Nebulous Emperor

"Break time boys!" Someone yelled out.

Nave stopped mining, having collected a few more pieces. Leaving him at 4 pieces in total. Not bad at all for the first half of a day.

Not like anyone would really know since all of it was going into a big pile in the middle of the mine anyway.

'What a disorganized system. No wonder mom could pretend to keep up with or even exceed the men.' He thought as he dumped his loot into the pile.

He found it exceedingly messy and honestly immature in a way.

'Anyone who runs a business should know how important it is to keep track of how well each employee is doing, at least somewhat. Promoting good talent is vital.' He glanced at Sergei as they made their way to the lunch area.

'How did that buffoon even get made mine leader? It would make much more sense to make someone with more intelligence than the ores we mine the leader rather than someone with a lot of muscles.' He thought.

He brushed such thoughts off as they reached the lunch room; it wasn't any of his business for now.

He didn't even want to eat, upset at the idea of his mother's death. He quickly found a table in the corner, as far from where he thought everyone would sit. He closed his eyes and laid his head down on the table.

Tears began to form.

He had never taken any time to deal with his mother's death, which had only taken place this morning. Immediately choosing to go on a quest for revenge. Any reminder of her caused immense pain inside of him.

He had never known life without her, not even a single day.

He had to watch her become sick and slowly wither away, incapable of doing anything about it.

He suddenly rose and looked around to make sure no one was near. When he saw that the coast was clear, he cupped his hands together.

His eyes glowed green, and an image appeared inside of his hands. One of his mother sleeping peacefully. Then it switched to another. One of her making him breakfast on one of her days off. Then it switched again to her surprising him with a gift on his birthday. Then it switched to her on her deathbed. Her corpse. He put his face into his hands, the image disappearing.

He wiped the tears off of his face.

This feeling of helplessness was horrible.

He so badly desired to never feel incapable of doing anything again, because with these powers the truth could be his.

'It will be mine.'

He stood up, realizing that sitting around moping and crying wasn't going to get him anywhere.

He had to eat something; he was exhausted, and the day was only halfway done.

Most of the men had gotten their lunch by this point, so he had to be quick if he wanted to still get food.

He briskly walked to the line of only a few men and joined them. Thankfully, something in this place was done well. The mine had many different branches, and not every branch ate at the same time, leaving the lunch room with breathing room.

He soon reached the women serving food. The only women he had seen since he got here.

Even though he was in a very bad mood from thinking about his mother's death and just being physically exhausted, he still put a smile on his face and greeted the women. They were giving him food. He grabbed a tray and approached the ladies.

"How you doing, ma'am?" He asked using the good manners his mother had taught him.

"I'm doing great; how about you, young man?" Responded a woman about the age of his mother with brown hair.

"I'm doing about as good as one can in this place. I'm glad to hear you're doing well though." Nave said

He extended his tray and received a box of milk, unlike most of the men ahead of him who just received water.

"A young man like you needs to grow big and strong." She said it with a smile. He smiled back and said, "Thank you." And moved on to the next woman.

'What a breath of fresh air.' Nave thought.

He approached the next woman and said, "How are you doing today, ma'am?"

"Good," she said, and she tossed a baked potato on his tray even though he barely extended it.

He looked down at the food and realized he would actually somewhat want to eat this.

'Maybe this place isn't that bad.'

"Hello, how are you doing on this fine day, ma'am?" He said it with the best smile he could muster at the moment.

The quickest and harshest glare he had ever received in his life arrived from the woman he had said hello to.

"What are you so happy about?" She responded in a voice almost as deep as Sergei's.

Nave gulped. He had never been this intimidated by a woman before.

Now that he looked at her, he wasn't sure she was a woman. She- him- they had stubble on their face.

His mother was extremely kind, even when in a bad mood. He had no experience with something like this before.

Since they still hadn't given him his food, he chose to try to appease them.

"Nothing, sir—I mean, ma'am." He responded.

He didn't even hold his tray out; she basically threw the food onto it, if you could call it that. It was a brown slush looking not too dissimilar to dirt.

He quickly retreated from the scary lunch person.

As he did so, he heard Sergei's voice from behind him: "Hi Mom."

'That makes so much sense.'

He voluntarily chose to forget everything that just took place. Quickly arriving at his chosen table once again, one in the corner where he thought no one else would sit.

Thankfully, no one did.

He got the chance to sit there, force himself to eat the food, and wallow in his pity.

…

The second part of the day went much of the same. He pretended to mine a few more pieces of pyr and practiced his illusions at the same time. He had so much room to improve with his abilities.

Eventually it came to an end.

"Time to go home, boys!" The same unknown person yelled again.

The sound of pickaxes stopped, and the men turned away from the wall and went to dump their gains into the enormous pile in the middle of the cave.

He was one of them.

They were then corralled into a few long lines, where multiple men stood with money in their hands.

As Nave reached the man, someone huge was standing next to him, just like a huge person was standing next to all the money givers. They weren't miners though. 'Where all are they from?' He questioned.

The huge guy standing next to the person giving Nave his pay was Sergei. 'This guy is everywhere.' Nave thought.

He received his pay and started to turn away, and he heard Sergei say, "You did good today."

He didn't turn back, started walking away, and said, "Thanks." While sticking up the middle finger.

...

He arrived at his home, a small shack painted all black surrounded by plenty others. A few of them were owned by fellow miners.

He placed his hand on the door handle and hesitated; his mother's corpse was still in the bed.

He had left it there purposely, though maybe he should have buried her. He was so enraged by her death that he chose to forsake his responsibilities to her.

He wouldn't anymore.

He walked inside and walked right by the bed to get to a shovel. It was only about 8 hours since her death, so the corpse had no smell. Walking back out, he went behind the shack to a small patch of grass they owned.

He began digging, and 2 and a half hours later he was done. 'My body is done for today.' He thought after feeling all the soreness. Going from no physical labor ever to intense physical labor wasn't a good idea.

'I'm almost done.'

Nave placed the shovel down next to the grave and went back inside. He walked to the bedside and looked at his mother. She had taken a few days off before she died, so she wore a comfortable black dress when she was home, which she had died in.

'Thankfully, I don't have a desire to see my dead mother naked while chancing her.' He thought with a smile on his face, using satire to make himself feel better.

He crouched down and put one arm in the crease of her knees and his hand under her back and picked the small woman up.

'She's cold.' He thought.

Carrying her out and behind the house, he took his time placing her body in the grave. He climbed out of the hole after placing a cloth on her face and her black rose on her chest and started covering her with dirt.

By the time he was done, he was barely able to move, walking inside and closing the door; he didn't even make it to the bed, collapsing on the floor.

...

Waking up with drool on the side of his face, he got ready for work. He ate a quick breakfast and went to work.

He got there at the same time as everyone else to decrease his chances of getting beat up. He grabbed his equipment, went out on the floor, and got to work. Of course he didn't actually work. He struck the stone around an ore a few times and then started practicing his magic once again. He could create detailed images to display what he wants, but he had to see if he could create something specifically to help him in a sticky situation.

'I need something to help me get out of this place if my plan doesn't work.' Nave thought.

'My illusions are completely aphysical, so I can't do something like trip someone who's chasing me.' He thought this while pretending to mine ore. 'All they really affect is someone's perception of reality, their sight.'

Right that moment, he had an idea of creating a black box no bigger than someone's head, actually about the size of half a head. The smaller it was, the faster it would be to make it. He also needed to be extremely accurate with the placement if he was going to use this.

'Creating an image with absolutely no detail should make the creation phase much faster. Guess I'll try it.' He thought.

Once again he crouched down, hid his glowing eyes, and looked at the ground, soon feeling the energy inside of him flowing.

Soon the ground below him darkened into a small square.

'Not bad, pretty dark. I can't see the ground below. For some reason, just creating a dark shape is more expensive energy-wise than creating an illusion.' He thought this since he felt more energy flow to his hands. 'I wonder how it turns out if I don't darken it but only blur the image.'

Trying again, the ground directly below him blurred heavily.

'Okay, this also isn't bad, not expensive energy-wise, but if someone is trying to get their hands on me, they'll still be able to see me or at least my general figure. So what about a mix of both?'

Trying once more, he created a square of both dark and blurred qualities. It was successful! Seeing through it clearly was extremely difficult.

'Creating it is pretty quick, I'm assuming due to it's simplicity. I'd just need to predict my placement by just a little bit.' He thought.

Standing up and getting back to work or pretending to, he continued his line of thought.

'If everything goes to plan, I shouldn't need any of this, but just having a backup is a good idea.' Nave thought.

Just as he thought that he saw that Sergei was going to start going around and checking on everyone's progress. He rapidly started to mine to make himself start sweating since he hadn't done any actual work yet.

By the time Sergei reached him, he was nice and sweaty. Creating an illusion and giving himself the same amount of ores as yesterday in his satchel. Turning to face and greet him because his illusions still weren't three-dimensional, he said, "How are you doing today, Sergei?" with his usual smile on his face.

"Would be doing better if you weren't here." He responded, not forgetting the finger Nave had given him as he was going home yesterday. "Anyway, the boss wants to see you before you leave." He finished and moved on to inspect the other workers.

'Probably to sign my contract. It's time to initiate my plan anyway.' Feeling extremely nervous to actually go through with it. 'Putting it off won't get me anywhere.'

The rest of the day went smoothly, or as smooth as it could go. The end soon approached, and it was time.