Welcome to the Armpit

As I may have indicated, there are different grades of bugs. Generally speaking, larger adult bugs are the better meal. Even infused with Nature mana, there were only two servings of maggots left on me in the morning. Hardly enough to brace me for the famine to come.

My entire right side was stiff, and it ached where the scales had peeled away.

Oh, and the eye on that side was sensitive to sunlight. (I'd planned for that pain, though.)

Without ceremony, a different guard stomped on my back until I woke up, put manacles on my ankles, and marched me off to the morning in-gang. <1 >

"I notice a lack of lights." I said. "Are they already in the mine?"

There was a chuckle from the wiry man ahead of me, but it was the taller one behind that answered.

"All the light we'll get is in the mine, yes."

As the out-gang exited the mine, each of us was given a pail and a damaged pickaxe.