Who is the Champion? * Stax makes a proposal * Osk’s inventions are found wanting
During his time working for The Tumbles Extraction Company, Stax had made it a habit to visit the general store every three or four days. It was a relief to see something other than the miners’ dormitory and hear discussions that weren’t about ore and gems, and he enjoyed Brubbs’s ready supply of news and gossip.
Every time he visited, Stax asked if Brubbs had heard from a traveler who knew the lands beyond the Sea of Sorrows. Every time, the answer was no. Until finally, standing in the general store and hearing this disappointing news yet again, Stax realized that the answer was always going to be no. If he was going to get home, he couldn’t wait for some knowledgeable ship captain to get him there. He would have to find some other way.
And the only answer Stax could think of was the one that frightened him: He had to find Fouge Tempro. Fouge knew how to get from the eastern end of the Sea of Sorrows to the Stonecutter estate. And, of course, he deserved to answer for what he’d done to Stax.
But while Stax fantasized about having his revenge, brooding over the compass Fouge had dropped, he couldn’t imagine confronting the pitiless raider. Over the last few weeks Stax had proved to himself that he could survive difficulties and dangers, and he’d remembered the craft of mining and adjusted to long days of hard work belowground. But those successes hadn’t transformed him into a warrior. He still had no weapons except a wooden sword and a pair of scavenged arrows, and he knew it would take more than that to survive against Fouge.
So it felt like a stroke of good fortune when Stax overheard Brubbs chatting with a leather trader about someone they called the champion. Listening to their conversation, Stax sensed that whoever this mysterious entity was, he or she deserved a capital letter—not the champion, but the Champion.
As Brubbs and the leather trader moved on to negotiating the price of a shipment of hides, Stax realized he’d heard the Champion mentioned before a time or two, overhearing that name spoken by miners, customers in the general store, or locals at the caravanserai. When the leather trader left, Stax sidled up to the counter.
“You were just talking about someone called the Champion,” Stax said. “Who is that?”
“You don’t know about the Champion?” Brubbs looked surprised. “The man who brought Dark Ulric to justice? Who cleared out the creeper nest below the Splinter? Who sent the Mulraven Bandits fleeing into the wilderness?”
Stax had to shake his head.
“Oh, he’s quite the local hero,” Brubbs said. “Lives a week or so out of town, in the mountains to the east. Though I doubt he’s journeyed beyond the Sea of Sorrows, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“No, nothing like that,” Stax said. “So he’s an experienced warrior, then?”
“Greatest swordsman of the realm, if the stories are true,” Brubbs said. “He used to come in here now and again, you know, though I haven’t seen him in years. They say he uses his castle as a base to explore strange realms: the Nether, even the End. Anywhere evil threatens good people, he’ll be there.”
Stax felt his hope rise. He liked to think he was good people, and he’d certainly had a distressing encounter with evil.
“So people ask him for help?” he asked Brubbs.
“They do,” Brubbs said. “Though I hear the Champion expects those who seek his help to offer what they can afford. Not for him, but so he can help others in need.”
“He’s a mercenary, then?” asked Stax.
Brubbs started to object, then stopped and laughed. “It does sound like that, doesn’t it? That’s a good lesson, Stax: Don’t assume your local heroes are everything legend says they are. But no, I don’t think that’s quite fair. It was a band of poor farmers who asked the Champion to run off the Mulraven Bandits, and I hear he agreed in return for a loaf of fresh bread each week. But when the royal twins of Far Nalur were kidnapped, the Champion retrieved the prince and princess in return for the king and queen agreeing to suspend all taxes until the children’s next birthday. That sounds like a fair outcome, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose it does,” said Stax. He thanked Brubbs and left the general store, deep in thought. He was trying to imagine himself journeying to the Champion’s mountain castle, and what this great warrior might say after Stax told him of all he had suffered at the hands of Fouge Tempro.
Stax reluctantly decided his case sounded a lot closer to that of the missing princes than it did to that of farmers plagued by bandits. Which meant the Champion would want a lot more from him than a weekly loaf of bread. He’d made a little money as a miner from his wages and bonuses, enough to build his credit back up at the general store, but nothing approaching a royal ransom.
Then Stax had an idea.
“You want to do what?” asked Mrs. Taney.
“Reopen the Brandywine Hill Mine,” Stax said. “I don’t believe it’s unlucky, or cursed, or whatever your miners think it is. I’d like to see what I can extract from it for you, using my system. Well, my family’s system.”
Mrs. Taney regarded him for a long moment from the other side of her desk, her gaze even.
“I embarrassed Barnacle in front of you and the others because I’d been trying to get him to listen for a long time,” she said. “Now that I’ve made my point, it wouldn’t do to make him look bad all over again. Because that’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
“No,” Stax said.
“Then what is it about?”
“Justice,” Stax said grimly. “A man destroyed my life. I intend to make him answer for that.”
“I think you’d better tell me that story, then,” Mrs. Taney said.
So Stax told her about Fouge Tempro’s raid on his house, about being marooned, about his inability to find his way home, about the Champion. Mrs. Taney listened gravely, elbows on the desk in front of her and fingers steepled.
“I know about the Champion, though I can’t say I’ve met him myself,” she said. “So you want to enlist him to find this Fouge Tempro and defeat him for you. But to do that, you need money.”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’re making money,” Mrs. Taney said. “The bonuses from the last round of excavations will be pretty good. And next month you’ll be on a gem crew, with the prospect of bigger bonuses.”
“I know. But I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“I see. In that case, stop being indecisive or unnecessarily coy, or whatever this is, and tell me what you’re proposing.”
Stax looked down at his hands. His palms had become rough and calloused from days wielding a pickaxe.
“I’ll mine Brandywine Hill on my own time, with any miners who’ll volunteer to work with me. You pay their wages, but not mine. I’ll work for free. Standard bonuses for the miners, and I get the bonus due a crew boss. You get your owner’s cut, of course.”
“Even if you can make that mine pay off like you think you can, it won’t be enough to hire your Champion.”
“I know that,” Stax said.
“And?”
“If Brandywine does pay off, you hire more miners and expand operations there.”
“With you as crew boss,” Mrs. Taney said. “Is that the idea?”
“That’s the idea.”
Stax waited while Mrs. Taney considered this. He could almost see her brain making the calculations and then double-checking them.
“I have conditions,” she said. “First, you work one four-hour shift a night, maximum. I don’t need tired miners making mistakes during their regular work hours. Second, it’s a three-person shift—you and two other miners. Third, you get the rest of the month to prove you’re right. No longer.”
Stax reviewed the calendar in his head. That gave him about a week. He winced but nodded.
“Fourth, Barnacle gets a miner’s cut of any bonuses out of your share as crew boss.”
When Stax started to object, Mrs. Taney put up her hand. “I know Barnacle’s a handful, Stax. I know it a lot better than you do, in fact. But he was with me and my husband at the beginning, when we were just two fools scratching in a hole in a hill. He’s been loyal to us, and so I’m loyal to him. He gets his cut.”
“All right,” Stax said, not seeing what choice he had.
“Which miners do you want to ask?”
“Cresop and Tanner,” Stax said.
“You can’t have either,” Mrs. Taney said. “They’re the first miners every crew boss asks for. I need them where they are.”
“Hodey, then.”
“You can have Hodey if you take Osk,” Mrs. Taney said.
“The little inventor? She can barely swing a pickaxe.”
“I know she’s not much of a miner, though something tells me she’ll work a bit harder for you than she does for Barnacle,” Mrs. Taney said. “The thing is, she’s smart. Which brings me to my final condition: I want you to visit her laboratory, out on the edge of town. I can’t figure out if Osk is a genius, a madwoman, or both, and I need a second opinion.”
“So,” Stax said. “One shift a night, I get Osk and Hodey, Barnacle gets his cut, I have till the end of the month, and first I need to go look at Osk’s crazy machines.”
“That’s right,” Mrs. Taney said.
“Deal,” Stax said, and stuck out his hand.
Osk had the day off. All too aware that time was precious, Stax got Mrs. Taney’s permission to visit the laboratory that afternoon.
He followed her directions to a little house on the outskirts of Tumbles Harbor, one that struck him as much the same as its neighbors, down to a little square of grass in front of it with carefully arranged flowers. Except instead of a torch or lantern for light by the gate, this house had a curious faceted cube.
“That’s odd,” said Stax, who hadn’t entirely broken the habit of talking to himself, though he’d mostly stopped doing it when other people were around.
He stepped onto the porch and noticed the house’s front door was iron, not the oak or birch he usually saw in Tumbles Harbor. Stax knocked on the door, startled by the metallic bang-bang-bang this produced, and waited.
Nothing happened. Stax rapped on the door again, and this time he heard a muffled voice from within yelling something.
“What?” he called out.
“The button! Push the button!”
Stax noticed a little nub of wood next to the door. He pushed it, heard a musical chime from inside the house, and then the door snapped open, nearly smacking him in the head. He stumbled backward and noticed the strange cube at the gate was now glowing a warm yellow.
Osk came to the door, wearing a leather apron marred by red blotches and streaks.
“Oh, hullo, Stax,” she said. “Didn’t you read the sign?”
“There isn’t a sign,” Stax said.
“There isn’t? Oh, you’re right, there isn’t. I forgot to put it up. That’s a nuisance.”
Osk returned a moment later with a sign that read RING DOORBELL, which she leaned against the outside wall of the house.
“It’s a redstone circuit,” she explained. “I can rig it to open the door, or to alert me down in my laboratory, so I can decide if I want to see visitors or not. I’m thinking of adding a pit in the porch. You know, for salespeople. Ha-ha, I’m just kidding, I’d get in trouble for that. Anyway, isn’t it great? Plus it makes the light come on, so you can see at night.”
“The light’s back at the gate,” Stax pointed out. “If you’re already at the front door, that’s a little late for the light to come on.”
“Huh. You’re right. I didn’t think of that.”
Osk looked so crestfallen that Stax felt sorry for her. “I’m sure that’s something you can fix pretty easily,” he pointed out.
“It’s a little work, yeah. But you’re right, easily fixed! In fact, I should make it so the light comes on automatically at dusk. That’s a great idea. Thanks, Stax!”
“You’re welcome,” said a bemused Stax, who hadn’t actually thought of anything.
“Anyway, I’m glad to see you. I suggested Mrs. Taney send you over, to look at my inventions, and here you are. So welcome! Come inside!”
“Wait. You asked her to send me?”
“Sure. That trick of yours, with the pickaxe handle? It’s a clever innovation. Mining needs a lot more innovation. And, well, innovation’s practically my middle name. Well, actually it’s Eunice, but never mind that. Come on in, I have a lot to show you!”
The inside of Osk’s house was a mess, with gear lying around as if dispersed by a particularly ferocious windstorm. Osk led Stax to a trapdoor in the corner of the house, pushing a button on the wall next to it. Nothing happened.
“That’s a nuisance,” Osk said after several tries, reaching down to open the trapdoor herself and scuttling down a ladder.
Stax followed her, emerging in a sprawling underground laboratory filled with a bewildering variety of objects: iron rails, squat squares that looked like they were made of cobblestones, and stone blocks with wooden stalks sticking out of them. Tables were covered with books, papers with diagrams scribbled on them, sticky-looking balls that were a sickly green, and mounds of brilliant redstone dust.
“Did you build all this with your wages from mining?” Stax asked, startled.
“What? Oh, no. I’ve only been working for Mrs. Taney because I thought it would give me ideas for new inventions. And because she gives me a special rate on redstone.”
“I see. So what do you do, Osk?”
“Why, whatever anybody will pay me to do!” Osk said with a grin. “Isn’t that the way these days? I’m an enchanter, for one—best in Tumbles Harbor, or at least the second best. Hmm, there’s Grimble, and he’s pretty good, so maybe I’m the third best. Anyway, I’m an enchanter, but it bores me, if we’re being honest. So I’m also an architect and an engineer. But what I’m going to be is an artificer.”
“An artificer?” asked Stax.
By way of an answer, Osk scooped up a handful of the crimson dust.
“You know what this is, right?”
“Of course,” Stax said. “Redstone. It’s used to make compasses and clocks.” And as he said that, Stax’s hand strayed to the compass in his pocket, while his mind was filled with fantasies of facing down Fouge Tempro with a diamond sword.
“Compasses and clocks?” Osk said, shaking her head. “Think big, Stax! Redstone is used for so much more than that! You can channel it to direct power and make machines. Why, I’ll show you something that will transform mining. Now, what did I do with that schematic?”
Osk sorted through her papers, picking up and then discarding diagrams for a variety of baffling devices before thrusting one under Stax’s nose: a massive assemblage of blocks and levers, and objects labeled as…
“Does this drop TNT?”
“Yes!” Osk said excitedly. “See, and then these mechanisms come along and take away the water. It’ll clear a massive quarry in the better part of a day. I thought we could use it to speed things up at Tumbles.”
“If we had enough TNT to destroy a city,” Stax said. “And a fortune in emeralds to buy all this. And if Mrs. Taney didn’t mind us leveling the mountain.”
“Well, it’s just one idea,” said Osk, a bit defensively.
“It’s clever,” said Stax, though actually he found Osk’s proposed machine frightening. “You know our mines, Osk. Do you have anything smaller? And more affordable?”
“Sure. Wait until you see this!”
Osk hurried over to a niche near a set of bookcases and ducked inside. There was a great deal of whirring and clicking, a flurry of motion, and a moment later Osk was decked out in leather armor, with an iron pickaxe in one hand and an iron bucket in the other.
“Ow!” she said, putting the pickaxe down and shaking her hand with a grimace. “That’s my fault, I had my hand in the wrong place. I call it the Insta-Miner. You’re geared up and ready to go in thirty seconds, tops!”
“It would certainly prevent Tanner from forgetting his equipment,” Stax said. “But you know most of us don’t wear armor underground. It’s too much weight. And I can pick up my own pickaxe, thanks to an enchantment known as the opposable thumb.”
“Well, if you want to do things the old-fashioned way,” muttered Osk, stripping off her armor. But a moment later she had brightened again. “How about this? See? It can sense when night’s come, and switches on redstone lamps throughout the mine.”
“Osk. Mines are dark in the daytime too. So you need lights all the time.”
“Oh yeah, you’re right of course. I always forget that, somehow.” Osk looked down at the floor. “You’re going to tell Mrs. Taney I’m some kind of loon, aren’t you?” she asked sadly.
“I’m going to tell Mrs. Taney there are some great ideas here, and they just need a little more work,” Stax said. “My suggestion would be to think about the challenges we face every shift. How about a machine that could detect gems from several blocks away? Or sense water or lava from that distance? Or a machine that could neutralize lava?”
Osk furrowed her brow, her hands plucking at her leather apron and raising little plumes of redstone dust.
“That last one’s an interesting idea,” she said. “Hmm. You’d need water, of course. Maybe you could use a light sensor. And pistons to block off the area. That might work. Let me think about that some more.”
“That would get Mrs. Taney’s interest,” Stax said. “But remember it needs to be small. And not too expensive.”
“Well, that’s a nuisance,” Osk said. “But I can work with those limitations. Limitations can lead to genius too, though money works a little better. I know you don’t believe me, Stax, but redstone really is the future. You can do anything with it. It could change mining, farming, travel, everything.”
“I do believe you, Osk,” Stax said. “And I’ve got a proposition for you—one that might give you some new ideas.”
“I’m listening,” Osk said.
So Stax told her about his plan for the Brandywine Hill Mine, and Mrs. Taney’s conditions.
“I’ll join your crew if I can have any redstone we find,” Osk said with a grin.
“It’ll all be yours, Osk,” said Stax, who hoped that the Brandywine Hill Mine would indeed turn out to be filled with redstone—and many more ores besides.