The march from the barracks to the mining site was a procession of ghosts. As Elian, Talin, and the others were driven toward the rear of the fortress, the stone opened up into a staggering, man-made abyss.
The Quarry of Sector Four was a jagged scar in the earth, a massive open pit that descended into a series of spiraling terraces. From the rim, the bottom was lost in a thick, swirling haze of grey dust and blue-tinted fog. The walls were honeycombed with dark, weeping tunnels—the entrances to the deeper Aether-veins. It looked like a giant, rotting tooth, and they were the parasites sent to pick it clean. Above them, the lavender sky was a distant, unreachable memory, framed by the jagged, obsidian teeth of the fortress walls.
"In the cage! Ten to a box!" the guards barked, shoving them toward a row of rusted, iron-mesh elevators.
Elian, Talin, Baraq, and Kaelen were forced into a cage with six other trembling slaves. With a jarring screech of gears, the floor dropped.
The descent was agonizingly slow. As they sank below the surface level, the biting, dry cold of the Iron-Thistle wind began to vanish. It was replaced by a creeping, humid heat that rose from the belly of the world. The air grew thick and tasted of copper. The only source of light was the Aether-Crystal Lamps mounted to the cage—glass jars filled with shards of low-grade crystal that cast a sickly, flickering cyan glow over the men's faces, making them look like corpses rising from the grave.
Finally, the cage hit the bottom with a bone-jarring thud.
"Out! To your stations! Section 4-B!"
They were led into a narrow tunnel where the walls bled moisture and the ceiling was so low that even Talin had to duck. Elian took his position against a wall of dull, grey rock. He gripped the Mana-Siphon pickaxe, its runes already beginning to hum against his palms.
He swung.
The moment the iron head struck the stone, Elian felt a sickening jolt. It wasn't just the vibration of the impact; it was a physical pull. The runes on the pickaxe flared a dim, hungry purple. He felt his heart skip a beat, a sudden wave of lethargy washing over him as if he had just run a mile in a single second. The tool was drinking from him, pulling the very calories and heat from his blood to power its cutting edge.
Clang. Clang.
To his left, an older man let out a ragged gasp. His face turned a waxen grey, his eyes rolling back as his grip on his pickaxe failed. He collapsed into the mud, his body shaking.
"Weakling," a guard growled, stepping over the fallen man. Without a second thought, the guard grabbed the man by his collar and began dragging him back toward the cages like a sack of refuse. Another slave, a boy not much older than Elian, fell minutes later, his breath coming in shallow hitches. They weren't taken to a doctor; they were cast out, left in a heap near the lift to be "processed" later.
"Don't look at them," Talin hissed, his pickaxe hitting the rock with a rhythmic, heavy thud. The Dwarf was sweating, his thick muscles bulging, but he held his ground. "Focus on your breath. If you watch the ones who fall, you'll be next."
Baraq was whimpering, his sensitive Wolf-kin ears twitching violently at the echoing clack-clack-clack of hundreds of tools hitting stone. "It's too loud," he whispered, his hands trembling. "The mountain... I can hear it moving."
"Shut up and swing, Baraq," Kaelen said, his voice cold and flat. The pale boy was moving with a strange, mechanical precision, his pickaxe hitting the same spot over and over. He didn't seem tired, but his eyes were wide and vacant. "If the guard hears you, he'll give you something else to cry about."
Elian gritted his teeth, his fingers blistering against the rough wood of the handle. His 12-year-old arms felt like lead, and his lungs burned from the dust. Every swing was a battle against the Siphon.
"Stay close," Elian panted, looking at his small crew. "We keep a rhythm. If one of us slows down, the others pick up the slack. We don't let the guards see anyone flagging."
Talin glanced at Elian, a flicker of something in his tired eyes. "The lad's right. Keep the rhythm. Don't let the iron drink too fast."
As they worked in the dim, blue-lit dark, the sounds of the mine became a suffocating heartbeat. Elian swung again, his vision blurring. He wasn't thinking about authorities or power—he was just trying to make sure his heart didn't stop before the next shift.