Grimm's Journal — Jun 24

I’ve been at the mine forge since before first light, the one tucked behind the eastern ridge where the stone bleeds iron close to the surface. My pickaxe rang out in that steady, hollow clink-clink-clink that gets in your bones after a while—not the sweet ring of valorite, mind you, but the dull thud of iron giving way. Forty-seven times I swung it just this morning, each strike sending a jolt up my arms, my shoulder burning like a forge that won’t cool. The air was thick with dust and the sour tang of sweat, and by the third trip down to the ore cart, my pack already rode low on my back, nearly fifty ingots pressing into my spine like guilt.

But it wasn’t the weight that nearly broke me—it was the tongs. Back at Minoc’s blacksmith shop, sweat stinging my eyes, I pulled the last billet from the coals. The metal glowed like a dying sunset, ready to shape. Then snap—the left jaw gave way, cheap iron warped from too many heats. I cursed so loud that old Thom from the tannery poked his head in, just to laugh. “Still fighting fire with broken tools, Grimm?” he said. I stood there, one hand on the anvil, the other gripping that ruined tongs, feeling like a fool. All that ore in my pack, and I couldn’t turn a single bar into coin because the gods hate pride and cheap hardware.

I ended up walking the ingots down to Andros—the smith near the east gate, stiff-backed and silent as a tombstone. But when I went to sell, his counter had that cursed red X. Refused. Again. Blocked nine times today alone. Felt like the whole town was closed to me. So I banked what I could, six trips through that cursed choke point near the stables where the path won’t clear. Felt every ounce of those ingots each time.

Tomorrow, I’m forging new tongs. My own. Andros won’t stock them? Fine. Let the fire teach me what the man won’t.