August ate what he had to eat to stop his stomach's protests. If he could, he would have liked to throw it up, but he had to keep it down. It was edible, if only barely, and he had to keep himself fed.
"Are you done," Damon asked soon after August had finished.
"Done? Well, I'm done eating if that's what you're asking."
"Let's go, then. We need to get there before the workers return, and we don't know how close it is to dawn."
"Nope."
"No? What do you mean, 'no'?"
"No, I'm not moving. I'm done."
"You're done what? You're done moving? You're done trying to find a way back home? Are you done living? Are you really going to surrender now of all places?"
"I don't know; I'm just done," he whined.
"We read "The Cask Of Amontillado" already. Are you going to resign yourself to Fortunato's fate willingly? You're not even trapped. There's nothing stopping you from moving."
"I know," August said, disinterested in elucidating his intentions.
"Proceeding shouldn't even be a question for you. There are no penalties or consequences for going further. What are you still doing here, and why?"
August continued his obstinate protests. Like a typical immature child, he refused to move for hours. Only after Damon's unrelenting barrage of exhortations, his own reasoning, and his thirst broke through his obstinance did he relent and agree to continue. His body finally needed more water, and he would give it what it needed if he could.
August placed the pack and Damon near the exit of this pocket in the stone and got down on his stomach, preparing to push them through to the other side. He would have to crawl through this opening to reach the next part of the cave because the ceiling was so low. He wanted to take off the armor to ensure he wouldn't get stuck, but there was too much of it to push through.
He had done this many times before in this exploration, but he hated it every time. His back would often scrape the ceiling, terrifying him and making him imagine that his enormous figure would get stuck in the Earth.
There was only a little more than 200 meters (~650 feet) to the mine, but large portions of it consisted of this. The cave that they had entered seemed to be narrowing. Damon knew that it wouldn't end, but August was still apprehensive, no, terrified of even the notion of having to turn back.
He knew that he wouldn't have the strength, and he knew that there was always the possibility of Damon lying to him. He didn't know why Damon would lie, but he always could be. August had been lied to time and time again by others, so he was always distrustful, nearly paranoid.
His intelligence and creativity became his tormentors, creating scenarios that would explain why somebody could be lying: whether that be because they didn't know the truth, they didn't care enough to make sure that it was the truth, or because they wanted to deceive him and lure him into a trap. If there was even a possibility, then he would find it.
He knew that Damon was very capable of finding out if it was the truth; he knew that Damon was capable to an extreme, but that was exactly what scared him. He hated dealing with those that were incapable and unreliable, but he hated dealing with those few that he had found that were above any mind games and trickery he could employ. He had never found anybody smarter than him, but he had found one person that was close, and he hated him.
He could manipulate the dumb; he could predict the dumb; he could control the dumb, but what about the others? He had created a citadel for himself, a citadel of social invulnerability with his intellect, but the others threatened it.
It was only those that were intelligent that he was vulnerable to, and who could possibly make him more vulnerable than the same person who built his citadel? Who could he be more vulnerable to than himself? Damon scared him more than anything. He had his value, but he was also a threat.
When he finally reached the last 5 meters of the cave, he was overcome with joy that was immediately overshadowed by panic. His feelers told him that the miners had returned. His fit had taken too much time away from travel, and the miners had started a new shift.
His feelers could see them traveling down into the mine, and his ears could faintly hear the ringing of picks. They were all silent and solemn. August figured that they were all either extremely determined or melancholic.
They weren't humans, though. They were stocky, like he imagined dwarves might be, but they contradicted all conventional images of dwarves that he had seen. They were short, typically had large hooked noses, and were completely hairless. They had no eyebrows, though they did have eyelashes that kept the dust out of their eyes. They matched the descriptions of goblins but didn't have green skin.
Damon was lost in his thoughts and working on new spells. He wasn't focusing on his feelers, so he was deaf and blind, so August had to destabilize his experimental structure to get his attention.
"What are you doing," Damon accosted.
"I'm trying to get your attention. We're here, but we have a problem. The miners are back."
"So? Go."
"What do you mean, 'go'? I can't go. What am I supposed to tell them I'm here for when I don't even speak their language?"
"Who says that you have to tell them anything? Just go past them. I doubt they'll stop you. They're less than half your height and probably a third your weight. Your armor is impressive, anyway, so they'll probably think you're dangerous and keep their distance."
"But what if they do stop me? What if they ask questions?"
"If they stop you, then move them aside. If they ask you a question, then talk in English and pretend that they should know the language before going on anyway. Just disregard them for now."
They saw that the short hairless miners outside had noticed their talking and turned toward the wall, confused because they didn't know where the voices were coming from. The exit to the cave was near the roof of the mine and invisible from their position, so the miners didn't know that there was a cave there.
August, anxious again, relented, and with a pounding heart, he pushed the pack into the gap. The miners heard rustling and looked around confusedly before it fell through.
Startled at the pack's mysterious appearance, they wordlessly backed up, even more perplexed than before. August then readied himself before he heaved a heavy sigh and put himself into that hole.
His head poked through, scaring and vexing them further. Finally, they began to talk to one another quietly. August couldn't understand their words yet, so he ignored them and pushed himself through silently.
His mind was a mess, trying to ignore what they might have thought of him. The roof was low, so he lowered himself to the ground without issue before picking up his pack and slinging it across his back.
He ignored the miners as best he could and rushed up, pushing anybody in his way to the side. They protested when he touched them, but he continued regardless. His breathing picked up. He was nearly hyperventilating.
Most of the floors this far up were made of wood, so he didn't need to put much thought into his coordination and began to run, climb, and clamber his way past others. He was fully panicking now. He had been trying to bluff himself into calmness before, but that façade gave way quickly. Although he rarely ever struggled with social anxiety, he was still a coward afraid of confrontation.