The Heart is a Void: Ashes to Ashes

Chapter 92: IH8

Terabyte felt dust being sprinkled over his forehead, and tried to swing in the direction where it was falling from. Disoriented, he could barely make out Danemy's exact position, and the dust was starting to blind his eyes. As a result, his speculative, wide blow was easily parried, and he had to swing his sword wildly and turn his body to deflect the ensuing, counter-attacking stab.

Danemy did not relent, but responded to this with another, lethargic cut at the head. Terabyte had to twist further to block this. Danemy stepped off to the left of his grounded enemy, and again began a sequence of relaxed strikes and parries.

As this swordfight went on, Danemy continued to circle the blinded Terabyte, while casually and lightly trading blows. He made no serious attempt to attack.

Soon, Terabyte had no sense of where he was, and had contorted his body painfully to ward off Danemy's slow but steady strikes. Terabyte's movements started to slow, and his arm tired from being constantly held in the air. Aches sprung like needles through his shoulder.

As Danemy noticed Terabyte's arm beginning to droop, he used [Sword hold] to grab the sword out of Terabyte's hands. Inspecting the sword for a moment, he threw it aside and watched it spin away across the floor.

As Terabyte scrambled to crawl and scrape his way away from Danemy, he instead felt a hard collision as he rammed his head into a rocky wall. He felt cold, clammy skin beside him, slightly rotted, and recoiled his hand fearfully.

"Have you noticed? You're just next to your kin, the undead miner," Danemy said. "I wonder how he died. His face looks terrified, quite like yours."

"Shut up! You're... mean!" Terabyte redounded.

"Is that all you have to say?" Danemy laughed. "'Mean'? Come on, surely there's more."

Terabyte let loose a string of swear-words, interspersed with choice epithets like 'bully,' 'hater,' 'incel,' 'Nazi,' and 'rogue.' Danemy was most fond of the last of these, finding it exotically quaint.

"You say a rogue? Aye, and perhaps also a knave? Your words are weapons, sharper than knives," Danemy said, feigning a wounded ego, and dropping his shoulders like a peasant slave bending under a yoke. "Have I failed to meet your high expectations in so many ways? I must have a devil inside. Well, yes, but what can be done? I'm sure that karma would ensure you victory, if it knew how to save a life."

"Yes, a devil! A devil inside!"

"Indeed. A creature for whom... malice... therefore I am."

Danemy knelt down with a dagger and used [Ripper] to cut a deep gash across Terabyte's lower neck. After leaving a few more bleeding cuts along Terabyte's back and sides, he dismissively kicked Terabyte flat on the ground. Terabyte died after about a minute from the bleeding, after spending the minute rolling around and making choked, agonised, but emphatic-sounding groans as the stony wall clipped against the wounds.

Danemy smiled, but sighed slightly.

The introduction of pain to the game had been a nuisance. Before that, he was growing effectively, and used his character's high mobility to exploit and defeat bosses levels higher than him and his party.

As these same bosses became too painful to face, he had to dial down his expeditions, and his growth stalled slightly because the PvE grinding options in DeathGang territory weren't enough to level efficiently and rarely gave decent drops.

After a few frustrating attempts at a tough boss, the skeletal [Fossil Snake] North-East of Kruxol, he had been covered in a thick wall of pain which kept him laid down in the [Arts Building] for about a day. Some of his party were still out of action, especially the Knight who had been caught in the serpentine boss' coils. This gruelling fight and ensuing period out of action had delayed his progress, but he had also gained increased sensitivity to the ever-present role of pain in combat at this time. He had an intuitive understanding of his opponent's struggles and weaknesses.

Due to this, and a positive reputation from his early-game exploits, he had been granted a modest role in the war planning up North. Knowing that Darys was nervous about the troops being ill-prepared, since this was the Guild's first war and one of the first in the game, he counselled patience. The troops were eased into the combat to get a feel for it and some idea of the pain, while the army quietly flanked and surrounded the enemy and prepared to escalate based on this structural advantage. By breaking in the frontline, rather than just routing the opponent immediately, there was a greater willingness of DeathGang troops to push consistently through enemy lines and destroy the few obstacles and pockets of resistance without being notably shaken.

DeathGang's greater experience with PvP also helped, of course, but Danemy was aware that the experience of small-scale skirmishes wouldn't always translate immediately into large-scale battles and would need acclimatisation.

In any case, the success of the Guild in war meant that his prestige had risen, and he had more respect in the Guild. However, this was still limited somewhat by his level. He was determined to raise it, but knew that rising quickly would lead to some competitiveness and envy from other ordinary DeathGang members. Well, he could survive that.

After directing the rest of the group to his location in the party chat, he knelt down by the dead miner. There was a letter lying beside the corpse. It seemed to be addressed to the miners who had been here, by someone named John Hazlitt. Danemy wondered if this person was related to the 'J. H.' in the mine's name.

The author of the letter seemed to be angry and tired, and there were several nooses drawn in the margins of the page.

To the Miners of J. H. Mines,

from John Hazlitt,

I know that some of you will be surprised at this letter. You believe that I have been dead for centuries.

As you know, I have been in contact with the current owner of the company, and made an agreement that mining in certain areas - deep in the mine - should stop. Further, certain works of demolition, in the name of 'safety,' are not to be carried out.

To sweeten the deal, I suggested that I could offer some work-hands whom I control, and a few materials from deep in the mines supplied by my men, at regular intervals. This, naturally, reduces your pay, because you are less valuable if you are only mining around the surface. Though unfortunate, I do not trust anyone else to treat the untrammeled, raw nature of the deeper mines with the sanctity it deserves.

Already, an elegant underground stream - sonorous enough that we called it the Orphic - has been disrupted by explosions, because the passage was considered too congested. And there are many such cases.

I did ensure that you could still all be employed, as those who could not mine would be repurposed as a servant or attendant for my own work-hands' convenience. I have a strong belief that all men have the right to employment. If a society grandly told some men that they should not serve it, then wouldn't they believe it? Indeed.

These terms could have been more favourable to you, had you not skipped the meeting due to the fear that it might reveal your secret unionising to your employer. But it is what it is.

However, your response has been highly uncooperative as well. After initial attempts to pressure my men out of the mines, or crowd them out of their working areas, you attempted to go on strike. This, however, failed, only giving my men more opportunity to expand our operations across the mines.

Returning abruptly to re-assert, in a manner of speaking to stake your claim on the mines, you have only grown more violent. Deliberate acts of sabotage, even violent skirmishes, have broken out in parts of the mines. Explosions have been planted deep in the mines, in protest, and at least eight skirmishes broke out when my men were attacked across the mines.

These skirmishes, which grew to fights with hundreds of people involved - even some women and children on your side - were finally stopped by the intervention of the King's Guard. However, it was only days until further attempts at violence broke out, though for now you hold back and plot as you conspire to all-out war in the near future. The attempts at sabotage have yet not wearied.

You will claim that this is all a slander, indeed a pure story. Well. Dead men tell no fables. But far from being non-violent - as you have styled yourselves - you have now made covert plans to go to 'war' with my men and stage an asymmetrical battle across the mines.

I will give you two choices.

Firstly, you may comply, and co-operate with the current state of the agreement.

Secondly, you may not comply, and then I will be forced to pre-empt your warlike plans with violence of my own. If my men and allies become violent, then several of you will not survive. Oh, what allies do I mean? Perhaps you think I mean the King's forces. Well, I will leave you to surmise for yourselves.

I do not expect you to comply.

But you should think deeply about it. Though, as they say, 'you know eternity can't ever change your mind.'

War or peace? I await your sign.

J. H.

As he read this letter, Danemy frowned slightly. Old-school labour disputes were an odd source material for an MMO. It was like reading a dramatic account of haggling. All the same, he came to appreciate the importance of this letter and the surrounding events to the current state of the mines.

By the end, he extrapolated that John Hazlitt did indeed begin his 'war,' and this is what had killed these miners and driven the rest out of the mines. Or was it disused? Perhaps there were still signs of life, deeper in the mines? This is what the letter seemed to suggest. How much of the letter was true, he couldn't be sure. But for sure it was no vain threat.

While considering the letter, he heard the quiet patter of footsteps approaching from the circular passage outside.

As Crucis and Akshel approached the chamber, Danemy half-turned to them and smiled lightly. Mock-theatrically, he swept his hand in an understated flourish over the two corpses beside him. "Welcome to my state of nirvana."