Swords, Sorcery, and Sex in the World of Greyhawk - Chapter 3 - Part 2

Chapter 3: Transformations - Part 2

"You stick with a partner. Copy him, listen to him. Got it? Wenzel'll take Piotr; Taman, Stefan."

"Um, what exactly are we digging for?" Peter ventured.

"You've never heard of Hestmark's Eversteel?" Casmir looked at him intently.

"This..." Peter waved his hands to indicate the rock around them.

"Are you slow, boy? Not the rock, the ore inside." Cheven and Taman laughed mockingly. Shaking his head, Casmir hefted his pick, chipping away a flat piece of stone. Picking it up, he called the rookies over.

"Quickly now, see that shiny part? That's what we're digging for."

Peter and Steve peered at the stone, seeing where a metallic patches reflected the greenish lichen-light. As they watched, the metal tarnished to gray and the light faded.

"Ye have to move quickly to spot the ore. If ye can knock off the rock around that nugget it might be worth something. The girls'll take care of the fine work, we're just pulling it out rough."

"What do you do with it?" Steve asked.

"Keeps steel shiny, it does. Mix good Hestmark eversteel into a sword blade and it'll never rust." Casmir said proudly. "Alchemists and wizards and the like come and buy it too. Never been too concerned about what they do with it, though." He shrugged.

"Wizards come down here to buy it?" The thought that the man who killed Robert might show up at any time made him stand up straighter.

"Nah. They're too high and mighty to come and buy it themselves. They send factors to buy it from us. When we get back to One-eye Cove, I'll take ye to the auction pit."

"You mean you'll let them lug the ore to the pit." Cheven muttered with a smirk.

Casmir let the comment slide without denying it, handing Steve and Peter picks and showing them the basics of hammering out rock.

They spent the day practicing under the sharp eyes of the other diggers, until Casmir was satisfied that at least they wouldn't hurt themselves the first day on the job.

---

"Can I talk to you two? Out there." When Casmir called for an end to the day's work, Steve softly called Erica and Ashley aside as the others settled around the hearthstone, lifting his chin to indicate they should join him in one of the side tunnels.

Ademic and Cheven made lewd guesses about what they needed privacy for, and the others laughed. When they were out of sight of camp, Ashley turned, hands on her hips.

"If you think..."

"Woah. We need to talk, that's all. Figure out what to do next." He reassured her.

"Alright, so talk." Erica said.

"I've started to gather information from Casmir. If we stay here for a while we'll eventually get things figured out, I bet."

"So what are we going to do? Spend the rest of our lives picking mushrooms and pounding rock while-?" Ashley asked with a scowl.

"Chromium." Steve interrupted.

"Huh?" Ashley's mouth twisted.

"Not rock, it's chromium. Well, chromite, I suppose. The stuff they put in iron to make stainless steel. I think."

"Whatever. So who gives a shit what they're digging?" What a dweeb, Erica thought.

"Look, Casmir says that wizards send purchasing agents to buy this rock."

"So?"

"So the people that brought us here are wizards. That's how we can contact them." Erica realized.

"Who the hell are you going to contact? That old man in white is dead, and the other one is trying to kill us, in case you forgot. We need to go home, not talk to someone who wants to kill us." Ashley said.

"I know, I know. But there must be others, don't you think?" Erica reasoned.

"Who may want to kill us too!" Ashley said angrily.

"So we just stay here picking mushrooms?" Erica reminded her.

"Fuck that! I start grad school at CalTech in the fall. I don't know about you, but I'm getting out of here." Ashley said, angry and uncertain at the same time.

"I want to go home as much as you do. But we don't know how, and we don't even know who to ask!" Erica continued, but Ashley refused to respond. She wanted Ashley on board with the plan. Having her support would make it easier to convince the others, and it would reduce her competition for the group's leadership.

"Here's the deal. We last out the season and go to this town of theirs. We don't tell anyone who we are or where we're from - change our hair, change clothes, and ask around about the wizards and what they're doing. Maybe we can find out who that white guy was and who his friends are. Maybe they can get us back. Just a season. We all have things to do back home."

"That's a lot of maybes." Steve pointed out.

"You have a better idea?"

"Not yet." He replied, resignedly, trudging back to camp. The others whistled at their return.

"They shot you down, huh? That's what you get for trying two at once. Ye got to pick your target, see?" Cheven slapped his back when Steve sat down.

"We..." Steve tried to reply, but got drowned out by the men's laughter.

"Don't kid yourself, Cheven. You wouldn't have a chance either." Erica said, raising her nose in the air, and the men laughed even harder. Score one for me, she thought.

Ashley didn't bother to respond, just stared at the cave floor glumly.

---

The girls passed another sleepless night, covering their ears at the cacophony of snoring and dripping water. From the sound of his snores, though, Peter managed to sleep well. The next morning, he and Wenzel were the first ones up. The older man knelt in front of the girls' lean-tos, telling them it was their time to prepare breakfast.

The girls had slept in clothes they'd borrowed from Casmir; apparently ones that had belonged to the dead diggers. They hung on Ashley and Mickey like tents, and they'd been forced to tie the waists double to keep them up. The necklines hung low on their chests, revealing more than Mickey felt comfortable; Ashley didn't bother, knowing her small breasts would be hard to see. The shirt fit better on Maria's chubby frame, but it hung loose off of Erica's breasts, accentuating their size. They still wore their only sets of underwear, knowing those wouldn't last long.

Steve fit easily into the dead diggers' clothes, meshing well with the dark-skinned folk. Peter, though, had trouble, because none of the clothes fit his massive body. The cave water chilled the air just enough that most of them needed a shirt, but Peter's layers of fat kept him warm without. He'd used Wenzel's knife to cut off his khaki pants below the knee, and wore only those; his belly hung down over the front of his pants, making Erica grimace.

When the girls finished making more dumplings for breakfast, Peter was first in line to eat, with Maria and Steve close behind. Mickey reached to ladle out his portion when Casmir's hand came down on top of hers.

"No. We do not break our fast until we have given thanks." He cautioned.

Peter's face fell as Mickey replaced the ladle. From his pack Casmir took a strip of white cloth, which he tied around his head, and a brown stole, trimmed in white. Throwing one end over his shoulder he reached under his shirt to pull out a silver chain. It held a fist-sized amulet, covered in brass and copper cloisonne work reminiscent of mountain peaks, topped with snowy caps of iridescent white opal. Pulling a gleaming hammer from his tent, he knelt against the cave wall.

While the six looked on, the diggers knelt in a circle around Casmir, who reached in his bag again for a pinkie-sized cone of what looked like brown ash, and placed it on the ground. Wenzel came last, bending slowly on creaking knees. Once he was in place, Casmir touched his fingertip to the cone. Bowing his head, he mumbled a prayer and the tip flared bright red, then settled to a glowing ember. The scent of sandalwood filled the cavern as Casmir's voice emerged from deep in his chest, chanting in thick, warm tones.

"O Lord Jascar, you who keep these hills in your care, hear our prayers."

"Oh that's just great. After all this shit, I'm stuck with a bunch of Bible-thumpers. What d'ya bet they're in-bred hillbillies, too." Ashley sneered.

"Hey!" Peter snapped, turning in anger.

"Shhh." Erica shushed them both.

As Casmir's voice trailed away, the other three chanted.

"O mighty protector of us who labor here below, Lord, you are our strength and our provider." Wenzel sang in a voice that sounded like the first bloom of manhood, enunciating the words in a clear tenor counterpoint to Casmir. The other two followed in his wake.

When they had finished, Casmir launched into song again, leading the others in devotion and response. The six stood silently while the diggers prayed, Peter and Maria bowing their heads while Ashley looked on scornfully. After they were done, Casmir stowed his vestments and they ate.

---

That became the rhythm of their lives. Prayer, breakfast, a full work-cycle of digging, gathering, cleaning, more cooking, more cleaning, then a rest period, only to wake and begin all over again in a world of unchanging green light.

Peter's fingers blistered the first day, and the blisters broke the next, leaving him to wrap them in rough cloth, that chafed and bit into the tender flesh. His arm muscles cramped, making even spooning stew into his mouth a difficult chore. On the other hand, it wasn't any worse than doing chores on his dad's farm.

To his delight, life underground agreed with his nose. Life on a farm can be rough for someone allergic to pollen and animal dander, and his nose ran constantly. Since the river had carried them underground, though, it was finally clearing up. While the others thought the fungus dumplings tasted bland, Peter was tasting food with his nose for the first time in his life, and he loved it.

He and Wenzel made a good team - the other man was old for a digger, and his strength was failing, but decades of experience told him where to find the biggest lodes of ore and how to carve them out. Under Wenzel's direction, Peter's muscles uncovered enough ore to allay Casmir's concerns about hiring rookies. Over the coming weeks the work grew even more comfortable and the other diggers accepted him as one of their own. His muscles firmed and his flab began to melt away with the constant exercise.

Where Peter fit in, Steve felt himself slipping away. Taman spoke little, preferring to work some distance away from the other diggers, and Steve dutifully followed him. His first long-cycle was a failure, and Casmir swore at he and Taman both. None of the other students spoke up in his defense, and each night he withdrew farther into his shell. Isolated from the others, with only Taman's mute back as company, he found solace in digging, in mindless hammering at the rock face.

Continued in 3: Transformations - Part 3

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