Minoc’s been in my bones since dawn. I’d barely shaken the sleep from my eyes when I lit the coals at the mine forge near the tunnels west of the city, that little sheltered overhang where the smoke curls into the pines and no one asks too many questions. The air was still damp, that early chill clinging to the stone like regret, and my breath came in white puffs as I hefted the pick. I’d been down in the iron vein for near three hours—shoulders screaming, hands raw inside my gloves—when I finally felt it: that crisp, clean clink when the pick bites true. Not the dull thud of barren rock, but a ringing note that sings up your arms and tells you, there, that’s the stuff. I worked it slow after that, chipping careful around the seam, feeling each strike vibrate through the haft, knowing one wrong swing could shatter the whole chunk.
I hauled nearly fifty ingots in my pack by midday, the weight dragging low on my hips as I trudged back. Each step jostled them, a quiet metallic clink with every footfall, like ghosts keeping time. I stopped at the blacksmith near the stables—old Harlan’s place, where the anvil’s dented like a war shield and the bellows wheeze like a tired ox. He didn’t say much, just nodded when I dumped the lot on his counter, counted out 34 gold with calloused fingers. The coins felt warm from his pocket, and for a moment, I just stood there, breathing in the scent of scorched coal and liniment, watching the embers flicker in the forge behind him. That warmth on my face, the weight lifting from my shoulders—it wasn’t just the gold. It was the knowing. I’d wrestled the mountain, and today, I won.
Still, as I sat here in the tavern, ale in hand, I can’t shake the memory of that first strike—the way the stone sang. There’s a rhythm to it, a language. Tomorrow, I’m heading deeper. Hear there’s a new shaft near the old orc camp, past the ridge. Might be fool’s gold, might be nothing. But I’ll take my pick, my gloves, and that same hunger. The earth keeps its secrets, but it talks—if you know how to listen.
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