July 21, 2020

  “Mara, just what do you think you’re doing?”

  “Look what I found! I found a solid piece of gold!”

  Waldo walks further into the little cave. For some reason, Mara insisted that the two of them enter the cave for a short while. In truth, the cave was cool inside in contract to how hot it was on the outside. The summertime with this kind of environment was quite the killer. Of course, Waldo didn’t feel the effects of the harsh weather due to his physiology as a cursed spirit. When Waldo walks over to where Mara is, he sees her digging at the ground like if she were a mole. Waldo bends forward and checks what she is doing. He sees a piece of shiny yellow rock stuck in the middle of the cave’s wall.

  “What did you call this again?”

  “It’s called gold. It’s a cool ore that people can trade for money and other things.”

  “So it’s like a currency.”

  “Well, people use it for other stuff like accessories.”

  “Miscellaneous purposes, I take it. Are you going to take that rock with us?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to take it. If we meet more people, we could offer them this gold for other things.”

  Waldo sees that Mara actually has a point. Even in the middle of a global crisis, humans cannot live without money or some sort of economy. There will always be the minority that try to control the masses using the same business models as before. They could take advantage of that and secure what they need. After all, if Mara does not have what she needs, she will not be able to grow to her full potential. Waldo grabs Mara’s shoulder and shoves her aside. Waldo puts his hand on the wall and is silent for a bit.

  “Step back a few steps further.”

  Mara takes a few steps further. Waldo concentrates his cursed energy to the palm of his hand. In a flash, he fires shockwaves through the wall and thick rock of the cave. Unsurprisingly, the rock crumbles to nothing but sediment and the wall collapses. However, Waldo swiftly removes the piles of sediment. Once the sediment has been removed, piles of raw gold sit in front of them. Mara’s eyes practically shine in the brilliance of the wealth they just found. She hasn’t seen this much of it in one place. Waldo looks back at her.

  “Is this enough?”

  “Yeah! That’s more than enough!”

  Mara runs over and stares at all of the gold. Waldo stands back and decides to walk out of the cave. The intense rays of sunlight begin to seep into the corners of the cave.

  (She’ll have to figure out a way to carry that much rock. Well, it’s not my problem.)

  After inspecting all of the gold that the two of them procured, Waldo comes to the conclusion that this amount of gold is a considerable amount. After all, it’s enough to drive Mara wild just at the sight of it. Mara begins to haul back chunks of the gold back to the surface. When she walks out of the cave with the gold, she sees the new and improved wagon right outside. The previous wooden wagon was torn to minuscule shreds during Waldo and Iravin’s that it was beyond repair. Mara was a bit sad about the loss of her wagon, but for some reason Waldo decided to make a new wagon for her without forcing her to do it herself. He tore out several pieces of rock from the ground, smashed and molded them together, and built them together to form a stone wagon. The stone wagon was definitely sturdier and reliable, but man was it heavy. But Mara decided to be grateful for the new wagon since Waldo himself made it for her.

  When Mara loads the gold in her arms onto the wagon, she turns around and heads back to the cave for more gold. What she sees surprises her a bit. Waldo is ordering around several of his shockwave soldiers to move the gold. Soldiers are moving gold from their spot on the ground and others take that gold back to the wagon and load it. Mara moves out of the way of the soldiers and watches as they move and work efficiently.

  (Waldo has been acting weird since the fight. He’s… nicer? Actually, he’s not nice at all but he’s not as bad as before. Why is he like this now?)

  Waldo glances at Mara and stares at her.

  “What are you standing there for? You’re interested in the gold, so continue to haul it back to the wagon.”

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  “Oh, sure.”

  Mara nods and runs over to help move the rest of the gold. As she does this, Waldo leaves the cave and decides the inspect the area ahead. He tells a soldier outside to stay alert for anything and then proceeds to run north. He weaves through the trees and debris left behind by the humans. Waldo and Mara have seen a lot of abandoned buildings and ruined factories along the way here. Have humans been trying to gather up gold in this area? Before Waldo can begin coming up with answers to his personal question, he sees a big cloud of smoke up ahead. Smoke isn’t unusual, but large constant amounts of this are unusual. He decides to speed things up by using his shockwaves to boost his travel speed. In a short amount of time, he arrives at the site of the smoke. However, he sees several buildings and warehouses in the middle of a deep crater.

  Waldo walks to the edge of a small cliff and sees several warehouses and factories in the middle of a crater. He sees that constant stream of smoking coming from one of the warehouses. There are several holes in the ground near the factories and far away from the crater. When Waldo looks closer into this, he sees several humans stationed at these warehouses and even hauling mine carts and wagons of some kind of rock. He sees that this rock that they are transporting is gold. There’s a lot of it as well. This area must have a lot of gold deposits underground. What kind of human is focused on gathering gold instead of trying to survive? Waldo didn’t think that his words earlier would have been confirmed this early on. Frankly, he’s disgusted by that fact. Humans will do anything to keep their emotions and thoughts secure, even if the world has fallen to pieces.

  Waldo shakes his head in disappointment and turns back around. He runs back to the cave that he and Mara took over. Now that he thinks about it, the cave definitely didn’t appear to be natural. The entrance looked man made and there were even signs of human work inside. It’s unusual for him to overlook such details. Are humans heading over to the cave now? Actually, he shouldn’t have to worry about that even if they were. He has shockwave soldiers stationed at the cave as well as Mara. Despite being a child, Mara has grown stronger than before. They would be able to handle any human that appears at the cave. Still, Waldo runs as fast as he can towards the cave. Mara might want to learn of this. Seeing more humans has been on her mind for quite a while anyway.

  Once Waldo returns to the wagon at the entrance of the cave, he sees that the soldiers and Mara have finished loading all of the gold that was in the cave. Mara looks at Waldo as if she is expecting him to say something. Waldo recalls his soldiers and looks at her.

  “There are humans up ahead. A lot of them. However, it seems that something strange is happening. There are many workers and factories. Don’t be surprised if they are slaving away.”

  “There are humans? Ok, where are they?”

  “About a couple miles north. We should be able to arrive rather soon.”

  “Ok, let’s get going!”

  Mara eagerly takes hold of the wagon and pushes forward. However, to no one’s surprise, the wagon is incredibly difficult to handle. There’s a lot of gold on the wagon, and with the wagon being made out of stone now, it’s much heavier than before. Waldo looks at this and sighs.

  (At this rate, it’ll take up an entire night to arrive.)

  Suddenly, Mara pours all of her energy and strength into it. The wagon starts to gradually move and she begins to push forward. As Waldo watches as Mara runs north with the wagon in tow, he simply huffs and follows her. Mara’s sudden excitement for meeting other humans continues to help her push the wagon forward. Her training these past two months definitely haven’t been in vain. If this were Mara from two months ago, she would never have been able to pull a stone wagon topped with gold like this. Frankly, Waldo is pleased to see this development. He knew that choosing to continue to increase Mara’s strength was the right choice. They’re making good progress with their speed. Soon, the two of them arrive at the small cliff which Waldo first came across. Mara drops to the ground and pants heavily. She must have used up all of her energy in one burst. Nevertheless, they got here faster than Waldo anticipated.

  “This is it. You can see everything from this spot.”

  Mara practically crawls to the edge of the cliff. When she looks down at the crater, her eyes widen at the sight of all of the factories and humans working down there. They’re all carrying gold or coal. Waldo was right when he said that they might actually be slaving away. But who are they doing all of this for?

  “This looks bad. They’re all so unhappy.”

  “This is the reality of humankind. I’m sure it was even worse before you blew yourselves up. Well, now that we are here, what do you wish to do?”

  Mara was surprised that Waldo allowed her to choose what to do from here. He’s never let her do that before. She sits down and takes a moment to think about it. After thinking for a few seconds, she simply decides to go down to the crater and check on everyone.

  “Let’s go down and talk with everyone. Maybe we can learn more as we go.”

  “I figured you would say something like that. Doesn’t seem like there’s anything better to do, so we might as well just go down. I’ll take the wagon down since it’s impossible for you to slide down with it.”

  With that being said, Waldo suddenly gives the stone wagon one large push. The wagon quickly goes forward and Waldo uses ropes to latch onto the handles. He begins to slide down the slope of the cliff and direct the flow of the wagon. Mara watches him go down with the wagon with awe in her expression. It’s like he were sledding in the snow, except there is no snow. Mara proceeds to follow Waldo and jump off the edge of the cliff. She activates her technique and lets herself float using the air. She slows her descent and follows Waldo as he slides down with the wagon. The humans at the factories and conveyor belts turn around and see the wagon begin to slide down from the cliff. They panic for a bit, wondering what the hell is capable of even doing that? Waldo smiles, ready to crash the party.