Stairway to Hell

There's this story, about a group of greedy miners who keep digging at this one rich vein. They dig deeper and deeper, and find more and more valuable gems and precious metals. Eventually, they dig so deep into the Earth that they awaken a slumbering demon. All the miners as well as the mine itself, are swallowed up by the demon's inferno of rage. Well, we haven't run into any demons (yet!), but we've seen plenty of mutated beasts. No one knows how they wound up in these underground tunnels in the first place. All I know is, they stand in the way of my grand plan. Too many of the miners are getting hurt. Chalk Peak keeps sending people, but it's not enough. You just can't run a mine efficiently with such heavy losses. Of course, there is one fringe benefit to the current system. The spot where a miner dies is a great place to harvest Astrealite. All we need to do is find the body, and we almost always find a nice clump of Astrealite waiting for us. It's like compensation for the loss of a worker, I guess.