My brief rest was interrupted entirely too soon for my tastes. I was forced to grab a well chewed ruby and not think about where it had been and then basically dragged over to a mining site. I was really getting tired of the whole dragging thing. I could walk.

I was pushed in front of a unicorn. "Right. You must be the new Canary. You know your job, right? Go in there and tell me if it's worth mining." The unicorn jabbered in another language.

"What?" I eloquently replied.

The unicorn gestured to a hole in the wall that had been freshly dug into. He growled and rolled his eyes, his horn glowing.

"Do you job and get in the hole. I'll tie some rope around you." He must be speaking another language.

"This must be a joke, why is there rope?" I tried to ask about the rope, but to my dismay it didn't come out correctly. I paled unnoticeably. "I didn't mean to er, I am sorry sir?" I tried to apologize. My eyes went wide. I'm rhyming. SONOFA-

"Just don't talk. I cast a minor translation spell on you. The rope is just in case this leads to a vertical shaft and you start dropping. We will drag your corpse out of there if you aren't back in an hour." He nodded and pointed at the hole.

I sighed inwardly.

I've got to get out here. It's going to get worse, I fear. Crap. I'm rhyming in my mind. I am in such a bind.

I pulled the ruby out of the satchel and placed it in my mouth while trying to ignore my inner monologue. I made sure the rope that the unicorn tied to me was secure and then slowly crawled into the hole.

After a few seconds of crawling into it I took a deep breath and wished I hadn't. The air was rank and fetid with some sort of decay. It overwhelmed my sense of smell. My eyes stung from it. I wished my mouth wasn't open. After a few seconds my vision adjusted to the soft glow the ruby was emanating. Bats. I stood up and looked around. This chamber was full of bats.

One opened it's eyes and let out a shriek. I gulped as the entire flock woke up. I crouched down and covered my head and thought about my instructions. I closed my eyes and focused. The world crystallized.

The contents of my pouch had sulfur. The room had guano.

Those two things seemed almost as important, for a reason I couldn't fathom, as the many deposits of iron and titanium ores. Tin speckled the place in little ribbons of silver thread. A topaz was buried underneath or where I was standing. A vein of coal stretched high into the ceiling.

I barely managed to shut off the spell before I passed out. As it was, I felt half dead. And the bats were waking up. Their shrieks were not helping the new headache I was developing.

One dove at me and I kicked it in defense. It's frail form his the ground and shook as it tried to regain flight. I kicked it again and heard an odd noise a few seconds later. It was a wet plop. The bat had been kicked out of my view and had fallen into something wet.

One of the ponies tugged at my rope and I tugged back to let them know I was alive. I walked on ahead to the prescribed distance and slipped into the spell.

I was on a massive outcropping of rock over the biggest deepest pit I had ever seen. The bottom of it was filled with a fluid that wasn't quite water. It was far less viscous. And it bubbled and stank. There were no more ores in the cavern and I beat a hasty retreat back to the entrance. I dropped the ruby back into the satchel

The unicorn nodded at me. I told him of the things I saw.

I looked around the cave that he was in. Dead bats, their bodies littered with arrows were spread everywhere. "Hm. The slaves will eat good tonight." The unicorn muttered. He looked around and I felt something shift.

"Gather up the corpses and bring them to the stew pot." He spoke in jabber. There was a flurry of movement as a group of ponies and griffons obeyed his order. "Continue digging this shaft." He pointed at yet another group, this one having pickaxes and chains tied around them. He turned to me. "Goo' jo' Canary." He spoke with an odd accent.

I nodded. "Thank you sir." Continue to live.

He pointed at another hole. "Ge' t' i'." He slurred, his pronunciation wrong.

I tried not to sigh and brought the ruby back to my mouth.

This was going to get repetitive.