The lift dropped with dizzying speed, and indeed, Seven had to hang on to the rusted cage as she nearly lost her footing, feeling like she was inches from floating up by her ears. Pocket squealed beside her, his glow flashing between a nauseating sort of green and an alarmed red.

  Seven gritted her teeth, holding out hope that maybe Rook hadn’t handed her an incorrect card, but Pocket’s voice cut through the noise of the wind and the tiny sliver of hope she still had.

  “This is definitely not going to Penny Pincher’s Paradise,” he said. “We missed that stop at least ten stories ago.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” she ground out, still hanging on to the railing for dear life. Maybe Lucky Mining Corporation was full of liars, but the authorization cards, the dice—every piece of machinery that made LMC possible didn’t lie. And that card had said she’d been flagged. For what, exactly, she couldn’t be sure. She’d dealt with Rook already, hadn’t she?

  But she barely had time to think about it as the air screamed in a sort of vacuum around her head. She wasn’t sure Pocket had heard her at all, and the sound drowned out any rational thought she had left.

  Just when she thought she was about to be sick, the lift screeched to a halt so violently that it threw her forward into the mesh. She just barely caught herself, then staggered from the lift, her stomach churning. That nutritional paste had definitely not settled well in her gut. She fell to her hands and knees in front of the lift, her chest heaving, then took a moment to get her bearings.

  When she was mostly sure she wasn’t about to be sick on the rock, and the lift had already snapped shut and sprung back up several stories all at once, she lifted her head, surveying the area.

  The corridor looked stable at least, though she could barely see it in Pocket’s faint glow alone. A sign hung from a nearly rusted-out chain set into one of the wooden beams.

  WELCOME TO BONEWAKE CHASM.

  Well, that sounded promising.

  And yet it wasn’t the sign that caught her attention, but the rest of the tunnel. It yawned wide beyond the corridor, stretching forward into darkness. There were no lights here, but raw ore veins pulsed gently like veins, spiraling away down the tunnel. They shimmered in a variety of colors—a glimmering white, a few glowing greens, and even gently blooming blues. She swore she even saw a purple or two, tucked deep in a mosaic of other colors. Whatever else the tunnel might have held, its riches were clear for Seven to see—uncut, unclaimed, and expensive.

  “A jackpot,” she whispered, forcing herself onto unsteady feet. “What’s the catch?”

  “Indentured servitude?” Pocket offered.

  “Already there.”

  “Bodily harm?”

  “Likely.”

  Seven studied the tunnel, not daring to ask Pocket to glow a little brighter. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see the rest of the tunnel, and besides that, she could make good money just beyond the entrance of the shaft. That area might remain stable while she worked, and she’d be near the lift in case something attacked her. Assuming it came back for her at all.

  She pushed that thought aside and trailed her hands along the wall, considering. There was no authorization dice this time. No warped, cursed luck dice waiting to ruin her entire day. In a way, ruining it had been the luckiest thing to happen to her all day. Without it, she’d be paying a fee with each swing, but hadn’t she had enough of gambling for her future? This way, at least, she’d be in control of her output, even if it was slow.

  No more rolling. No more waiting for a three percent miracle to let her do her job. The debt would pile up, yes, but so would the riches. And perhaps, with some creative accounting, she could come out on top.

  Rook’s operation was obviously crooked—of that, she was now certain. A part of her itched to bring back the evidence to the crown, but if it had been that easy, Emmet would have already done the same. No, there had to be something bigger beneath the surface of the mines. Something she’d just scratched the surface of. She needed more time, even if it was beneath LMC’s boot.

  For now, she’d work the old-fashioned way.

  Which would have been easier, of course, if she had any idea how to actually work. She pulled the slender gloves from her hands—the only piece of clothing she hadn’t bought from a merchant in the town—and winced at the soft, silken texture of her skin beneath the puffy red marks on her left hand. They were delicate hands for playing the lute, for dancing with courtiers, for signing documents—not for swinging a pickaxe. Her skin was still raw from jumping out of the window the day before.

  But looking at the veins in front of her, she realized she had no choice. Augmented or not, she needed to get something out of today’s shift, or she wouldn’t even be able to afford food by next week. And, luck damn her, she had some pride left. She wouldn’t go crawling back to Emmet for scraps—not yet, anyway.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  She pulled the pickaxe from her shoulder and marched down the tunnel, using the glowing veins to light her way. Her steps were tentative at first. When nothing attacked her, she walked with more confidence, less wary of the mineshaft. Perhaps something had once lived here, guarding the riches, but whatever it was was long gone—she hoped.

  “What are we doing?” Pocket whispered, peeking out from her shirt pocket.

  “Our job,” she replied simply. Pocket sunk back into her shirt. “Rook told us to ‘mine better,’ so that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  She passed a tiny pool of water, glowing faintly blue, and paused. What she would give to get at those shards. But they were so deep beneath the water that she wasn’t sure she could get to them at all—let alone swing her pickaxe with enough force to break them free. No, she’d have to set her sights on smaller targets today.

  Feeling a bit disappointed now, she settled on a vein near the pool of water. The pool gave her some light to work by, at least. The vein was shallow, most of the shards on the surface—a cluster of d12 fragments embedded at the right height for her to swing with a decent amount of force. She took a moment to admire them, that familiar itch creeping into the back of her mind. The ore glowed a sort of milky pink, a mix of utility and combat shards interspersed within.

  What would it be like to roll those? She wondered. It was an old refrain in her mind. An old, sad refrain. But now, surrounded by shards, she couldn’t help but hope. Even a single utility dice would vastly change her situation. Surely something in these mines would respond to her touch. And if it did, she didn’t know if she’d be able to resist riding back home at top speed, exile or not. She needed this. Even if she wasn’t sure how to get around Lucky Mining Corp’s draconian laws about dice shards.

  She hefted her pickaxe, which felt far too heavy for her small frame, and set her feet, steeling herself.

  She could do this.

  She was strong—for her size, anyway. Years of morning riding lessons and noble fencing tournaments meant that she hadn’t completely let herself go over the years. She was decent with a sword, but that was a discipline that favored quick thinking and quicker wrists. A pickaxe, unfortunately, was hardly a fencing foil or sword, and her first strike bounced harmlessly off the rock. A notification blinked on her pickaxe.

  FRIENDLY REMINDER: YOU ARE MINING WITHOUT AN AUTHORIZED DICE. EACH STRIKE WILL DEDUCT CHIPS FROM YOUR DAILY PAYCHECK. PROCEED?

  Sighing, Seven swiped at the notification. There was really no choice, not if she wanted to make quota. Not making quota was even worse than meeting it with a dud pickaxe, from what she remembered reading. Though all the corporate jargon and legalese she’d read in the last 48 hours was starting to blur together.

  She swung again. This time, she tried to put more of her weight behind it, but her swing went wide, missing the chunk of ore entirely. Seven gritted her teeth and kept at it. Within a few swings, she’d at least managed to keep her pickaxe on target, and she was getting the hang of it. Her shoulders burned, but she fell into a steady rhythm, and the shards fell away in satisfying, glowing clumps.

  After six swings, her hands had already begun to blister beneath her gloves. She took one off and examined her hand, which was an angry red that nearly covered the strange scars that dotted her palm and fingers. Not bleeding—for now.

  “Maybe this was a bad idea,” she muttered.

  Pocket peeked out from her shirt, glowing a sleepy sort of mauve. “Most of your ideas are bad,” he replied, then retreated back into her shirt.

  Seven shook out her hands, sighing again, and got back to work. She couldn’t stop now; she was already thousands of chips further in debt than when she started, and if she left empty-handed tonight, she might be better off on the streets. She had to make progress today. Even if it meant bleeding for it.

  Seven swung, her brow dripping, her hair sticking to her forehead with sweat. Slowly, she ate away at the rock around the glowing pile, and pieces began to come away from the wall. Dice shards piled at her feet, and Seven stripped herself of her gloves finally when they felt moist to the touch. Wincing, she tucked them in her belt, trying to ignore her bloodied hands. She hated going without her gloves, but it was far too dark down here for anyone to notice her scars, and even if they did, they might just assume they were from a bad day of mining.

  She swung again. For minutes, for hours—Seven was no longer sure which. She developed a sort of rhythm, a song she could feel in her blood as much as hear. Each swing sent pain barking down her spine, her hands screaming in agony, but as she chipped away at the wall, making good progress, she couldn’t stop. One more swing, she told herself. One more shard.

  Blood dripped onto the glittering ore at her feet, smoking faintly—a strange reaction with the minerals, maybe, or just a trick of the light.

  Seven blinked at the pile for a moment, shocked at its size. Catching her breath, she wiped her brow and was pretty certain she smeared blood across her cheek. She checked the pickaxe and winced; it was also covered in blood.

  Pocket, who until now had been sleeping in her shirt, emerged, blinked blearily at her hands, then let out a distressed squeal that echoed through the tunnel. He tried to climb down her arm, but she shook him free.

  “Pocket, stop.”

  He returned to her shirt pocket, looking put out, glowing a molten red. “Watching you die was not part of the companion slime contract.”

  “I’m not dead, I’m working.”

  He looked like he didn’t believe her, then sunk back into her pocket sullenly. Seven sighed and got back to work. She swung again, and something appeared behind the cluster of common dice.

  Seven nearly dropped her pickaxe and swore.

  A mythic shard.

  And if she could find a way to that, she wouldn’t have to work for Rook at all—she’d throw him in the mines.

  Seven swung, and a fissure appeared in the wall.

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  VAMPIRE NINJA

  He’s a vampire. He’s a ninja. And he’s here to kick ass.

  Rick never believed in vampires, until one drained him dry the same night he just wanted to boot up his brand-new game. Dying should’ve been the end. Instead, it was the tutorial. Now he’s isekai’d into a game world that feels like a Souls-like nightmare, with a special class modification that turned his choice into something unique: Vampire Ninja.

  With Gabriella, a fiery cleric carrying secrets of her own, Rick will carve through monsters, duel cult fanatics, and grind for the XP that might just keep him alive. The stakes? Higher than his Blood Level.

  Dark, brutal, and laced with sharp humor, Vampire Ninja is a LitRPG where every level-up is written in blood.

  “LET THE BLOOD SPILL!”