I worked south now, growing desperate. I sent tunnel after tunnel thrusting into the stone. My heart tightened as each one was a failure. Where were these Mana Veins that were supposed to be worming their way through the world?
"You'll find one," said Souleen. "Just be patient. They're out there."
"What if I got screwed over?" I sent back to her. "What if I got the patch that didn't have an abundance of Veins? In any random distribution, there will be clusters and there will be voids. What if I'm in a void?"
"Don't give up, Lord Leo!"
I sent the last tunnel south, my stomach tensing. Nothing. This had to be the one. I had to breach the Vein. I could feel the one flowing through my dungeon. It wound about, flowing like an invisible river. There had to be something and...
"Fuck," I groaned, my hands falling from the crystal.
"No luck, huh?"
I glanced over at Maya. She leaned against the wall. Not a trace of the ice remained in her. How long had she been there? Her watery flesh rippled. She put a conciliatory smile on her lips like she would when I got my ass kicked in Call of Duty. She would be sitting on my bed, idly flipping through a magazine while giving me supportive comments.
And when I lost...
"Fuck," I muttered, my hands falling from the humming Void Crystal. "We're in trouble, Maya."
"Isn't that life?" she asked. She thrust out the bowl she held in her hand. A savory stew steamed in it, the thick gravy mixed with meat and vegetables. My mother's cooking. The scent watered my mouth. I sighed and held out my hand.
She placed the bowl in it. I moved from the Crystal and leaned against the wall. I sank to the floor and sat on my ass, not caring it was uncomfortable. Maya sat cross-legged before me, her naked tits jiggling and then they just rippled, small waves washing across her body, following the three-dimensional curves of her flesh.
"What's the problem?" she asked. "We won today."
"He struck out on finding any Veins of Mana," Lana said.
"Yeah." I stirred the pewter spoon through the stew. It smelled good. My stomach rumbled. I should eat, but I felt like such a failure. We had lucked out today. Barely won. "I can't find any more. I sent out tunnels east, north, and south."
"What about west?" Maya asked.
"The dungeon has used that space already. I would have found anything west."
"Hmm," Maya said.
"I guess I need to think about the diagonals," I said. "Go northeast and southeast. Hit the territory I missed."
"And you tried up and down, right?" Maya asked.
I froze.
"I mean, we're in a mountain, right?" She looked up. "You're not just looking on the same level, right? What is it called in Minecraft... The same Y layer."
"Fuck," I muttered, my brain hurting.
She giggled. "You did forget. What, hunting for diamonds only at level 12 or something."
I rolled my shoulders. In Minecraft, there was a variety of opinions on which Y level you should hunt for diamonds.
They spawned between layers 15 and 1, but too low you hit unbreakable bedrock and were more likely to hit lava pools.
So people talked about doing it on level 11 or level 12 or level 13. Different people had different ideas, but just because one level might be the best for searching didn't mean you wouldn't be mining above or below what you're looking for and never find it.
"Shit," I muttered and took a big bite of my stew. A piece of softened meat and vegetable. I chewed the warmth in my mouth and swallowed. "God, I'm an idiot. We have a peak above us, and who knows how deep into the earth I can drive my dungeon."
"It's okay that you're an idiot, though, Leo," Maya said, a mocking smile on her face. "You have plenty of women around you that can think for you."
I gave her a leveled look.
She fired me back an innocent grin.
I finished my stew, scooping out all the bits of meat and vegetables and then drank the gravy. It filled my belly with warmth. Something invigorating and had me eager to get back to work. I had a second wind.
"All right," I said. "Let's explore up and down."
Souleen beamed at me as she perched on the Void Crystal. My little spirit hummed happily. She rubbed her hands together. She wiggled there on the Void Crystal, looking so pleased. Hope invigorating me, I grabbed the Void Crystal.
I sent a tunnel straight down. Before, I was sending the horizontal ones out two or so miles. Now I went down. A shaft that bored into the mountain. It grew hotter and hotter the lower I went. I recalled that the crust of the earth was something like six miles thick on average, but humans had never gone more than a mile or so down because it got so hot.
I believed it.
I could never build my dungeon so low and... I doubted Mana Veins would flow that deep. So I shifted tactics. I felt the limit of where things were comfortable, about a half-mile down. Instead of one tunnel, I created four tunnels and shot them down, covering more ground faster. I bored beneath us over and over.
"Nothing below us here," I said. It could be more spread out. "Time for up."
*********_***********
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