Just before the others had walked into the cave, I handed them each a torch fashioned from the branches I "gathered" earlier. In addition, I took some of the rope and tied it to a large log outside the cave entrance. I had made sure to fashion some small hooks that could be hammered into the cave walls earlier, so we can have a rope trail to if someone gets separated, they won't get lost.
We also brought along a cart with some rope, extra torches, tools, and bandages, just in case. We'll also use it to carry back the ores that we find, but if the path gets too small or there's a large drop then that's it, we leave the cart or the expedition ends.
As we went along the path that Troy had scouted out, I stopped every so often when I noticed the rope starting to sag a lot and hammered in another hook on the wall to my left. That way if someone gets lost the rope is on their right, so it's the right way out.
I think it's clever at least. My sense of direction has helped so far, but I won't always be around so there needs to be a way for people to navigate in the caves without me.
After about an hour of walking to the dim torchlight, we came to the end of where Troy had surveyed. I was in there once when I went to get him away from town for the surprise party, but I didn't get a good look around, and it was easier to see when it was lit.
Leaning on my walking stick I noticed this large chamber was large enough to fit two of the town halls side by side in it with plenty of room on the top and sides. There were four different paths moving forward.
The first leftmost path, almost next to where we came from, started with a steep drop that's probably a few hundred feet down and to the right, so we immediately crossed that one off the list of where to go, we wouldn't be able to get the cart down there whatsoever.
The second path, across the chamber to the left had a smoother descent compared to the first path, and went off towards the right, while the fourth path, across the chamber to the right had a similar descent to the second, but went to the left, so we made the conclusion that the two paths led to the same location, but we'd need some time to prove it.
That left the third path, almost directly across the chamber from where we entered from it has a subtle incline, but went straight, and so we decided to look down there first, just based on ease of getting a heavier cart back to this chamber.
Before we left we put torches around the chamber, and I put a new rope at the beginning of the path, to continue the trend I started earlier.
The incline on the third path slowly flattened out before going downward a bit and opening to a much larger chamber than the previous one.
This chamber was like two ovals stuck together at one end at an angle. The walls were irregularly shaped, with strange chunks seeming to be missing as if something took a bite out of the walls. I saw a medium sized hole in the upper part of the far corner of one of the walls, but I didn't think anyone else saw it.
"We should stop here," Troy said, "If we go too deep, we'll have too much to mine out on the way back."
Mr. Smith made a face, probably internally exclaiming, "Ah," as he kept asking about why we were ignoring all the iron and silver in the earlier caves, and we told him we'd explain later, and now that we have Troy was giving him a smug look, he knew the plan.
We spend the next half hour lighting up the area and identifying the ores and minerals in the chamber, and then began to work. Troy asked everyone to get something different, but we ignored things we didn't need, focusing only on coal, iron, copper, and tin.
The rhythmic *thang* of pickaxes hitting against the rocks echoes throughout the chamber, drowning out any voices not directly next to us. I was mining out a small pocket of copper, noting the green and orange colors standing out around the dark grey rock, chipping away at the vein, trying to match the rhythm of everyone else.
After an hour I noticed I was the cacophony of impacts has stopped, leaving my own as the sole sound in the chamber. Looking around I saw everyone else sitting down in various locations.
Mr. Smith and Troy were talking near the cart, while Bravo and Conner were sitting near their respective ore veins, most likely having just taken their break, and planning to continue soon. I stopped and decided to join Mr. Smith and Troy to get some water from the cart before continuing with the copper.
"…so I'll need the copper and tin for bronze, its easier to shape than iron and is stronger too. In the future we could use the iron to make steel, which is harder than bronze, but we don't have the resources to shape or make it yet." I overheard as I walked over and stood by, not wanting to interrupt Mr. Smith and Troy's conversation.
"I see, so what about the metals in those?" Troy response to Mr. Smith, tilting his head towards the metal pickaxe that was brought.
"Ah, the metal in that, as well as all the metal we had access to before, was from the old world."
A look of surprise appeared on Troy's face, as well as my own, and I interjected and asked what I assume Troy and I were both thinking, "How did you take things from the old world to here?"
"Ah Prestin, when'd you get 'ere?" Mr. Smith flinched and turned in my direction.
"About a minute ago," I shrugged, "but never mind that, continue."
"Please" Troy added.
"Alright seein' as you asked so nicely I will, but it's not some grand tale like you might think. It's just plain and simple.
"When Pyaira took us from the old world to the new world, they said to gather anything we think will prove useful to our survival. Some brought tools, others brought electronic devices, but some others, including myself, found scrap metal and brought it with us, which is where I brought the materials for my forge back in Riverhold.
"You kids probably don't know what cell phones and tablets are, because those that brought them didn't realize they would be pretty much useless in a world without satellites, Wi-Fi or electricity, so we broke them apart, melted them down and used them in the scrap metal."
Troy and I stood in silence, unsure of what some of the things Mr. Smith was talking about were. 'Satellites? Electronics? Are those the names of artifacts from the old world?'
"Are there any artifacts from the old world left?" I asked.
"Sorry Prestin, those question are best left for another. I'm not aware of any that haven't broken or that we couldn't recreate now that we found metals. There may be, but you'd have to wait until we get back to ask."
"I see." 'Damn…' I couldn't think of any other follow up questions at that moment, but my mind was in a racing. There was still so much I didn't know about this world, but I figured I knew a lot about the old one. It must've been much more advanced than what we have now, maybe with metal clothes and carts, and large houses made from stone. The luxury of the old world must've been high before things went wrong. Maybe the Voyagers have been trying to restore the level of society here to what they had previously.
I headed back to the copper pocket and continued picking it apart piece by piece. After a bit I could hear the others getting back to it too, the cacophony continuing.
Not long after, I heard a loud crack when I hit the wall, and noticed the tip of the pickaxe had broken off. It wasn't terrible, we could make more stone pickaxes, and I could use the other side, but I felt that I should try something else.
I thought about trying to use the amber in my pocket to make a pickaxe, but it doesn't work away from the glowing lights, so I dismissed the idea. I also, after picking up the stone pickaxe and continued mining using the other side, noted that the wood is much weaker than stone, so it wouldn't work very well anyway.
After another few hours, Bravo and Conner had gotten a large amount of ore from the walls, and begin to move it to the cart for transport. Meanwhile, Mr. Smith had been forced to take a break after he almost threw out his shoulder trying to mine some iron.
Through the sounds of ore being mined and broken I could barely make out Troy talking to Mr. Smith, "Seriously… gonna hurt yourself…just stay here…soon…some rest." Before continuing to mine the ore vein that he had been chipping away at most of the day.
As I almost finished chipping away at the copper, I saw a yellow speck through the dust. I tried to ignore it and focus on the task at hand, but eventually my thought process shifted to 'Oooh shiny', and I tried to see what it was.
I used the broken off part of the pickaxe laying on the ground nearby to chip away at the rock around it and, after isolating it, was able to pry a hand-sized chunk of shiny yellow rock from the wall. I decided to put it in my pocket for now, as we didn't need any metal rocks yet, so no harm in holding on to it.
We continued mining things out for a while longer, until the cart was full of copper, tin, iron and coal, and we followed the path out towards the central chamber.
Once we got there, I felt something come from the previously designated 'path 1' that went almost straight down, something hungry.