[Lilleren]

  From the top of the knoll we could see the entire valley, which was completely surrounded by snow-capped mountains. The valley was mostly flat but did have a small river meandering through.

  “I see a road,” Jer said, pointing south.

  “Where?” I asked. “Oh, I see it now. It's not much of a road.”

  The road was so overgrown that I could barely see it. It looked like it wound down a canyon from the mountains and cut through our valley, then went back up into them again.

  “Do you think the merchants went that way?” I asked.

  “Probably."

  “Oh, look,” Jer said, looking west this time. “There's another cabin, or what's left of one.”

  I saw it after walking to the edge of the hill in that direction.

  “I wonder why the trees are dead?” I asked. There were fewer trees here and more than half of those were missing bark and no longer budding or green.

  “I don't know. Oh, there’s more old cabins down there.”

  “I see them. Maybe this used to be a small village?”

  “Yeah, it might have been,” Jer said. “Let's hike down and take a closer look.”

  This side of the knoll was much steeper and more rocky making it more treacherous. We had to climb between and around some very large boulders. We both scraped our hands and elbows several times. On some of the smaller ones I was able to practice using my gravity magic a little, to make the jumps down not hurt.

  After we had been climbing down for a while, Jer said, “I wonder why it’s harder going down than up?”

  I just shrugged and didn't say anything since I didn't want Jer to worry.

  After climbing around several big rocks near the bottom of the hill, I glanced back and gasped. “What's that?” I asked.

  Behind us was what looked like a dark cave, except that it had a large wooden frame around the opening.

  “That’s a mine entrance, I think, but I’ve never seen one before. It’s where they dig up minerals, like gold and silver.”

  “Can we go inside? Maybe we can find some gold too?”

  Jer hesitated, but I could tell he was considering it. “All right, but we shouldn’t go too far.”

  As we got near the dark entrance we felt a cool breeze coming out. But along with that was a strange smell, an unpleasant mixture of dampness, rot and something I couldn’t identify. The temperature inside the mine dropped quickly along with the light. The ground inside was slightly slick with mud and strewn with random piles of dirt, rocks and boulders, some of which were covered in something smelly and slimy. The walls were mostly rock but there were evenly spaced frames of wood holding the ceiling up. About 30 paces inside, the pathway, which had been mostly level at first, started descending.

  We paused, looking down into the dense darkness ahead.

  “Maybe we should turn around,” Jer suggested. “We won’t be able to see much more.”

  “Let’s try a little farther.” I had been looking around the ground and walls for anything interesting, but no luck so far. I was still holding out hope.

  He reluctantly agreed so we carefully started walking again, this time downward.

  “Look,” I said.

  It was very dark at this point, but I could barely make out where there was a fork with another tunnel going off to the right, with the main one continuing ahead. But when we got there, we could see no more.

  “That’s it,” Jer said. “Let’s turn around.”

  I agreed, but as we were walking out Jer suggested, “You know, Dad taught me how to make a torch.”

  “Yes, that’s a good idea. Then we can see where we are going.”

  “Okay, but before we do that I want to look around the village before it gets late, alright?”

  I quickly agreed so we climbed back out of the mine and continued down into the village. This time there was an overgrown path on a gentle slope we could follow. We noticed again how many of the trees around the knoll and in the village were dead and missing most or all of their bark.

  As we walked around the remains of the ancient village we discovered a few buildings which had been built with stone, that were partially intact, though all were missing their roofs. But of the rest which had been built of wood, there wasn’t much remaining. Overall, everything looked older than the wood remains we started with to build our new cabin. We even found an old well with what appeared to be water in the bottom, but there was no rope nor bucket to lower down.

  After looking around for a while we decided to head back so we would still have time to explore more of the mine before we needed to go back home. On the way Jer found a green tree with a couple of branches he could use for making torches.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Dad said they should be from a living tree, so the torch doesn’t burn down too quickly,” he said. “While I'm working on these, go collect a few dry pine cones. Oh, and we also need some dry wood so we can make a small campfire.”

  That was easy since there were many cones and pieces of dry wood nearby.

  He used his hatchet to cut the branches off the tree and then chopped them to a good length, a longer one for him and a shorter one for me. Once he had the branches cut, he used the hatchet and a rock to split the ends of each branch. Then he jammed a pine cone in the end of each, inside the split.

  “Okay, You carry the torches, and I will carry the wood back to the mine. We want to make the fire close by.”

  When we got to the mine, he got the fire going so we were able to light our cone torches. Then we headed back into the mine. It was easier this time, knowing what to expect, so it didn't take us long to get down to the fork in the tunnel. It was nice to be able to see what was around us. We first tried going forward on the main branch but discovered the ceiling had caved in part way down, making it impossible to go that way.

  Jer turned around to go back, but I noticed something blue that caught my eye.

  “Hey look at this.” I reached down and picked up a dark rock from the debris pile. It had blue specks and lines all over it. When I picked it up, the blue seemed to get even brighter, almost glowing.

  “Oh, that's interesting. Let me see it.”

  When I handed it to him, however, the blue specks which had been pretty bright, turned dark and almost disappeared.

  “Huh?” I said. “Where did the blue go?”

  “That was weird. When you gave it to me I felt something flow into my hand and up my arm. Here, take it back,” he said as he handed it back to me.

  When it was back in my hand, the blue slowly started to brighten up and then began to glow again. Then he took it back, and we watched the blue glow disappear again.

  “Huh. I think it may have something to do with our magical affinities. Since mine is null magic, it seems like the power flows out of the stone and into me. But yours is a normal affinity so the rock is somehow sensitive to that? I'm not sure, but we need to show Dad. Let’s look around and see if we can find any more of these.”

  It didn't take us long, looking around the huge pile of rocks from the collapsed ceiling, for us to find more, enough to weigh our packs down. We had to leave some bigger ones behind, though. Once we had plenty, we went back down the tunnel to the fork so we could explore the other side. At the intersection, my smaller torch was starting to burn down, so Jer took some time to replace my cone with another one and relight it with his.

  The other tunnel was narrower, but the smell was much stronger. We didn’t go far before we heard a faint noise. We stopped to listen, but didn’t hear it again, so we continued on, a little more quietly this time. The smell steadily grew worse, and I was starting to get worried.

  I was about to speak up when the tunnel went around a curve. Coming up to it Jer was ahead of me so I didn’t see anything at first, but he stopped and I almost ran into him. Looking down the tunnel I saw the reason why.

  There were several large insects ahead of us. They were mostly black but there were some red and yellow lines and splotches along their bodies. When I say large, they were about the height of a medium dog or small wolf, except they were triple the length. They had long gossamer wings, though mostly invisible in the darkness. They were moving forward towards us in short, fast spurts, clicking their mandibles and twitching their antennas. I could see at least three of them, but there could have been more.

  With a loud buzz, the two in front took off and flew straight toward Jer, but then there was a couple of pops and they both disappeared. I was still looking for them ahead, when I heard buzzing right behind me. Before I could turn around, however, I felt a searing pain in my back as one grabbed onto my shoulder and stung me. I screamed and fell, dropping my torch as my muscles contracted. As I hit the ground I felt another stabbing pain in my arm.

  [Finneren]

  “Go fetch my water skin,” Dad asked, so I ran to get it from where he had dropped it. I didn’t notice before, but he must have dropped it and his pack just before the wolf attacked. When I got back Dad was mostly finished wrapping his wounds, but it looked like some blood was still leaking out. He took a big drink from his skin, completely draining it.

  “I need to rest for a while. Be sure to wake me if anything happens, though.”

  I just wanted him to be alright. I was really worried about all of the blood. For the next hour I kept close watch over him and our surroundings, but the sun was starting to go down. The dead wolf was still close so I knew we needed to move away from it.

  I finally decided to see if I could wake him up, got close and said quietly, “Dad.” He jerked awake, looking wild for a second before he focused on me.

  “I’m awake,” he said, and started to get up. I could tell he was hurting, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped now. We slowly made our way back to our deer and sled. Together we moved the deer onto the sled, and he helped me tie it down.

  “I’m going to need you to push this,” he said. “But I will help as much as I can.”

  “Alright,” I agreed, even though I had no idea if I could do it.

  He showed me how to stand inside of the foremost bar, so I could push from there, rather than having to pull it. He grabbed on to the sled with his good arm and we began moving the deer. It was difficult even with my enhanced strength, but we were finally moving away from the battle scene. After another hour we arrived back at the field where I had first shot the deer. It was getting dark, but we filled up our water skins again from the springs.

  [Jerik]

  Fear gripped my gut when two of the large wasps disappeared. As they did, I felt a pulse of something similar to what I felt before when the kids in Hampston were doing magic. But I hadn’t tried to stop it this time.

  My blood turned to ice, however, when Lil screamed and collapsed behind me. I turned as I saw the two wasps were clinging to her, stinging her with their stingers.

  “Get away from her,” I yelled at them as I charged.

  I pulled out my hatchet which I had just put away after changing her torch. I quickly chopped at the one on her shoulder. I didn’t know how tough they were going to be, but the hatchet chopped into its head on the first try. Then I dispatched the other wasp the same way since it was still close by.

  There were more wasps coming but I needed to check on Lil. She wasn’t moving but it was too dark to see if she was breathing. Looking at her face, however, I could see her eyes had rolled up with only the whites showing. That scared me, but I could hear more wasps buzzing down the tunnel.

  So I stood up, spun around, and reached for my magic. I could feel it easily spread out wide around me, pulling at whatever other magic sources were near. I felt powerful, and I wasn’t going to let anything hurt either of us any more.

  The tunnel was narrow so only a couple wasps could attack at a time. I chopped into each wasp as I came near. Some took two or three chops before they stopped moving. They never could pop behind me, even though I could feel them trying over and over again. I’m sure they would have been much worse if they could use their magic or make mass attacks with their large stingers.

  Once no more were attacking, I turned around, carefully picked up Lil, and ran out of the mine as quickly as I could.