Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 28, 2021 15:23:27 GMT -6
"Subtlety" wasn't exactly in his repertoire, either. But his senses rarely lied - If there was something to find, Ras would make sure it was Found, no matter how long it took him. That feeling was still strong as he dug the gravel pit deeper and deeper, starting to create a pile higher on the rim than the hole itself in the pit. (The sphinx had to make a note prior, to take a look at that as soon as she finished prying the copper loose).
Perhaps some of the gravel already had some stones to find within them, perhaps there wasn't anything to find and the riverbed was dry as desert. But he knew there was Something and it was Somewhere. His personal compass wasn't all too helpful as to the exact direction, much less location, but it didn't point towards Deeper and Down.
Most miners could say that was something of a cardinal direction for mining in general, but most miners didn't know Ras.
(103) Darky: 103 Ras Dashen: 97 (3/5) / 97 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 28, 2021 15:24:00 GMT -6
Deeper had layers and Down was many different directions. There was Far Down, Barely Down, Somewhat Down, Not At All Down, and Down-ish, whereas Deeper wasn't measured in creature-lengths so much as in kilometres.
The mountain had a lot more depth than any miner had ever, and would ever know. Places where darkness had no eyes, but a maw full of diamonds like teeth. Where fire and cold exchanged places, and stone flower side by side with rivers. Places where there was no air, for there wasn't enough pressure from above to push it so further in.
Places where only gargoyles, and their fellow deep-dwelling kin could survive. Places where organics could only explore if they sent a metal drone in their place, as if it was no different to the crushing depths of the deepest oceans.
Against all that, Ras was just skipping across the surface, like a stone being cast by a very deliberate-minded organic.
(104) Darky: 104 Ras Dashen: 97 (4/5) / 97 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 28, 2021 15:24:22 GMT -6
The sphinx finally tapped the copper ore free of the calcite bonds, and began to gently brush the softer stone off of it. Much of it was still encased in the calcite, as it seemed the vein had been once part of a stone that got cut loose from a wall, only to be washed down river, shaved smooth, and stitch in the calcite bed that encased it - The sediment stone seemed to fill every bore and hollow of it, needing a lot more work to be properly cleared than a crude digging chisel could do.
So, for now, she wrapped up the piece in cloth and placed it into the cart, making a note to do the cleaning once they get home. The stony shelf could still have plenty in it, but the mammalian needed to address the gargoyle's pile of results first. So, she took a shovel and headed over to the pit, starting to spread the gravel piling up on the rim towards the back of the cave, where it's easier to scatter it flat and inspect any potential finds.
(105) Darky: 105 Ras Dashen: 98 (0/5) / 98 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 28, 2021 15:24:51 GMT -6
Plus, it had the added benefit of avoid the stones falling back into the pit, once the edge-to-gravel ratio started to exceed normal gravitational bounds. Ras might have been a fastidious digger, and his knowledge and experience about rocks and tunnels exceptional, but an engineer he was not - When gargoyles dug their way through the mountains naturally, it tended to have a certain forward motion. This staying in one place and taking vengeance on one very specific pile of gravel wasn't a very natural response, even if it aligned with similar natural instincts.
After a short while, and no few number of shovel fills, the gravel was mostly dispersed around the flat cave floor towards the back of the pocket. Darky walked among it, making a slow row-by-imagined-row inspection, letting the flash-light run back and forth across the stones, just in case any of them showed to have any potential.
Alas, it seemed they were mostly just as advertised - gravel and nothing more.
(106) Darky: 106 Ras Dashen: 98 (1/5) / 98 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 28, 2021 15:25:30 GMT -6
But in the process a thought did strike her, giving pause - These stones didn't really have a lot of man-made marks on them, but some of the top layer ones had sharper edges than the smoother, bottom layer ones. She wasn't exactly an expert on rivers, but even in the desert exposed rock to any sort of flow - water or wind - would wear itself smooth over time. If there had been a river, all stones should have been smooth.
If there had been an intervention, perhaps not so much.
She went back to the edge of the pit and crouched down, examining the edges of the wall, while avoiding the still-flying debris of small stones being thrown out of the hole by the gargoyle. There was certainly layers, much like anywhere else in the mountain. Layers which told a story of its geological origin. But in this case, the top half wasn't nearly as interesting as the gravel below, since they had effectively broken through the "ceiling" of it.
(107) Darky: 107 Ras Dashen: 98 (2/5) / 98 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 28, 2021 15:25:52 GMT -6
Ras had made enough of a mess of the gravel pit that finding clues there wasn't quite so simple, but the gravel still pouring in from the sides of the pit beneath the harder layer of stone still told a story of their own. The top layer of stones were sharp-edged, similar to what she had seen with the ones scattered about. The layers closer to where Ras was digging a tunnel through to the other wise of the world, were smoother.
The sphinx rubbed her chin, brow slightly furrowing in thought. The stones above weren't river stones, then.. but neither would they have remained so sharp if the water had still been running. They looked closer to man-made gravel, the kind crushed and chucked up by machines to throw on roads. So, then, how did road-gravel come to meet river-gravel, in this one specific tunnel?
The realization wasn't quick, but it dawned with the inevitability of another day.
(108) Darky: 108 Ras Dashen: 98 (3/5) / 98 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 28, 2021 15:26:17 GMT -6
In all of this, she had rather forgot to take into account the location of the cavern, and not just the cavern itself - With it being so close to the entrance, people would have surely passed through here countless times. Perhaps even in the early days of the mines, when the floods were more frequent, they could have tried to stop the flow of water by damming up areas, in the hopes of keeping it at bay.
Obviously, it hadn't worked quite as anticipated, considering the mountain flooded frequently for quite some years, before the miners were finally able to fix the issue, eventually. As for these once-river beds, it seems this had been a forgotten one, running just beneath the feet of the main tunnel area, with someone at some point that much wiser to it as to try and clog it.
As Ras continued digging, another somewhat alarming thought occurred to the mammalian, but she dismissed it quickly.
(109) Darky: 109 Ras Dashen: 98 (4/5) / 98 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 28, 2021 15:26:43 GMT -6
That idea being, if the gravel had been shovelled into this tunnel with the intent to clog it, would uncovering it cause the waters to run free again? But evidence seemed to suggest not - The gravel was dry as bone, even as the cavern itself was a little more on the humid side. Plus, the floods came deeper in from the mountain, so the dams to prevent that had to have been much more further away.
Ras, pausing as he picked up on that change of concern, poked his head out of the hole and clacked his beak in question. Despite being a ribbon-bearer now, some of his communication habits still died hard. The sphinx emerged from the daydream pondering and just smiled at him, assuring that everything was fine and he could continue same as before.
In the meantime, there was shelf with a fissure in it that was looking to have a date with her pickaxe. Well, what remained of it, in any case.
(110) Darky: 110 Ras Dashen: 99 (0/5) / 99 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 28, 2021 15:27:15 GMT -6
The gravel-digging resumed, with another pile starting to form on the pit rim. Ras was now starting to go less deeper and more horizontal in the hole, starting to hollow out a space among the loose gravel underneath the solid rock layer between. It wasn't too different to imagining something trying to dig just underneath the crust, although the sphinx had to mind him to be careful, and to keep her apprised on the progress - This stone was tougher than the gravel, but it wasn't exactly all granite.
If Ras started to hollow out the rock beneath, it paid to know where to place your foot on the layer above, lest you find yourself in a short but sudden slide down into the hole with him. The shelf on her end was mostly filled with stress cracks and smaller fissures, which the mammalian was looking to cash in on. Hitting the pickaxe at those points cause more cracks and more fissures to spider outward, weakening the rock around further.
(111) Darky: 111 Ras Dashen: 99 (1/5) / 99 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 28, 2021 15:27:48 GMT -6
Many would say digging was all about strength, and while they weren't necessarily wrong, one also had to take into consideration smarts and stamina. You could hit a rock as hard as you could, but if you wasted all that energy on the hardest part where softer rocks surround it, it ultimately did little good. Darky focused on each fissure as it appeared, using the pickaxe to strike it as to extend it further, or to lodge the edge of it in, in order to apply pressure and widen it that way.
Some of the pieces broke off in layers and chunks, while others remained a little more stubborn, but all the same, the calcite shelf started resembling more like a meteor-blasted moon, than the smooth shelf it was before (She assumed. There had been books with pictures on this, although she still didn't quite understand how those pictures were obtained).
Ras on the other hand was certainly more into combining both strength AND stamina, tunnelling forward like a black stone gopher.
(112) Darky: 112 Ras Dashen: 99 (2/5) / 99 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 28, 2021 15:29:00 GMT -6
It wasn't long until he hit a wall of stronger stone, similar to the ceiling above him, but that hardly presented an issue. The gargoyle would have almost continued to dig through even that, if the short exchange along the thought mentalscapes hadn't allowed the sphinx to redirect him into keeping on with the gravel.
So, instead, he turned a proper 90-degrees to the side and continued along that, still kicking gravel and loose debris back from where he came, not unlike a mole ensuring that his little tunnel warren remained structurally sound.
As much as it could, in any case.
It still wasn't wide enough for the mammalian to inspect and join him on this, but it didn't need to be - Mere moments later, as another pile of gravel had just been tossed out of the tunnel, there was a spark of surprise, followed by sudden confusion. Distantly, the sphinx could hear clattering and rustling from the tiny tunnel in the pit's wall.
(113) Darky: 113 Ras Dashen: 99 (3/5) / 99 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 28, 2021 15:29:28 GMT -6
She paused her digging at the shelf and rushed over, peering into the tunnel from the pit's edge, "Ras? Are you alright?" She could still feel him, with various half-formed thoughts coming in through the ribbon, but it didn't hurt to ask.
The confirmation came shortly after, most likely as the gargoyle got his bearings - Alright, tunnel big, cave, slope, gravel, darkness. Except, in much less words and a lot more figurative images. The sphinx didn't know what it was like to see in the dark, as her kind wasn't exactly gifted with that, but the impressions of thoughts the gargoyle was giving were quite fascinating. She understood them through meaning more than the words itself.
Apparently the gravel trap had ended some distance from the bend in the tunnel, and beyond it is just darkness and more tunnel, with the gravel wall behind him. There was some moisture scattered on the bottom of the floor there, but certainly not a whole gapped river like she had initially feared.
(114) Darky: 114 Ras Dashen: 99 (4/5) / 99 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on May 28, 2021 15:29:59 GMT -6
But this was good. A branching tunnel meant more chance to explore with less of a need to dig through walls in order to get there. The only problem was.. somehow getting there. The sphinx wasn't exactly big in size, but still larger than the gargoyle, and most of the tunnel was presently very much gargoyle-shaped.
However, if Ras' description of the area was true, then she didn't necessarily have to follow the same way. Darky jumped down into the pit and considered the gravel wall directly next to her, on the opposite side of which was Ras somewhere. Reaching for the shovel on the rim, she began to dig and toss the gravel out, much the same way the gargoyle had, but with considerably more purpose.
What Ras failed to describe was just how thick the wall between the hollow space and the pit was, taking the sphinx a better part of half an hour to break trough. Eventually, though, she felt the wall give way - the other way, as the gravel began to pour into the darkness beyond, to a patiently awaiting gargoyle.
(115) Darky: 115 - (added) Ras Dashen: 100 (0/5) / 100 (0/5)
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Post by Nadia on May 30, 2021 13:01:42 GMT -6
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Jul 28, 2021 4:25:40 GMT -6
A clattering sounded as pebbles of gravel suddenly cascaded down a slope, pushed inward to the tunnel by the sphinx and her shovel. The gargoyle didn’t sound an alarm, as he was able to feel her presence getting closer, but he did side-step away from the newly made opening all the same, clacking his beak in warning at the rocks (Just in case they thought to do anything).
The cascade took some time to settle down, especially since the sphinx had to continue widening out the new gap in the wall for a more comfortable fit through. The sound echoed further and deeper and didn’t seem to stop doing so, suggesting the tunnel lead a lot more inward than Ras’ initial impression suggested.
If it was the tried underground river from the floods of past, it could very well lead to the top of the mountain itself (Or the bottom of whatever underground reservoir caused the massive floods to begin with).
(116) Darky: 116 Ras Dashen: 100 (1/5) / 100 (1/5)
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