Minoc’s mine forge was thick with the smell of damp stone and hot iron when I finally hauled myself up from the lower tunnels, arms trembling like a green recruit. Nearly fifty ingots in my pack—some iron, a few dull copper mixed in—and not a single gold piece to show for it yet. The weight sat low on my shoulders, familiar as an old grudge. I dropped onto the cracked stone bench near the anvil, listening to the drip of water from the ceiling into the rusted bucket beside me. One of the apprentices gave me a nod, but nobody speaks much down there. Just the clink of pick on rock, the occasional curse when a vein runs dry or the tunnel shifts. I’d hit three dead ends already today, my pickaxe glancing off unyielding stone like it was laughing at me.
But then, just after the third blocked swing, I caught it—a soft crack, not the sharp ring of wasted effort, but the deep, meaty split of a good seam opening up. I remember the jolt in my wrist, the way the pick sank in deeper than expected, like the mountain had finally exhaled. I worked it loose slow, chipping away the edges until a hunk of ore the size of my fist broke free, streaked with that dull silver sheen that means you haven’t wasted the morning. I held it up, just for a second, feeling the cold, gritty weight in my palm. It wasn’t magic, wasn’t gold ore or valorite—just iron—but in that moment, it felt like a promise. The mountain gives when it wants, but it does give, if you’re stubborn enough to keep asking.
I smelted it all at the mine forge, the fire roaring up as I fed it coal and ore, the tongs slipping once—burned my knuckles something fierce. Worth it, though. Watching raw stone become something malleable, something useful… that’s the part nobody sees. Not the merchants in the square, not the knights who take their blades for granted. There’s a quiet pride in that heat, in knowing your hands shaped it.
Tomorrow, I’ll sell what I’ve got to Bryland at the blacksmith—he always pays fair, even when the market’s slow. And then? Back down. The mountain’s still breathing. I heard a rumble deep in the west shaft this afternoon. Might be nothing. Might be my next fifty ingots.<|im_end|>
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