Episode 77 - A Miner Inconvenience

## Synopsis

The pets left the waterfall cavern, and headed towards the Deep Mines. Virgil was hesitant due to his fear of the dark, but agreed to go with the promise of protection from his friends.

They arrived at the Far Eastern side of the valley, where a sign above a cave entrance read “The Deep Mines of Aleton”. The roof of the dark, cold cave had partially collapsed, destroying much of the equipment left inside. A mine cart track led deeper into the mountain, in the corner lay a stack of hard hats and candles, which the pets quickly sifted through to find some that fit them. The candles on the hats gave a dim light to the tunnel around them as they descended into the mine. Eventually, the light from the surface faded from view, leaving them in otherwise complete darkness.

After walking for some time down the tunnel, they arrived at a small plateau where more tracks emerged from a room on the right. Inside the room were more hard hats and candles, as well as small pickaxes, hand drills, and two mine carts sitting on the tracks. Mr. Wiggles and Crowrigami jumped into one of the carts, it rocked slightly but didn’t move further.

They decided to ride the carts into the mine. Ida and Virgil also jumped into the front cart, Mr. Wiggles took off the breaks, and they slowly started rolling down the tracks. As they reached the downwards slope, the carts picked up speed as they began hurtling down the tunnel. Further down the mine the track split, with one track continuing down, and another taking a sharp turn to the left. The carts raced into the left tunnel, picking up even more speed, the sudden turn causing them to almost topple over, and their candles flickered and went out.

The carts stopped. The pets were thrown onto the ground as they heard the cracking of wood and metal behind them. Ida yelled for her friends, Mr. Wiggles groaned, Virgil was crying, and Crowrigami didn’t answer. Ida patted around the ground, eventually finding a single sheet of unfolded paper lying on the ground. Ida rubbed some peanuts onto the paper, and as Crowrigami came back to consciousness his paper body refolded into its usual form. They decided they needed to backtrack and head down the other tunnel, much to Virgil’s continued horror. Mr. Wiggles created a small bonfire in the room to light some more candles, and as they looked around they saw a sign on the wall read “*Dead End: Please Stop*”. The front cart was completely destroyed, while the second seems mostly intact.

Together, Ida and Virgil were able to push the back cart up the tracks, Mr. Wiggles pulled the lever to switch the tracks, and they once again started going deeper into the mine. This much gentler slope ended in a large room, filled with crystals, and veins of various metals. Splitting the cave in half was a large gate, beyond which the pets could see dozens of purple crystals growing on the walls. Next to the track they had come down where five other tracks, leading into holes in the walls. The leftmost mine cart had been pushed into its nook, while the others were at the back of the cave. The pets decided to push the other carts into their books. The middle-left went in with a loud thud, and locked in place. The middle cart also locked in place, though the middle-right cart did not. They left the middle-right cart, and pushed in the rightmost cart, which also locked in place. Finally they tried to push in the middle-right cart again, and this time it also locked in place. The gate did not budge. Mr. Wiggles suggested they take out the leftmost cart, and after they did so they heard another loud thud, and the gate lifted into the ceiling.

The purple crystals began glowing brightly, filling the cave with a dim light. The pets got back in their cart and continued down the cave. On the walls were sculptures of a purple, crystalline hedgehog in various poses. At the end of the tunnel was a door. Opening the door led to a perfectly rectangular room, inside which were four statues of the pets with a white light emanating from their chests. Behind the statues was another painting of a metallic beast being surrounded by the four heroes, as the rain melted away the beast’s armour. In front of the statues was another carved amethyst hedgehog, holding a leather necklace with a swirled piece of amethyst attached. Virgil walked up to the statue and slipped the necklace over his head. It glowed with a purple light as his quills and belly fur grew longer and thicker.

The pets had found all of the gifts left behind by the previous heroes. They first decided they needed to find the Sage for healing, so left the cave and headed to the south of the valley. As they neared the Sage’s Hut, the smell of rust grew stronger, both down the Road Which Ends, and near the hut itself. Mr. Wiggles told the group they needed to hurry, but as they climbed the hill they saw a plume of smoke where the hut should have been. The Sage’s home was burning, and standing outside stood a metal beast, with burning red eyes, and spikes on its back. A sphinx cat was impaled on one of the spikes.

The Prickled Pest Who Pursues turned to the pets and said, “H*eroes, if you do believe there is any who can help you in this valley, you are wrong.*”

Crowrigami looked at them in horror. “*How could you! She was out friend, or at least an acquaintance!*”

The Pest’s gaze darted between the pets, seeing their various relics and new forms. “*That is why I killed them.”*

Ida yelled, *“What is wrong with you? She did nothing, she did nothing! All she did was be there.”*

*“She told you of the relics, and I could not have you finding them.”*

*“Well you kinda failed at that point,”* said Mr. Wiggles.

Crowrigami agreed, *“Killing her afterwards accomplishes nothing of that purpose because the deeds were done and the relics were found—“*

*“I didn’t know that until you went there that she told you. It took a while for me to figure it out.”*

Ida asked, “*Do you see the problem here? You’re jumping to conclusions without the proper evidence, now look what you’ve done. You killed a good person right there.”*

*“I did what was needed. Now I will go.”*

The Pest started walking towards the pets. Crowrigami flew over and Animated the corpse of a reindeer stuck to its back. It’s eyes snapped open as Crowrigami commanded it to protect them.

The Pest stopped. *“You will never be powerful enough to defeat me, even with stealing my powers from me.”*

*“Your powers?”* Ida asked, *“It’s our powers!”*

*“I am the one who makes the dead animals do my bidding!”*

Crowrigami yelled, “*Not any more!”*

Ida stared at the Pest. *“Where did you come from? Who made you?”*

The Pest looked startled, as though it never expected to be asked that. *“You cannot defeat me! Not here! Not ever!”*

Mr. Wiggles pointed a paw towards the Pest. *“He’s avoiding the question!”*

*“I have no time to deal with lowly heroes such as you… I only have time to deal with those I am prophesied to fight.”*

Virgil asked, *“Is that why you’re upset?”*

*“Wait a minute,”* said Mr. Wiggles, *“You only have time to deal with the prophesied, but we’re part of the prophecy, therefore aren’t we part of you’re business?”*

*“You are not strong enough to defeat me yet though, it would be just like a one sided thing.”*

*“How do you know? Last time we fought you, you just kind of ran away.”*

Virgil moved a little closer to the Pest. *“Are you attacking us because you don’t know who made you?”*

Crowrigami joined in the interrogation. *“Why are you prophesied to defeat us on the first place? Who told you this? Why is this your obligation of any sort?”*

Virgil asked, *“Is that why you’re upset? Do you want us to help find who made you?”*

The Pest pointed his finger at Mr. Wiggles. A pitch black beam of crackling energy slammed into his body, throwing him backwards as he was knocked unconscious. *“See, none of you are worth my time. Come back and fight me when you’re actually heroes.”*

*“I have a suggestion!”* Virgil yelled, *“If you’re so focused on us defeating you, why don’t you train us to defeat you, and then we’ll call it even? Because you clearly want to die as well—which I won’t even go into the psychology of that—but like, help us help you?”*

*“I will be waiting, in the city of Aleton. Come to me when you are ready”*—The Pest turned its hand to Virgil and shot another beam of black energy—*“I will be destroying the city while you attempt to train yourselves, like you should have been before!”* The metal body of the Pest collapsed onto the ground, and a flash of black and purple smoke blew away from the mountain.

Virgil hunkered down and started to glow with multicoloured lights. Mr. Wiggles slowly awoke, asking if he had died and gone to heaven. To his dismay, Crowrigami told him that they were still in Aleton. Ida gave him some tuna from her tails.

As the Sage's house burned, the pets tried to figure out what they should do. They started to head back to Aleton to find a doctor, when Mr. Wiggles once again caught the intense scent of rust coming from the Road Which Ends. They changed course, deciding that the Pest would still be waiting in Aleton anyway, and there might be something useful down the road.

After several minutes of walking down the road, the land around them receded into a void of endless sky, with the road itself extending a few feet past the sudden drop into nothingness. The wind howled around them, and Crowrigami and Mr. Wiggles noticed a small hole in the cliff that someone had attempted to cover up with rocks. Virgil and Ida were seeing who could spit further into the void. The smell of rust was coming strongly from the hole in the wall, the pets pushed the rocks out of the way, and walked into a small living area. It was a round room, with a grass bed in the corner that hadn’t been used for a long time.

There were piles of steel, both rusted and brand new, scattered around the floor. Covering the walls were drawings of the pets and the beast, similar to the murals in the sanctums, but created by a much less skilled hand. Books were also stuck to the walls, containing accounts of all the previous times the Pest had appeared. One of the accounts described how the previous heroes had defeated the beast. They had brought the rain and weakened the great beast, before throwing it into the fountain in the centre of town. They had torn off the metal plating of the Pest, finding nothing inside, but causing it to stop in its tracks. Looking around at the scribbled murals, the pets tried to see if they had missed something, anything that would give them more strength to fight the Pest. They saw the mural of them walking into the Cave Not Travelled, and thought that maybe they had missed something in there.