I don’t have a plan. I don’t even have an idea.

  That had been a painful admission to make, but it was true. Judd knew that as much as he knew anything. There was nothing he could do about the fact that they’d all be banished in a matter of hours. He was just as powerless to stop it as he’d been to rescue that Mismagius.

  “So you don’t know a way to escape?” Sophie wondered aloud. “I’m shocked, let me tell you! I’m shocked.”

  “Softly, Sophie” Marie chastised her. “They might hear us at the pavilion.”

  Sophie did not lower her voice. “We don’t need to worry about being overheard anymore. That’s what Judd said, isn’t it?”

  “There are worse fates than banishment, Sophie” Marie insisted.

  “How could there be when we all know what banishment means? That Elsewhere isn’t heaven the way Judd thought it might be?”

  Judd scoffed. “Leave me out of this.”

  “Whatever” Sophie retorted. “The point is, what could be worse than ending up in the mine indefinitely? That’s the fate we’re already facing, all four of us!”

  Marie sighed. “Well, I’ll fill you all in, I suppose. But there are in fact worse things that can happen to a person. You see, when I lived the first time, I didn’t believe in an afterlife. I was fairly convinced that once you were dead, that was it.”

  “Clearly that’s not true,” Judd remarked, which made Sophie roll her eyes as if to say, No shit!

  Marie then waxed philosophical about the nature of death. “If you die young, and your lover also dies young, I didn’t think I’d worry about being apart from my lover for all of eternity. As far as I was concerned, that was the end for both of us, and we wouldn’t even realize we were dead.”

  Jessica hunched her shoulders over. “I noticed you referred to yourself there. Are you speaking from personal experience?”

  “I’m afraid I am,” Marie told the others. “On the day of my death on Earth, I got married to the love of my life. Both of us were killed in the crossfire of a gang-related shooting.”

  Sophie turned her nose up in the air. “Of course, the sort of thing that only happens in America. Have you ever wondered why your country has such a problem with gun violence and mine doesn’t?”

  “That hardly matters now that I’m dead,” Marie snapped. “You know why? Because I’m fucking dead.”

  The four of them were silent for a good minute, but then Marie spoke up again. She crossed her fingers over one another as she evidently weighed how best to deliver this news.

  “You see, when I woke up here, I thought I’d never see him again. In a way, it was easier to accept that ‘fact’ rather than learn that it wasn’t actually a fact. Because I learned the hard way that it’s a small universe.”

  Judd furrowed his brow. “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

  Jessica, on the other hand, seemed to get it right away. “Marie, what was your husband’s name?”

  At the mention of the word husband, Marie pulled strands of her hair back as though it pained her to remember this. Honestly, given the information she’d already given her bunkmates, Judd wouldn’t blame her in the least for being upset whenever she recalled her husband’s name.

  “Clancy Coventry.”

  Where have I heard that name before?

  “Wait a minute,” Sophie began, “he was banished the week Judd got here! He got the lowest score, a 22!”

  Marie nodded. “Yes. He scraped by the first couple of times, but I guess he got something he couldn’t overcome.”

  “But it’s still quite a drop from a passing score to a 22, isn’t it?” Judd remarked.

  “Clancy was always nervous about one thing or another. Yes, he was fascinated by Pokémon - he was probably over the moon at the idea of becoming one. But he also had the capacity to choke on an important task; he was by no means a skilled test-taker, for instance.”

  “Then why did the pressure get to him that time rather than the first time?” Sophie wondered aloud.

  “How should I know? Yes, we were married briefly, but that doesn’t mean I can read his mind! Hell, I barely knew what he was like in the - “.

  “We get it,” Judd responded. “No need to talk about such intimacy.”

  “Judd, we were married. Even to those of your faith, it’s permissible between consenting adults. Anyway, he’s been in the mines without me for five weeks. That’s probably pretty hard labor - I shudder to think what he’s been through since being banished.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Jessica snarled. “That’s what we’ll be experiencing pretty soon!”

  But then something else occurred to Judd. “The second week I was there - four weeks ago - you volunteered to leave. You were willing to quit. Was that…was that so you could be with Clancy?”

  Marie glanced blankly up at the sky. Admittedly, “sky” was a bit of a misnomer given how foggy the area was and how low the cavern ceiling probably hung over the ravine. Nonetheless, she balled her hands into fists and sniffed.

  Slowly, she nodded.

  “I wish you would have told us that sooner” Sophie said curtly. “That way we wouldn’t have had to worry ourselves half to death that we’d all be banished with perfectly good scores!”

  “I’m sorry,” Marie all but wailed. “I just…I guess I was too embarrassed to admit the truth.”

  “And that’s why you seemed so shell-shocked during our Cameran Palace mission” Judd surmised aloud. “The crackling of the electricity reminded you of the gunshots that…that killed you and Clancy.”

  “Yes” Marie replied, probably barely suppressing sobs. “Again, I was too self-conscious to tell you the truth, Judd. But the thing is? If I had to do it all over again, I’d probably make the same decision. I mean, we barely knew each other at that point.”

  “Do we know each other better now?” Judd asked rhetorically. “I’m not sure about that.”

  Over the next hour, however, this problem was rectified. One thing led to another, and soon the other three members of Cabin Gemini had spilled their hearts out to one another.

  From the sound of it, Jessica’s Earthly family had money. Lots of it. Truth be told, Judd could have guessed that anyway, because Jessica was the only one who gave any indication how much she minded sleeping on those brutally thin cots. She spoke as though she were used to something very different - Judd now knew that to be true.

  Jessica mentioned having a sister named Rachel who studied at Harvard, taking courses that contained some social justice focus. Rachel had even taken exams in Critical Race Theory, a graduate-level curriculum that many politicians loved to demonize. By contrast, Jessica had, by her own admission, preferred to appreciate the finer things in life, not stopping to think about her privilege.

  As for Sophie, she was from British Columbia, Canada, a province that looked beautiful in the few pictures Judd had seen. While he didn’t have a passport, those mountains looked well worth the effort it would have taken Judd to acquire one. She’d studied physics in college, and was also trying to learn Finnish (which, she proudly proclaimed to her bunkmates, was one of the world’s hardest languages for a native English-speaker to learn.)

  “It’s not related to most other European languages,” Sophie explained. “It’s in the same family as Estonian and Hungarian. But that’s why I wanted to learn it - I did it because it was hard, not because it was easy.”

  Judd perked up. “That’s what JFK said about landing a man on the moon. Man, that’s one moment that makes me proud to be American!”

  “Why?” Sophie remarked. “Were you there?”

  “No,” Judd admitted. “But were you there for…whatever happened when Canada gained independence?”

  “Judd, this is not a pissing contest concerning who’s the most patriotic,” Marie snapped. “Anyway, Sophie, how did you die?” She asked this as casually as an elementary school student might ask a classmate their favorite color.

  Sophie grimaced. “Let’s just say that the Beartic encounter today was a bit triggering for me.”

  She was right. She didn’t need to say anything more.

  “Look,” Sophie continued, “we should probably head back to the pavilion now. They’ll probably serve dinner soon.”

  “Why does it matter if we eat?” Jessica asked. “It’s like those requests death row inmates make for their last meals. Does it really matter?”

  “The death penalty is barbaric, but okay” Sophie snapped. “Actually, no, it’s not okay. We’re going to eat with the rest of them, and then we’ll have to go to the banishment ceremony. Since Judd couldn’t even come up with a concept of a plan, I guess we’re going to be evicted tonight no matter what.”

  Unfortunately, Judd could not argue with that. Again, he had not even a “concept of a plan”, so they would all have to face the consequences of their failure.

  No. Not our f ailure . They failed us.

  Dinner, a steaming plate of chicken pot pie with a biscuit on the side, would normally have cheered Judd up. Knowing, however, that it was the last meal before his banishment ceremony made it taste like cardboard. More than once he spat out a piece of the biscuit, but he nonetheless forced it down eventually.

  During the meal, the four soon-to-be-former tenants of Cabin Gemini sat together. They did not speak to one another, nor to any of the other contestants. If anything, the rest of Jet Force Isekai avoided them as though they had the plague. It was only once the last of their food had vanished that they were forced to walk single-file to the brazier and each grab a torch.

  The torch Judd carried tonight seemed to be made of lead. When he lowered it into the brazier’s flame, he felt certain he would collapse under its weight. Maybe that’ll be an excuse not to work in the mines…

  No. Who am I kidding? They’re not going to show mercy just because I’m a temporary invalid. I might as well just suck it up, like Jesus on the cross.

  Despite having used that analogy internally, Judd realized that for once, he had absolutely no drive to pray. Really, what was there to pray for? Was he supposed to ask Toriel and Lucas to grant him amnesty from the snuffer? What would that even accomplish?

  Cabin Gemini sat together for the ceremony this time, prepared for the worst. Judd’s heart started pounding as though it were trying to get many years’ worth of beats in before his torch was snuffed. He could hardly breathe as Toriel started giving her speech.

  “Good evening, everyone” the guildmistress announced. “It seems that all of you have dipped your torches into the brazier and acquired fire. As always, this is part of the ritual of the banishment ceremony, because here at Jet Force Isekai, fire represents your life, and when your fire is gone, so are you.”

  And that’ll be the case for me in just a few minutes. The numbers will speak for us, and our time in the game will be over. Sophie said it’s just like this on that show Survivor, but that’s none of my business.

  “I would like to once more thank all of you for taking part in the missions. Most of you will have made a difference in the world of Nexus, but crucially, not all of you. For those of you who failed today’s task, your time at Jet Force Isekai will come to an end. And we’ve got a lot to cover tonight, so it’s best we start right in.”

  Judd gulped. A lot to cover sounded pretty ominous, even if he already knew what Toriel most likely meant. Quite frankly, he shouldn’t have been so worried about what might happen as opposed to what he knew would happen, but nobody’s mind is perfectly rational all the time.

  “That is because we have an additional banishment to perform today” the guildmistress announced.

  Oh shit. We’re dead meat, aren’t we?

  “As all of you are no doubt aware, if you partake in any transgressions against us, your cabin will be placed on probation. If you are unable to meet the requirements of that probation, every member of your cabin will be banished in addition to the three lowest-scoring parties.”

  A larger grave tonight. They’ll have to toss more people in, after all.

  “For their offenses three weeks ago, every member of Cabin Gemini was placed on probation. Per the terms of that probation, each party consisting of Cabin Gemini tenants was required to score at least 70 in each of the next three missions in order to stay here. Unfortunately, today Cabin Gemini’s members scored a 68. Too bad, so sad, tough luck, what have you.”

  Such Tauros excrement. There’s no way she’s actually sad about our failure. After all, she played some role in making it inevitable!

  “Marie Emerson, you need to bring me your torch.”

  Marie got to her feet and yanked her torch upward. She then strode with surprising confidence toward the guildmistress, placing her torch beneath the snuffer.

  I guess she’s not entirely upset. She’ll get to see Clancy again - or at least, she THINKS she will. And who am I to tell her she’s wrong?

  “Marie, the numbers have spoken” Toriel stated as she snuffed the torch. “Time for you to go.”

  The blonde woman obediently walked away from the amphitheater to a nearby spot where Lucas was waiting. Escape was probably impossible here, but she didn’t even try.

  “Okay. Next up, Jessica Petty - you need to bring me your torch.”

  Unlike Marie, Jessica seemed scared shitless. The red-haired lady practically used the torch as a walking stick, which made Judd wonder how she’d manage to keep her balance once she no longer had it to use as a crutch. Of course, he wouldn’t need to wonder for long.

  “Jessica, the numbers have spoken. It’s time for you to go.”

  Jessica’s jitters were practically audible from the bench at which Judd had planted his ass. Speaking of which, Judd reclined as far back as he possibly could, savoring his last few moments here.

  Everything happens for a reason, he assured himself. Everything happens for a reason.

  The only problem was that he’d begun to have trouble believing it. Yes, everything happened for a reason, but sometimes the reason was that you got cheated out of the score you deserved - in those cases, you had no recourse.

  “Sophie Frey?”

  With a deep sigh, Sophie got to her feet and carried her torch down to Toriel. She fiddled with the torch a bit, probably trying to find the best place to put it. In Judd’s mind, she was overthinking this unless she were going to attempt an escape. Which, again, just didn’t seem feasible.

  “The snuffer will reach it anyway” the guildmistress snapped. “Just set that damn torch down.”

  Sophie finally did as she was told, and then Toriel delivered the line once again.

  “Sophie, the numbers have spoken. It’s time for you to go.”

  Once the torch’s flame was extinguished, Sophie pushed it over, which resulted in a clattering noise Judd could hear from his seat. Speaking of Judd, he clenched his hands into fists as though he were preparing to fight his way out of this.

  It doesn’t even matter. If Sophie was telling the truth a few weeks ago, there’s a force field around the whole TV set. And if I were running a reality TV show, you can bet that I’d do the same thing. Nobody is entering or leaving without my permission.

  “And finally, Judd Asgard.”

  Toriel’s voice snapped Judd out of his fantasy. He was never going to run a reality show, nor was he going to see this amphitheater again. He cast one last look around, realizing he’d never have expected to appreciate the sight of this ruined world. Then again, you never really knew what you had until you were about to lose it.

  The other forever-young contestants (all of whom likely had no clue they were even contestants ) looked toward Judd, and he at last got to his feet and carried his torch down the slope to the guildmistress’ side.

  When he set that torch down, Judd felt a weight off his shoulders. He knew, of course, that the ache from carrying said torch paled in comparison to what he would go through in the Eternal Night Mine. But at least he didn’t have to worry about being banished anymore - the worst outcome here had already happened.

  Toriel hovered the snuffer over the torch’s flame, and Judd forced a smile. The guildmistress’ face was a picture of slight confusion as she brought the snuffer down and extinguished the fire.

  “Judd, the numbers have spoken.”

  “Thank you” Judd muttered sarcastically.

  “Always. It’s time for you to go.”

  Without taking any more time to try and interpret Toriel’s words, Judd headed down the path to where his bunkmates were waiting with Lucas. The Lucario was snapping his claws in a hurry up gesture.

  “We’ve got to get to the station!” Lucas exclaimed. “We don’t have a second to spare! What’s taking Toriel so long?”

  “When does the train leave, anyway?” Jessica asked, clearly not caring about making it on time.

  The Lucario glared at her. “It doesn’t matter when it leaves. But it’ll only depart when you four are on it, along with the others who get banished.”

  The other victims of banishment, numbering six this time, eventually made their way to Lucas’ side. Then the Lucario spoke up again.

  “All ten of you will wait in the Halfway Cavern for the train to arrive. During that time, there must be no side conversations between any of you - you all understand me, correct?”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The group nodded, because Lucas’ terms had certainly been nothing if not clear.

  “Very well. Follow me.”

  They trekked in a single-file line for about half an hour through the nondescript, monochrome landscape. During that time, Judd tried to resist the sensation that stones were filling his lungs. It was just like when people in some faiths practiced the stoning of the devil, except Judd himself was the one being “stoned.”

  I can’t believe this. Why was I so relieved earlier?

  The inability to talk to his bunkmates didn’t exactly help matters. As acrimonious as their relationship may have been, at least it would have served as a distraction from their fate. Instead, during the trek to the Halfway Cave, all of them had more than enough time to think.

  “Here we are,” Lucas muttered eventually. “We’ll be here for about eighteen to twenty hours before the train arrives.”

  “ That many hours?” Jessica bellowed. “What was the point of getting us here so quickly, then?”

  “Well, you were going to be banished either way,” the Lucario grunted. “At least this way you don’t have to wait by the amphitheater any longer.”

  Sophie snorted. “What sort of at least qualifier is that?”

  “Were you spoken to?” Lucas snapped. “I thought not. So just accept that nothing is about you, Sophie Frey. In any case, like I said, I don’t want to be hearing any sounds other than snoring until the train pulls into the station. Got it?”

  After the ten banishees nodded, the Lucario snapped his claws again. “Very well. Now sleep!”

  Sleep was elusive for Judd nonetheless. The floor of the cave was rock-hard (in fact, it was literally rock), but that wasn’t nearly as troublesome as the fact that he’d failed.

  No. Again, I didn’t fail. They cheated me. There’s a difference

  Even then, Judd could have done something - anything - to formulate an escape plan. Anything would have been better than nothing, just acquiescing to Toriel and Lucas. The contestants had all been played like a fiddle - indeed, they were still being played like a fiddle, because Judd couldn’t resist the urge to lash out.

  That’s exactly what they want. I’m only making their show more lucrative by getting angry. Really, I should just try and relax.

  Of course, there was no relaxation to be found in this context. Judd ended up rolling back and forth like a pencil on a desk. There might not have been a desk to fall off of, but that hardly mattered.

  He was standing at the edge of a void with the suction power of a miniature black hole. A rope was around his ankle, pulling him downward. He could fight all he wanted, but ultimately, not even light could escape a black hole. Only the Lord Above could help him now.

  Judd clasped his hands together as he rolled onto his back once more. It was impossible to get comfortable here, but that didn’t stop him from trying.

  My Lord, I want to express how sorry I am for having neglected to pray the last few days. It’s been a few weeks, in fact, since I’ve communicated with You. Perhaps I was preoccupied with matters on Nexus, but that is a reason, not an excuse.

  Even though it’s been a long time since I’ve sought Your guidance, I cannot undo the past. I possess no time machine. However, I can move forward. Please have mercy on my soul. I am a sinner, but also a son of yours, and I wish to do You proud in whatever realm comes next. Amen.

  Judd repeated this prayer every so often as he kept scrabbling around for a position that would be less awkward. He knew that he’d likely be in awful pain when morning came - but in such a dark cave, did “morning” have any meaning at all?

  However, the prayers were starting to feel increasingly useless. Maybe it made Judd feel better to be doing something, even if it were merely quietly mumbling to himself and wishing for his desire to happen. As he pondered such thoughts in that cave, it occurred to Judd that Sophie didn’t sleep too deeply even on a more comfortable bed, so she might have heard him praying. He could already picture her deploying one of her favorite sayings, one she’d used multiple times during their recent arguments.

  Judd, you know what they say about prayer. It’s like chronic gambling - you never talk about your losses.

  Such a saying might have been easy enough to dismiss when things were going well - after all, Judd could have said that he was so successful in the missions because he prayed before most of them. But if prayer had been his strategy that day, it had failed him. Not just him, but his whole group.

  Of course, there were plenty of others whose prayers went unanswered. Maybe it was part of a plan from the Good Lord, but what sort of plan involved God forsaking His most faithful who begged for deliverance from their problems?

  There’s a reason for it. There’s a plan somewhere - I just don’t understand it yet. It’s something I can never understand until I end up in the Kingdom of Heaven and get the chance to ask the Lord Himself.

  For many hours, Judd tossed and turned in a vain effort to fall asleep. Every time he thought he was about to drift off, one of the small rocks on the cavern floor would jab him in the back, and he’d scrunch his eyes in pain, rendering him wide awake once more. It took him a while to accept that he wasn’t going to get any rest here, and when Lucas finally snapped his claws again, Judd wanted to jump for joy - knowing something was about to finally happen was almost better than a hallelujah.

  “The train has arrived!” the Lucario barked. “All aboard!”

  With no other option than to comply with Lucas’ demands, Judd bit his lip and followed the other banished contestants onto the nearby railcar. The dingy, dusty vehicle seemed practically designed to create discomfort, whether through dust allergies or the fact that each surface was apparently covered in sheet metal.

  As Judd selected a spot where he probably wouldn’t be jostled around too much, the conductor’s gruff voice (suggesting that of a Lucario) announced their destination.

  “All aboard Miner’s Train Ride 1, our flagship route, with service to the Eternal Night Mine. Travel time is roughly seventy-eight hours, sixteen minutes, so make yourselves comfortable. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride!”

  Judd snorted. Like that’s ever gonna happen.

  Within seconds, the engine jerked into life, and Judd was forced to brace himself against the nearby bench so that he didn’t suffer brain damage. The Miner’s Train accelerated rapidly, going from zero to probably sixty in less than ten seconds. If it would take seventy-eight hours to reach their destination, more than three days, they must have thousands of miles to travel.

  How big can this planet even be? Regardless, it’s going to be a very long three days. I wanted something to happen when Lucas woke the others up, but not like this…

  With every curve in the tunnel, the train almost swung right off its track, and Judd was forced to picture himself being flung out of the railcar and crushed by the wheels of the next one. Additionally, the constant jolting made his stomach churn. He didn’t mind that this train probably had no dining car, for he would lose that lunch instantly.

  “This is gonna suck” Judd mouthed. “Actually, forget that - it already sucks.”

  Judd felt the urge to pray again, except that he didn’t know what to ask for. Besides, would the Lord even listen to Judd if He hadn’t already?

  He’s testing me. He has to be. I just wish He’d give me instructions - at least those ghouls at Jet Force Isekai were kind enough to give me a syllabus for each mission!

  As the harsh air of the tunnel blew past Judd, the forever-young man leaned back against his seat and sighed.

  Toriel grew up in a city much like any other historic settlement in the Pokémon world. The city was referred to as the Colony, and it contained Rapidash-drawn carriages on cobblestone streets, buildings constructed out of simple materials like brick and stone, and old-fashioned street lamps. To many people who longed for a simpler time, the Colony might well have been seen as a utopia.

  However, it was only a “utopia” if you didn’t like the sun. The sun never rose in the Colony, because the city was contained within a gargantuan cavern that was almost too much for the average person to process. Said city was deep underground, well within the crust of Planet Nexus.

  Like many of the children in the Colony, Toriel suffered from a hacking cough most days due to the air pollution that accumulated within the cavern. There was nowhere for the emissions from the city’s industry to go in the sky, so all the smog and soot constantly hovered in the city. According to her father, asthma rates were incredibly high.

  To make matters worse, medicine was constantly in short supply here. Only the very wealthy could afford the inhalers that were necessary to open the airways during an asthma attack, and consequently, the public health situation in the village was dire to say the least.

  Toriel constantly had one question for her father: “Why did you move here?”

  Her father smiled. “There are some questions that nobody knows the answer to except for Arceus.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense!” Toriel insisted. “You chose to move down here. Arceus didn’t select it for you. And quite frankly, the Colony is a horrible place to raise a child!”

  Toriel’s father winked at her. “Again, there are some things you don’t know yet. And I don’t either. I suppose I’ll be able to ask Arceus about it one day; that is, if I get to heaven and am with your mother.”

  Silence would always hang in the air whenever Toriel’s father brought up her mother. Toriel’s mother had died giving birth to her. According to Zandari (Toriel’s father), she’d been pointed the wrong way in the womb (what was referred to in medical terms as a “breech baby”), and a Cesarean section had been required. Down here, a C-section wasn’t the sort of thing a mother survived.

  Toriel could have asked any number of questions - indeed, her childish curiosity might well have compelled her to. She might have asked why her father had seen living in the Colony as being more important than his wife’s life, or why Zandari seemed so convinced he might not get to heaven. But even as a child, she knew there were some questions that she just couldn’t ask and expect to have answered.

  When she was nine or ten years old, a sudden outbreak spread through the village. The disease was referred to as “brain fever” and, while it rarely killed its victims, it was known to make a child scream as though they were being tortured. Not only was a high fever guaranteed, but the sufferer’s neck and back would be stiffer than a board. This discomfort was only exacerbated by the absence of painkillers in the Colony.

  For the first few weeks of the outbreak, Toriel stayed in her room as much as she could to avoid getting sick. This was quite a lot - school was closed, after all. But before long, she felt the invisible ice pick slamming her right in the cranium. Not only that, but she was burning up with fever.

  Toriel spent a delirious few days in her bedroom, conscious of almost nothing except for the apocalyptic pain that threatened to make her head explode. Sometimes she wished her head would explode just so that it could be over. And yet, she remembered something her father had told her many times: I’ll always be there for you.

  Well, owing to how contagious the illness was, Zandari stayed out of his daughter’s room throughout her recovery. He could have worn a mask, for Arceus’ sake, even if the more advanced PPE used in the Colony’s only hospital was hard to come by. Still, it was hard to blame him too much for his decision to remain safe from the contagion - that is, until Toriel recovered thoroughly enough to pose a question.

  “Father, why did you avoid my room this whole time?”

  She’d expected a selfish response, but the actual words her father used were, if anything, worse than that.

  “Because you are hardly a child anymore, Toriel. You don’t need me to watch over you all night when you’re sick.”

  It would have been so easy for him to say that he wanted to avoid getting sick himself. That wouldn’t necessarily have reflected well on him, but it would have been better than the excuse he ultimately gave.

  Eventually, the outbreak was over, and normal life resumed. Or, for that matter, as “normal” as one’s life could be when one lived so far underground.

  One day, a few months after Toriel’s bout with the brain fever, she ended up talking to her father once more. This time, the topic was rather philosophical, rather abstract for a ten-year-old to tackle. But nonetheless, Zandari elected to raise it nonetheless.

  “Have you ever wondered what happens when you die, my child?” Zandari asked.

  “Well…you said that when you die, you hope to see Mom in heaven. And you’ll see your other loved ones as well. But I’m not sure if I buy that.”

  “Why not, my child?”

  “Because have you ever gotten to talk to anyone on the other side? Have you been there? I doubt it!”

  “There are some things you just need to have faith in, I suppose,” Zandari replied simply. “But for what it’s worth, I’ve had my doubts as well. I just can’t accept it.”

  What Toriel’s father was probably thinking there, but left unsaid, was that it didn’t matter if he thought he could accept the reality of whatever came after you died. What mattered was that he’d need to accept it one day.

  “Well, my child, I don’t know if I will need to accept it.”

  Toriel frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “Lately, I’ve been thinking about this. I think your illness a while back reminded me of just how fragile life can be. Sometimes people die young, and there were a few horrifying hours when I feared that might be you.”

  Toriel shivered at the implication, but her father wasn’t done yet.

  “I want to live forever” Zandari stated simply, as casually as a child might say what their preferred occupation is for when they grow up.

  “Cool,” Toriel said. Of course, it was one thing for her father to say he wanted to live forever. But was immortality even possible? It seemed absurd.

  “I mean, we only get so many years on this planet, or in it. Some of us are granted more years than others. But in the end, we will all return to the soil, or to Arceus, or whatever you believe in.”

  “Right.”

  “But wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have to worry about that? I want my impact to remain extant for as long as possible after I’m gone. In fact, if I have any say in the matter, I’ll never be gone.”

  Toriel could practically picture Arceus sternly reminding her father that he didn’t actually have any say in the matter, that his desire only mattered so much in the face of the Creator’s. That being said, Zandari seemed pretty certain that his stated objective was at least conceivably achievable.

  “I mean, your memory is still going to be there if you’re dead” Toriel pointed out. “People won’t forget the things you did for them.”

  “Yes, but what’s the point in that? I don’t want to watch things happen in the distant future, my child. I want to make things happen in the distant future. And I can’t make them happen if my life is over.”

  “Maybe not, but won’t people still be happy with the legacy you kept in life? I know you won’t be there to keep making that legacy, but that’s what your life now is for.”

  Zandari shook his head, scratching his thinning hair. “I don’t believe that death is the ultimate motivator. I don’t want to cower in fear of my ultimate fate - I want to do something about it while I can.”

  The conversation ended shortly thereafter, and for the longest time, Toriel didn’t pay it too much mind. After all, plenty of people would like to be immortal. But many people who desired living forever, in Toriel’s mind, wanted it for the same reason they wanted Donnie Phantump to be Mayor of the Colony: They didn’t think much about what that would actually mean.

  When Toriel was in her early teens, however, her father had an unorthodox idea for her “summer vacation.” As there was no sky in this cavern, there were also no seasons, but for whatever reason, the students were given two and a half months out of school in the middle of the calendar year.

  “We’re going on a trip, my child,” Zandari told Toriel. “Feel free to pack heavily, because we’ll be there for a while.”

  “Where are we going, Father?” the girl wondered aloud. “Somewhere far away, like the surface?”

  Zandari shook his head. “Farther. We’re going to take a train there, though.”

  Toriel’s younger self would have been entranced at the thought of riding on a train. Apparently, such a journey was often romanticized by those living on the surface, just sitting in a compartment by a window as you watched the world pass you by. Indeed, she’d been told that in some parts of Sinnoh there were luxury trains that existed purely for deep-pocketed tourists to view the Coronet Range.

  Indeed, for a brief time Toriel allowed herself to bask in the anticipation of that journey. However, once she was actually on the train, it occurred to her just how disagreeable the travel was, crammed into a cold hard seat in a very hot environment.

  “There’s also the Miner’s Train that leads to and from the central ruins,” Zandari told his daughter. “That one’s far less comfortable than this one.”

  “The central ruins? Are they at the center…of the planet?”

  Toriel’s father nodded. “Perhaps one day there will be plans for them. But right now, we’ve got a vacation planned. We’ll reach our destination in just over a day.”

  Toriel recoiled at the thought of spending a whole day in this dingy old railcar, but now that she was on it, she might as well accept it. Besides, if her father was to be believed (and she had to trust Zandari, as eccentric as he might be), there were worse trains on which to be a passenger.

  Still, she hoped that somehow this would be worth it. Would they end up at some gorgeous tropical resort with an all-you-can-eat buffet, lush landscapes, and crystal-clear water? That’s probably what it would take for the train ride to ultimately be worthwhile.

  After just over a day, the train pulled into the station, and the gruff voice of the Lucario conductor announced that they’d arrived at the Eternal Night Mine. As soon as Toriel stepped off the train with her father, she felt certain something was wrong.

  “Where are we?”

  “The Eternal Night Mine, my child” Zandari told her.

  “But you said we’d be going on vacation. This doesn’t look like a resort.”

  “Well, I never said we were going to a resort,” her father pointed out. “Because we weren’t, unless you consider the Eternal Night Mine a resort.”

  Besides Toriel and Zandari, the only soul near the station was an Emboar wearing a hard hat and carrying a scythe. “Good morning, Zandari” the Emboar told the human male, as though the pair were old friends. (Toriel didn’t ask how her father knew this Fire-type; that answer would probably amount to more trouble than it was worth).

  “Good morning, Master McGann,” Zandari replied.

  “This young lady must be your daughter,” Master McGann replied.

  “That is correct. She’ll be working here for a few days to get a taste of…some things we need to figure out.”

  Well, that doesn’t sound ominous at all now, does it?

  “Sounds wonderful,” the Emboar replied. “In that case, Toriel, follow me into the mines.”

  The girl of fourteen had a pit in her stomach as she obeyed Master McGann’s instructions. Quite frankly, being told to work in the mines at such a young age amounted to child labor, did it not?

  After traveling a ways through a series of very dark tunnels, Master McGann showed Toriel to a cavern illuminated only by the occasional torch or headlap. Based on the grunting sounds emanating from all over the place, both humans and Pokémon were hard at work, toiling away on slabs of dirt.

  “Okay,” the Emboar told Toriel. “Wait here.”

  The girl didn’t even consider trying to make a break for it. It probably wouldn’t get her anywhere, and besides, the thought of navigating her way through the maze of pitch-black corridors alone was more than enough to make her shiver.

  Instead, she stood there for a few minutes before the Emboar came back holding a series of straps. A harness, not unlike the ones they used for rock climbing.

  “Step in” Master McGann instructed curtly.

  Toriel put one leg in each hole, and then the Emboar tightened all the straps. However, she felt the irresistible urge to ask this question: “Why is the harness necessary? I’m working in the mines; I’m not washing a window”.

  “Well, that’s true,” the Emboar told her. “But you’ll be picking away in your search for gems of all colors, and the floor of this cavern is what you’re going to mine.”

  Toriel gulped as she pieced everything together. “So I might…fall through?”

  Master McGann nodded. “But you wouldn’t fall very far. You’d fall to the belay point, and then you’d be gently let down to the floor. Then you’ll follow the signs back up to this cavern and keep working.”

  Without further ado, the Emboar clipped a very strong-looking rope to Toriel’s harness, then handed her a gardening shovel and headlamp.

  “The more gems you find, the more you’ll be paid,” he explained. “You can say a lot of things about me, but I pay my workers a fair wage, don’t I?”

  How should I know? I just met you.

  “Anyway,” Master McGann remarked, “let’s get going. Dig, girl, dig!”

  Toriel knew very little more disagreeable than being referred to as a girl in such a condescending manner, but she didn’t think about that too long. She had a job to do.

  So she began picking away at the dirt. Despite the stuffy temperatures in the cavern, the soil beneath her had not softened at all, meaning that it took a lot of effort to get deeper into her plot of dirt. Within minutes, she was soaked in sweat and felt like she hadn’t made any progress.

  Toriel dug deeper, both internally and externally, and eventually she found a rock of sorts. When she used her headlamp to shine some light on the item, she found that it was a dark blue gemstone. It was only about three inches long, but it sparkled quite a bit, a thing of extravagant beauty that would be a jeweler’s dream.

  “I found something!” she exclaimed, trying to sound excited about it. To some extent, after almost an hour of work, she just wanted something to show for it, even if she wouldn’t get to keep that “something”.

  Master McGann raced over and gazed at the gemstone. “That is a sapphire. It’s incredibly valuable, and it looks like it's 80 carats!”

  Toriel frowned. “Carrots?”

  The Emboar snorted. “No, Toriel. Carats with an A instead of the second R and O. It refers to the weight of a gemstone, one carat being equal to 200 milligrams. This stone alone could sell for tens of thousands of Poké!”

  “That’s insane” Toriel mouthed. “Who’d pay tens of thousands for this?”

  “Clearly you aren’t much of a jewelry connoisseur” Master McGann remarked. “But for those who get married and want to wear wedding rings, they’re very much sought-after. I mean, isn’t it beautiful?”

  “I suppose” the girl responded. “It’s just…”. She tried not to cry as she trailed off.

  The reason the thought of a wedding ring got her so emotional? Simply put, it was because Toriel’s mother had died giving birth to her, ending the marriage between her and Zandari. That raised other questions about why Zandari seemed so enamored by the thought of immortality, but that was neither here nor there.

  “You do not need to elaborate any further” Master McGann responded. “So dig, girl, dig!”

  Toriel resumed her work, and before long she’d found two more gemstones. One of them was a ruby, the other an emerald. According to the Emboar, both of them could retail for well into the five figures, and Toriel would be given some cut of the profits. It was, of course, hard to get too excited about that when her father likely wouldn’t allow her to spend that money.

  The other thing the girl noticed was that she began to ache more and more every few minutes. To some extent, of course, this was to be expected - digging through such firm dirt was an exhausting task. Some might even call it backbreaking. But somehow, Toriel felt even more tired than she believed was warranted. Weirdly enough, the biggest dips in her energy reserves seemed to come when she found a gemstone, but maybe that was because it served as another reminder of how long she’d been working.

  Several hours into the job, Toriel was so soaked in sweat that she probably looked like she’d just gotten out of a swimming pool. In between shovelfuls of dirt, she considered asking Master McGann how long she was expected to work. She was flagging to no small degree, and nothing of importance seemed to occur other than acquiring the occasional sapphire, ruby, or emerald.

  That is, until the dirt gave way beneath her.

  Toriel’s heart stopped as she plunged through the hole and into the darkness (well, more darkness - the work site was already quite dark). She had a second to realize that she was falling from a great height - the Emboar’s promise that she wouldn’t tumble far seemed to have been an empty one.

  And then, with a jerking motion that nearly made her neck hurt, the rope snapped taut and arrested her fall. Now Toriel was dangling in the darkness, with no clue how far she’d fallen or how high up she still was.

  “I’ll toss you a rope - catch it and hook it into your harness, and then I’ll let you down!”

  The voice sounded like an Emboar’s, and seemed to come from below; far below. So it couldn’t be Master McGann; perhaps it was his brother. Even so, it was audible enough that Toriel’s very long goatlike ears could pick it up.

  When the rope was tossed up at Toriel, the girl did as she was told, her shaking hands making the task difficult. She also couldn’t help but worry she’d unbuckle herself and fall to her death by touching the wrong clip.

  Eventually, however, she was able to clip into the rope, and Toriel was gently lowered to the floor of the cavern. It must have been a few hundred feet from where she’d “landed” in midair, because it took a while before her feet were on solid ground again.

  “Okay,” the Emboar voice instructed her. “Now follow the signs and you’ll be back at the worksite.”

  For a moment, it was difficult for Toriel to find said signs. This lower cavern was if anything even darker than the ones above. But at last, she was able to locate an orange arrow.

  That’s nice to know. Now all I have to do is follow the arrows like this is a hiking trail. And then I’ll keep doing this until the workday is over.

  So why was her father making her do this? To teach her the value of hard work at an early enough age? Somehow, she didn’t think so.