CLINK.
CLINK.
CLINK.
Several minutes passed.
By the time they finished, a dozen sizeable chunks of hematite sat in a pile beside the exposed deposit.
Kaya picked one up.
Heavy.
Much heavier than it looked.
They divided the load and carried it back toward the kiln.
One by one, the reddish stones were placed beside the ceramic vessels.
Elias examined the ore.
Then the kiln.
Then the mould he had made.
A long pause followed.
“We require a metallurgist.”
Kaya blinked.
“A what?”
“Someone who actually knows what they’re doing.”
He stared at the kiln.
“My expertise lies elsewhere.”
Kaya gestured toward the surrounding vegetation.
“Can’t we just burn the plants?”
“Combustion isn’t the problem.”
Elias tapped the kiln.
“Temperature is.”
He picked up a chunk of hematite.
“Wet vegetation burns poorly. Dry plant matter burns, but not necessarily hot or consistently enough for what we need.”
“Meaning?”
“We need better fuel.”
A pause.
“Preferably charcoal.”
Kaya looked around.
“The plants?”
“We need wood.”
She stared at him.
“But we’re in a cave.”
“Yes.”
“No trees.”
“I’m aware.”
“Then no charcoal.”
Elias looked toward the darkness where Sid had disappeared.
“Coal would also work.”
“And if we don’t find coal?”
Silence.
Elias looked at the kiln.
“Then producing iron becomes considerably more difficult.”
Kaya’s shoulders sagged.
“Seriously?”
“The ore is only the beginning.”
He turned the hematite in his hand.
“We need fuel capable of sustaining high temperatures. Controlled airflow. A reducing atmosphere. And even then, we’re not simply going to melt iron and pour it into that mould.”
Kaya pointed at the mould.
“Then why did you make that?”
Elias stared at it.
A pause.
“Optimism.”
Kaya laughed.
Elias ignored her.
“A primitive furnace would more likely produce a spongy mass of iron mixed with slag. We would then need to consolidate it mechanically.”
Kaya’s laughter died.
“With what?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him.
Elias looked back at the ore.
“We require a metallurgist.”
“Right.”
A pause.
“So how do we make charcoal?”
“Heat wood while restricting its oxygen supply.”
“And that gives us better fuel?”
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“Higher carbon concentration. More useful for sustained high-temperature work.”
They both slowly turned toward the surrounding vegetation.
Ferns.
Moss.
Broad leaves.
Not a tree in sight.
Kaya folded her arms.
“Knowing our luck?”
Elias looked at her.
“There’s probably a forest somewhere.”
He considered the increasingly absurd underground ecosystem.
Then nodded.
“Statistically speaking, that is becoming increasingly plausible.”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
Brownish blood spilled into a nearby stream.
Sid’s crystal opened the goblin’s abdomen with surgical precision.
“Liver.”
He removed the organ and placed it beside him.
“Stomach.”
Another incision.
“Small intestine.”
Alan looked away.
“Sid…”
“Quiet.”
Sid continued.
“Large intestine.”
The organs accumulated on the wet stone.
“Kidneys.”
He paused.
His blue eye lights narrowed.
“Remarkably familiar.”
Alan made the mistake of looking again.
Sid had both hands inside the abdominal cavity.
“This species possesses an anatomy surprisingly close to ours.”
“Ours?”
“Human.”
“You could’ve specified that before putting both hands inside it.”
Sid ignored him.
Then stopped.
Slowly.
His fingers emerged holding something pale.
T-shaped.
Soft.
Sid stared.
“What on earth is this?”
Alan immediately looked away again.
“I don’t want to know.”
Sid gently compressed the organ between his fingers.
It yielded.
Then slowly returned to shape.
“Interesting…”
He rotated it beneath the crystal light.
“Elastic.”
His thumb traced the surface.
“Highly vascularised.”
Sid rubbed his chin, smearing blood across his jaw.
“Hm.”
Barbara watched from several paces away.
“You recognise it?”
“No.”
Sid sounded delighted.
Alan looked back.
“You don’t know?”
“Not yet.”
Sid chuckled.
“Which is why this is exciting.”
He held the organ toward the light.
“Possibly respiratory. Possibly filtration. Possibly something entirely unique to the species.”
He lowered it.
“The location is unusual.”
Alan stared.
“You’re enjoying this far too much.”
“Yes.”
Sid dropped the organ onto the pile.
SPLAT.
Then looked at the corpse.
“I wonder if I can reanimate it.”
Alan’s head snapped around.
“What?”
Sid ignored him.
“It would be missing several organs, but…”
He studied the body.
Then his own ribcage.
“No.”
His eye lights narrowed.
“Even if resurrection restored function, this body would still require food.”
Barbara’s gaze shifted toward him.
Sid gestured at himself.
“This form is considerably more efficient.”
“No hunger.”
Another gesture.
“No fatigue.”
He looked down at the goblin.
“No dependence on agricultural production.”
Alan frowned.
Sid continued.
“Far less competition over finite resources.”
Barbara went still.
Sid’s gaze remained on the corpse.
“In principle, a society like ours could eliminate a considerable number of material inequalities simply by eliminating biological consumption.”
Silence.
Barbara stared at him.
“I didn’t think you’d be doing this.”
Sid looked up.
“Doing what?”
She gestured toward everything.
The opened corpse.
The organs.
The blood coating his arms.
“The dead little person you’re dismantling.”
Sid looked down.
Then back at Barbara.
“It attacked us.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
Sid considered that.
Then returned to work.
His crystal slid through the goblin’s joints with practised precision.
“Harvesting connective tissue.”
A ligament came free.
Sid inspected it.
“Excellent tensile strength.”
Alan turned away.
“I’ve seen enough.”
Barbara looked at him.
“Do you know the way back?”
“Of course.”
Alan pointed into the darkness.
“Up that bend, down the next slope, then keep left.”
“Excellent.”
Barbara started walking.
Alan immediately followed.
Several seconds passed.
Then—
“WAIT!”
The thought thundered after them.
WAIT!
WAIT!
WAIT!
Barbara stopped.
Alan sighed.
“What now?”
A high-pitched scream answered from somewhere in the darkness.
Silence.
Sid froze.
Barbara looked back.
Sid looked toward the sound.
Then at the half-dissected goblin.
Then back into the darkness.
“Ah.”
He threw the corpse over one shoulder.
“Perhaps we should leave slightly faster.”
He scurried after them.
They kept left.
The passage changed as they descended.
The pale limestone gave way to dark geometric formations.
Columns rose from the cavern floor in tight clusters. Others descended from above or protruded horizontally from the walls, their surfaces divided into rough hexagonal faces.
Sid slowed.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Alan kept walking.
“What now?”
Sid stared at the columns.
“Elias said most of this cavern appears sedimentary.”
“So?”
“So this isn’t.”
He approached one of the dark pillars.
“Basalt, perhaps.”
Alan looked around.
“Meaning?”
“Cooling columns.”
Sid ran his fingers across one of the angular faces.
“Molten rock cools, contracts and fractures. Under the right conditions, you get formations like these.”
He looked toward the ceiling.
“So either the surrounding geology changed…”
His eye lights narrowed.
“…or magma intruded through the limestone at some point.”
Alan stared at him.
“Whatever, man.”
Sid remained focused on the rock.
“Could be useful.”
“Of course it could.”
By the time they reached the golden cavern, Sid looked positively ghoulish.
Dark blood coated his arms.
Fresh lengths of goblin ligament had been looped around his ribs to dry.
A child-sized corpse hung from one shoulder.
“Wonderful!”
His voice boomed across the cavern.
Kaya flinched.
Elias finally looked up from the kiln.
“Ah.”
A pause.
“So you made it.”
Then he noticed Barbara.
Silence.
Elias stood.
“Amazing…”
Barbara stopped.
The top of her skull sat nearly three feet above his.
Elias approached.
He circled her once.
Barbara slowly turned her head to follow him.
His gaze travelled over the dinosaur-reinforced limbs.
The oversized joints.
The broadened spine.
The massive ribcage.
“Remarkably stable.”
Barbara blinked.
“Thank you?”
“I was talking to Sid.”
Sid chuckled proudly.
“Isn’t she a delightful specimen?”
Barbara looked at him.
“She?”
Elias finally seemed to register the voice.
He looked up.
Barbara raised one hand.
“Hello there.”
A pause.
“Name’s Barbara.”
Elias looked at the human skull.
Then the dinosaur frame beneath it.
Then back at her skull.
“Elias.”
A single nod.
Barbara leaned down.
“Red eyes…”
Elias stared back.
“Green.”
Barbara slowly straightened.
Then lowered the enormous dinosaur skull beside the kiln.
CLUNK.
Elias looked at it.
Then at Barbara.
Then at Sid.
“What’s inside?”
“Animal fat.”
Elias leaned towards it.
“Oh.”
Sid dropped the goblin corpse beside it.
SQUELCH.
Elias looked down.
Another pause.
“And that?”
“Science.”
“Of course.”
Alan approached Kaya.
“You wouldn’t believe what I just experienced.”
Kaya glanced at the fracture along his skull.
“What happened to—”
She stopped.
Her eye lights settled on the goblin corpse.
“Oh.”
A pause.
“Is that a goblin?”
Alan nodded.
“Apparently.”
Kaya stared at it.
Then around at the impossible underground vegetation.
“Another world, I guess.”
“Yeah.”
Alan rubbed the side of his skull.
“Little shit cracked me with a rock.”
His gaze drifted toward Sid.
Several metres away, the surgeon knelt over the second corpse.
Slice.
“Interesting…”
A ligament came free.
Sid looped it around his ribs.
“Very interesting…”
Alan watched him.
“Honestly?”
Kaya looked over.
“Sid’s remarkable.”
She stared at Alan.
“Have you suffered additional head trauma?”
“No.”
Alan watched Sid work.
“He killed that thing without a fraction of hesitation.”
“Remember who attacked first.”
Barbara’s voice carried from beside the kiln.
They turned.
She shrugged.
“He wasn’t exactly given much time to think about it.”
Kaya stared.
“A rare sight.”
Barbara tilted her head.
“What?”
“Someone defending Sid.”
Barbara looked over.
Sid was holding an unidentified goblin organ toward the yellow crystal light.
“Hehehe…”
A pause.
“I wouldn’t go that far.”