Athalia was running so fast she was practically flying. An excited burst of laughter was lost to the wind tearing past her face and through her hair.
She closed her eyes and leaped off the rim of the mine without breaking her smile or slowing down. As she fell through the air, she flipped onto her back to look up at the sky.
It looked different from before. The last time she was on the third stratum, this sky had been an unbroken sea of blue. Now, she could make out all sorts of fine details and ridges.
It's the change to my eyes, huh…
Seeing the sky like this wasn't that much of a surprise to Athalia. The texture of the sky had been confirmed and studied with the use of a telescope in a past Expedition. It was only that she could see it with her own eyes now.
…She didn't feel like thinking about the sky right now, or what might be above it. She turned her attention to the bottom of the mine, which was approaching closer as she whistled through the air. She could clearly see the bright yellow of heavy equipment. Her eyes locked onto a crane, which still had its arm extended.
She unwrapped the measuring anchor from her arm. It was a rugged measuring tape with a miniature boat's anchor on the end that becomes larger when spun quickly. The user holds the end of the measuring tape and flings the anchor toward an object. Once the anchor is in place, the device can either be used to swing or to pull the user on a fixed path towards their destination, alternating between modes with the press of a button.
Athalia flung the anchor, hooking it on the arm of the crane. She swung low over the mine and, at the peak of her arc, let go and backflipped onto the top of the crane. She unhooked the measuring anchor and wrapped it around her arm again.
She nimbly climbed down from the crane, finally feeling the crunch of gravel underfoot. She was surrounded by large yellow machines, still and silent. She had no idea what each of them did, and could only assume they were used for mining somehow.
The bottom of the mine was flat and circular, with tunnel entrances every so often along the side. Athalia noticed that the tunnel entrances weren't nearly large enough to accommodate the machines; they were closer to human size.
Do the big machines just dig out the pit, and most of the mining happens in those tunnels? Hmm… Since there doesn't seem to be much going on in this area, I probably have to go into a tunnel. But first, I can at least check out these machines up close.
She walked up to an excavator and put her hand on the metal mechanism that moved the tread. It still felt warm. She climbed up to the cabin and found that the door was unlocked. On the seat, there was a yellow hard hat with a headlamp attached. By the foot pedals, her sharpened eyes immediately noticed relatively fresh boot prints. She did her best to memorize the pattern.
She started to climb down, then stopped.
With a slight smile, she grabbed the hard hat and fit it over her auburn hair.
She sprinted a route between all the machines to make sure she hadn't missed a hidden area or any hidden people. All she found were more signs of recent use among the machines, and more helmets. She ripped the headlamps off a few more helmets and shoved them in her pockets.
A large crew of people was here recently.
It seems like Azarias has formed some kind of relationship with the Hymyläns, since they willingly overturned the title of game master to him. He must have convinced them to help him do all of this. After all, I can't see how he would have done this himself in such a short amount of time. It probably wasn't hard to convince them either; they take pride in the games they build and get immense joy out of them.
Are there going to be Hymyläns down in the mine?
One possibility is they were just here to dig and went back up to the village right after.
But that's wishful thinking, isn't it…
Athalia gazed into the darkness of the mineshaft entrance closest to her.
They all look the same, so it's pretty much a random choice.What more can I do but push forward?
She flicked the headlamp on and started down the tunnel. The gravel quickly turned to concrete. She looked overhead to see rows of unlit lightbulbs.
She didn't find a light switch, but she saw a rectangular outline on the wall. The hinge creaked as she flipped open the panel. Inside, she saw rows of switches with different colors. She wasn't sure which one she should flip.
I mean, I can't think of any lights that wouldn't be good to have on in a mine.
Athalia flipped all the switches. When she was halfway done, the lights directly overhead came on, but she kept flipping. When she was done, she leaned against the wall next to the breaker box to think for a moment.
Her spine hit a hard protruding object. She yelped in pain and confusion. When she turned around, there was nothing sticking out of the wall.
Huh? What happened?
She rubbed her back. She definitely hadn't imagined that pain, but the wall was completely smooth. How could it have produced that sharp sensation?
The nervous system can react in unexpected ways when you hit certain pressure points. Is that what happened? No, that felt way too real. I'm certain I hit an object…
Over and over, she ran her hand along the wall in disbelief. Right as she was about to chalk it up to her imagining things for the sake of making progress in the race, she had an idea.
She turned around and leaned against the wall again, more slowly than the first time. Her eyes flew open as her back hit something!
Continuing to face away from the wall, she reached a hand behind her and grabbed the object. It was a cold piece of metal. She felt it twist slightly as she grabbed on.
A doorknob?
She turned it with a click and felt the latch release.
She had an urge to open the door, but decided it was better to close it.
If this is a race—myself against Enza—then maybe that's a shortcut. It's tempting, but the nature of this door is too unsettling. It only exists while I'm facing the opposite direction… If the same logic applies to the passage behind it, what happens if I accidentally turn around while I'm inside? Would I simply blink out of existence?
This door also confirms the Hymylän villagers were involved. Of course there has to be magical bullshit like this…
She continued down the concrete floor of the mineshaft until it switched back to gravel. The surface began to slope down. She tried to move quietly; there's no reason to throw away the advantage of stealth, whether it ends up being necessary or not.
I imagine my destination is the bottom of the mine. Since I've already noticed my surroundings being unreliable, I should mark my path as I continue.
She continued down the passage as it got increasingly steeper, kicking the wall every so often to leave a crater.
Suddenly, she had stepped one foot over an endless cliff. She leaped backwards in fright, scrambling up the slope and breathing hard.
The tunnel was brightly lit; how did I not notice the drop? What's going on with me? I thought something might have been wrong when I tripped earlier… Is the head injury still affecting me?
Although she couldn't see the bottom of the cliff, it wasn't that far across. There was another ledge a short distance away, with a large biohazard sign printed on the cliff directly below it.
What is this? A hazardous trash chute? Was this meant as a trap, or is it part of the route? No, there's no way I'm going down there. My head feels so fuzzy… Maybe breathing in the fumes from the chute is why I feel so off right now. Anyway, there haven't been any branching paths besides the door I discovered by accident, so this has to be the right tunnel. If I'm not going into the pit, I'm going across it—and I can't waste time; Enza surely won't be lazy with her own tasks.
Athalia got a running start and jumped across the gap. Right as she hit the other side, there was a deafening mechanical roar from the endless void. Air rushed downward violently as a vacuum sucked her body backwards.
Before she even had the reflex to fight against the force, she was holding onto the ledge with only one hand, her body dangling over the abyss. Her nails bled, and her muscles screamed as they fought against the violent vacuum. The roar from below became even louder as the pressure increased. Athalia couldn't hold on anymore, and her fingers slipped from the ledge.
Time seemed to slow down. The roar of the vacuum turned to a deep grumbling. She partially unwrapped the portable anchor from her arm and whipped it over the ledge, locking it in place. She screamed as her body whipped against the wall and her shoulder was ripped from its socket. However, the anchor held against the violent force.
Seconds later, the vacuum stopped. Athalia painfully pulled herself onto the ledge and caught her breath.
Was there a motion sensor? I'd better keep going in case I've triggered some kind of alarm.
The tunnel ended abruptly right as she reached a comfortable distance from the pit. An air vent overhead caught her eye, as well as a wooden door to her left with a brass knob. There was a polished plaque fixed to the door that read:
M-4 Caretaker
Athalia glanced into the window and saw an office. She tried the door.
Locked…
She knelt down to examine the keyhole and removed two thin pieces of metal from her hair. Using the raking method, she picked the lock in a matter of seconds. She pulled out the tension wrench and the rake, and was about to put them away when her fingers touched the end of the tool that was inside the lock.
Ow, that's hot! What the hell?
She dropped both tools in surprise as her eyes locked on the doorknob.
It was beginning to glow bright red!
She analyzed the situation in a fraction of a second, then leaped up and punched through the grate on the vent, scrambling inside as fast as she could. The cold metal inside pressed against the blackened burns on her fingertips.
In an adrenaline-fueled rush, she made it almost 30 feet down the shaft in the blink of an eye.
She suddenly noticed something wrong; it was totally quiet.
Hold on, why isn't it exploding? I thought it was going to trigger a bomb!
She noticed something else wrong: her hands and knees were beginning to feel very warm as she crawled. The metal in the shaft was rapidly heating up.
It's connected to whatever is heating up the doorknob… Rigged with such advanced traps, for what? All because of a boring-looking office? How could it have detected that it was a lock pick, and not a normal key? No, perhaps the system detected my intrusion from the moment I tried the locked doorknob.
She continued scrambling through the vent.
Hold on, what is that up there?
Just for a moment, the headlamp illuminated a flash of red at the end of the tunnel.
Athalia struggled to reach into her pocket in the cramped space, but she managed to get out the blowgun and hold it to her lips. However, nothing was moving to attack her.
Her eyes focused on a glossy red surface at the end of the tunnel. It was raised a few inches above the vent. She could see it clearly, but couldn't tell what it was from this angle.
When she approached closer, she saw…
The top of a slide? A plastic slide, like the kind you'd see in a playground.