On another planet, there is a mine. It sits deep, deep within the planet's crust.

The workers, of all age and type, live inside the mine, in a great open-air colony. They believe that this mine was built on the Promised Land of their religion. Truth be told, the promised land is a little ways away. Monsters frequently attack the mine, and everyone pretty much lives in fear, but none will leave, for they believe this to be their one true home.

The monsters are agile killers, quick and ruthless. Their bodies are slim, their triangular heads large, and their teeth even larger. They're blackish grey with what looks like a mix of plastic and metal skin stretched tight over their bones. They have a vaguely humanoid shape, with long, segmented tails, and move by curling themselves up to launch from surface to surface with supernatural speed.

The denizens all wear a kind of permanent face paint, with various symbols and colors describing their personalities, workloads, and accomplishments. It isn't overly complicated, and consists of blocks and rounded shapes, each covering a good portion of the face, and looks positively tribal. Every face is painted by a single traveling man with a brush and a kit who is hailed as a sort of witchdoctor. He paints faces depending on what he sees in the person. Each design represents a sort of social status, but the guy always throws in his own quirks, and some speak of premonitions in his paints. The man is comically skinny but rife with knots of lean muscle, and does not talk. He seems to be constantly dirty, from head to toe, and his attitude appears to be very coy and sarcastic. He is revered in the minds of every person, and his paints are law, indecipherable as they may sometimes be. He feels like an outsider, somehow.

When the main character, a young man with lots on his mind, is assigned to work in the mine, he doesn't know any of these things. All he knows is the corporation that sent him here is a bunch or self-righteous bastards and he despises them all. At the time of his arrival, there is some unrest in the people living there caused by the way things are run by officials in certain circles(such as why monsters come so often into the holy land), and during his stay, he might just stir up some questions of his own.

Things to remember:

The facepaints are basic in design, but all unique.

The feel of the colony is one of desolation, there is a swimming blackness that seems to stretch on forever, as the huge cavern in which the colony sits spreads out and out for miles and miles. People often cast nervous glances at this blackness, which isn't known to bring monsters, but is still very much disquieting.

The monsters live a fair distance away in a separate cave system, but come to the mine to feed on or kidnap miners. They are animals, through and through, with a sort of pack mentality.

Everyone wears rather bulky but almost elegant looking tan worksuits that protect them from the elements. These suits have large tan rubber-looking rings around the neck where a bubble helmet attaches, but few wear these helmets when not directly working on a mining project.

An archaic lock system is all that stands between the monsters and the colony, and it's known to be risky to activate it, as the paths to the "promised land" are nearly uncultivated, and twist and turn in every direction, almost maze-like. Still, almost every other day someone else ends up running through one of the hundreds of entrances from the monsters, barely locking them out.

This dream was really intense in detail. It felt like I was there. I know people say that, but really, it felt like I was in that dream the whole time. I felt the traveling painter's brush as he painted my face. INSANE!