Dead Silence

[Hedningen]

No one denies that mining work in Malifaux is deadly. Otherwise, they wouldn't need to fill the mines with convicts and indentured servants, forced to work long hours in the deadliest conditions available, despite the attempts by the Miners & Steamfitters' Union to protect their members. There's always a risk when a man descends below the surface, whether it's a cave-in, a sudden pocket of gas, or something worse.

Besides, the physical conditions of the mines are the least of their worries these days: the devices of the good Doctor Ramos have seen to that. No, it's the mental condition of these mines. No matter how many safety improvements are made, Malifaux's insidious nature manages to make itself known.

Mines are normally very noisy places; the ring of picks, the rumbling of distant constructs, and the hiss of steam are a miner's constant companion. They say a good miner feels them like a second pulse, and it's not long before new arrivals learn to listen to their second heartbeat. When that heartbeat falls silent, however, miners start to panic.

Although the M&SU tries to quell these superstitions, stories are passed along of what happens when silence floods a mine. They're always whispered tales, told around campfires or during a long night drinking at the back of some frontier bar. The stories are also uniformly gruesome, denied by the management and talking of mines long-closed, some of which officially never existed.

Franklin Hayes is one of the few men who experienced this firsthand and lived to tell about it. For a bottle of soulstone gin, he'll tell his story. His story always begins the same way, describing a little expedition out to a small mine in the wilderness. It was an old mine held up with creaking, ancient supports, apparently a relic of a previous attempt to plumb that particular vein. After shoring things up and installing the new machinery, they got to work, the veins of the mine pumping out a rich crop of soulstone.

After a quarter of the bottle, Franklin starts talking about the problems. Machines would break down far more often than usual. Guards would hear noises during the night. Tents would be ripped apart, and a chill wind could be felt even in the deepest depths of the mine. Each new event makes him drink a little bit faster, as if the memories of the ripples before the splash were coming back to get him.

When half the bottle is gone, his hands start shaking and he starts talking about what the management did. They increased security, bringing in a few of the M&SU's more specialized assets. They didn't help, as no matter how many guards were posted, problems kept occurring.

After three-quarters of the bottle, his eyes take on a haunted look, and he finally talks about when things “went bad”. He was in the deepest portion of the mine with three other men when things suddenly fell silent. They all froze, but Franklin was the first to act. He started running as fast as he could, desperately trying to escape. In the corner of his eyes, he saw his fellow miners ripped apart by shadows, their mouths opened in screams that gave no sound.

When the bottle is finished, he tells of waking up the next morning to an empty camp. He spent the next week wandering back to a settlement, ranting and raving. Most folk wander off then, considering the bottle a fair price to pay to hear a madman's tale. After all, there's no reason to even believe this; why should he have survived what killed an entire mining crew?

The few who stick around notice that his hands, drumming on the table, seem to be a little quieter than they should be. As the night gets deeper, the sounds around him grow more and more faint, until it seems that he's surrounded by the same unnatural silence in his story. It is this, more than anything else, that gives a grain of truth to his story, as well as a reason for his life.

The mines needed to leave someone alive to spread the tale, after all.

[xxXhayzelXxx]

Nicely writ. Will you be adding on??

[Hedningen]

Unlikely. It's written in the same sense of the little stories in the books; providing flavor and a little depth to the world. Besides, letting things remain unknown is always a little bit scarier for the reader, no?

[xxXhayzelXxx]

Thats why i wanted to know what happens next.... :S