The Guardian

We kidnap a cheese maker

Rosslyn said we had to kidnap a cheese maker, so I guess I'm gonna kidnap a cheese maker. She seemed hesitant to tell me why we needed him, but if it's primarily related to cheese, I'll make sure she can't touch a single curd.

I knocked on the front door and awaited his response, while Rosslyn held a frying pan, ready to knock him out at a moments notice. The wooden door opened, and I was greeted to a large man.

His beard was in a braid, and his eyebrows were so thick that they nearly covered the entirety of his eyes.

"Yes?"
His voice was burly but gentle. He seemed like a kind man, which made kidnapping his co-worker a lot more difficult.

Before I could speak, Rosslyn hid her frying pan behind her back, even though it was bigger than she was. The man's eyebrows raised, showing two small brown eyes.
"Wait a minute. Are you our new cook that got transferred all the way from Craig?"

Rosslyn looked me dead in the eyes, then back at the man.
"Yeah, we are."

His eyebrows set back down in relief.
"Good, we've been waiting for you for a while. With your help, this old cheese mill will turn into an amazing cheese restaurant. So, please, come in and make yourself at home."

That was much easier than I expected it would be. The inside of the mill was huge. The building itself was leaning against the side of a mountain, so it gave the people working here plenty of room to work.

There were goats, cows, and even Bronta, a four-legged animal that looked like a cow, but was orange and covered in slits that would hum like mouths. They had such a passion for singing that they would be incorporated into bands, used for special events, and even in death, they would still hum for a while.

There were men working in stations, doing different jobs all around. Getting the milk, making the cheese, adding the spices, and packaging it up to put in a huge fridge in the back. The deeper into the mountain we walked, the bigger the mill got until we made it to what seemed to be a cheese village.

Instead of wooden floors and walls, the village embraced the cave wide and open as it was. Grey trees grew from the bottom of the stone to the top, sprouting violet crystals that gleamed and holding up tree houses that had bridges connecting to other tree houses or tree stores. But this was only the entrance to the village, the entire village was absolutely massive. A little farther out, and the stone floor started going way down until it plunged into darkness.

The grey trees sprouted all the way up from the endless pit. There looked to be hundreds. Some were thick, with huge buildings on them, and some were thin with little areas to sit. Bridges spanned for miles, connecting these many houses, building, and even parks together. The village was so complex with so many intertwining paths, and there were so many gems emanating such bright light that I didn't even know where to begin.

Rosslyn's mouth was wide open. I'd expect her to remember something about an entire underground city spanning miles into a massive mountain, but she seemed to not remember.

"This is absolutely beautiful. An entire city underground."

The man with the bushy eyebrows walked up beside us and grinned.
"It is amazing, isn't it. We were just drilling our mill into the mountain to expand our area, and we found this. They didn't even know about the outside until we did, and now they're valuable customers for us, and with our help, we can trade and sell gems, plants, and other wonders found down here. They see us as divine beings that came to their land to open another world for them. They give us stuff to sell, and we give them stuff to buy stuff that they never even knew of until now. Frankly, we were lucky."

Crossing the bridges, sitting in the parks, and roaming inside the buildings were what looked to be literal rock people with crystal eyes. They were all made of varying minerals, with different colors and sizes. Some had crystal heads or body parts, while others were made of sand or gravel. Some looked burning hot to the touch, while others looked like they belonged in the sea.