Grimm's Journal — Apr 13

I’ll tell you, the walk back from Minoc mine forge was the kind that grinds into your bones. Sun high, dust in your teeth, and nearly fifty ingots in my pack making every step feel like I was dragging an anchor. I’d been at it since dawn—pick swinging, ore piling, the rhythmic clink-clink of hammer on stone down in that damp, echoing tunnel near the mountain’s gut. There’s a moment, you know, when the pick bites just right into the seam of iron—solid, clean, like cracking open the world’s rib. That third strike today, deep in the shaft, when the rock split and a fat vein gleamed in the lantern light… I nearly laughed. Felt like the earth was giving me a nod, like it remembered me.

But then the forge at the mine was out—some fool had let the fire die and no one with sense to stoke it. So I hauled my load up into Minoc proper, sweat stinging my eyes, pack straps cutting into my shoulders. Made it to the blacksmith’s yard, that familiar anvil scarred with a thousand hammer marks. I dropped two stacks of ore near the furnace, lit it slow, and watched the flames curl around the stone. Smelted eight ingots—good ones, smooth and heavy—and laid them on the cooling rack. The heat on my face, the smell of burning coal and hot metal… that’s when I feel alive. Not when I’m counting coins. Not when I’m running errands for some merchant. But here, where fire and iron speak the same language.

Then I tried to make use of the anvil. Twice I swung and nothing—no tools formed. Blocked, they said. Some spirit in the metal, or maybe the fates just spiting me. I stood there, tongs in hand, staring at the ingot that refused to bend. Felt like a fool. But then one strike took—shaped a decent pick, solid in the grip. Sold it straight to Bethina at the vendor stall. She didn’t haggle, just smiled and handed over coin. “Good weight to it,” she said. That’s praise enough.

I’ll rest tonight. But tomorrow? I’m taking a bigger hammer—and more ore. The mountain’s not done with me yet.<|im_end|>