Chapter 24

When I raise the pickaxe over my head, I put strength into my sore arms and swing it down with all my might, breaking apart the stone wall in front of me. Reddish rocks tumble down along with shattered gray stone shards. Bending down, I grab the reddish rocks with one hand before tossing them into the mining cart behind me. My back is sore and all I want to do right now is lay down but I’m already behind schedule and if I take too long, I won’t get back to the inn before nightfall. Gritting my teeth, I push through the soreness, I ignore the musty humid air filling my lungs, and I forget about the pure exhaustion I’m feeling. When I get back to the inn, I’m going to immediately down some ale.

When the cart’s full, me and another miner drag our tired bodies over to it and we push it along the tracks back to the tunnel entrance. We don’t even talk to each other because we’re both too tired to give a shit anymore but I’m pretty sure his name’s Levan, or Evan, something like that. It doesn’t matter. When we push the cart out of the tunnel we were working in, we enter The Hub which is a large brightly lit cavern that acts as the central deposit and distribution point for the whole mine. There’s blue shining lights all around the cavern walls that keep the whole mine well lit and the blue glow they give off creates a somewhat calming atmosphere in The Hub. The blue lights are actually coming from blue stones called brightstones and when there’s this many grouped together, it doesn’t look like an underground mine at all. Even the minecart we’re pushing has brightstones embedded into each side and these stones gave off enough light to let Evan and I work in that dark tunnel.

I was able to mine in a light tunnel a few days ago when one of the more veteran miners died due to a mining accident and having mined in one, I didn’t want to go back to mining dark tunnels again. For one, dark tunnels are narrow as all hells and can usually only let three or four miners work at once. This means in addition to the cramped working space, there’s nowhere for the mining dust to settle in the tunnel and it often gets in my eyes and my nose even if I’m wearing a linen towel on my face. Dark tunnels are also considered minor ventures in the mine and the foreman, Oliver, is willing to assign miners to them but isn’t willing to pay for the wooden supports to be built. Most mining casualties happen in dark tunnels but there’s not much I can do if I want to keep working. I want to mine in light tunnels that are well lit, well supported, and have easier workloads but I don’t have enough recognition to take away a light tunnel spot from people who have been mining here for years. Compared to my one week here, it’s clear who Oliver will back.

Wraine and I have been working in the Wellock Trading Company’s mine ever since Farland, the innkeep, told us Midriver doesn’t have an adventurers’ guild. Apparently the city hasn’t had an adventurers’ guild for years now because when the city’s public order started dropping, adventurers from the guild started disappearing mysteriously as well. Most of them were obviously killed off by the city’s gangs when they made it clear they wouldn’t bend the knee to the city’s new criminal rulers and the rest either gave up and joined those gangs or they left the city completely. At that point, Midriver’s adventurers’ guild branch shut their doors for good and a few months later, they sold their building as well. However, that doesn’t mean Midriver doesn’t complete any adventurer requests though.

Instead of adventurer requests being centralized and controlled by one organization, meaning the adventurers’ guild, requests are spread throughout the city’s various inns and those innkeeps handle distributing requests and the payments for completion. The adventurers’ guild headquarters basically said they’re washing their hands of Midriver and they’d only deal with the city through intermediaries, meaning the innkeeps. It’s an interesting system in theory but in practice, those adventurer requests are strictly controlled by the city’s gang factions. Those gangs basically all control an inn of their own and have their own members complete requests which in turn fill the gang’s pockets with coins. Midriver’s gangs have essentially turned the adventurers’ guild into their personal piggy bank and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them unless they can perfectly rout the city of its gangs. Farland’s inn, The Sleeping Hornet, is actually an inn affiliated with Alira and his faction. If there’s one thing I’ve learned during my one week in this city, it’s that there’s only one person in this entire city who I should never involve myself with: Alira. Based on all the things I’ve heard about him, Alira might be a demon incarnate. Human trafficking, murder, assassination, robbery, extortion, arson, torture, drugs, you name it and he’s probably done it. Hells, he’s probably the one who invented most of them. Not only is he one of the most powerful men in this city, but he’s also one of the most evil. Imagine my surprise when I found out the bandit with the golden sword hilt was his adopted son named Alister. It makes sense I guess.

After Evan and I finish fully offloading the iron ores into the deposit piles and toss our pickaxes into the pickaxe pile, we leave The Hub and start heading for the Wellock Mine’s entrance. As we get further away from The Hub, the blue glow behind us starts to fade out and it’s replaced by darkness. I’ve heard brightstones come in many different colors but when the Wellock Mine first started operating decades ago, they came across a vein of blue brightstones and they’ve just been using up their massive stock since then to keep the mine lit up. Farland introduced us to this mine since he knew its foreman Oliver a little. There’s a lot of mines around Midriver since it's located in the middle of the Loran Mountain Range but the only ones that’ll accept workers without any gang affiliation are the low value ones like iron mines. Apparently Midriver is quite odd because in any other city in the kingdom, iron mines are considered strategic resources and they’re valued greatly but in Midriver, it’s the opposite and the precious material mines are given all the attention. It might have to do with the city’s strained trades with the rest of the kingdom but I’m not entirely sure.

When we’re finally outside the mine, the sky’s starting to darken as we head over to the foreman’s office for our pay. Wraine and I already discussed this beforehand but when our workshifts are over, we’ll head back to The Sleeping Hornet without waiting for each other since that’ll only make us targets for anyone with bad intentions. When we enter Oliver’s office, which is basically just a glorified wooden hut, we see him working on something at his messy wooden desk. He stops for a brief moment before he gives us a glance and then motions us toward his secretary with his eyes. Oliver’s secretary, Harold, is incredibly proficient at his job and with a single look at us, he’s able to quickly jot down all of our information for this shift and hands each of us 30 copper coins. Wraine isn’t as proficient as Harold in his mathematics but according to him, we should have enough coins by the end of the month to at least buy two swords. What we’ll do with those swords is still in question right now but we’ll figure it out by then. We can make a pretty decent living in Midriver just by mining but we both agreed we wouldn’t only mine for the rest of our lives. With our day’s payment in hand, we leave Oliver’s office and start heading back to the city before it gets too dark.

As we’re leaving the Wellock Trading Company’s mining outpost, we see a new fresh group of miners arriving for their shifts. Since the inside of the mine is brightly lit up with brightstones and they don’t stop giving off light once they’re activated, the Wellock Company decided to keep the mine running day and night to lower their costs. There’s a slight difference in the wages between the day or night shifts with the night shift earning more but Wraine preferred working during the day and thought it’d be safer getting back to the inn before dark. It only takes us an hour to get back to the city from the mining outpost but we’re already dead tired from mining all day and the walk back to the city has drained whatever we had remaining. I know he’s Alira’s adopted son and I shouldn’t even think about him but I can’t help but blame him for my circumstances. If he didn’t rob us, Wraine and I wouldn’t need to exhaust ourselves like this every day to get back to where we were. But the hatred I feel towards Alister can’t be compared to how much I despise the blond bandit. He’s evil in the form of a person. But even the anger I’m supposed to be feeling inside of me quickly vanishes like smoke, I’m too tired to even feel anger at this point.

When we reach the city’s western gatehouse, the guards wave us through since they recognize us as Wellock employees because our company bought linen towel masks. These dust masks are required for work and the company sells them for 40 copper coins each. 40 coins for this flimsy piece of shit! I guess it does have the company’s brand on it and it lets us avoid speaking with the city guards but 40 coins is still crazy. When we’re past the gatehouse, Evan and I wave goodbye to each other and head our separate ways. I think he lives close to the slums while The Sleeping Hornet’s in the entertainment district. Alira controls the majority of the entertainment district and I’m not too sure what the other gang factions in the city are called or what territory they control. Generally, as long as I keep my head down and my eyes to myself, I can keep myself pretty safe. I did have a run in with a Hermosa junkie in an alleyway a few days ago and he did pull out a knife on me but I could outrun him pretty easily and got back onto a crowded street. Hermosa is a pretty common drug in Midriver and it really fucks up your body from what I hear. If that junkie cornered me against a wall then he might have gotten me right then and there but when he popped out of his hiding spot, he was the one cornered. I heard Hermosa also fucks with your head too.

When I get back to The Sleeping Hornet, I order a mug of ale and a bowl of potato pottage. The pottage doesn’t taste great but it only costs 5 copper and it fills me up. The ale is something I need to help me unwind from the day’s work. Wraine did the math, though it took him a day and a lot of help from one of the drunks, and with both of us earning 30 copper every day, we can easily cover 12 copper a night for the bed, and we’re even able to have a bowl of pottage once in the morning and once at night along with a mug of ale for dinner. The only real downside is we need to keep sharing a bed and ever since we started working as miners, the smell has become more horrid with each passing day, but it’s a necessary annoyance. It’s not like back in the wild when we could bathe ourselves in a river or a stream whenever we wanted. You try that here next to the well and you’ll get a knife in the back. People don’t like others messing around their water source. Can’t say I blame them. While Farland gets me a bowl of pottage, I head to the well behind the inn to fill up my waterskin. Waterskins are also required to work in the Wellock Mine but the company doesn’t sell branded ones. Not only can you keep yourself watered throughout the day as you work but they can even save your life if there’s a tunnel collapse and you’re trapped inside. You’ll probably die due to the lack of air or whatever injuries you sustained in the collapse, but at least you won’t die from thirst. That’s good, I think. The other miners swear by them and won’t get anywhere close to a mine without one and Wraine and I bought ours when we saved enough.

When I get back inside, I see Wraine sitting at our usual table, already slurping up his pottage. Quinn’s sitting right next to him, already red in the face and going by the number of empty mugs in front of him, downing his ninth ale. Quinn’s a regular at The Sleeping Hornet and he started drunkenly talking with us last week, but in a rather friendly way. I guess you can’t really judge people solely based on their appearance. Quinn’s a giant of a man and he’s even taller than Farland. His body is simply massive and going by the scars on his arms and face, he’s no stranger to fighting, but strangely enough, I’ve never seen him with his weapons. He might just keep them in his private room upstairs or he’s already put that life behind him and all he does now is drink and talk with strangers. Quinn’s dark brown hair is insanely long and when he stands up straight, his ponytail extends past his ass, nearly reaching the back of his knees. His brown eyes match well with his dark brown full beard and just like his hair, his beard is long enough that it reaches his chest but he has it kept in a single braid. By all accounts, Quinn seems like he’d be the most vicious, dangerous man in this whole inn, but he always has a huge smile on his face. Not only that, but whenever we’d have a question about anything at all, even when Wraine was trying to figure out our budget, Quinn’s always been willing to help us out. I also think because of his presence, we’ve been able to stay at this inn without much trouble. Farland is a pretty good deterrent for mischief in the inn as well but sometimes the drunks get too rowdy and might knock into someone else, but with Quinn here, that’s never been an issue. Sitting down on the other side of Wraine, I start on my ale, “Evening Quinn, how are ya?”

“Not too bad, Isaac my boy. How were the mines treating you today?”

“Same old, same old. Tired and sore all over, but what can you do?”

“Hey, an honest day’s work is meant to be hard. Keep going and you’ll be in a foreman position in no time with how smart you are. Same goes for Wraine here, you’ll both be in better spots in no time with how you’re doing now.”

“Any news that’ll take my mind off the mines?”

“Not too much happening in the city today. Been a week since Nasaar lost Vansgrieri and though there’s no word of it yet, I know Aethelbrande is itching to get it back as soon as possible. Not too many people are on his side right now and losing one of the most important cities on the frontline this early into the war isn’t a good look. He’ll throw countless bodies at it but he’ll get it back eventually. Though the question becomes whether losing that many men for it is worth it.”

“Yeah, I’m not too sure about what to think about the war. I know Kapri back at Mountain’s Toil despised our current king but I don’t know enough to make a good judgment.”

“That’s better than most. At least you’re willing to hold off on making judgments before you’ve heard everything. That’ll get you far.”

Wraine finishes his pottage and wipes his mouth with his sleeve, disgusting, “You were in the 11th dark tunnel today right? Who was your partner?”

“It was Evan, he was alright. Kept the same pace I was mining and we did pretty equal amounts of work today. Better than last time anyways. Last time I got Kayman and the fuck kept taking breaks using his bad leg as an excuse. I swear if I ever get him as a partner again, I’ll shove my pickaxe so far up his ass I’ll be able to swing his whole body and still be able to break some rocks with the pick sticking out of his mouth.” Quinn seems to love hearing about work drama and starts laughing hysterically when I talk about Kayman.

“Yeah, Kayman’s pretty shitty as a partner, especially in a dark tunnel shift. By the way, I’m pretty sure his name’s Levan, not Evan.” Damnit Evan.