Milo runs around, his eyes wild, and glaring at the note in his hands.

  We want 25 gold, plus ownership of all mines, and property within the dungeon. If you do not comply your secretary Gertrude is dead. Meet us at the entrance of the town on the seventh floor.

  I have no intention of following through on this. “I attempt to gather my guards but a large group of other worlders calling themselves the ascendants had started rioting so they were unable to come.

  I did find Tom, and my favourite party of adventurers. We blitz through the first six floors, but when we arrive on the seventh floor, we rush to our mine, and find the outside looking like a battleground.

  The whole place is cut up. The grass is torn, and thrown about, with patches of fire burning on exposed coal seams.

  The foreman, a young man, with a terrible stutter rushes out of the mine, and begins speaking. “I-I was talking to her, and then there was explosions, a-and she ran out, and s-some guys just snagged her, and ran off!”

  I grit my teeth. “Quickly, we need to get to the town.”

  We turn, and begin our march, Tom runs ahead, his long legs carrying him forward, at a speed we simply can't match. Most of us are D ranked, but Luther is low C ranked.

  As we rush forward we arrive to find Tom standing in front of a group of nervous men, stamping back, and forth on the ground.

  One of them wrings his hands, but grits his teeth, and speaks anyway. “Our demands?”

  I nod my head. “Where is she?”

  He sighs. “I can't tell you that.”

  “Then you don't get the money you retard. Show her to me.”

  He growls, and sighs. “Fine.” He quickly begins to walk, and we follow behind him. We arrive at one of my competitors' mines, the biggest competitor. He nods his head. “She's in there.” He turns back to us, his lackeys turn, and look at us as well.

  I nod, step forward, and begin to rifle through my pockets as if to find some money, before with a flash, a knife tears through my pockets, piercing the man's gut. I draw it upwards, leaving a gaping maw that runs from his belly button to his collarbone.

  He collapses his guts slipping through the flap of skin like eels or snakes escaping from hiding places.

  His friends round on me, but in a flash Tom has split one in half. His halberd colliding with his skull, spraying viscera before continuing downwards, splitting him like a watermelon.

  The last one, more prepared, throws his hands up, and a thin wall of ice blocks the bolt freeing itself from Luther's crossbow.

  Then he spins, and with a slick side throw, a knife slides from his sleeve, a thin black stilleto. Before it reaches me, Tom has pulled me out of the way. The man's eyes grow wide, but it's too late. Luther has already reached him, and tore him open.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  I smirk, and strut into the shallow decline descending into the hillside

  The whole place is soaking. The walls have a mysterious mold growing on them, from being soaked in water. None of the workers have any safety gear, and most of them look malnourished, and exhausted.

  “Did any of you see where they took them?” I ask, cringing internally at the state of most of these workers, who are in horrid conditions, and some of them even seem to have wounds on their body.

  A young man steps forward, he wears a ragged shirt made of a cotton like material. The shirt has a design on it similar to the other-worlders. The design is circular, and blue, with sparkles throughout it. The center has letters that read out NASA. Not sure what that is, but whatever.

  “Hey, I'm an other-worlder. I know where they put her.” The others cringe at his words.

  I nod, but he turns slowly, and as he walks he talks. “At first, I just came through the gate, because I was tired of living with my mom. She was tired of me living with her, and kept telling me to go get a job.”

  I frown, but he continues.

  “I came through the portal with some delusions of becoming a great mage, or warrior. But, I obviously didn't know any magic, so… I went searching. I eventually found a group of people who promised to teach me, as long as I became her apprentice. I agreed, and took me into the dungeon, but as we entered the dungeon, she attacked me, and I was knocked unconscious, and dragged to a basement, or-or, a cellar of some kind. The whole thing was disgusting, and smelled like shit, rot, and body odor. Not only that, but the entire place was jam packed with other people like me.” He sighs deeply.

  “I stayed there for a day or so, before they knocked me out, and I woke up here. They whipped me, and made me mine for coal. I tried to resist but everytime I did, one of them would just beat me severely. When I still did not comply they would force someone to dig a hole, and they would bury you in it, up to your neck. They would leave you there for days at a time. They would drip water onto my face, or step on it, the only food they would give you was jerky of some kind.”

  He steps forward, and raps on the stone walls. I turn, disgusted, to find a large chamber. The chamber was filled with wooden posts, and hanging from the wooden posts were simple hammocks, and right near the back, Gertrude sat, glaring, from a chair she was tied into.

  She opens her mouth. “Took you long enough lazy bones. What's that young blood for if you can only get here that fast. Back in my day, me and my 4 year old brother would each have to do that exact same shit, twice a day, and we liked it!”

  My eye twitches. “Whatever Gerty”

  A vein bulges on her forehead. “What… The…. Hell… Did you just call me, whippersnapper!” She tears free from her bindings, standing up, and smacks me upside the head.

  I recoil. “If you could have gotten out by yourself, why didn't you!?”

  She glares, “Shut up lazy bones, didn't want to make things any easier for you.”

  I sigh.

  She responds. “You need to get the rest of the task force down here.”

  I frown slightly. “Why?”

  She laughs her anger seemingly forgotten, “Because they are getting slaves from somewhere, oh, and I was wrong, turns out that they aren't paying their workers, they are just using slaves, which to be honest would actually be cheaper, so maybe we should switch to that in the future.”

  I shrug. “I know where they are getting slaves from. They are kidnapping helpless other-worlders.”

  She nods, “I see. Makes sense really. Though we need to tax that. We should make a visa of sorts, so kidnapping, and enslaving people from the other world who have a visa is illegal, but if they don't have a visa, then they are free pickings to be taken as slaves. We tax the slave market, and we charge them for owning a visa. It's genius. This way we make maximum money.”

  I nod, “good idea. What about the people down here who own this mine?”

  Gertude nods, “We kill them, and make them a shell corporation, we can give it to someone else, as long as they promise to develop the land down here, and bring more people in to live here.”

  I nod, and shrug. “Good Idea. I don't really want to deal with another mine anyway.”