It’s all a game! Profit to be made! Resources to be depleted.
A pit plummeting directly to the planet's core is discovered, and everyone is terrified of it.
A lunatic ventures forth and discovers veins of gold, and everyone is throwing themselves in!
One decade. That’s all it took! From moving the first boulder, to building kilometres worth of infrastructure. Thousands of kilometres worth of pulleys, lifts, vents, cables and rails laid down. A whole continent’s worth of gold was sucked off of the entrails of the planet without a second thought.
Both men of science and men of magic warned, no, begged! Begged them to stop and think! There was no care for radiation, gases, tremors or curses. All of those are factors to consider, and all of those were ignored.
The death toll was in the thousands. Gold came out covered in as much rock as it did blood. It only mattered that the power it bought in the surface was enough to buy more souls to throw in the Pit, and the Pit was never sated. The magic imbued in the gold made it all the more worth it, feeding the magical prowess of those wielding it. This single discovery turned the world inside out, made us all feral.
Soon it all dried up. Thousands of miners and they couldn’t get an ounce of the metal out between them. And so, as fast as it started, it ended.
Two years later and some crews are still blasting through the cavernous depths hoping there’s more ore to mine. The rock is ferrous and hard to penetrate, so specialized materials are needed, imbued with magic and enriched with gold, drills, thermite and dynamite are eating through the reserves of gold already mined. A dire situation where it not for a new discovery. Embedded in the rock there was… a Gate.
Clerin was the man in charge of the team who discovered it, and so it would be up to him to bring the exciting news back to the surface. A finding like this feels like vindication for the all the money spent looking for more resources, there is something more down there!
As news spread on the surface, people started scrambling to get ready for a new rush into the Pit, and with tons of supplies and motivation they descend onto the abyss once again.
As they arrive at the bottom, Clerin could barely recognize the place he left not long ago. The walls of the mine shafts are now covered with streaks of crimson. The bodies of his colleagues and friends butchered, burnt and crushed. And the gate they had found. Open.
Once again, people are terrified of the pit. Some think we’ve disturbed ancient entities, others think we’ve opened the actual gates of hell. Men of science and men of magic all agree, we must be cautious.
And now, now that everyone else has left, the lunatics venture forth again.
Descent.
“I’m proud of you for doing this! You’re every bit the man I hoped you’d become.” - says Alph
“Father, I’d rather you just swear at me! Always thought I’d enjoy hearing you say that, but now it just sounds like you’re saying goodbye.”
“Well, in some ways…”
“I said I’d sort you out. I have to go though. Don’t die on me!”
“Sure buddy!” said Alph weakly, “I’ll hang around a bit more”
Bryan gets up to leave, but notices the pot of cactus jell-o on the tray.
“Can I?”
“And there go the last two things I cared about in the world together, all at once” chuckled Alph.
When the pit was first discovered, Bryan was still a young boy. His father, having never been a sensible man, was more drawn to adventure than to family. He jumped head first with the original party that explored the Pit. After, while others were getting fat on profit, he was getting ravaged my cancerous masses.
Over a decade worth of pain, slowly eating away at him. The original explorers lacked proper protection and got exposed to all the caustic fumes and radiation.
Investors thought he’d be the man for the job again, but he is in no condition. But it was a perfect opportunity, Bryan had the know-how and needed the money, and so it took very little convincing.
Bryan arrives to the Pit’s descent port. A group of men is busy going up and down hauling stretchers with white cadaver bags, there’s easily a hundred of them lined up already waiting for transfer. An ominous reception.
He looks at the eye of the pit for the first time with his own eyes. When first discovered it was no wider than five paces, it has now been unnaturally gauged into a man made crater, full of wooden scaffolding, and makeshift buildings. A fowl sulphuric smell emanates from the throat of the Pit.
Signs prohibiting fire and flame magic are everywhere. A team of gas-masked officials usher him through the port and to the lift house.
“Bryan! Welcome!” said a short haired man as soon as he crossed the double doors.
“I’m Kin-Jane” they shake hands and start walking further into the building, “I’m the man with the supplies. You have a list for me?”
Bryan hands him a note with the materials, something he put together with his father before leaving.
“This is going to take a while. Why don’t you go over to the room down the corridor on the right, Lee and the other guy are already there”
He knew there were others joining him. Two of them are Magi-Army soldiers, and the other one was Pujo, Dalion’s brother, who was one of the original divers.
They are laughing loudly as Bryan walks in.
“… then he ran out with his undies around is ankles, tripped and cried out! WHY IS MY ASSHOLE BURNING!!”
They are both tearing up with laughter! It took them almost a minute to recover.
“Another dead man appears!” Pujo says as he introduces himself and then Lee, who’s one of the soldiers. Short hairy man, with a deadly firm grip. They spend an hour or so bonding and eating goop-cheese before the last member joins them.
As soon as he enters the room, Lee tenses up. A fully geared Magy-Army officer walks in! Golden chest of armour and plated vambraces, he stood a head taller than any of them. Long robes, draping from under the armour plate, scarlet and embroidered with gold motifs. His bandolier fully stocked with Oros potions, and enhancing vials. And two weapons, a white blade and a solid gold, jewel encrusted Mages staff.
Lee, standing only up to this giant's midriff, exclaims - “Now that is firepower!” and hugs the Stoic fighter, forcing a half smile from his nearly perfectly composed posture.
“Always fearless aren’t you Major Lee?” The soldier then introduces himself.
“Captain Guldier, Staff of Ra Platoon.” A rugged man, with a booming voice but soft tone.
“Kin-Jane instructed me to tell you your equipment is ready back at the entrance hall" he adds.
Lee hands him the tray of cheeses, “You finish these and we’ll get ready! Last bit of goop cheese you’re tasting in a while, maybe ever” He chuckles on the way out.
Soon the four men are at the precipice of the pit, all clad in golden armour and dressed with cutting edge magic enhancing gold threads. Also geared with blades, drills, bows, arrows, rations, magical potions and concoctions, be either for stealth, injury or hunger suppression.
As they stood there, glistening in the last bit of sunshine of the day, they looked as if they had been touched by king Midas himself.
Through the Iron Doors
The descent takes two full days. There are a number of different lifts and carts to make the thousand-mile journey down the Pit.
The lift’s lead cabin and the magic imbued armour protects them from the negative effects that afflicted many others before. Pujo’s story is much the same as Bryan’s so they both feel the weight of their presence here. There is the possibility of ending up in the same
They finally arrive at the bottom. With a clunk, the lift settles and Lee pulls back on the lever to unlock the doors. The air is extremely dry. You could feel the pores on your skin shrivelling.
There’s still plenty of light from all the equipment left behind, both a blessing and a curse, since it makes it all the more obvious the slaughtering that took place here. For two miles they walk in silence. There is a warm breeze blowing, one that wasn’t there before the gates opened.
Bryan breaks the quietness: “Even with all the rush to send us down here, I’ve been briefed several times about finding more resources and assessing the investment risk of dealing with this unidentified threat. But how come no one thought to question why is there a gate here in the first place?”
Major Lee chimes in: “That is mostly true. Because we don’t know if it is exactly a gate. The testimony of the site manager was vague, and he’s been catatonic since. So it’s pointless to speculate when it could just be a slab of rock that looked like a door.”
“Still, you’d think there would be more information on this mysterious entrance” Pujo remarks.
They continue marching in silence through the cave and soon it stands before them: as tall as a house, a forged iron entrance with two large iron doors ajar. Natural formation this is not. This is the worst case scenario, it is now inexplicable.
As they stand in disbelief, Pujo questions, “Are we…?”
CPT Guldier replies, “This is why they don’t just send anyone, they send the ones who will step forward.”
And his armour clinks and clanks as he crosses the threshold of the gate. His companions promptly follow.
Inside, the walls are of carved stone stacked in a repeated pattern, the passage is about the width of two men. Every fibre in their bodies is telling them this should not be possible but one foot goes in front of the other regardless.
In less than a hundred meters there is a split, one passage to the right and other one to the left. Something on the right side is reflecting the light of their lamps, so it seems like the right direction. Shortly after, in front of them is a large obelisk made of pure gold!
They are as glad as they are concerned. The primary objective was to find gold, but the fact that everything here looks man made changes things.
Carved onto the face of the monument, in plain language, you can read:
“Minds darken at the sight of the glint in my eye. Who am I?”
Their hearts are pounding, this is modern writing! In the depths of earth under a mountain of rock! This makes less and less sense every minute.
“I expected fiends or clouds of deadly gas, but this is a far beyond that!” says Pujo. He’s not a coward, but he’s clearly nervous.
“You’re not wrong. This should be relayed back to the surface, reporting the presence of gold should be enough to send more people.”
They all stand for a moment, processing the events.
“Pujo, we'll stay and assess the vicinity and catalogue everything else we find.” Guldier asserts, “You go back up. This should be enough information to net you the funds you need.”
Pujo does not argue. He knows better than that, he then hands them his spare supplies and straps himself back up ready to return.
“Godspeed son.” says Lee
Pujo packs up and starts to head out, no ceremonies. Bryan is thinking he’d like to do the same right now. Then, Pujo turns a corner and disappears out of sight, and soon the echo of his steps fades too. It was the right decision to make.
“Very well. Captain, can you identify if the obelisk is of a magical nature?” asks Major Lee.
Captain Guldier focuses, and a blue mist envelops him as he investigates.
“Now, why is there a riddle here in the first place” Lee ponders, as he and Bryan walk further into the corridor.
Bryan responses: “There seems to be no doors or barriers to unlock. This just looks like a maze? Or maybe a labyrinth?”
“What’s the difference?” Asks Lee
From afar, a scream slices through the air!
“aaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!”
They look at each other, and draw their weapons as they start running back. They turn the corner and Captain Guldier shouts, “It came from the entrance!”
They start rushing back, but the Captain stops them. “Not without this”
He breaks the top of a vial and swallows the liquid. His eyes go white, and then back to normal. He speaks, “Sahaa Dahar!”
Bryan suddenly feels as if a blanket had been placed over him.
“Cloaking spell. Now let’s move” says Guldier
Their steps are now silent, the lanterns they carry don’t illuminate the passage, but the spell shows them the way regardless. The armour feels like silk instead of cold metal and makes no sound.
They rush back to the entrance, and where the open gate should be, there is a monstrosity instead.
A black living writhing wall! With an unsurmountable amount of arms grabbing onto the sides of the corridor. With a gigantic mouth, grinning. No eyes to be seen, just an unsettling smile with black putrid goo running down it’s face pooling around a carcass on the floor.
Bryan is petrified, he’s not sure what to do. Until a hand grabs his arm and yanks him around! The soldiers are in as much disbelief as him, but quickly gesture to back into the maze.
They run.
And run.
And run.
Further and further in. “It didn’t notice us! But do not stop!” says Lee. There are no signs of any other beings, but they passed multiple other obelisks, tablets and oddly shaped statues. Strangely, the never-ending set of corridors has no dead ends and no repeating patterns. It’s infiniteness as far more disturbing than a normal maze.
They finally stop after hours of pushing forward. This feels less like they are lost and more like going deeper into the bowels of a monster.
“Maybe we should have stayed together.” says Bryan
Lee replies “Maybe. Or maybe we didn’t all walk into it thanks to him”
“Have you got any idea what that thing was?”
Guldier adds, “Not sure yet. I’ve never seen anything like it, let’s go at it carefully. The armour feels tighter and heavier, we all certainly need some rest.”
They settle for a few hours, and take turns keeping watch. Whoever is awake is cataloguing all the events and taking stock of all the different treasures in these rooms onto a ledger.
“Minds darken at the sight of the glint in my eye. Who am I?”
What was that supposed to mean?
They spend days wandering, maybe even a whole week. At this point, it wasn’t clear if they are heading further in or not. No sign of the entity either, or any other thing.
After walking for hours on end, they spot something in the distance. A glow? A warm glow!
A golden aura, coming from not too far. They wander towards it apprehensively, with their guards up and weapons drawn. They enter a room, shining so much it nearly blinds them. After being in near darkness for so long it takes them a minute to realize, the room is a half mile wide and there is no sign of a ceiling above them, it disappears into darkness.
The walls are covered in veins of gold! Magnificent! At the centre of the room there is a giant cube made of the precious golden metal with a majestic throne sitting atop. This does not look like the house of a king but of a God.
Lee shouts in ecstasy, “THE MOTHER LODE!”
He starts running into the room. But Captain Guldier’s face changes and his crazed gaze locks in on the back of Major Lee’s head. From Guldier’s grip an empty vial hits the floor. A boom emanates from his hands and the shockwave knocks Bryan back. A gigantic explosion ignited where Major Lee was standing, he never stood a chance. Not when you don’t see it coming, from an ally. Within seconds, only charred remains and a melted armour are left.
Guldier’s face is stone-cold, and with his eyes locked onto the golden monument, he walks towards the glistening throne.
Bryan is stunned, breathing heavily as his armour weighs more and more on him.
Guldier arrives to the cube, and he places a hand on it, but his face starts contorting. He lets out a scream of agonizing pain.
“Aaaaaaaaaaargh!!!”
His armour is collapsing with him in it! The staff he was carrying gets sucked into the giant cube of gold. His vambraces crush his arms and the chest of armour shrinks, more and more and more! Until the betrayer stops screaming. The threads of his robe unravel and, along with the metal in is armour, it all get absorbed by the cube.
In a matter of minutes this carnage started and ended. Bryan realizes the weight of his armour was not from exhaustion, it was the cube beckoning for more gold.
And suddenly it all became clear.
“Minds darken at the sight of the glint in my eye. Who am I?”
…..” Greed.”
Bryan gets out of his doomed garments and drops his weapons. He leaves them all on the floor, for the cube to claim.
As he turns his back on the treasure room and heads back into the maze, in front of him is the Black Wall, rubbing it’s many hands vigorously and grinning widely.
“Is it already too late?” he asks in disbelief.
“They chose us because we’re the ones who’ll step forward.” And as the fiendish darkness opens its maw, Bryan steps inside.
“See you soon, Father.”
It was my pleasure to write and illustrate this story as a part of the Lunar Awards event by
To you, from the home of magic.
Marco D Blanco.
The other answer to the riddle, of course, is capitalism. (or neoliberalism, to be more precise).
It felt like that kind of allegory to me. If that was your intention, nicely done!
Good humour too. And the pacing was excellent...
The illustrations were so engaging and perfectly matched the vibe of the story!