Minoc’s mine forge was still humming when I dragged myself back up the slope tonight, pickaxe slung over my shoulder like a dead comrade. The air down in the tunnels had that familiar bite—damp stone, iron-rich dust, and the faint tang of something older, like the earth itself was breathing through cracks in the rock. I’d been at it since dawn, chipping away at that stubborn seam near the east wall, the one that sings when the pick hits true. You know the sound—high and clean, like a bell struck just once. Most of the day it gave me nothing but dull thuds and broken flakes, but then, just as the sun would’ve been setting if I could’ve seen it, I found it: a vein fat and dark as dried blood. I swung harder, knuckles raw, shoulders burning, and finally it cracked open. Nearly fifty ingots in my pack by the time I hauled them up, the weight pulling my belt into my hips with every step.
Back at the forge near the smithy—old man Harlan’s place, where the anvil’s dented like a war shield—I dropped the ingots onto the stone bench with a clatter that made the cats scatter. The fire was low, but I coaxed it up, feeding it scraps and watching the blue edges flare. I remember the tongs snapping once, a cheap pair I’d bought off a passing trader. Useless. Had to clamp the iron with the heavy ones, the ones with the warped handle that bite into your palm. But when the first bar glowed cherry-white, curling like bread in the heat, I forgot the pain. There’s a moment, you know, when the metal yields—not soft, not weak, but alive. That’s when I feel like I’m not just shaping iron, but talking to it.
Harlan took the lot this morning, didn’t even haggle. Just grunted, counted out the coins into my hand—one by one—while his apprentice stared like I’d walked out of a tomb. Gold’s back, but it feels lighter than the weight of the pack did. Funny, that.
Tomorrow, I think I’ll try the lower tunnels. Heard there’s mithril whispers near the collapsed shaft. Might need better tongs. Might need luck. Either way, the pick’s still sharp, and the earth’s still singing.
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