Chapter 167: Deep Underground
The chatter at the central table was a low, gravelly murmur, the words laced with a weariness that went bone-deep.
Daniel, hidden in his corner, focused his [Omniscient Insight], the voices of the seasoned miners becoming as clear as if they were sitting beside him.
"Told you, Grigor, we’re not going back down to the new shafts," a burly man with a magnificent, braided beard was saying, slamming his metal mug down on the table for emphasis.
"Not after what happened to Joric’s crew. They went in three days ago. Haven’t heard a peep since. It’s like the mountain just... swallowed them."
Another miner, a wiry woman with a nasty scar across her cheek, shuddered.
"It’s the ghost," she whispered, her voice tight with a superstitious fear that was very real.
"I’ve heard it myself. Late at night, when the drills go quiet. A wailing sound, like a woman crying her heart out rises up from the deepest tunnels. It’s an omen, I tell you. A bad one."
"Ghost my ass," a third miner, a cynical old man with a mechanical eye that whirred softly, grunted.
"It’s probably just the wind shrieking through a new crack.
What worries me is the ore. Or the lack of it. The shallow veins are tapped out. We’ve been pushing deeper, into the unstable zones, and for what? The returns are pathetic. And now people are disappearing. It ain’t worth the risk anymore. My team’s packing up, heading back to Riversouth for a while. Let the damn ghost have the mountain."
The others murmured their agreement. The consensus was clear, the Western Mine had become a deathtrap.