The Stygian Well

After a few weeks of writing notes for the new sourcebook, I finally had to buckle down and start some actual writing. So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last couple of days. So far it’s going okay. I began with a brief history of Rochan and how the Tagus family came to pillage its riches. Today I talked about the main mining colony (called the Lions’ Den, named after the lion on the Tagus family crest). Most of the facility is underground, including the primary mining shaft that’s 50 meters wide and 8 kilometers deep. I call it the Stygian Well after the river Styx. Here’s a snippet:

“Also called the "Highway to Hell," the Stygian Well is the primary shaft for Tagus Mines and serves as the main artery from which dozens of other mines branch out. The top of the shaft is actually over a 100 meters below the dome of the Lions' Den and runs for over 8 kilometers straight down. Fifty meters wide, the sides of the shaft are lined by elevators and conveyers bringing material and personnel up and down the hole. Since most miners live for weeks in the actual mines they work, many of them don't make the long trip up the Stygian Well more than once a month at most.”

Meanwhile, I’ve also written a little for my short story “Ramus.” I still have no idea where the story will lead, so I may stop working on it until I can figure something out. However, for those interested, here’s what I wrote:

RAMUS – PART 2
( … Continued from the previous post)

The twilight landscape revealed little. Low hills dotted with fir trees. A river leading to a lake reflecting the gloomy sky. Finally, the rough outline of apartment blocks and warehouses. The pilot steered his craft in for the final approach. He saw other ships parked on the landing pads, huddled like beasts of burden. His freighter shuddered as the landing gear deployed and the vertical thrusters fired. The ship groaned, coming to rest.

The intercom crackled.

“Ray, you going out?” said a voice sounding like it came from a deep pit lined with gravel at the bottom.

“Yeah,” the pilot replied.

“Get me some smokes would ya?” the voice said. “And take that piece of shit in to get fixed. I left him – or what’s left of him – by the airlock.”

“Yeah.”

The pilot unbuckled his harness and swiveled the chair around to face the back of the cockpit. He grasped the rungs of a ladder, taking it down past the galley and sleeping racks. Two decks below the cockpit, he found a canvas bag sitting on the grating. A metallic foot attached to a leg protruded from the sack. The pilot took a coat off the wall and pulled it on, covering his head with a dark hood. He tapped a control panel and the door to the airlock hissed open. He went inside, grabbing the bag along the way. The airlock closed and the man waited while the pressure equalized with the atmosphere outside. In front of him was another hatch, this one with a red light above it. When it turned green, the man heard a locking mechanism clank and twirl, and the hatch opened to the outside world. He stepped through and felt the planet’s natural gravity take hold. A steady drizzle dappled the dusty tarmac.

He walked, a little unsteady at first, to the gate where a starport officer greeted him with a sour smile.

“Identification, please” the officer said.

The pilot pulled out an ID and showed it to the officer who scanned the bar code printed below the photo.

“Ramus?” the officer asked.

“Yes,” the pilot affirmed.

“Captain of the Starling?”

“That’s right.”

“Business or pleasure?”

“I’m looking for work,” Ramus told him.

“Well, good luck with that. It’ll help if you’re not too picky.”