Grimm's Journal — Jun 24

Aye, I’ll tell ye this—Minoc’s sun was higher than a drunk’s ambition when I finally hauled myself out of that East Mine, pack near bursting with nearly fifty iron ingots. My shoulders screamed like a goblin in a bath, and the pickaxe in my belt hung heavy with dust and regret. I’d struck good iron deep near the western seam, felt that clean crack of the head biting into the stone just right, each swing like a prayer answered. But the walk back? Hells below, the roads don’t walk themselves, and every step to the blacksmith felt like the earth itself was pushing back. I passed the tanner’s lot twice, circled the provisioner’s stall like a starving wolf, but Veda waved me off without even looking up. “Not today, Grimm,” she said, like I was selling sorrow instead of steel.

I stood there a moment, sweat stinging my eyes, the weight of the ingots pulling at my belt like they knew I was broke. I’d walked that forge path a hundred times—maybe more—and never once did it feel this long. The heat off the cobbles rose like breath from a dragon’s maw, and the clang of the real blacksmith’s hammer at the Minoc forge rang clear down the street. I could smell coal and hot metal, that rich, greasy warmth that usually pulls me in like kin. But I had no coin to buy charcoal, and the anvil wouldn’t ring for free. I stood by the well, dipped my kerchief in the water, pressed it to my neck. Felt the dust cake and crack. Felt old.

But I’ll tell ye what—those ingots didn’t mine themselves, and they didn’t smelt themselves either. I earned every ounce. And tomorrow, I’ll find a buyer who sees value in honest weight. Maybe I’ll take the long path past the mining camp at dawn, test the seam near the broken support. There’s ore there, I know it. Deep ore. Quiet ore. The kind that doesn’t talk back—just waits.