The pick struck true again in that hollow echo of the northern tunnel near Minoc, the same rhythm I’ve known for years—clang, scrape, clang—like the mountain had a heartbeat only we miners could hear. Dust hung thick in the torchlight, stinging my eyes, but I didn’t stop. Not with nearly fifty ingots already weighing down my pack and the price of coal climbing again. I could feel each strike in my shoulders, the haft of the pick slick in my palms, but there’s a kind of pride in that ache. You don’t get Blacksmithy to 70 just swinging at air.
But it wasn’t the mining that nearly broke me today—it was the tongs. Back at the mine forge, red-hot iron glowing like a demon’s eye in the coals, I reached for the fresh ore with those old iron tongs, the ones I’ve had since I first apprenticed under old Harlan. Snapped clean in half they did, just as I pulled the bloom from the fire. The clatter on the stone floor was louder than it should’ve been, and I just stood there, sweat rolling down my temple, watching the metal cool too fast, slagging over before I could hammer it clean. Felt like the mountain laughing. I muttered curses, sure, but also something quieter—fear, maybe. These tools, this body, we’re not getting younger.
I ended up selling what I could at the blacksmith near the Miners Guild North, the one with the crooked sign and the apprentice who never smiles. He weighed my good ingots slow, deliberate, like he was punishing me for bringing in the impure batch. But the gold jingled when he handed it over, and that sound—that’s what keeps a man going. I’ll replace the tongs tomorrow. Maybe even buy new gloves. For now, I’ll sit, drink this ale, and let my hands remember what rest feels like.
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