Darlington Mine

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My name is unimportant. Just call me the miner. This is a tale of warning, and if you choose not to heed my words, you risk meeting a fate worse than death. What you need to know is simply this: somewhere in the deep oceans of the southeast there is a

small island barely large enough for more than two men to stand on at the same time. In the shallows just north of this island, there is an entrance to an underwater cave. I and two friends entered that cave searching for minerals. My two

friends have never been heard from again. It was a few weeks ago. My one friend, call him Antias, came to town one day from his travels with tales of a great untapped wealth that lay in the southeast. He had not seen it for himself, but rather had been

told by a traveling woman named Moira of the treasure. He provided my other friend, call him Lycius, and I with the coordinates and the agreement that any mineral veins we discovered there would be split between us equally. Lycius was quick to agree to

the journey, but I had my doubts about trusting the woman. Nevertheless, we assembled our gear and supplies and set out the following morning under cover of night. There were no roads, even netherside, which headed directly to this location that we

knew of so we were forced to travel overworld, mostly by foot, but we crossed the oceans via ship. As we approached the coordinates, we were greeted by nothing but endless ocean, and I began to suspect we had been duped, but then a tiny outcropping of

land suddenly appeared, just as the woman had described. We secured our boats and swam a short distance out, spotting the cave entrance immediately. Lycius and Antias dove down. I hesitated, unable to shake a feeling of impending doom, but I followed them

down a few meters to the entrance. It was a tight fit and I briefly thought I had become stuck and would drown there, but then I slipped through into a small, dark opening. The water ran by us, cutting a path barely large enough for men to walk through

and sloping down precipitously to the point that it was a vertical drop for several meters on more than one occasion. As we dove deeper and deeper, we were encountered with the tell-tale blackness miners are accustomed to finding at great depths.

And yet, we never hit bedrock. We went deeper and deeper and I was certain that something was amiss, but Antias and Lycius seemed unconcerned. Soon, an ethereal glow began to emanate from below us, and accompanying heat told me we had reached a lava pool.

Finally, solid ground presented itself to us, and we set our feet down on hardened obsidian, walking towards the glow of a nearby bubbling lava pool on the edge of the water’s reach. What we saw exceeded every expectation. Minerals everywhere.

Iron, gold, and yes, diamonds presented themselves to us in far greater concentrations than we had been prepared for. There was almost no stone to speak of, only mineral. The diamond was by far the most abundant, and even I felt unconcerned

with our safety at this point. We set to work on the minerals with diamond picks, concentrating on the diamonds at first with the intent to clean out the remaining minerals over time. Much time passed, likely many hours. Between the three§0 §0of us,

we were able to open the cave up quite a bit. We’d nearly stuffed our pockets as full as they could get with diamond blocks, and there was still no end in sight to the minerals. I suggested a break; we could return to town, stash our first lot of

treasure, and come back tomorrow for more. The lads agreed, but Antias insisted that we not go until we were absolutely as full of diamond as we could carry. He turned back down a small offshoot tunnel he had been working on, and Lycius and I

waited as we were already at capacity. And we waited. And waited. Perhaps another thirty minutes went by. Perhaps more. Eventually, I became worried and asked Lycius to accompany me down the tunnel to checkon Antias. He thought I was being paranoid,

but he came along all the same. The tunnel went on for a while and was bare and unlit; we added torches as we went down, calling Antias’ name every few seconds. I do not know if Lycius became worried at this point, but I do know that he drew his sword.

I drew mine as well. It occurred to me that it was odd that we had not encountered mobs at any point during our extraction. Not even so much as a bat. My fears began to mount as we ran out of torches, but just as we placed the last one, we found we

had come to the end of the tunnel. Antias was nowhere to be found. Lycius and I were confused; there was no way he could have gone by us, yet he was not here. Finally, Lycius reasoned that we had somehow gone down the wrong tunnel.

This was impossible, but I chose to believe it as well to avoid darker thoughts, and we turned back. As we returned, we picked up our torches. About half way back, we discovered a lone diamond ore suspended from the ceiling. I am quite certain that it was

not there before. Lycius had room for exactly one more diamond and decided to mine it. A split second before his pick touched the ore, I realized that this was all wrong, that we should never have come here, and that this was going to end in our dooms,

but I could not speak out fast enough, and Lycius drove his pick into the ore. There was a great rumbling, as though the cave itself were responding organically to his strike, and the ore shook and withdrew up into the rock from which it hung.

The rock above it, opened slightly, like a mouth, and tendrils of crimson and violet snaked out from the crevice, entwining Lycius with great speed. He struggled to yell, but the snake-like tubes wrapped around his neck, choking him, and sucked

him into the hole. It was too small for him to fit, really, and the jagged rock seemed to scrape chunks of his armor away and dig into his flesh where it was exposed. This all happened within the course of a few seconds. I realized I had fallen

back on my rear. I was breathing heavily, staring at the ceiling without blinking. I pulled myself together and reasoned that whatever had taken Lycius must have also taken Antias. What I did next I am not proud of. I decided to flee. I walked briskly,

worried that if I ran outright I would lose what little control I had over myself, and got back to the main cave. There, I followed torchlight back to the waterfall and prepared myself for the long swim. It was then that I became acutely aware

that I was not alone. I turned back and looked towards the tunnel and saw several pairs of pin-prick red dots staring at me from the darkness. The torch closest to them suddenly gave out, and the dots moved closer. Then the next torch died,

and the dots moved closer still. As they approached the next torch, each pair of dots was accompanied by the faint silver glow of many vertical parallel lines in sets below the dots. I realized what I was seeing: pairs of eyes and maws of long,

razor-sharp teeth like knives. The darkness was too rich to allow any more detail. Only the eyes and teeth could be seen, reflecting the dying glow of a line of torches leading from them to me, becoming shorter with every second I allowed myself to remain

frozen by their approach. I snapped back to my senses, turned, and frantically swam up the stream with all my strength. I chanced a glance below; the creatures, whatever they were, had snuffed out the last of the torches

and they were following me! I could no longer see them, but I could hear them splashing up the water behind me, and the splashing came closer and closer. It was then that I made a difficult choice: I released all my gear down the waterfall, ores food,

picks, and torches. I held onto nothing but my sword and found that lightening my burden had given me the extra mobility to at least keep pace ahead of the monsters. I cursed my lack of forethought, knowing I had several potions of swiftness back home

collecting dust. I swam with all my strength, feeling myself grow weak with hunger, and it occurred to me that I would probably not make it, but then I saw a welcome glow ahead of me: the glow of starlight. Moments later, I had reached the mouth of the

cave, and I plunged head first into the ocean above. The suction of the cave nearly drowned me for the second time at that place, but I surfaced and headed for the small patch of land, sucking in fresh air as I went and trying to listen for the splashing

of creatures behind me over my own ragged breath. I reached the boats, destroyed two, and jumped in the third one. With one last glance towards the cave, I sped off towards land. The trek was fraught with peril as I was met with constant precipitation

and a horde of zombies and skeletons at the shore of the continent, but I managed to slip past them and luckily came across some chickens to stave off my starvation. Sometime later, I hobbled back into town, penniless and barely alive. I entered my home

and shut myself in for weeks, not talking to anyone. I occasionally watched for signs that my friends had somehow escaped and returned, but they have not returned to their homes, which lay in disrepair and ruin. Finally, just yesterday, I exited

my home again and reacquainted myself with the world. But I don’t see it the same way now because I know those things exist. I will not share the coordinates of this cave, so do not ask me if you see me. I cannot bear to have more on my conscience than

I already do. I know Lycius and Antias are not dead. They have met with some far worse fate than that, and I do not know that they will ever escape it, or that I have truly escaped it myself. I do know this, though: If you are ever in the great seas of

the southeast and you come across a small hunk of dirt passing itself off as an island with boat wreckage along the shore, keep moving. Do not explore this area. Do not let your greed drive you to follow in the paths of Lycius and Antias, for no amount of

diamond is worth that risk. Flee from that island as fast as you can. And if you see something you do not recognize just off the shore, something with red dots for eyes and teeth like needles, swim away as fast as you can, and do not look back. For those

creatures wish to take you down into the bowels of their domain and woo you with promises of infinite riches, only to feed you to their cavernous home, a cave that I now believe is itself a great and noxious beast which exists to tear men’s bodies

asunder and toy with their souls for all eternity. And if you choose not to heed my warning? Then may Notch have mercy on your soul... because they won’t.

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