After quarter of an hour of descent and with the distant bottom of the shaft seemingly no closer, the cage shudders to a halt at the mouth of a side-tunnel. The group disembarks, stooping to avoid banging their heads on the low, roughly hewn rock of the ceiling. As you move forward, reptilian anthros pass in the dimness, hacking at the walls with picks.
The air down here is warmer than the frigid cold up above, though still on the wrong side of cool, worsened by the moist draught that whistles through the tunnel. The dripping walls are illuminated only by the ghostly, white-blue glow coming from the bodies of the lizardmen miners. The blue bioluminescence is concentrated in stripes on the backs and sides of the creatures. They are naked except for loin clothes and the filth that encrusts their scales. The move sluggishly, watching the wizards with listless, defeated eyes.
"These are our saluria," Sweetstone announces loudly to the group shuffling between the workers. "Don't worry, they won't bite. We modulate the temperature down here, since they're cold blooded it keeps them all nice and compliant. In addition, we carefully control the temperature of the eggs to ensure the majority of each batch mature into strong, productive males. The bioluminescence you can see is something we've succeeded in breeding into them over a considerable period of time. Aside from a few prisoner transfers from up above, most of the animals we keep down here are the product of generations of selective breeding. They're born, work, mate, and die down here, never to see the sun, which works really well at keeping them in check - if they know of no better life, they can't desire or demand anything."
The tunnel slopes downwards, twisting and splitting off as it follows the path of old, harvested seams of ore.
"Quick test to see if a saluria is docile, by the way," Sweetstone says, seizing one of the slaves at random by the neck. She holds it tightly while her other hand grips its tail and gives it a hard wrench. The tail breaks away from its body cleanly and it scurries away, whimpering, to find a dark corner of the mine to curl up in. "It's their flight response. When threatened, a docile saluria will simply abandon a limb in order to escape. If a limb doesn't come off when you pull it, that means their fight response is engaged, which is bad news and means we need to lower the temperature."
She drops the wriggling segment of tail from her hand, wiping her fingers on the tunnel wall in distaste. "Don't worry, they usually grow back," she laughs. "Right, first year dorms are just down this tunnel. They're comfortable enough, barring the occasional uprising. Now I know some of your voiced wanting to find a familiar before lessons start, so now's your opportunity! I'll give you a few minutes if any of you want to bag yourself a saluria. Take your pick!"
You look around at the pitiful creatures toiling away in the darkness. You'd be doing them a favour taking then as a familiar. Any life would be better than this.
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