I’ll tell you, the pickaxe biting into that stone in the deep mine just west of Minoc—it wasn’t the ore that made me pause, but the sound. Not the usual dull thunk of iron on stubborn rock, but a clean, ringing clink, like a bell struck once in a quiet chapel. I froze, torch sputtering behind me, and ran my hand over the seam. Cold, but humming faintly, like it remembered the heat of the forge. I pried loose a hunk of ore heavier than most, veins of silver threading through the iron like frost on a windowpane. Must’ve been nearly fifty ingots in my pack by then, shifting with every step, pressing into my shoulders like old regrets.
I didn’t head straight to the smelter. Nah, I took the long way past the Miners Guild South, just to feel the wind off the cliffs. By the time I reached the forge near the provisioner’s, my arms were trembling. I fed the bellows, stoked the coals until they glowed white at the heart, and tossed in the ore. But the tongs—cursed, warping things—snapped clean in two when I pulled the first bar. I nearly cursed aloud, but then I saw the color of the molten metal, swirling like oil on water. Not just iron. Something better. I jury-rigged the tongs with a scrap of steel I’d been saving, hands shaking not from exhaustion but from that old hunger—the one that pulls you back to the dark, not for coin, but for the chance.
Yale bought the bar off me for seven gold, didn’t even haggle. Said he hadn’t seen ore like that since the tunnels beneath the mountain first opened. Seven gold. Not much, but it felt like a sign. I passed Ash at the tinker’s guild later—she turned me away, too busy, or maybe just cold—but I didn’t care. That metal sang in my bones. Tomorrow, I’m taking the northern shaft, the one that slopes toward the old dwarven markers. If the vein runs true, I might not come up for days.
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