Chapter 73: Arise Sand Worm
Mitus mined away at ore in the wall, his ankylosaur trailing behind him. There was a particularly large rock that needed broken, and he pointed at the wall before stepping away. "Right there, girl."
The anky trotted up to it and readied a strike. The bulbous tail struck hard against the rock face, shaking the cave in its entirety. Luckily for the workers, this happened every day, and they reinforced most of the structure with magic to prevent collapsing.
Piece of rock and mineral fell away from the ground into a pile, and the anky struck again. However, this time, the rock fell in the opposite direction. The wall collapsed into a new tunnel.
Mitus's eyes widened, and he gripped his pickaxe. "Hey, girl, that's enough. Step back."
The decade old dinosaur snorted before stepping away from the hole.
"Good girl," Mitus said. He patted the dinosaur's head, running his gloved fingers around her tough scales. The dinosaur leaned into his pats, and he pulled out a piece of fruit from his waistband. He smiled and handed it to her, watching her chew it with her beak. "Don't follow after me right away. I will see what this cave is about, and then call you if it's okay."
The ankylosaur continued chewing her fruit and let out a low groan of acknowledgment.
Mitus marched into the dark cave bravely. He reached for his waistband of tools again, and this time he pulled out a small white orb. Channeling a little bit of magic into the thing made it light up the walls in white light. The surroundings became visible, and he noticed the distinct difference right away.
The walls here were more brittle and sandy, but they were held up by a force. A thin film of blue slime coated the wall and continued down into the ground. Mitus swallowed and ran his fingers against the coating. Blue dripped from his hand as slow as a glob of honey.
He reached it towards his mouth and licked it with the tip of his tongue. A slightly sweet and sour taste spread along the inside of his mouth, and he puckered his lips. The sour after taste was pungent but not entirely unpleasant.
A feeling of weariness descended into Mitus's gut. It was like a pit of mined rocks settling into his stomach, and he began to recall a memory.
It was when Mitus was young. He'd visited the city's mining museum where records have been kept for millennia. There was an old book in that place which described the old sandworms that had once been plentiful in the desert and especially the dunes to the south.
Mitus had assumed they were gone, but the text described the taste of their magic. It was a spell, more like a secretion from their bodies, that hardened the walls over time. It reinforced their tunnels, while not being poisonous at all. In fact, there'd once been trade regarding the slime, and there were still preserved specimens around the world.
It was like a tradition for some people. They'd pop open an expensive jar of old worm slime and pass it around the table during a celebration. Some of the stuff had gone for thousands in recent auctions with it becoming rarer and rarer over time.
Mitus clenched his teeth. Normally something like this could be a good omen. Finding such a thing in a cave would make anyone happy. They'd be able to live off the sale for the rest of their life, yet the freshness of this goop was unparalleled. The only way it could have survived this fresh would have been it getting trapped in a natural preservative or a preserving spell.
Since neither of those were true, Mitus swallowed and walked down further with his little white light.
The slope gradually got steeper and steeper with each step, and further down in the cave, he could hear a strange howling mixed with a grinding sound. I definitely need to go back and warn all of those other miners. It looks like we have a big problem on our hands.
He turned around, but his foot slipped on a piece of gooey rock. The dwarf reached for the ground, but he slipped further down. He kept falling and tumbling until the cave grew too steep to climb. With a grumble, her barely managed to grab onto a piece of hard rock sticking out of the ground.
Mitus whistled for his ankylosaur, but as he did so, the rock cracked from his weight. He realized in horror that his pickaxe had fallen further down as he tried to search for it. Even the light tumbled out of his hands and slipped into the vertical cave shaft. Rumbling of earth sounded below him, and the rock he was hanging from shattered into pieces.
He heard the groan of his ankylosaur above as he fell straight down. Mitus reached for his waistband again, finding a piece of long rope attached to a climbing pick, exactly for this situation.
Mitus threw it against the wall, yet it wouldn't catch. Only the goop slowed his fall. The wall had become hardened by worm magic and unable to be broken by the piece of metal, yet the gooey substance made his fall slower, igniting some amount of hope that he'd survive the fall.
He descended down into a shadowy abyss. Though, the further he got down, the more light he saw. He was reaching the end of the fall, and his little white light shone at the bottom of the trench. The dwarven man landed into a large puddle of blue goo right next to his pickaxe and light.
Luckily for him, the slower descent only made it a little painful. It was far preferable than breaking any bones, yet unluckily for him, his eyes caught sight of a massive brown figure.
One large eye at the center of its head opened up, and it gazed down at him. The creature's mouth opened loudly, and he saw hundreds of teeth, shining against a blue lit throat.
The substance was luminescent in the creature's body, answering a question that many who'd never seen the worm had asked before. However, Mitus wasn't concerned with such questions. He tried to calm his breathing as it stared down at him, and he gripped his pickaxe tightly in his hands.
He looked up towards where he fell, deciding that climbing back up was an impossibility. The only thing he could do was wait, but the ground rumbled again. The creature lurched forwards with its long body.