Just a silly little idea that was crawling through my head most of the day of an alternate character I want to make. Thought it might be fun to share it for a while. In all honesty, this is a very rough first draft, and will probably be moved to scraps before too long for editing reasons, but it's been forever since I uploaded anything and I thought I might show that I'm not dead.

(Also, yes, this was totally inspired by my obsession with Minecraft lately. :P)

.............................................................................................................

Torchlight flickered in the dank, earthy tunnel as Burkhard swung his pick against the wall. Small flecks of stone and dirt flew through the air with every rhythmic pounding of the tool. Brow furrowed and sweating, he pressed onward, determined to find another payload to rival the one of the previous week. After all, that shipment of iron alone would feed him for a month. Thoughts of what he could do if he stuck silver, gold, even diamonds, danced pleasantly through his mind.

Plink! Plink! His arm was beginning to tire. He stopped to check his watch. Four hours since he'd left his outpost. It had taken a good half an hour just to get back to where he'd stopped digging, so he'd spent over three hours clanking away at his new search for minerals. He was a small man, and figured he deserved a break, perhaps some lunch, and so he slammed the pick into the wall to keep it there for a while.

Thunk!

Burkhard looked curiously at the pick. It sounded as if it had hit something odd, something not dirt, stone, or metal. He pulled the pick out and began chipping away at the dirt wall. As the dirt tumbled to the ground, Burkhard saw what had made the sound start to materialize from the soil. It was a small, wooden chest, covered in grime, rusted along the metal bands. His heart raced. Could he have just struck a treasure of sorts? Taking his pick, he pried eagerly at the lid of the chest, anxious to see its contents.

A few minutes of struggling later, sweat beginning to break out over his body once more, Burkhard felt the chest's lid give way, and the wooden top flung open with a jolt as he tumbled backward. Quickly regaining his composure, he scrambled over to the chest and peered inside. His face fell.

It was just another mining pick. Granted, a mining pick that had intricate carvings along its handle, but nothing terribly fancy. He was about to toss it to the wayside when he noticed that his own pick had split into two from the force of opening the blasted chest.

“Damn it all!” he called out, his voice echoing throughout the tunnels of the mine. “Lousy piece of junk.” He knew he'd have to replace it in order to keep going, but in the meantime, his stomach was telling him it was time to eat.

Over the quick meal, Burkhard decided it wasn't worth wasting another hour of round trip travel just to grab another pick. He figured he could get by with using the one he'd found in the chest until tomorrow. Even if it broke from old age and ancient wear, he'd probably get at least a little bit further into his tunnels. He grabbed the old pick, stood up, and got back to work.

Surprisingly, the pick felt quite light in his hands, and struck through the dirt and rock like they were soft butter. What kind of material was this thing made out of, he wondered. He'd figure it out later, though. His arm tingled with excitement, and his head was filled with an increased urge to dig.

The further he dug, the better he felt. He didn't even realize that the torches were far behind him now. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness of the underground, turning from their natural green to a bright, glinting gold color. His overalls and shirt were becoming more snug around his form, especially around his waist. All he could think about was digging further, deeper, faster.

Soon, his boots, which had become increasingly tight, burst open. His feet had changed into large, black, clawed paws. His overalls strained tighter around his middle as black, gray, and white fur sprouted over his exposed skin, creeping over his body. Burkhard was oblivious to the changes happening to him. His mind was enveloped in an instinctual urge to dig. His life, he felt, depended on the future of this tunnel.

His face pressed outward into a muzzle as he swung. His ears slid to the top of his elongating face as fur enveloped it, a white stripe cutting between the black fur around his eyes and ears. A button on his overalls burst as his belly finally stopped growing. A ripping sound echoed, and a short fluffy gray tail poked through the back of his overalls.

Finally, the urge to swing his arms stopped. He sat down and rubbed at his hands, now clawed, black paws, much like his feet. Such busy work. Don't know what came over him. He looked back down the tunnel he'd made, and could barely make out the light of the torches. Had he really dug that far that quickly?

Well, of course he had. He was a badger, after all. He was built for that sort of thing. It was why he got into the business in the first place, wasn't it? It was all he'd ever wanted to do, ever since he was a young badger pup.

An idea soon seized him. What if he could dig out enough of the mountain to set up a settlement for people? He knew that the world above was troubled. He could create a place for them to escape, a place away from all the problems that plagued them. They could even help him mine the mountain, gather the food, provide other commodities... and he could offer them the wonders of a changed existence, if they wanted it.

His mind wandered over the possibilities of such a paradise as he scratched at his pudgy belly. Well, if he wanted to create such a place, he would need to start soon. He grabbed for the trusty pick his family had left behind for him and set off to digging a cavern large enough to hold a city.