The pickaxe bit into the stone seam near the Minoc mine forge with a dull clang that shivered up my arms—seventh time tonight the blade caught just wrong, like the mountain itself was resisting. Dust hung thick in the torchlight, stinging my eyes, and my back ached from hours of chipping at stubborn veins. Three times I swung only to hear that cursed clink of ore too dense to break free. Felt like the earth was laughing. But then, on the seventh strike, a chunk the size of a loaf cracked loose—dark iron ore, solid—and I nearly dropped the pick from relief. My hands were raw, but that weight in my palm, cold and heavy, was promise.
I hauled the ore to the forge just outside the mine entrance, where the anvil still held the ghost of last week’s hammering. Fire roared to life under the bellows, and I fed the rocks into the heart of it. Two ingots came clean—shiny, hot, glowing like captured sunset. One smelt came up short, slagged to useless clinker. That’s the way of it—fire giveth, fire taketh away. But those two ingots, when I pulled them with the tongs, warm and malleable, made the sweat on my brow feel earned. I remember the first time I held an ingot like that, fresh from the flame—thought I’d made something immortal. Now it’s just work, but tonight, for some reason, it felt like craft again.
Walked into Minoc with nearly fifty ingots in my pack, the weight pulling at my shoulders like old regrets. The bank clerk didn’t look up when I slid the bundle across the counter, just nodded as he locked it away. Zero gold, again. But that’s alright. I passed the blacksmith’s on the way back—saw Master Darrow pounding out a breastplate, sparks flying like stars. I paused in the doorway, breathing in that familiar heat. Tomorrow, I’ll take a cut from the stash, shape something real—maybe a dagger, maybe just a hinge. Something that isn’t just weight, but worth.
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