Chapter 12

Jennifer and Yuto now stand in front of the mines over mother’s lake. This time, they are prepared for any dangers that could be in the mines. Yuto’s cell phone is fully charged and is full of stamina. Jennifer is carrying plenty of medicine and nutritious food to keep Yuto healthy. They are dressed very warm since they assume the mine is as cold as a freezer and as dark as eternal night.

They take a deep breath as they take their first step inside. They look around the top floor, but see nothing unusual. The entrance is bringing in enough light to look around, but the corners are still dark. “What is this place?” asked Jennifer.

“This mine must have been sealed off, just like the lower levels of the spring mines,” answered Yuto. He begins to walk around, but steps on some loose soil which collapses under his feet. He quickly gets pulled down, yelling as he falls. A light thud follows as he hits the ground against the floors below.

Jennifer rushes to the hole and yells, “Yuto! Are you hurt? Answer me if you’re okay!”

He grunts as he answers, “I’m fine. The ground is pretty soft down here. But it’s really dark, and I can’t see. . . Wait a second, let me turn on my flashlight app on my phone.”

As soon as she sees the light from Yuto’s phone, she hears him scream in terror. She quickly jumps down the hole to see what is going on down there. After landing on the soft dirt, she finds him trembling on the ground with his flashlight pointing at an old dusty skeleton of a miner half buried in the ground.

“Please tell me that’s not Tony!” he yelled.

Jennifer shakes her head no answering, “whoever that is has been gone for many decades, if not centuries. I truly doubt that those are Tony’s remains.”

Yuto calms down, then takes a deep breath. He uses his phone to look around, noticing that the mines definitely had been in use a long time ago. There are old lamps and broken mining equipment laying around. Unlike the upper floor, there are large round boulders scattered randomly around the floor. He passes the cell phone to Jennifer, then examines the closest boulder. As he inspects it, he notices that the boulder is lighter than the ones in the spring mines, and seem to be a bit hollow.

Jennifer gets closer taking a look at the boulder. “These are not normal stones or veins filled with metal ores. I think these are geodes.”

Curious to know what’s inside, Yuto pulls his hammer out to smash the rock. Inside the rock formation, they find some crystal embedded inside. Yuto picks up the white shiny crystal wondering what it may be. Jennifer shines the cell phone through the crystal, declaring, “this is some moonstone!”

Jennifer takes the moonstone, handing the phone back to Yuto. He shines a light around the mine looking around for anything else interesting. “This must be a mine to gather gems and other rare stones. Why did this place get sealed off?” He continues to look around. In the corner of his eye, he sees something move in the distance. He turns, shining in the direction he seen the silhouette of a person moving round. He sees nothing, but he is sure he saw someone moving out there. “Tony! Is that you?” he yelled as he rushes in that direction.

Jennifer turns to his direction yelling, “Yuto, be careful! The ground isn’t stable, and you could-” The ground suddenly collapses once again under Yuto, swallowing him down to the lower floors deeper in the mines. She follows the light to the hole, then yells, “are you all right down there?”

“I’m good,” answered Yuto. Jennifer then jumps down and lands safely. As soon as they meet up, Yuto points the flashlight up, realizing there is no way to get out. The spring mines had ladders between floors. But the lake mines skips between floors, and the ladders are strangely missing. “We’re going to need to find another way out of this mine. Do you think there is a piece of the Jewel of Truth down here?”

Jennifer tries her best to feel for the goddess’s energy, but finds nothing. “I don’t feel the energy of the goddess here. Either it’s too deep to feel it, or there isn’t one at all. Is there anything else we are looking for down this mine?”

“I don’t know. Tony lured me here, but he didn’t say much. I’m sure that there’s something down here that he wants us to find. I don’t know what it is, but we’ll know when we see it,” answered Yuto.

They then continue to explore the mind aimlessly. They know that there are no ladders between floors, only unstable ground that Yuto can dig to make holes to travel deeper into the mines. The holes skip several floors, so they can at least travel down deep into the mines faster than the spring mines. They make sure they look down before jumping in.

Like the spring mines, they take hourly breaks to recover stamina so Yuto doesn’t faint from exhaustion. They also take caffeine to avoid fatigue in the cold mines. Floor after floor, they jump down deeper into the earth looking for something. As they get deeper into the mines, they find rare and valuable gems such as rubies, sapphires, and emeralds which they can ship for a greater profit than the ores in the spring mines.

After many hours of spelunking, they arrive at the lowest floor. Yuto checks the time, it is now five o’clock in the afternoon. There are no stones to smash, and the ground is very stable. All they find down there is a large opening leading into a cave with a deep lake. They look around, but find no great reward waiting for them.

As they look around, Yuto sees the silhouette move around in the corner of his eye once again. He gasps, shining his light towards the edge of the lake. Just as before, he sees nothing but the sandy shore of the underground lake.

“Did you find something?” asked Jennifer.

“I could have sworn that I seen Tony again,” answered Yuto. At that moment, he sees something glisten in the sand. He walks up to the shiny object, then dig it up. He thought he might have found another piece of the Jewel of truth, but he finds an old fishing rod instead.

“I guess people used to fish down here,” commented Yuto as he pulls the rod out of the sand. He quickly notices that the line is already cast into the water. He pulls the line, and feels something drag in the bottom of the lake. He looks at Jennifer, then nods. He knows that whatever he is looking for, he found it. Curious to know what he found, he reels the line in carefully to not snap the line or the fishing rod.

As soon as he reels in the line, he sees a small metal box attached to the hook. The lock is old and rusted, which is easy enough for him to break with his mithril tools. He opens the box, then pulls out some old papers. Yuto looks through the papers, and notices that they are plans for some type of building. They are written in some language Yuto can’t read.

“What do you think this is?” asked Yuto, showing Jennifer the plans.

Jennifer takes the plans, then gasps. “I don’t know what this is, but it’s written in the ancient language. The language native to the Harvest Goddess!”

“Can you read it?” asked Yuto.

“I am not fluent in this language. If I do some research, I can make something out,” she answered.

Yuto nods, then says, “this plan is definitely for some type of building. We should have Gotts look at it for us. He’ll know what type of building it is.

Jennifer then looks straight up saying, “I agree. We’ll need to find a way out of this mine. There are no ladders going back to the surface.”

Yuto thinks for a moment, then rushes out of the cavern back into the mines. He takes a look around saying, “these old miners must have a way to go up and down these floors. We’ll just have to figure out how they did it!”

They start to look around carefully for any clues as how they can get out of the mines. They look for some sort of emergency exit, or ladder they can use to get back up to the floors above. As they explore the mine, Yuto notices something odd against the cave wall. Most of the walls are lumpy from miners digging to expose geodes under the earth. Yuto finds a panel of wall that is perfectly flat with a line running through the middle. He may not be as in tune with nature as Jennifer is, but even he knows that nature doesn’t make perfectly flat surfaces or straight lines. He beats against the panel, and realizes that it’s made of metal. Jennifer joins Yuto, then looks to the right to find a button.

She curiously presses the button, which causes the metal panels to open slowly. They stand back as the loud creaky screech of the metal doors hurt their ears. Lights turn on, as they see some type of shaft invite them in. They walk in slowly, then look up to see the shaft leading straight back up passing through hundreds of floors.

“Is this an elevator?” asked Jennifer?

“This is how they got up and down the mines. By the looks of this, it’s most likely made of adamantite from the spring mines,” answered Yuto.

“Then why was this mine closed off? I don’t understand,” asked Jennifer.

“I don’t know. I guess we at least know why is this town called Mineral Town. This must have been a mining community before changing into a farming one. Something must have happened to make this town abandon these mines.”

Jennifer nods, then says, “we should get out of here for now. We may never know the secrets of this town, but we can at least use this mine to save this town.”

Yuto nods back, then pushes the button to the top floor. The doors close, then the elevator jerks before going straight back up to the top floor. It is now early evening, so they decide to rest for the day before moving on to deal with the blueprints they found.

The next day, Yuto and Jennifer meet with Gotts at his cabin south of the farm. He welcomes them in, and immediately starts to make them offers for some of his furniture. They politely decline his offers, then shows him the blueprints they found in the bottom of the lake mines. Gotts takes the plans and studies it closely. His face becomes serious as he looks through the pages one by one. He can’t read the ancient language, but he does recognize the plan structure.

“Where did you get this?” asked Gotts.

“We found them hidden in the mines. Do you know what kind of plan that is?” answered Yuto.

He nods, then goes back into his storage room to find some old dusty plans of his own. On his draft table, Gotts lays the plans Yuto brought next to the one he has. Yuto notices that the plans are similar, but the one they found seems to be a bit more complex.

“These are plans for a greenhouse. I used to build them a long time ago,” said Gotts.

Yuto looks at Gotts curiously. “Why did you stop? A greenhouse sounds like something very useful.”

Gotts strokes his mustache for a second before answering, “these buildings are very fragile. I would build one, then they get torn down as soon as a hurricane or snowstorm hits. I just gave up on building them since they are expensive to build and maintain.”

Gotts then picks up the plan Yuto and Jennifer brought in saying, “however, this type of greenhouse is different than those I’ve built in the past. I can tell that this type is not made of iron and glass. Then there is this podium that seems to power this building. I can’t read this plan, so I can’t tell what this greenhouse is made of or what is the purpose of this podium is.”

“If I can translate it, are you able to build it?” asked Jennifer.

“I can definitely try.” He then returns the plans saying, “I’ll need some time to refresh myself on how to build greenhouses. Let me know if you find anything out.”

Yuto and Jennifer nods. They have no idea if this is what they were meant to find, but they are curious to see if the greenhouse will help them save the town. They also know that they have a lot of hard work ahead of them. They didn’t find any pieces of the Jewel of Truth, but this can at least keep them bust until they get another clue from the Harvest Goddess.