I’ll tell ye, it’s the weight that stays with you. Not just the forty-odd iron ingots sagging my pack straps into my shoulders, but the way they shift with every step, clinking like dead men’s teeth. I’d been swinging that pickaxe since dawn down in the Minoc mines, the same tunnel I’ve worked three weeks now—same damp air, same stubborn seam of iron singing back at me with every strike. By the time my arms started trembling, I’d cracked loose enough to make the trip worth it. The real moment, though? When the pick hit that final seam just right—clang, clean and bright, not the dull thud of wasted effort—and the whole slab split open like a ripe melon. I dropped to my knees, fingers brushing cold metal veins in the stone. That’s when you forget the grime, the ache in your back, the stink of wet rock. You just feel the ore, cool and promising, pulling you deeper.
I hauled it all up to the mine forge near the south slope, where the wind carries the soot inland instead of into town. The tongs snapped halfway through shaping the third bar—cheap things, bought from a peddler in Trinsic years back. I cursed loud enough to scare a crow off the chimney. Had to finish with the backup pair, the ones with the warped handle that burns your palm when they heat up. But there’s something honest about wrestling metal into shape when it fights back. The hammer’s rhythm, the orange bloom in the coals, the way each strike rings true when you’ve got the heat just right—it’s a language older than runes. I lost track of time. Only came back to myself when the sky turned the color of cooled steel.
Sold the lot to old Hargrid at the blacksmith’s stall near the Miners Guild. He didn’t haggle much, which says he knew I’d earned it. Counted out 380 gold into my palm, coins still warm from his pouch. I stood there a moment, letting them sit in my hand like a verdict. Not rich, not by a long stretch, but enough to eat well and buy new tongs that won’t betray me next week.
Come morning, I’m heading back. Not for the gold. Not even for the iron. But for that one clean clang in the silence, when the stone gives up what it’s been holding all along.
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