Part 1:
The Miner Fires His Beam
IT HAD BEEN SOME TIME since Alan had last descended from the mountain. If he had counted correctly, the last time he’d gone to the surface world was 256 years ago.
“Whew, that’s a long time,” he said to himself. “I bet nobody remembers me. Heck, there probably isn’t anyone alive who would.”
After discovering a vein of a special mineral he’d dubbed “Demonite,” Alan spent years upon years mining the precious resource. Food and drink weren’t a problem; Alan knew how to survive underground for years on end. Hell was just a fancier part of the mine, as far as he was concerned, and he was able to find sustenance.
Thanks to his survivalist skills and unwavering passion for mining, Alan had amassed a large quantity of goods. The problem was, he didn’t know who to sell his wares to. As far as he knew, the Mages’ Guild he used to deal with was long gone.
He packed up his wares, along with his trusty shovel, and began to make his way up out of Hell and back down the mountain path. First things first, he thought to himself. I gotta find a market for my goods, and then find a way to train an apprentice to be my successor someday. Wonder if—
“Aaaaaaaaah!!!!”
His musings were cut off by the screams of what sounded like a young woman.
“Huh!” With his trusty shovel in hand, Alan made haste to the area where the screams were coming from. It was his responsibility to save a woman in need. This was part of what being a miner meant, or so his father had taught him some thousand years ago.
The other thing his old man ingrained in him was to find a wife for himself so he could ensure there would be a successor to the family business. Not that that mattered at the moment.
“Are you all right?! Do you need help?” Alan asked upon arriving at the scene. He surveyed the area. There was a busted carriage in the middle of the road. Not far from it was a young lady surrounded by a group of gruff-looking men. Alan assumed they were bandits or something. They were obviously up to no good.
One of them grabbed the girl by her golden locks while another pulled at her pure white dress. She looked for all the world like a beautiful princess. “Let me go! Please!” the girl cried.
“Ooooooooooh! Ain’t you nice and soft, ya fake Princess!”
“Aaaaah! Let goooo!”
“C’mon, you damn idiot. Don’t damage the goods. We got a million gold coins riding on her head.”
Alan didn’t quite follow their conversation, but he could at least tell that the young lady was being attacked by these ruffians, which meant he had only one course of action to take. He stepped forward, brandishing his shovel. “Stop this at once!” he shouted.
“Wha…?” The head of the bandits looked at Alan and his shovel, then tilted his head in confusion. “Who the hell are you, and what’s up with that shovel?”
“My name is Alan, and I am a miner. Release the lady at once. If you don’t…” He gripped his shovel tightly. “The power of my shovel will render your lives forfeit.”
A moment passed in silence. Another heartbeat, two; and then the bandits broke out into hysterical laughter.
“Ahhahahaha! Quit while yer ahead, old man!” one of them said. “The boss here used to be a Holy Knight!”
The boss slapped his knee with mirth. “Ahhaha! ‘The power of my shovel will render your lives forfeit’?! Hahaha! What a stupid line! That’s a new one on me!” said the leader of the bandits. He squared off against Alan, totally unfazed by his threat. “Look, Mr. Miner. This ain’t got nothing to do with you. If you don’t wanna die here…”
Swoosh. A flash of light quickly moved through the air, and a crack appeared along the ground beneath Alan. The leader had drawn his longsword and used one of its powers in one smooth motion. “Then just head on home,” he finished.
The bandit leader clearly had no intention of backing down. Alan would have to fight. He grimaced, none too pleased about using Shovel Bolt against another human being, but he wasn’t about to let these bandits hurt the girl.
Alan gripped his shovel even tighter and concentrated. His eyes narrowed, locking onto his target—the bandit leader’s sword.
“Psh,” the leader scoffed. “Looks like you’re asking for a bruisin’. Hiiyah!” The gruff-looking man swept his sword down toward Alan, expecting this fight to end like all the others. His underlings hadn’t lied about him being a former Holy Knight. He was fast, and his swordplay was clean and accurate. Anyone else would have been dead in a second, sliced in two by the bandit’s sharp blade.
It’s just that it was no match for Alan’s shovel.
“DIG!” Alan roared, aiming his shovel. With an eerie swooshing noise, he fired his Shovel Bolt. The shining blue beam of destructive light made direct contact with his opponent’s weapon.
And just like that, the former Holy Knight’s sword evaporated.
“Wha…?” The bandit leader looked down at his empty hands, lost for words.
“Boss, what’re you playin’ around for?” one of his minions asked.
The leader remained silent and unmoving. No surprise. Holy Knight training did not include circumstances in which their sword would be evaporated. This was beyond his comprehension.
“Boss…?” the other bandit said carefully. “What’s going on?”
Another bandit snapped his fingers. “Wait, I know! The boss probably ditched his sword because he wants us to take care of this!”
“Oh, I get it!” the other said, jumping to a hasty conclusion. “Damn, you’re smart! Let’s get ‘em!”
“Sir Miner!” The young lady with the golden locks and white dress finally spoke up. “Sir Miner, please… Please run!” Her long hair shook back and forth as she desperately pleaded with her would-be savior. “D-don’t worry about me! You can’t possibly win with just a shovel!”
For some reason, Alan couldn’t help but smile at her words. He was genuinely happy. As far as he could tell, the young lady in question was just that—young, fifteen years old at most. And she was concerned for his well-being. Her own life was in danger, but here she was, worried about a stranger’s safety. He admired the heck out of that.
I guess the surface folk ain’t all bad in this day and age, after all.
Alan decided to go all out. He had to protect the young lady whose heart was as precious as any jewel; the young lady who would risk her life for a complete stranger.
“Engage power-up sequence.” Alan said a bit melodramatically. For some reason, he felt like showing off a bit for the girl. Blue energy began to gather around his tool. It was the very concept of the shovel, turned into energy: the “Light of Digging.” During the Jewel War, Alan had used this light to seal away the Emperor of Hell for all eternity.
“H-hey, let’s scram! Everyone get the hell outta here! This guy ain’t right!”
Only the bandit leader had noticed the Light of Digging. But it was too late.
The blue energy converged at the tip of the shovel. Alan gripped the handle tightly and released the safety lock. Power and targeting were a GO. Target: the bandits. Shovel recoil barrier: all green. Shoveling power charge: 120%.
“DIG!” he commanded.
KAAAAAA-BOOOOOOOOOMMM!!
The explosion of energy eradicated everything in its path. Alan called this particular technique the “Wave Motion Shovel Blast.” The way he saw it, it was the essence of the shovel itself—a wave-like energy inherent in the process of digging and burying. At full power, it could harness the same amount of energy as the Big Bang, exploding outward in a bright blue wave beam. It was the ultimate shovel technique.
It was also, unsurprisingly, a bit difficult to aim.
The light beam passed directly over the bandits’ heads, lancing past Alan’s intended targets. Directly behind them was a mountain…emphasis on the was.
“Oh…shoot,” Alan said. “Didn’t mean to dig up the whole mountain…”
The entire natural structure had been annihilated by the Wave Motion Shovel Blast. He should have been more careful.
The bandits’ jaws dropped to the ground, their mouths moving silently for a moment before delayed screams erupted from their throats.
“AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
“Huh…? Wait, what—aaaaaahhh!” Even the young lady in the white dress screamed in shock.
Everyone present looked at where the mountain once was, then back at Alan’s shovel. Nobody could believe what they had just witnessed.
“Erm, m-my apologies.” Alan caught the young lady just as she began to fall to the ground. “That was from the recoil of the Shovel Wave Motion Shovel Blast. I’m sorry; I went overboard.”
“Shovel…Wave…Motion Gun?!” The girl raised her voice in shock.
“I really am sorry. I should have told you ahead of time to assume the anti-shovel defensive position.”
“Wh-what?!” The young lady was on the verge of fainting.
This fateful encounter would go down in recorded history as the legendary first meeting between the miner and the princess.