Chapter Five Hundred and Six - That's So Metal

I had a lot to tell my friends, and I really couldn't wait, but that didn't mean that I was silly.

Well, I was maybe a little silly, sometimes, but I could be subtle too, when I wanted to. I trusted my friends with my life and more. Amaryllis and Awen were like my sisters, and Calamity like a cooler older brother. Orange was trustworthy too, of course, as much as a cat could be, and I was growing to love Desiree like another new friend too!

It was the others that I wasn't sure about.

The three grenoil members of the Exploration Guild didn't seem keen on giving us their names or even talking to us much. They were also all giving Aberrforth the stinkeye, probably for good reason.

Aberrforth himself was... a nice-enough kind of man, but I wasn't sure if I could trust him yet, and Miss Laine was very clearly not interested in being trusted. She was willing to extend some hospitality to us because she was nice and polite, but I had the impression she would be happy to see the back of us.

So I kept my actions to myself. Destroying a dungeon core was a big deal and discovering that there was a modified dungeon core around was probably also pretty dangerous news.

"H-hey, Sir Aberrforth?" I asked as we were walking.

We still had a ways to go before reaching Miss Laine's place, but I suspected we'd get there before the sun set.

"Hmm, yes?" he asked as he finally stopped trying to tempt Miss Laine into a conversation.

"What's going to happen with the mine now?"

"Hmm, well, discovering that it was a mine to begin with is a rather fortunate piece of news," he said.

"Why's that?" Calamity asked.

Sir Aberrforth glanced over us, then nodded as if to himself. "Right, you were sent to rescue us first and foremost. Let me explain, then! I have a fair amount of expertise when it comes to geology and discovering the mineral composition of soils. At the moment, Port Royal is shipping in raw materials from Deepmarsh, but these are of... questionable quality."

"Every raw material?" Awen asked.

"Not wood, of course. There are logging camps on the edge of the Darkwoods, though Port Royal doesn't need much so we're tempering our rate of cutting so that we can have tree farms growing in the future."

I supposed that people with the right growing skill could probably make a plant grow faster, and that might include trees. It would be nice to see the forest left intact. Or somewhat intact, in any case.

"Food is provided by the farms blanketing the foothills, though not nearly enough to feed all of Port Royal. The rest is imported. Some from the south, any fish and the like, and some from the west." He cleared his throat. "In any case, I'm not entirely well-versed in the economy of a city like Port Royal. My field of study is metals."

"Metals?" I asked.

"Indeed. Deepmarsh had long collected iron from the bogs that are... pretty much omnipresent throughout the country. As far as iron goes, it's good enough, once handed over to a bloomery and smelted into something usable. Other metals, however, are harder to come by, and Deepmarsh has had to import them from elsewhere."

"Uh, okay," I said. I was kind of out of my depth here, and wasn't expecting such a big tangent on the man's part from my simple question.

He rubbed at his chin. "Where was I? Oh, yes, the mine." He fished a hand into his pocket, then removed a small rock which he gave me.

It was brown and, uh ... rocky? ... I guess I don't know much about rocks. It did have some yellow streaks in it. I turned it over and gasped. "Is this gold?" I asked. On the bottom was a patch of shiny yellow.

Aberrforth laughed. "If you think that's gold, I've got a bridge to sell you," he said. "No, that's chalcopyrite. It's pretty enough, I suppose. But if you smelt it, you can get some decent copper and a bit of iron."

"Oh, that's cool," I said. "Is copper expensive here?"

"Not as much as aluminium, nowhere near gold," he said. "But it's not a resource that Deepmarsh has in abundance. Any copper you see in Port Royal is imported. A local source would be invaluable in that sense."

"Neat," I said. "I guess that answers my question, if in a roundabout way."

"Ah, yes... what was that question?

I giggled. "I asked what's going to happen with the mine now," I repeated.

He shrugged. "We'll let the guild know that there's copper here. It's a little ways from the city, so it'll take some investing to get anything set up, and we don't know at a glance how much copper is here, just that there is some. It'll be years before anything is done about it, I think. Miss Laine here might have neighbours soon!"

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Laine scoffed. "If they want to throw themselves directly into the maw of that monster, then they're welcome to do that."

I gasped.

The woman turned and gave me a sharp look. "Don't you start."

I bit my tongue. As much as I wanted to defend the old riftwalker, she probably wasn't going to be convinced he'd turned over a new leaf.

Instead, I said, "We already had to go save these guys." I gestured toward Aberrforth's companions.

They gave me an affronted look. I winced, but rallied myself and pressed on, "If it's really dangerous, shouldn't you try to stop them from coming? Otherwise, you'll have to save a lot more of them."

Laine rolled her eyes. "This time, I've warned them. If they ignore me, that'll be on their heads, not mine. They're not getting anything more out of me."

Aberrforth chuckled, a bit uncertain. "Aheh, I ... I do reckon we have better chances than you suppose. Just think! Neighbours!"

She glared at him. "What makes you think I want any neighbours? Do you think I live out here for the thriving social life?

"Well... ah, you'd have a good claim on the terrain around your home, at least. Maybe even the mine itself, you might be able to stake it for yourself?"

Now it was the grenoil who were glaring at him.

I felt like I was missing something, but I didn't press. If it took a long time for people to come, then that was... well, maybe it was a bit selfish, but that was great for me. It was more time before anyone discovered the broken core, and the more time passed, the less likely anyone would be to blame me specifically for the core's breaking. Not that I had done anything bad, or ... or at least, I didn't think I'd done anything bad ... right? But... I still had a lingering memory of being executed for breaking one core in a past that never was, so I wasn't keen on reliving that.

Calamity asked Aberrforth another question about rocks and... I liked to think that I was a good listener--I had the ears for it, after all--but even I could only listen to someone talking about rocks for so long before I started to tune it out a little.

Fortunately, we weren't very far from Miss Laine's place by then, and after dipping into the forest we found a deer trail that led us right into her backyard.

"Ladies," Laine said. "Care to help me within? I'm used to cooking for myself, not for this many, and I suspect I could use the help. I'm assuming you all have cooking-related skills?"

"Uh, I don't," I said.

Awen shook her head, Amaryllis scoffed, and Desiree blinked. "You must forgive me, but no, why would I invest in a skill such as that?"

Orange meowed and gave a slow, affirmative blink, but I don't think Miss Laine spoke cat and so she didn't understand.

I also doubted that any cooking-related skill Orange had would actually help...

Miss Laine stared at us all, then shook her own head. "Youngsters these days," she muttered. "Well, regardless. Come and give me a hand. Aberrforth... you and your friends can set up tents and the like in the backyard. Don't ruin my garden."

"Yes, Lady Laine," he replied with a short bow.

Miss Laine's kitchen was quite compact, but it smelled like freshly plucked herbs and was very tidy. There was garlic hanging from the rafters and a few small potted plants pressed up against the windows where they were catching the light.

Stew was the meal of the evening, mostly because it was easy to make in large enough quantities for everyone, and because Miss Laine had some tubers ready to harvest in her garden.

We got to chopping veggies and boiling water while I chatted with the witch about her garden. I was gaining valuable Gardening experience just talking to her about all of the tricks she'd discovered over the years spent cultivating enough food to keep herself fed year-round without anyone else's support.

She had a few neat brews too, something almost like a potion but a little less formal. Amaryllis scoffed at it, saying it wasn't nearly as scientific as alchemy, but Miss Laine retorted by saying it tasted better, and I believed her.

Soon enough, food was ready, and we let the stew simmer while we set up a couple of small tables just behind her house.

It was nice, but I was looking forward to having a few minutes to chat with my friends. That, and I was really curious to see how Booksie was doing.

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