Prologue:
The Strongest Miner on the Surface
THE FIRST TIME Alan’s shovel fired a beam, he’d been working as a miner for a hundred years.
“Uh...” He stood there, surveying the damage. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen a shovel do that before...”
Apparently, this particular shovel did a lot more than turn the earth. At the very least, it could fire an absolutely devastating beam of light.
“Well,” Alan said after the dust settled. “Might as well put this thing to the test...”
He turned to a boulder situated nearby. BLAM! The shovel erupted with blue energy, digging a furrow several inches deep into the stone. He’d heard of a spell like this before: “Energy Bolt” or something like that. Alan wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed (even if his shovel was now a candidate for the title), so he resolved to call this power the “Shovel Bolt.”
“That’s well and good,” he said, “But I can’t see how this is going to help me dig up any jewels...”
And so he returned to work, putting all thought of the curious shovel behind him.
✦ ✦ ✦
Prospecting for jewels was Alan’s specialty, and in all the land, no one was his equal in the trade. The gems he found weren’t just sparkling rocks, either; they were fuel for powerful magical artifacts.
Day in and day out, he toiled underneath a mountain out in the country, working the earth he’d inherited from his father. Out there on the edge of the land, he pretty much never saw visitors. Every few years or so, somebody from the Mages’ Guild in the capital would swing by to buy the jewels Alan had found. It was easy to make ends meet like that. Apparently, he was kind of famous back in town; they called him “the Old Digger.”
It was a simple life, but Alan enjoyed it. Mining for baubles was a fun job.
There was just one problem.
“I gotta find me an apprentice...”
A measure of dwarven blood ran in Alan’s veins. Thanks to his peculiar ancestry, he could expect to live a hundred and fifty years, but he’d already seen a hundred and twenty of those pass him by. It wouldn’t be long before his stamina started to wane. He figured that once he noticed going up and down the mountain’s three thousand steps starting to become a chore, it’d be time to go hunting for a successor.
But hundreds of years passed, and the steps never got any harder. Eventually, even Alan couldn’t help but find that a little odd.
“Hrrrm.”
Despite living multiple times his natural lifespan, he kept on going the same as he always had, his energy never flagging.
“It’s peculiar,” he said at last. “Passing strange, even.”
Alan didn’t grow old. If anything, he only grew stronger. His muscles became so chiseled it was like he was carved from the mountain himself. He could do 10,000 squat jumps up and down the stairs cut into the mountain without shedding a single drop of sweat.
“Sir Digger, you look even younger than you did last year! I’m so glad you’re in good health,” said the visitor from the Mages’ Guild.
Something wasn’t right.
It was then that Alan recalled the moment long ago when he’d fired a beam from his shovel. If his calculations were correct, that was the precise instant he’d stopped aging.
Alan had to test his theory. He lifted his shovel and once again tried firing a beam.
KA-CHOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
A thick beam of light about three feet in diameter annihilated a nearby boulder.
“Whoooooaaaa!” Alan was momentarily stunned by the power he’d just wielded. He stood in shock for a moment before he came to a realization. “I can mine for even more jewels with this thing!”
The most valuable gems were hidden deep beneath the surface, where the earth itself was much harder. Fortunately for Alan, he now had the power to melt right through that stony soil. With his amazing shovel in hand, he could mine harder and deeper than ever before. It wasn’t long before he forgot about the whole aging thing.
Alan threw himself back into the mining life, his Shovel Bolt growing stronger and stronger as he dug ever deeper into the mountain. The deeper he dug, the more experienced he became with his shovel, and slowly, he gained new abilities.
By the time Alan had made his way down thirty layers of the mountain, he was able to bend his beam. Upon hitting the hundredth layer, he could use his beam like a type of spread shot, allowing him to dig in multiple spots simultaneously. At Layer #256, Alan could create a beam barrier, perfect for protecting against falling rocks and the like.
He dug deeper and deeper. Eventually, Alan came upon a dark shrine, surrounded by lava and guarded by demons. He soon realized he’d dug to the thousandth layer beneath the mountain…what looked to be Hell itself.
“This shrine… It’s made of jewels I’ve never seen before!” shouted Alan in surprise, still a jewel miner to his core.
And so, Alan dug for jewels in Hell. He was attacked by demons time and time again, but he fought them off with his Shovel Bolt. A dragon made an appearance, but even it was no match for the power of Alan and his miraculous shovel. Finally, the Emperor of Hell himself declared war on Alan, sending an army of three hundred demons and thirty ancient dragons after this unwelcome miner. In the centuries to come, this would be referred to as the legendary “Jewel War.”
In the end, the Emperor of Hell and his armies were destroyed by the invincible shovel’s powers. Alan simply dusted himself off and went back to work. Centuries passed this way, with Alan and his shovel happily mining the earth for shining gems.
But after a thousand years, something happened on the surface.