"Well, now that's out of the way…" Lalna said, after a few blissfully peaceful moments of just sitting and basking in the dim light, their fears buried away. "…we should move on to step two."

"What would that be?" Xephos asked.

Lalna thought hard for a moment, frowning. Should they spend their energy on trying to find a way out, or save their limited oxygen supply as though they would be imprisoned here for a long time? The scientist was about to pitch this question to his colleagues before Honeydew piped up.

"Hey, this is good practice for when we're on the moon!" he exclaimed excitedly.

"It is?" Lalna asked, frowning.

"Sure it is!" Xephos agreed, nodding whole-heartedly. "Think about it – we'll have limited air on the moon, so when we go outside, especially when we're far away from the moonbase, we'll need to conserve our oxygen."

"Oh, I see." Lalna said. "We'll save air by doing non-energetic things – not to mention we'll pass the time faster."

"Like what?" Honeydew asked.

"Well, on the moon it would be things like walking instead of running, or breathing deeply in order to ensure full oxygen exchange." Xephos explained, though his scientific language was met by a blank stare from Honeydew, which Lalna chuckled at. "Down here, though, it would mean things like sitting down a lot, and spending most of our time sleeping and resting."

Honeydew lay down flat on the floor, curling up into a ball as he placed his helmet to one side. "Well, in that case, goodnight, chaps."

Xephos and Lalna both looked at him blankly. "Uh…I said most of our time, not all of our time, Honeydew." Xephos said.

Lalna helped the dwarf sit back up. "Yeah. We can still talk to each other – in fact that's a good idea. We need to do things that'll pass the time, and keep our spirits up, like talking, singing…"

"THERE'S A CREEPER, IN A CAVE, LA-LA-LA-LA-LAAAA–"

"Quiet singing, dumbass!" Lalna snapped at the dwarf. Xephos clamped a hand over his friend's mouth, and all three listened intently for a moment. There was shuffling outside, the groans of the undead, and the irritated hiss of a Creeper unable to reach its prey. The trio heard the mobs clawing and pounding at the walls for a few terrifyingly tense moments, before they resumed their rhythmic pacing up and down the mineshaft, determined to wait the trio out. Lalna let out a sigh of relief, and Honeydew wrestled Xephos' loosening grasp away from his mouth.

"Just trying to lighten the fucking mood, jeez." He grumbled.

"You nearly got us…" Lalna began, but a harsh glare from Xephos stopped him from finishing. Lalna closed his mouth and nodded, grateful for the spaceman's intervention. It wouldn't do to keep arguing with each other. The scientist shook his head. "Let's just see how bad the situation is. What have we got on us?"

Honeydew pulled out piles of ore after ore – copper, tin, iron, aluminium (or aluminum as he corrected his friends every single time), redstone dust and various other minerals that were normally invaluable, but in this situation were completely redundant. Lalna knew Xephos was a hoarder of useless items, and so had his fingers crossed that he had something, anything – a half-broken wooden pickaxe that had been long forgotten about would have been most welcome at this point – but the spaceman too turned up nothing useful as he dug around in his inventory; cobblestone, obsidian, various jewels; all useless. Even Xephos grimaced as he pulled out his final items – a gleaming pile of diamonds. "22 diamonds…" he growled. "…like they mean fucking anything down here."

The situation looked bleak. No tools, no weapons, no armour – not even food or water. Lalna rooted through his pockets, producing nothing but red rock cobblestone mixed amongst the usual collection of minerals. How he wished they had some real baked beans. From his top pocket he pulled out a blunt but functional scalpel. Not at all suited for dealing with the horde of mobs outside, it would have been useful enough for cutting up their food into fairly sliced chunks if it ever got to the point where they needed to ration food. Not that it would ever reach that point now – they even lacked the basic but precious commodities of food or water.

"It doesn't look good, guys." Lalna said simply. The other two didn't respond, just stared silently at their pitiful pile of supplies. Honeydew clutched his bare stomach guiltily. This was a good indication of how hungry he was – in a word, very. He'd been the one doing the mining after all.

Xephos noticed too. "We need to get out of here." He said, standing up as though he intended to take action himself. He leant his hands against the back rock wall and pressed his ear against the smooth surface. Lightly, and in various places, he tapped his fingers on the rock, listening intently. Lalna theorized he was seeing if the rock was hollow or weakened in certain places. If they really were going to break out, it would make sense to do it on the thinnest possible part of the wall, to minimize effort. Even then, it would take a long time – if the wall was weaker in any spots at all.

Lalna sighed and brought his knees up to his chest, hugging them tightly. He would never admit this to his friends, of course; he was far too stubborn and proud – but right now, some part of him was very, very scared. Not of anything specific like Xephos' fear of the dark, more of something vague; just a sinking feeling of being lost and afraid – but it was a fear equally as intense as the spaceman's. It was the feeling of being helpless, alone, and being so certain he was going to die. Normally he prided himself on his scientific intellect and high intelligence, but down here it was working against him, abusing his cowardly nature that normally never came to light. His advanced mind simply wouldn't allow him to feel illogical emotions such as hope or optimism – it was only the details; the straight facts that mattered to him. They determined the success of something – and right now all the details spelt trouble for the trio. His stomach twisted and writhed uncomfortably, and suddenly he felt sick, and he felt the walls closing in around him, pressing against him. He felt like he was suffocating, choking, his windpipe growing smaller as the hopelessness of this situation closed in on him, preventing his normal breathing. The sound of Xephos tapping was drowned out by the sound of his heart thumping louder and louder, as his mind was racing with how they would never escape this place – they were stuck here, they were going to die, he was going to die…

"Lalna?" Honeydew asked, looking at him strangely. Lalna realized he was panting very heavily. Even Xephos had stopped what he was doing.

"Are you okay, friend?" the spaceman asked.

Lalna cleared his throat, momentarily caught, and sat up straight. "What? Yes, I'm fine." He caught his colleagues' concerned glances at each other. "Seriously, I'm alright. Nothing's the matter." He said, in an authoritative tone which Xephos and Honeydew were very familiar with. Xephos shrugged and returned to the wall. Honeydew frowned, but decided not to press any further with the matter. He knew how much Lalna hated appearing weak – in fact, more so to his friends than to his enemies – and down here, where they were all feeling scared underneath, it wouldn't do to start bringing up matters that were likely to cause arguments, especially with things so tense already. So he was silent, not even daring to hum a jolly tune, seeing how that had gone last time. Lalna stared at the floor, quite aware that even though his friends' eyes were not upon him, they were both 'staring' at him, thinking about that short display of fright. He resented both of them for it – but he resented himself much more for losing control of himself and showing it in the first place.

"Here!" Xephos suddenly said, in a victorious tone. He pulled away from the wall and defiantly pointed at a certain point on the wall. "This is where we need to dig!" he said, as the other two crowded round to see what had got him so excited.

"Why here in particular?" Honeydew asked. Xephos grinned eagerly.

"It sounds hollower here. Like the stone is thinner at this part of the wall than any other part. That probably means there's something on the other side."

"Like a cave system or mineshaft." Lalna theorized. Xephos nodded keenly.

"This means we'll have to dig through as small amount of stone as possible. And if we do end up in a cave system, or even a ravine, we should be able to follow it back to the surface!"

"That sure beats digging through a bunch of rock to make a staircase up there." Honeydew agreed.

Lalna was deep in thought. "But if it's a tunnel we've not been in before, chances are it won't be lit up with torches. That means there'll be more mobs to deal with, and we still don't have weapons or armour."

He saw his friends consider his point, but they still shook their heads at him. "Then we'll deal with that as it comes." Xephos said firmly, folding his arms. "I'd rather take a chance on doing something than sitting in this dark hole waiting to die."

Lalna, despite his strictly structured thinking objecting to it, couldn't help but agree with Xephos' attitude. "There's still a problem, though." He said, looking at the wall doubtfully. "Even if it's not that much stone to mine through, we still need to get through it with just our bare fists."

"No problem." Honeydew said readily, pulling his gloves further up his arms impressively. "Dwarven fists are renowned for their stoniness. I was taught how to punch stuff with just my hands when I was just a lad."

"And clearly, Dwarf brains are renowned for their mushiness." Lalna scoffed. "You can't punch through rock with just your hands! Tell him, Xeph!"

"You know, Lalna, I had no idea you cared so much." Honeydew said, only half-joking, as he tapped and listened to the wall for himself.

"Uh…" Xephos struggled to remain neutral, caught between his two strong-willed friends. "…well…Honeydew, if you think you can do it, go for it…but even if this part of the wall is weaker than the rest…well, it's still pretty thick…I mean…you might hurt yourself..."

Honeydew grinned. Clearly the many negativities stacked against him did not dampen his spirits. Lalna wished he could be that naive.

"Gentlemen, stand aside." The Dwarf said, gently pushing on Lalna and Xephos' chests so that they parted and stood aside for him to get a clear shot at the daunting stone wall - well, daunting for anyone else other than Honeydew.

"This is a job for a Dwarf."