Moonlight glinted off the puddles near the Minoc mine entrance when I finally hauled myself up the last step, shoulders screaming and palms raw inside my gloves. I’d been down in the lower tunnels since before dawn, chipping at that stubborn iron seam behind the stalagmite cluster—same spot old Brenn warned me about last winter. The air down there’s thick with dust and silence, broken only by the clink of pick on stone and the occasional groan of the mountain settling. I’d hit a rhythm after the third hour, each swing finding the same crack, the vibration running up my arms and into my teeth. Forty-seven ingots in my pack now, maybe fifty pounds of ore turned to weight that pulled my belt low. Enough to pay for the new tongs, if the smithy’s still open.
I stopped at the mine forge just past the eastern ridge—rusty thing they keep burning day and night, fueled by whatever scrap wood the apprentices can scavenge. The fire was low, but I coaxed it back with a wedge of damp pine and fed in a few chunks of ore. The heat bloomed across my face like a long-lost friend, and I watched the metal soften, the orange deepening to white at the edges. That’s when the old tongs snapped—right at the hinge, the metal fatigued from who-knows-how-many heats. I cursed loud enough to scare a crow from the rafters. Had to finish shaping the bar with a hammer and the anvil’s edge, sweating through my tunic, the smell of scorched leather from my glove filling the air.
Sitting here in the tavern now, ale in hand, I can still feel the echo of the hammer in my wrist. It ain’t glory, this work. But there’s truth in the weight of a well-filled pack, in the way the fire answers when you feed it right. Tomorrow, I’ll head west—heard the seam near the Yew road’s untouched since the goblins cleared out. Might even buy proper tongs this time, if the vendor at the north blacksmith remembers my face.
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