Mark of the Ranger

XXIX. Jeff Breaks Rocks(Yes, It's as Interesting as it Sounds)

          After breakfast, it was straight to work for Jeff. It looked like fun work, rock breaking. Well, fun in the sense of better than sitting in a boat while chained to the wall. As Jeff stomped back towards the open are of rock breaking, he itched his manacled forearms. The metal manacles, while not restricting him in any way except for disabling his tracing, were very uncomfortable. He tried to think of something else, like how Lio had changed his name to Lion. That was certainly a change for the better--Lion flowed off the tongue so much more easily than Lio.

          Jeff completed his walk back into his new workspace. It was a sunny area, just outside the rock dome. It was littered with ores, which had come from the rock spring. According to the makeshift leader of Jeff's fellow workers, the rock spring was a magic mechanism that was powered by geovore milk. The rock spring normally produced only rocks, but sometimes it produced ores, filled with power crystals and other valuable minerals. The ores that were produced were sent to this place, where they would be broken and the minerals would be salvaged. Jeff had no idea what the purpose was, but it wasn't his place to ask questions.

          Jeff grabbed a pick that was leaning against the wall. The handle felt good in his hands, and the head seemed sharp and hard enough. He found a good-sized ore and took a swing at it. Cracks appeared in the ore. Another swing. Another one. The ore became more and more damaged the more that Jeff swung at it. As he swung a ninth time, crystals appeared. Jeff was filled with determination of seeing their beautiful glint, and swung again. This time, the ore broke into many separate pieces. 

          Jeff took hold of one piece and broke it down with his pick until only crystals remained. He tossed the crystals into a bin near the entrance. He took another chunk, then another. He broke those down till they were crystals, then tossed those in the bin. He continued until his entire rock was gone. He then continued tiredly onto another one.

          All this time, the sun beat down on him. He sweat like a fountain and panted like a tired dog. Soon, his arms grew weak from the swinging and the breaking. He nearly collapsed with exhaustion when someone called, "Luncheon break!" Jeff dragged himself back to the main dome.

          His friends had elected to sit together. Lion and Ko sat next to each other, swapping stories. Isabel and Elena sat there in their new dresses, glaring angrily at everything. Jeff had a feeling that he didn't want to know what was going on with them and the headmaster. Karen sat near Lion and Ko, listening intently to their stories, while David stood away from the table, picking slime off of his clothes. Jeff grabbed the bowl of something and joined his good friends, listening to Lion and Ko.

          "...Their udders are the size of me!" Lion explained. Karen placed her hand on her mouth, and even Isabel and Elena became interested in Lion's story. "So, we put this gigantic bucket on the end, right? And we all have to work as a team to squeeze the milk out and into the bucket. But we have to be quiet, or the geovore wakes up and squashes us all!" Lion made motions of this story, exaggerating to describe the size of the geovore udders. "Then! Oh, and then! We have to carefully take the bucket and carry it all the way over to the rock spring without dropping it! once we reach the rock spring, we dump the milk in through the pipe, then we carry the bucket back up to the shack, safe and sound."

          Jeff swallowed his something whole as he listened to Lion's story. "My day has been nothing compared to that," he finally said. "I broke rocks until I nearly collapsed of exhaustion. Speaking of which, my head hurts." Jeff held a hand to his head. His right temple was pulsing with pain. Why couldn't it ever be the center of his brain that was aching? "Let me get you some water," Karen offered, and left the table.

          Jeff thanked Karen once she came back with a skin of water, and he guzzled the beverage. His head felt marginally better, but it was going to be a few skins before he was perfectly fine. "Did you know that slimes are highly aggressive and sometimes have spikes?" David said heartily. "Some shoot fire from their mouths. They gain their power based on the crystals they eat, and they produce a great amount of mana. I don't know how, though. Slimes are pretty interesting." Jeff wished he had a more interesting job.

          Isabel and Elena refused to talk about their jobs, and Ko assured that his was nothing interesting. When Jeff asked Karen what her job was like, she said, "We gather clams, break them open, throw the pearls into a chute, put the oysters in another, get more clams, repeat. Why are these jobs so repetitive? Why can't all things be like geovore caring?"

          "Because if they were, we would all be dead," Lion answered seriously. The conversation ended quickly after that. Jeff went and drank a few more skins of water, then went back to work. He continued to break rocks for some time until he stopped to look at the crystals. 

          Jeff was currently holding a brown crystal in his hand. He turned to another rock breaker next to him. "What is this?" he asked. The rock breaker looked at the crystal for a second before answering. "That's an earth crystal."

          "How do they transfer power?"

          "When their dust is absorbed into a substance. Why?"

          "What would happen if I ate it? After chewing thoroughly, of course."

          "Well, If I had to make a guess, I'd say you'd gain the power of Geomancy for...a...moment..." It was then that the other rock breaker saw what Jeff was getting at. "What are you planning?

           "Nothing yet," Jeff answered. "I've just got an idea." With that, he hid the earth crystal in his pocket and went back to work. The other rock breaker said nothing.