Striking it Rich [Mission] [3/3]

Gem asked what attributes did in fact. Rory opened his mouth to answer, then closed it, looking awkwardly at Owen. The Gaomon smiled back.

“It really doesn’t matter.” he assured them. He didn’t know or care what attributes meant for digimon, it was no effect on their value in his eyes. For some digimon though, it did matter, and Owen thought very little of those types.

Eventually Gem’s questions became a bit too much for Gogmamon to answer. “Hmm, I’ll answer you later, we’re approaching the operations room now and I need to concentrate, thank you.” the mineral digimon said, rather needing to focus on sorting out this operation at the moment.

After Arlo had reassured him that they would really be okay down here, Owen was glad to hear of it. Indeed, he had made precautions himself, which he would soon present to everyone.

Luneth had noticed that Owen scowled at the noticeboard. The Gaomon blinked, then realized what his face was showing off, then immediately shook his head and resumed his more stoic expression. “Ah, no need to worry. Just that specific message brought back some memories…” he took a deep breath, supposing he’d keep honesty at all times. “Toward the end of the DWR civil war, they stripped every non-essential mine of equipment to expend on the war effort. And mines needed a lot of explosives to be operational…” he paused, then raised a paw to his chin in thought. “Now that’s a conundrum. Why would they shut down a digizoid mine, with all its possible material for arms and armor before the war ended…?”

“Mr. Owen… do you remember anything specific about this mine? This could be important.” Rory asked his superior officer. Owen wished he could give a useful answer, but he simply had no memories available about this specific mine.

“I’m really sorry, guys, I don’t remember.” was all he could say. He noticed that Vergil had shown attention as he mentioned he was a soldier of the DWR. Owen felt a small pang of guilt at that, he had never told him. He definitely felt that he should explain things, given he had adopted Vergil to be his surrogate son. But it had been difficult to find the right moment. Especially when Owen’s memories of that time were so fractured and imprecise. But still, he wanted to establish a relationship of honesty and openness with the human. He hoped there would be opportunity for that sometime.

Owen smiled at Vergil as he declared he’d be up for whatever challenge was down in the mine. “I don’t doubt it. I’ve worked alongside a lot of you humans, you people can be incredible.” Owen said, remembering his various adventures alongside humans elsewhere in the digital world.

Their attention was next drawn to a poster on the elevator. It definitely seemed to be more prominent than the other tatty posters around the place, with fluorescent colours no less. That gained even Gogmamon’s attention, as he approached to receive the report from the safety crew shortly arriving on the elevator.

“A sun and moon… what in the world could that mean?” he wondered out loud. “There’s no skylight down here, so how could anyone tell whether the sun or moon was out?”

“Well, Mr. Gogmamon, perhaps it could represent something else?” Rory suggested. “The moon is pointing to the sun, so, maybe that could represent some working symbols that were commonplace down here?”

“Hmm. Possible.” Gogmamon admitted. “You there, pull out all documents you can from the operations office.” he told some Gotsumon and Goblimon workers, who immediately obeyed. “I suppose there’s more to that riddle later, but for now, if the elevator is safe, I would like for you to proceed in your exploration.”

In that moment, the elevator returned to the operations level. The safety team that had been tasked with testing it declared the elevator safe for use, meaning that their advancement through the mine was all clear.

“Very good.” Gogmamon said, once he had heard the news. “Now, before you go, the cameras I gave you. They also operate as walkie-talkie radios, so if you need to communicate with me at any time, speak through them. I’m not having you fumbling in the dark down there.”

“Ah, that’s excellent news, Mr. Gogmamon, thank you.” Owen said, rather relieved. “Also, everyone, while we’re exploring the lower shafts, I would like us all to stick together closely at all times. Because I also have a safety measure that should hopefully activate even if we encounter such a calamity as a cave-in.”

Owen then revealed his D-MR. “If the way back gets blocked off, I’ll be able to use this to open up a portal in 5 minutes to get us back to the surface, and all of us can evacuate with no problem. Then we can recouperate and hopefully continue, once our safety is assured.”

“Hm. Yes, that would work as a safety measure.” Gogmamon agreed. He then consulted with the safety crew momentarily, before turning back to the group. “Alright, the elevator has been declared safe to use. Also, take care in the lower shafts. The electricity from the generator seems to be running smoothly, but you’ll need to switch the breakers lower down to supply power and lighting deeper down, and we don’t know if that can provide reliable light yet. Still, remember, this is a long term operation, and if you encounter anything you feel is beyond your capabilities, let me know, take pictures, and return at once, so that we can try again some other time.”

Owen thought that was reasonable. Once the elevator was ready, he and Rory would step onto it, awaiting the others.

Ultimately, though, the assessment that it didn't matter was right. "It really doesn't, it seems more like a remnant from another time that...has ultimately lost meaning. Besides,the mystery as to what's...in the mine that caused these circumstances sounds more important, so let's give it our all, okay?" Omen was starting to wonder if this is what being something akin to an older sibling was like. Of course, she still had to figure out how to put a pin in that conversation with Luneth...

"She's...gotten used to it. There's a certain sort of tolerance you develop to seeing so much in general. Eventually, nothing is a surprise anymore. Weirdly, some individuals can't...be seen by her foresight. I'm one of them. Maybe others exist, who knows."

Okay, so they had communications with Gogmamon while they looked through the mines--that was good. "Alright. Definitely need to keep this on hand!" Yuuuup. Otherwise, everything seemed clear and cut. "Specs, get the camera, I'm gonna do a sick flip at some point."

With that, Omen gets onto the elevator.

Owen nodded when Luneth mentioned that Skye told about the stripping of the mines. “Yeah, it was that order that was one of the reasons we knew we were screwed.” he found himself saying, some residual anger remaining after all these years after hearing that. All the bombs out of the mines, ready for the final push. But he prevented himself from saying further when he realized he was saying toxic feelings from his previous life. No, that wasn’t right, that was over, he had to focus on his new life now. Leave all the DWR civil war nonsense in the past.

Thankfully there was a quick subject to switch to. “Yeah, take that poster with us, its meaning might be apparent to us later.” Owen agreed with Arlo. Besides, it was just a piece of paper, not a heavy thing.

Eventually, all were positioned in the elevator, and it was activated to lower to the first floor. Owen and Rory were both rather nervous as the platform lowered, but, it seemed that Gogmamon’s team were correct in declaring it safe. There was no impediment or danger in their descent, and after about a minute, they arrived safely on the first floor, where they were awaited by a Gotsumon and Golbimon from Gogmamon’s exploration party.

“The way looks clear from here, boss!” the Goblimon declared. “No threats detected, and we got the lights working for the corridor forward. But orders prevent us testing the way forward, you’re on your own here.”

“Okay. Thanks for your effort.” Owen replied to them, not being sarcastic in the slightest, he knew they played a risk in going this far down themselves. On this level, there were mine rail tracks leading up to the elevator, and the way ahead was lit up by old lights, thankfully most of them still active, but age had worn out about a quarter of them.

“Well then, that’s our path ahead, let’s get on with it.” Owen declared, and led the party into the main mine shaft forward. One feature of the mine around them was that there were crystals in the walls around them that reflected different colors from the activated electric lights. It made something of a beautiful sight, all these different colored rocks flashing the colors of the rainbow.

“Ah, an innovation of the miners.” Owen remarked. “It seems they styled certain reflective rocks so they’d provide more light in these passages.”

Rory made a whistle noise to indicate he was impressed. Their path forward was clearly lit regardless. Eventually, they reached a spot of darkness, but Owen quickly found one of the ‘breakers’ mentioned early and switched it, making more electric lights turn on ahead.

“Mr. Owen… I’m curious, how did these mines work?” Rory felt himself compelled to ask. “I mean, Digizoid is meant to be a rare and strong mineral, yet how did they get it out of mines like this?”

“Ah, good question.” Owen replied, as they found the next main passage to follow in their exploration. Around them were lights and reflective panels that lit the way forward. “Mining the digizoid from here was pretty much step one of ten. First was getting the digizoid ore out from the ground and transported to the surface for processing.”

“How was the digizoid ore processed, Mr. Owen?” Rory asked, honestly curious. Owen paused a few moments before responding.

“Okay. So, say you have in your paw a lump of Digizoid Ore.” the Gaomon began. “5% of it is Digizoid Metal, which you want, while 95% of it is just dirt waste. So you want to make a way to make that Digizoid Metal as close to 100% as you can, right?”

“Oh… yeah, that makes sense.” Rory said, hesitantly, picturing the scenario. “So how did they do that?”

“The first step was crushing up the rocks as finely as possible.” Owen explained as they proceeded further. “That way, the digizoid metal could be better separated from the non-digizoid junk, or ‘tailings’ as the miners called them.”

“Er… sorry, Mr. Owen, I don’t really follow…” Rory admitted as they proceeded further. Thankfully the shaft was well lit, so they didn’t have to pay too much attention to their surroundings at the moment.

“Okay. Say you have 100 marbles in a bowl.” Owen explained as they continued, watching their steps down from the electric lights. Soon they came to a point where there was no light forward, but there was a lever nearby labeled ‘BREAKER A’. Owen flipped it, and with an echoing snapping noise, lights ahead burst back to life. “95 marbles in that bowl are useless to you, but the remaining 5 are precious to you. How do you extract those 5 marbles without risking wasting them, while at the same time, not mistaking them for the 95 waste marbles you don’t want?”

“Uh…” Rory was honestly stumped by this answer. “I… really don’t know, Mr. Owen, that’s a tough one.”

“That’s okay, mate. Maybe our friends and family here have an idea?” Owen said, as they moved further into the tunnel, hoping that they could use this as a means to make them all less nervous about proceeding further into the abandoned mineshaft.

Even hundreds of years later, the echoes of the past still left a toll on the present. Omen may have been much younger than most here, but even she could tell such. "One way would be running it through a sieve, right? Or filtering it out." That was one answer to the question of how to approach Digizoid refining.

Otherwise, there was a sense of wonder about her as she wandered through the abandoned, yet...strangely pretty mine with family and friends. "Arlo's got a good point, too. You'd need to spot the qualities amid the marbles you want in order to effectively know what it is you're looking for."

Omen otherwise didn't ask much more questions. She felt at least one would be answered once they had gotten to the end of the mine. And she didn't want to really repeat herself, either. "...Another thought. Don't some Digimon generate digizoid when they evolve into certain forms?"

Owen appreciated Luneth’s offer to change the subject. While he was prepared to do so himself, it was that kind of mindfulness that he liked. “It’s okay, I’m good, mate.” was all he said further on the matter.

Once they reached the first lower floor, the group was taken in by the crystals. They were very pretty. Owen was reminded of the crystals of the Shining Sea by their appearance. Perhaps there was a link there somewhere?

Amper was then convinced by Vergil to light one up with his electricity. Owen was curious about what would happen, so he said nothing and watched them carry out the feat. And sure enough, once Amper discharged his electricity, a chain reaction of light seemed to occur afterwards. Both Owen and Rory were impressed.

“Yep, mate, that’s pretty nifty what you did there.” Owen praised his grandson. “And you’ve showed us something useful too, these crystals seem to be aligned so they light the whole place up, even with minimal electricity. Thankfully for now we have the wires from the surface generator to go by, but, we’ll see how this goes on deeper down.”

As they walked down the tunnel, Owen listened to Arlo’s answer first. “Yeah, you’re on the right track there.” he said.

Then he listened to Omen’s follow-up answer, “Yep, you’re going to want to know exactly what you’re after with mining.” he replied. Then Omen raised the point that quite often digimon evolving produced digizoid themselves. As a digimon that had done that regularly, with his mega form MirageGaogamon wearing a suit of Blue Digizoid armor, Owen understood where his granddaughter was coming from.

“Well, there’s a difference between mined digizoid and evolved digizoid.” he explained. “Like, when I evolve to MirageGaogamon, the digizoid I have is mine alone. It’s part of my data matrix, so to say. But the digizoid from mines such as this is free for any other digimon to use. It could be crafted into a digizoid sword for an infantrymon, or a shield for a guard mon. Nice to see that you’re thinking along those lines, Omen, you seem quite sharp there.” he meant that as a compliment.

As they continued to the next breaker room, Owen would continue as he activated the lights to the next area. The breaker lever snapped into activation and the lights and crystals ahead lit up. He supposed he’d best conclude his talk on how digizoid was mined and refined.

“What’s most important is that you home in on the properties of what you’re mining.” Owen explained. “Let’s go back to the 100 marbles. Let’s say… roughly half of them float on water, but the other half sink. But the marbles you’re after all sink in water, digizoid is a dense metal after all. So, if you put the marbles in water, you immediately increase your chances of picking the 5 marbles you want from 5 in 100 to 5 in 50, by removing the floating ones as waste.”

Rory’s blue eyes widened as he began to understand what Owen was talking about.

“So… the mining process is all about removing the waste and purifying what you need?” he asked.

“Yep, you’re on the right track there.” Owen said. “Say the 5 marbles you want are non-magnetic, so you run a magnet over the remaining 50 marbles. 20 of them stick to the magnet. That leaves you with 5 out of 30 marbles. And the processes continue again and again until you fully separate the 5 marbles you want from the 95 that you don’t want. And that’s the key of mine processing.”

“You sure know a lot about mining, Mr. Owen.” Rory stated, rather impressed. “Were you a miner at one point?”

“No, but my dad was.” Owen answered, grinning. “I guess I learned a lot from him.”

“Your dad, Sten?” Rory asked, tilting his head a little. “I thought he was a soldier.”

“Ah, no, my other dad.” Owen explained. “Bredis. He was a Stiffilmon. He worked as a foreman in mines like this, although he tended to the ones in the North rather than Western ones like this, so I doubt he was involved in this mine.”

Owen felt some emotions building up as he spoke about his other parent, who he had not yet met in this new world. Heck, he didn’t know if he was living still, or even remembered him. But he had to stay strong for the others here.

Before long, they came to the third breaker. Owen was about to switch it, but as he saw it up close, he hesitated. The breaker was in fact totally broken. Its metal was buckled and cracked, with exposed wires sparking from their connection from the previous breaker. It looked like it had been smashed by a blunt weapon.

“Oh… looks like our light supply’s ended.” the Gaomon remarked.

“Should we let Gogmamon know, Mr. Owen?” Rory asked, quickly. Owen agreed, then let the Coronamon do the honors as he opened the communication on his camera, after taking pictures of the damaged breaker.

“Hello, Mr. Gogmamon? We’ve reached the third breaker. It’s too badly damaged to operate. We’ve taken pictures of it.” Rory explained to their overseer.

”Hm. Unfortunate. Are you able to continue otherwise?” Gogmamon asked in reply. ”Also did you encounter anything hazardous so far?”

“I think so, there’s no other obstacles, and we can light our way with our hats and powers.” Rory answered. “And no, our way has been clear so far.”

”Then please continue. Let me know of any further obstacles. If you say it’s safe, I’ll send a team down to see what they can do about the damaged breaker. If you encounter an obstacle, return as soon as you can.”

“Understood.” Rory answered, then looked to the others on what to do next. Owen paused for a moment, he noticed that Rory’s speech was slightly slower and slurred than before, as though he had been awake for much longer than he knew him to be. But given that he didn’t see any immediate reason for this, he didn’t feel the need to follow up on the matter.

“Well then, I suppose we continue in the dark.” Owen said, switching the light of his mining hat on. “Best hold your lightning powers for now until we need them, mate.” he added to Amper, who might have been eager to make the following crystals glow up too.

Rory meanwhile narrowed his eyes as he looked into the darkened tunnel ahead. He might be mistaken by the lights from behind, but he thought he could see something of note. “Mr. Owen… I think I can see some kind of light ahead.” he said. “Just around the corner there, the crystals are glowing a little.”

Owen peered in the same direction, and he agreed on those findings. “Alright, then let’s approach with caution, and pay attention to where you step.” he advised, then continued to walk past the broken Breaker 3.

At Amper's thought and subsequent action, there was suddenly a lot of light! "...Hot damn, that was pretty cool." Omen spoke, quite plainly. There was a quiet 'ooooh...' noted at the difference between personal Digizoid and Digizoid found in the earth. Right, that made sense...

Else it would be far more widespread. At the end of the lights, as well as the damaged breaker, Omen made note of the damages as well as any other 'clues' that one could find from the environment. Not only did they still have the helmet lights, but the Wispmon herself did have a natural light source in the form of her eyes and stomach.

Really, they weren't wanting for that.

At the note of more crystals ahead, Omen trudged forward to peek around the corner. She was careful not to touch anything on accident, though it wasn't like that was very hard to do. Wispmon had no arms. And her tail was being used to keep a hold of the camera.

"What have we here..."

Owen was glad that Arlo seemed to appreciate how complicated mining operations were. He would have told more, but they had a task at hand, and that was to tell Gogmamon of their discovery of the broken breaker.

As Rory reported their findings, Luneth asked if he was feeling alright. Rory immediately shook off the notion that he was tired.

“No, Luneth, I’m fine, really.” he said, although he did feel that something was off a little. But still he didn’t want to hold up their mission through vibes alone.

Owen was glad to see Omen keep on to the task, keeping her camera ready. He was proud of his grandchildrens’ conduct so far. He then listened to Vergil’s explanation as to why Vee and Gummy weren’t here. And he was already familiar with the reason why. Gummy was with Bezil in Ys, and Vee was with Luke in the Village of Beginnings. He hoped they were going okay with their lives. Still though, he felt really proud that Vergil was going fine with this, having his grandson as his digimon partner here. Even though Owen had pledged to be his foster father, he knew that there was a long path for him to be fully comfortable as family.

Then they reached the broken breaker. It was a shared concern that everyone seemed to be disturbed by its deliberate damage. But repairs would be on the way, and the way ahead seemed clear. Thus Amper rushed off ahead, leaving Owen in mild shock.

“Amper! Wait up!” Owen called, and he and Rory chased after him. It was best that they kept together.

They soon turned the corner and found the way ahead well lit up with a strange orange light. Almost so bright that he thought they no longer needed the lights on their mining hats, but didn’t feel the need to tell them to turn them off. The light was coming from rocks in the walls, and it made him feel strange.

“What is this…?” the Gaomon asked out loud, peering closely at the source of the light from the tunnel walls. It was veins of some glowing orange crystal formations. And the longer he looked, he felt something of a frustration build up inside him. Initially he turned to Amper, wanting to berate him for running off like that, but held his tongue. He didn’t want to growl at his grandson, he knew it would be wrong to take out this sudden anger on him.

Then Rory gave a long yawn, and suddenly Owen turned his attention to him.

“Why are you tired, Rory?” Owen asked, sharply. “I told you yesterday that we were going on an important mission. Were you going off dating again?”

“No, Mr. Owen, I didn’t-” Rory began. But Owen felt like he was homing in on the truth.

“Don’t lie to me!” Owen snarled, the orange light beginning to seemingly pulse through him. “This is just like that time when you snuck off out of class to snuggle with Veemon behind the equipment shed! You’re always doing this, you just can’t help yourself!”

Rory had been intimidated up until that moment, where he felt so outraged at these accusations that he snarled back at his superior officer.

“Mr. Owen!! Get a freaking hold of yourself!! I did NOT do that! I had a full night’s sleep and was fully prepared for this mission! I don’t know why I yawned just now! I…” he paused as he looked around his surroundings. “I… think this light is doing something to us. Mr. Owen, we should pull back…”

Owen was about to roar back at that, but deep down, he knew Rory was speaking the truth. Something was doing this to them. And acting out in anger was not something he was likely to do.

“...agreed, let’s retreat. This isn’t right.” Owen said, now noticing the effects of the orange light. “Rory, you seem to be able to resist it, please pick up a sample and cover it. And… sorry, you’re right, I was out of line.”

Rory was relieved to hear that. It had honestly scared him to hear Owen lay these unfounded accusations on him. But still, it didn’t explain why he felt so tired at this moment. “Let’s just get back, Mr. Owen” he said. Then he did as he was told, collected a sample of the glowing orange rock in the wall, and promptly took off his tunic to bundle and cover it. Owen nodded with approval, then turned to the rest of the party, hoping they weren’t too affected by this strange light.

---

From the orange light of this part of the mineshaft, every digimon would feel a heightened level of aggression.