I’ll tell ye, the earth in Minoc don’t give up her iron easy. Been swinging that pick since dawn, shoulder screaming by the third strike, and still you feel the resistance—like the stone’s got a will of its own. That morning light barely reached the pit floor where I was working near the old mine forge, just a sliver cutting through the dust. Each clink of iron on rock sent a jolt up my arms, but I kept at it. Seventeen times I swung true, pulling ore from the veins like pulling teeth. My hands were slick, not just from sweat but from the cold damp of the stone, the way it seeps into your gloves and never quite leaves.
Then came the walk back with that ore tucked under my arm, half a dozen trips between the vein and the smelter. I’d just dumped the last pile onto the firebox when my tongs snapped—crack—like a dry twig. Cheap things, bought off a passing vendor near the blacksmith’s row. I stared at the broken ends, grease-stained fingers trembling a little from the shock. Had to borrow Old Harlan’s pair, the ones with the warped handle he’s been meaning to fix for months. Felt wrong using them, like borrowing a man’s boots. But the fire was roaring, and those seventeen piles of ore weren’t going to smelt themselves. Watched each one collapse into molten slag, then cool into ingots—thirty-four in all. Heavy bastards, too. I remember lifting the sack, testing the weight. Nearly fifty ingots in my pack now, pressing down on my spine as I trudged toward town.
Funny thing is, for all the aches and the broken tools, it’s that moment at the forge—grease on my face, Harlan’s tongs still warm in my hand—that settles something in my chest. This work ain’t pretty, but it’s honest. Tomorrow, I’m buying proper tongs. And maybe a new pick. Minoc’s stone won’t wait, and neither will I.
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