//------------------------------// // 2019 project - Diamond Sisters - Chapter 1 draft 1 // Story: RoMS' Extravaganza // by RoMS //------------------------------// Rarity’s forehead pearls with beads of sweat under the sweltering heat. She avoids the light, hiding under a large checkered parasol. The air glimmers and twirls, rising from the dirt road that slashes the small town in two. The yellow grass wastes away while people have long cowered into the cover of their homes. A few birds still sing in the branches of the plaza’s trees. Its centerpiece fountain dried out a couple of days ago. “This is unusual,” she says. “It’s summer, sunshine,” someone answers. “What do you expect the sun to do? Call sick?” A frown draws on Rarity’s face. She’s supposed to be alone, except a woman is sitting across her terrasse table. Rarity blinks, quite shaken. Fighting the sweat rolling in the crinkles of her eyes, she focuses on the impromptu and cavalier interruption. “Summer?” “Are you okay, Rarity?” Concern flows through the strong, accented voice. “You seem out of it today.” Rarity nods hesitantly. “I’m just a little dizzy.” Rarity glances at her hand. The white of her skin has taken a smidge of a tan. One of her nails is cracked and some brown dirt shows under it. Nothing of much importance at the moment. It feels wrong. She claws at the glass between her hands. The hundred droplets of condensation covering it shine. She swishes the cold orange drink before taking a small sip. The sweetness hits her tongue. She finally smiles. Orange, bergamot, a dash of vanilla and agave, a definite slitch of lime and a copious amount of diluted brown sugar cane. It’s a good drink. Her invitee expects an answer. “Let me just have another one,” Rarity begs. She brings it to her lips and takes a gulp in utmost silent. It doesn’t taste as sweet as it felt the first time. She sets the glass aside and sighs. “Rarity.” She is imperious. “You worry me. Is something wrong?” “I’m a bit out of it, I believe, darling,” Rarity replies. “But despite my sad performance, nothing to fret about.” Rarity looks at the woman. Barely younger, her skin displays a rustic sun-baked copper shine. Her hair is a river of gold under the sun’s scornful rays. She baths in the light like a fish in water. Her olive eyes peers behind shades and her black and red shirt hints the strong muscles hiding underneath. She smokes, the cigarette held between two fingers. The ash falls down to her blue denim but she doesn’t care. She is a wanderlust, a nugget of gold in the unwelcoming plaza and its surroundings. Rarity extends a hand to hold hers but relents. She grimaces instead as she looks around at the town, her white hand protecting her eyes even beneath the sunshade. Walls are fuzzying. Blinds are shuttered and bleached. The few remaining stones that once made a sidewalk are cracked and smoothed by time. She turns back to the woman who hides her face behind the palm of her hand. “Where is the sun?” Rarity says. “ I’ve never seen one until today.” No answer. The lady is handing out an apple. Rarity licks her lips once, feeling a couple of cracks at the tip of her tongue. She opens her mouth but falters. Rarity’s words come late, “Have we ever met?” ⇜⇝ “Rarity! Wake up,” a commandeering voice thundered. “I won’t have any worm lying low during my shift.” Rarity jumped to her feet, her hand clasped around the neck of her mangled pickaxe. Her helmet banged against a short stalactite dangling from the ceiling. Staggering back, her heel hit a rock and she fell backward. The gasp hadn’t left her lungs that a hand grabbed her suspenders’ straps. The hammer and picks in the front pocket of Rarity’s leather apron rattled to silence. She took a deep breath, bringing her oversized helmet back up her nose. Her forewoman’s scar and topaze iris stared her down. Tempest Shadow. “Sleeping on the job, Rarity?” she said with a growl. Rarity hadn’t opened her mouth yet that the towering woman brought her back from the arrested mid-fall. Tempest shook her head, gave two pats on Rarity’s shoulders to dust coal and clay bits off her dirtied gear. She rumbled. “I got the canary,” Rarity muttered defensively, pointing at the small cage at the foot of a bench. Two wood planks made up the makeshift seating. Hammered by Rarity herself with a few rusty nails a couple of weeks before, they had already rotten. She convinced herself everyday it was still better than sleeping on the ground, in the clay sludge, residues of coal, empty nitroglycerin boxes and detritus. “Good,” Tempest snapped. The older woman’s traits sagged a little as she sighed. “A full week you’ve been like this, Rar’. As a forewoman I disapprove. But as your roommate, I’m worried.” Rarity looked down at Tempest’s aged steel-toed boots. They’d lived through three forewomen. With a mumble, she stepped aside to rest her back against one of the scaffolds of the damp tunnel. She took a quick breath. “I…” “I will have your excuses later,” Tempest cut. “Right now, we need you and the bird.” Rarity glanced down at the cage and grabbed its top handle. The violent swaying of the tiny prison didn’t wrestle a cry out of the animal. “You’re still as thin as a plywood cut, right?” Tempest asked. Rarity brought up her lean but taut forearms with a chuckle. “I’m still the same fragile swamp reed, Tempest.” She saw the concerned look on her large and far taller friend’s face. “What’s the issue?” “We resumed blast mining this morn’ before you started your shift. We excavated a few lateral drills in the upper horizontal shafts. We popped open some old tunnels. Must date back decades if not centuries.” She cleared her throat and spat a blackened blob. “Well, all are either dead-ends or collapsed.” Tempest’s face twisted nervously. She gritted her teeth and tried to wipe the black dust off her face. Unsuccessfully. Black powder and dried coal slurry caked her from the tip of her fingers to the edges of her gear. Her denim and leather protection were torn in several parts and a couple sticks of dynamite hung outside their secured kraft paper. “Did someone died again?” Rarity dared to ask. “No!” Tempest burst. “No, not... yet. Sorry for yelling. I— I don’t know.” She held her face in her hand for a moment, fussing away. “I sent a kid down that tiny shaft a couple hours ago. He’s not answered since. No scream, no sound. Nothing.” Rarity looked down at the bird in silence. She swallowed and tapped Tempest’s bruised shoulder after a slight hesitation. “Tempest, it’s not your fault if there’s a gas leak in there. I’ll find the kid and bring him back.” Tempest nodded and parted a tired, wordless embrace around Rarity. “Just don’t get in trouble,” Tempest warned. “If the bird croaks, just scamper out of there.” “We’ll talk at the workers’ house tonight?” “On the roof, like every week.” Rarity ran with the bird to the elevator, joining a few miners for a short ride up the main shaft. She couldn’t recognize any with their coaled up faces. No one breathed a word as she held the door open and squeezed in with the cage. Water poured through the metal mesh that closed over their head. There was no escaping the damp. The endless rain from the surface torrented down the shaft and regularly inundated the tunnels. More people worked at the water pumps above than in the mines below. “Sorry, I don’t have a smoke,” Rarity said to the worried-looking, lanky boy who asked after he’d pushed himself in the lift mid-route. Rarity left the stail when she reached the fourth level. She ran down a large tunnel equipped with rails, hopping between slabs of wood, scrap metal and small wagons. Finally, a pathway led to a large alcove at the end of the tunnel. The walls were jagged, often running down in chunks, dirt or mud at the slightest touch. She could see a couple miners slip over an unstable sheet of rock here and there. Many waited. The dozen miners that busied themselves were setting scaffolding and reinforcement. A couple of aged foremen stared at a map laid about on a scraped up table – a metal plate sat on a sturdy rock. Rarity walked up to the table and set the cage down to the ground. Both men were deep in conservation, scouring the content of a very old and beaten up map. She cleared her throat to attract their attention. The oldest looking of the two rose to meet her eyes. His face denounced his tiredness, an underground all-nighter for sure. He leaned to the side and glanced at the cage. He gave a simple nod. “I’m footing the manager. He went up in the rain upshaft. You’re here for Snips, right?” The name struck a blow. Rarity knew the kid, a worker’s house neighbour six years her younger. She’d once been in his place. A mine’s mouse. He’d never be in hers. “Yes. chief Tempest sent me from the twentieth level,” Rarity said, glancing around at the cave. “Where’s the hole?” The manager pointed at a metal sheet laid against the rock lining of the dug-up hall. She walked to it and tumbled it forward. The thundering crash of metal against stone didn’t phase the miners gathered a dozen meters away around a boiling pot of mushroom infusion. The sheet had covered an entrance that gave to a downward slope. Rarity could barely fit in. Wasting no time, she grabbed the bird cage and secured it a couple of feet inside the hole. She walked up to the deputy manager. “You got a safety lamp?” The manager munched his lip; he looked back at the brewing miners. “Yes we do, just grab one of the miners’. Just make sure the screws are tight. Let’s not repeat the blast from last month. It’d be a shame to lose a talented prospector like you, mademoiselle Rarity?” Rarity froze at the mention of her name. “Oh, no, I’m just a simple miner.” Rarity left the two foremen and groveled to the mining group. They’d started distributing small tin cups of darken brew. They all shared a couple nods of acknowledgement. Rarity pointed to one of the lamps, a rusted piece that betrayed an ancient white paint, then to the hole. One miner rolled his eyes and shooed her along with the lamp. “It’s gonna be hard,” the deputy said to her as she walked past him. He handed out a rope. “Bringing him, I mean.” Rarity looked down at the pulled length of hemp and the greasy dark hand that held it. The trip back was going to be hard indeed. “Thanks,” she said, taking the rope. “Let’s just have a look at the bird.” “Take this too,” he ordered, shoving a metal flask in her hand. Instead of a cap, it ended with a small glass bulb. A hand trigger sprouted out of the side. The hand-cranked lamp fit snugly in Rarity’s hand. “I think I’m already burdened enough,” Rarity mumbled. “I won’t be able to…” The deputy sighed. “I don’t want you to push both the cage and the safety lamp in front of you. If you break the lamp, you may blast up some gas pockets in front of you.” Rarity knew the procedure. The plan for such a situation was always the same. Three trips. The first with gear, the cage and the light, to test the other side. The second to retrieve the prize. Finally the third, to leave nothing behind. “Do not worry,” Rarity confirmed as she crouched in the hole and threw her helmet away. She removed her apron, kept a single pike, and pushed the cage forward. “It’s not like I can grow a third arm.” The pike handle secured in her belt and the lamp safely rolled up in a fabric bag strapped to her ankle, Rarity crept in head-first down the drain hole. Each crank faintly illuminated her path for a fraction of a second. before she made any further move. She had to fit the cage and herself and to never bang the top of her head against any jagged edge. Each time she contorted forward, scraping skin, clothing and ego against the stone shaft, she glanced at the bird. The bird was still well and alive, albeit camping on its perch in dead silence. The bedrock carried to her the sound of distant pikes hitting stones. The tight tunnel came to a bend that continued up. Rarity took a deep breath and looked back. The entrance hole had long since disappeared past many twists and turns. Rarity screamed her position and heard a faint answer. Cool, iron-tasting water flooded most of the bend. She first passed the cage without drowning the bird. She took a deep breath and dragged herself further. She held her nose and mouth high above the water line. Her heart beat pounded in her ears. Her legs shook as they scraped the tight walls of the stone gullet. Her foot skipped, she slipped and her head plunged under the water. She screamed bubbles, hit back the wall, struggled. Her mouth emerged from the sludge past the bend with a raucous wail. She stopped, feeling her arms cramps. She looked back again at the bend. Darkness. Only her legs snuggled by the needling cold water told her it was still there. She took a deep breath. And she continued. A couple of yards deeper, she let the cage rest. Groping around for the hand-cranked lamp, she clenched on it and pressed its side button without counting. She closed her eyes, hearing the gears and magnet churn inside. She opened her eyes and saw light. She breathed out and went forward. Minutes later, an eerie coolness wafted at her face. She lifted her head and saw darkness espousing the end of the tunnel. She crawled out without a stumble. She sat against the wall next to the hole and cried. Long minutes of silence passed in darkness. Only the whistling of a past botched blast ranged in her left ear. She scooped a handful from a nearby water puddle she could hear gather from a trickle dropping from a far ceiling and splashed her tears away. “Snips?” She closed her eyes and covered the handheld lamp with her other hand. With a grunt, she cranked it over and over again till her palm burned and the rumbling of the magnet inside satisfied her ears. She pulled her hand and opened her eyes. She stared straight at the bird. The animal was fine. For once, it moved around in its cage, jumping around the cool air’s reprieve. Rarity smiled. As the light died back, she untied the bag at her feet and checked for any crack in its mesh and glass under her finger tips. She pulled, turned and released. She heard a spark. Another one. Nothing. Faster. She did the trick. A bigger spark ignited behind the fine metal and glass hearth of the lamp and a steady flame rose inside. Shadows danced further down a massive cave, cast into topaze lattices as the light carried through rows of iron benches. Large polished rocks of ancient collapsed colonnades covered the ground and crushed the metal furniture. The pillars who still stood expanded for yards ahead until the darkness swallowed the rest. Water pooled in large puddles half an inch deep nearly everywhere. “Snips?” A chandelier dangled from a hidden ceiling, sustained to the last few chains that’d not snapped away and now grazed a rotten and flooded ruby carpet. The hall of stone opened itself to Rarity’s prying eyes as she wiped the sweat off her brow and rose on her tired knees. She propped the safety lamp up, casting the meager light to the underworld before her. “Where are you?” She advanced. The benches lined one after the other in two columns facing towards the other end of the place. The bird sung. Startled, Rarity hesitated, glancing down the darkened bench-delineated alleyway. She snatched the handle of the cage and held it forward along. Keeping the light and its fledgling warmth close to her heart, Rarity took a step forward. No body, no life. Just limestone, steel and the long rotten residues of a tapestry glued to the pillars standing by. As Rarity pushed further, the light reached the end of the hall where it laped at the base of massive stone woman hunkered over an altar. A beauty from another age, the statue’s hands held a seal stamped with a six-tipped shape. Wings sprung outwards from its regal toga. Its eyes closed, the trickling of water from the ceiling pearled the marble face. Bits of paints remained in some crevices. Only the clean natural color beneath remained along with a few green and dark streaks. Rarity stood in a cathedral. A low wheeze startled her. Rarity dropped the cage. Oblivious to the clatter and panicked chirps, she cast the light towards the cross-section of the nave. Snips laid next to a steel desk, a hand clasped over the foot of a rotten stool. A ceramic vase lay about, shattered. “Snips,” Rarity cried. Rushing for the boy, she let the lamp clang to the ground. “What’s happened to you?” “W— Who?” Rarity held the kid’s head up. She wiped her other hand in the freezing water that damped the ground and patted Snips around the chest. Her hand came back dark and sticky. Rarity brought it to the light. Her heart ran cold and she glanced back at Snips, whispering, “Is there a monster roaming?” Snips was out cold. Rarity crawled to the lamp. Monsters belonged outside the city. None could be underneath unless a tunnel let to here. The bird thrilled with distress behind Rarity. She swirled around, snapping the lamp back up to see anything that would be there. Nothing by Snips lying inanimate. The bird was pecking at the copper bars of the cage, crying loud as it tapped its head trying to slip out. Rarity ran. She skidded the length of the hall to the tunnel. Prepared to pounce back in, she hesitated. She turned around, took in the dreaded silence. She clenched her firsts and cursed. She crouched, picturing the outlay of the cathedral in her mind as she switched off the safety lamp and tied it to her side. A hand gripped on the crank-lamp, Rarity clambered back to the head of the nave. The bird shrieked as she fought back tears at the corner of her eyes. Every few seconds, she gave a single crank, caught glimpses of benches and falling water droplets. After a final crank, the light licked at Snips’ boots. She stepped forward once, grabbed the safety light, pulled and let the starter crack. Snips wasn’t alone. A gaunt women teetered a foot or two above the passed out boy. Her dark three-tone hair whirled like water from under a barely pulled back hooded mantle. Her mangled hands covered in wrinkles ended in crooked claws that once were nails. Rarity looked down, the bird was dead. “Witch...” Rarity hiccuped as she faltered back. The apparition swiveled, her hair lagging behind. Two tanzanite eyes glowed down with contempt. Rarity yielded, dropping both lamp and a knee to the ground. An invisible talon clamped around Rarity and lifted off the ground. She yelped, trying to wriggle out. She froze as she met the witch’s eyes. One of the ethereal claws released its clutch and pressed against Rarity’s cheek, bringing her closer. Wrinkles marred the woman’s ancient face. The bags under her eyes sagged over her cheekbones. The ghastly lady was a greyed bag of skin. “How quaint,” she whispered with a low voice, her head swaying left to right as if she inspected Rarity. Rarity screamed, wrestling an arm out of the talon to push a hand between her and the monstrous face. Her fingers slipped against greasy wrinkles and her hand dropped to the witch’s neck. Rarity clutched her hand over a string of metal and pulled away. Something snapped and the screaming started. The claws that slashed at Rarity’s skin vanished. She dropped, ears reeling with the banshee’s shriek. “You!” The howl reverberated in the cave. Spread across the floor, Rarity watched the witch violently sway in the hair like a rag strung to a wire in the wind. Rarity looked down at her hand, closed on a broken silver necklace enclosing a vibrant amethyst. “Give it back!” the witch screamed repeatedly. The air lit up with sparks and grey threads of light. Rarity pulled her eyes from the gem and watch the witch’s claw sparkle and seep light. Magic. Rarity pushed herself away from the ghoulish display. A bench hitting her back blocked her escape. An arc of light hurled out from the witch straight at Rarity. She held her hand out to parry. A flash of light, dizziness and deafness. Rarity swayed and cried. Rarity opened her eyes, she’d skidded across the flooded pavement floor to end against a pillar’s base. The amethyst had shattered in her left hand. Gashes and burns crawled up to her elbow. The stone mast shattered, slashed through with the now flying statue’s sigil. The witch’s outlines beamed in the darkness with a gnarly halo that fiered light across the entire hallway and the beheaded statue, its marble shattered. The witch held the cracked symbol aloft like she’d done Rarity an instant before. Writhing and scalding in the air, the human-shaped beast slashed wide berths through the ranges benches, ploughing stone and metal as she clawed her way to Rarity. Rarity jumped away from the deadly rock mowing for her. And tried to reach for the hole. She glanced back a final time. The witch threw her hand forward and pulled. Rarity sprang off the ground and flew across the nave, ending in a glide at the foot of the destroyed statue. “Little brat!” the witch howled, dropping the shattered stone in her invisible clasp. “You’re coming with me. Help repair what you undid!” Lifted again like a ragdoll in the hands of an invisible giant, Rarity looked at the ceiling. Diamonds covered every pointed arch. A work of beauty. Rarity freed her left hand, trying to reach for the ceiling. The diamonds pulled her to them and they lit up. So did her hand. The witch screamed. Among indistinct shrieks and great rumbling, the canopy caved in. ⇜⇝ Rarity woke up to pouring rain and pooling streams at the bottom of a collapsed sinkhole. Distant lightning flashed reflection in the water lapping at her back and legs. Fog slowly crept down the steep. Staggering up, Rarity sat to see the crumbled remains of the statue that stood at her back. The shattered marble face lay next to Rarity’s hands. Its eyes wept in the rain. Rarity heaved. Sharp burning pain erupted down her left arm. She plunged her forearm in the nearest water pool who tainted with ruby. As she gnawed her teeth, she glanced around. Her eyelids fell heavily on her eyes. Despite the fatigue and the shudders that rattled her back, she glanced around. A hand hung out of the rubble. “Snips!” She jumped to her heels. Her legs promptly collapsed. She rose against, straining her stabbing back, and stumbled forward to Snips. As she lifted stone after stone, calls and distant voices rose from the edge of the collapsed steep. Steps and boots clattered down the rubble and buried masonry. A purple hand gently took hold of Rarity’s injured wrist. Her eyes welled up and she found refuge against Tempest’s leg. Rarity tried to meet Tempest’s eyes. Her roommate scanned the sinkhole instead. She stared at the remains of the statue and pillars, saw the many diamonds that now littered the ancient pavement under the rubble and broken rib vault. The earth quaked and debris exploded airborne, sending the first responders into terrified cavalcade down the hole. A vortex of blackness rose above the witnesses and, in a flash of thunder, slashed through the rain to disappear into thin air. “What did you do?” Tempest finally asked with stupor, looking down at Rarity’s bloodied arm. She lived. A kid didn’t. Rarity looked down the rain washed away the coal-caked blood that seeped down against her milk-white skin. Three diamonds caught in a stylized swirl was branded into her forearm.