Achilles went up to the Warden and asked calmly, the way a diligent worker asks a foreman for permission to do more work.
"Would it be alright if I mine deeper? I can collect larger ore that way, meet my quota faster, and be more useful sooner."
The Warden looked at him for a long moment, its cold eyes weighing him the way it weighed everything, as a tool that might be worth a little more than it had first assumed. Then it smiled, and the smile had nothing kind in it, only the brutal satisfaction of something that had watched this exact eagerness before and knew where it usually led.
"Occasionally some good ones come over," it said. "Go. Do what you need to do."
...!
That was all Achilles had wanted. He turned and walked toward the nearest mountain, and his eyes, which he kept dull and tired for the Warden's benefit, brightened the moment his back was to the thing. Let it think eagerness would kill him. Eagerness had never killed him. It had only ever fed him!
