Aye, the mine near Minoc’s been kind to me this week, though tonight my arms tell a different story. I’ve spent the better part of the day wedged between cold stone walls, pickaxe in hand, chipping away at the stubborn veins of iron buried deep beneath the earth. That last swing—when the pick finally bit just right—it sent a jolt up my arms and into my shoulders, sharp and satisfying. Dust hung in the air, golden in the dim torchlight, and I could taste the grit on my tongue. Forty-six times I struck the rock today, and nearly fifty ingots now sag in my pack, pressing into my hips like old regrets. But it’s not just the weight—it’s the rhythm of it, the way your body learns the rock, learns the echo of metal on stone, until it feels like part of you.
I hauled them up to the mine forge, where the air burns thick with soot and memory. Three trips through the bellows, thirty ingots fed into the fire—some took well, others crumbled into useless clinkers. Six times the flames roared too hot, blocked by some unseen flaw in the ore. It’s maddening, really. You think you’ve got it mastered, that you can smell the difference between good iron and dross, but the fire doesn’t care. Still, twenty came out pure. I held one fresh ingot in my hand—still warm, rough on the edges, glowing faintly like a coal breathing its last. That heat, that weight—it’s honest. You can’t fake it.
Later, I stood at the blacksmith’s anvil in Minoc, trying to shape something useful. Made four picks, good ones—tempered right, balanced in the grip. But eleven times I reached for tongs and found them missing, or the ingot slipped, or the hammer fell just shy. Once, a cracked tongs shattered mid-strike, sending sparks and fury alike flying into the dark. Only one proper tool came of it. Felt like the world was testing my patience, stone by stone, spark by spark.
Still, I walked away with gold in my pocket—six sales to old Marta at the vendor, her fingers blackened like mine, her smile weary. She knows the look. Tomorrow, I’ll try the deeper shaft. Maybe find something richer than iron. Or maybe I’ll just mine until my hands forget how to hold anything else.
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