guards needed to stay where they were, so we had to mine quickly and with finesse as to not raise any awareness. Trife appeared in front of us holding a crystal swirling with magic. Nik and Troll had been busy. The sprite landed on top of Sorin's head while he continued mining, earning a scowl from him. Trife just picked his nose. Nasty little creature. I searched the crystal with my weakened magic system. Finding the center of the source, I began to pull the power out. The magic was shining and raw, clinging to the heart of the stone. It wasn't going fast enough. I looked to a worried Sorin and changed tactics. I reached towards the center of the stone, thinking of the love I felt for Evander and caressed the magic. It searched me out this time, wrapping around my arm and allowed me to guide it to the pool of Aether Nik had told me about. I shivered with a cold sweat from the sudden influx of magic. Nik truly had no idea how powerful she was. And to think, this was only a fraction of her magic. Trifles really. I let the magic go, saving the rest for Sorin.

Trife noticed when I had finished and tapped Sorin on the head. He shooed him away like a gnat in the summer and the sprite flew to sit on my head, burying his long toes into my hair. This creature was going to have to learn some boundaries. I lifted my axe and watched Soirn's rhythm, trying to match it seamlessly. He lifted his axe, and I struck, one handed as he took the crystal from me. Sorin seemed to fight getting to the magic the same as I did. Wasting precious minutes. His eyes glowed orange, as he retrieved the rest of the stored magic, and I relaxed a little. When his eyes returned to their normal sepia-brown, he picked up his axe again and found my rhythm. Trife snatched the empty crystal and disappeared.

"Holy shit," Sorin breathed between swings.

"Yeah. And that's only a drop of her power."

In answer, he shook his head. Together, we swung rapidly at the rock above and below the massive vein we had found. We had only ten hours at most to take the vein down. The trick would be doing so in one piece.