Sweat beads down my forehead; the cart I’m pulling behind me is pretty heavy, alas the effort will be worth it. At least it hopefully will be, but I still don’t know why my assistant insisted on me packing this much food for what is only an 8-hour journey on foot. Realistically, that made the journey harder. I should get getting near the mine, some miners I came into contact with and invested in about a month ago said they made contact with a small mana-stone vein.
After a few more minutes of trudging down a dusty path, a mine comes into view. Some miners are loitering around a minecart full of stones and metal.
I give my arms some much-needed rest and stop dragging the cart to flag down the miners, “Hello there,” I gesture towards the cart they’re sitting around, “Is that what I think it is?”
“Aye, likely is,” They look me up and down before glancing over to my cart, “Here to buy it? If so, it’s your lucky day, no one’s here to contest you.”
I scratch my chin and respond, “Strange, usually richer folks and researchers flock around the mines when there’s even a lead on some mana-dense material, so what gives?”
The miners shake their heads, “We ended up finding a vein of smoky quartz a couple of months ago, and people flocked towards the mines, but only stuck around for at most two weeks before leaving. The site didn’t seem to have much promise so they all made the mistake of offering meager investments, at least when compared to the generous one you offered.”
I initiate my mana sight, the cart is practically glowing, and it all looks like high-quality material.
I nod and respond, “Alright then, load it up.”
They remove the cloth from the top of the cart and move some of my belongings around. They open up a large spot in the back of the cart and begin moving the mana-stone. Upon further inspection there doesn’t appear to be much active material, it just has an extremely high mana density.
I chuckle and say, “This should be enough material for multiple experiments, this is splendid… actually, hold on for a moment.”
I dig through the cart for a moment before pulling out a small sack of gold pieces. I turn and hand the sack to the leader, I think his name was Tompomtam.
He grabs the sack and begins inspecting it.
While inspecting the gold he says, “Could ya step back for a moment?”
As I step back, I see a layer of water on him fall off, and as it does I feel a large amount of heat roll off of him and see the sack singe a bit, “Looks like genuine gold pieces, isn’t summoned or transmuted.”
As he finishes handling the gold, the layer of water reforms, as it does I say, “How come you aren’t working more lucrative jobs, I know that mining pays well, but there are definitely other potential jobs that pay far better. Especially for elves.”
The miners all exchange glances before breaking out into laughter, “Pay isn’t an issue, we’re already well enough to live comfortably, in fact, your investment was probably enough for us to retire,” He gestures to the rest of the group, “We all have various goals, but the main thing that unites us were the legacies that preceded us, we all come from mining families.”
I glance at my cart full of materials and supplies, and then shoot a look at the miners before saying, “If I did provide you with such a good investment, would you care to give me a hand with the mana-stone,” He gestures at himself, “As you may be able to tell, I’m not an elf, my ability continuously handle the mana those push out for long periods is nearly non-existent, compared to yours at least.”
The miners think for a moment before shrugging, the important-looking one pipes up, “We have not much else to do, we’d be happy to help with the mana-stone, the loading shouldn’t take too long as there are only about eight pounds of it,” He gets closer and inspects me, “You aren’t a mundane, right?”
I raise an eyebrow before holding out a hand, an incredibly smooth disk of stone appears in it and flies up into the air briefly before disappearing. The miners nod and move to the carts, they start pushing it off onto the road that I came from.
As we start moving I pipe up, “Ah, right, I never asked for everyone in the group’s names, what are they?”
The leader shakes his head, “We don’t often get asked that, but we would be happy to provide them. You already know my name, Tompomtam, but I’d prefer you just call me Tom.”
One of the stouter elves raises their hand and yells, “I’m Regin, pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The one standing immediately to their side shouts, “I’m Gerald!”
One of the ones standing closer to me raises a pick and says, “I’m Charlemagne, it’s nice to meet you!”
The final one, a taller man, walks up to me, holds out his hand, and offers for me to shake it, “I’m Baalon, it’s a pleasure.”
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I shake Baalon’s hand, and as I let go the leader adds, “As I’m sure you know, our mining group name is Hope.”
I give him a perplexed look, “I did know that, but still, that’s a strange name for a mining group, why Hope?”
Charlemagne pipes up, “It’s because we didn’t give up hope when looking for the vein in that mine, due to the amount of smoky quartz we knew that there was a vein of mana-stone down there, but couldn’t find it. Regardless of that we didn’t give up hope on finding it,” He gestures towards the cart of mana-stone, “We, of course, did find it”
“Neat,” I gesture toward the cart, “Do you guys need help pushing the cart?”
Tom responds, “Nay, we should be fine, you are in the town over, right?”
I nod and say, “A bit closer actually, I’m a couple of miles out from it.”
The elves nod, seemingly happy that they’re able to stretch their legs some. They take positions so that two of them are stationed on each cart, the leader walks out front and starts singing a marching tune. As they begin moving I follow, but I pull out a tome to read on the way there. It's about mana-stone as I’m still not completely familiar with mana-stone identifications as that’s truly my assistant’s job.
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The walk isn’t incredibly eventful, Gerald just had to stop because he swore that one of the trees passed should have had fruits in it at this time of year, but it didn’t. The entire walk, including Gerald’s tangent, took about seven hours of walking, much faster than me walking alone, those elves are machines when working together.
We’ve just arrived at my laboratory, it’s a standard design, or at least what I would consider standard. It’s a two-story stone tower, parts of the wall don’t quite match the rest of the exterior due to them having required replacement after some of the more… adventurous experiments.
I turn to the mining group and bow, “Thank you so much for your assistance, Hope.”
The group nods, and Tom pipes up, “Aye, I would say ‘anytime’ but with what gold you’ve provided us, we likely won’t be needing to work for a good while,” He grins before continuing, “This is enough to support all of us for a good while, we’ll likely go back to the wetlands where we were born.”
Baalon walks forward and says, “That reminds me, you never gave us your name, what is it?”
I smile and say, “My name is Olen, it’s been lovely meeting you guys, I hope our paths cross again one day.”
Baalon responds with a smile of his own and says, “As do I.”
Tom rounds up the group and begins walking off, as they leave I grab the cart of mana-stone, wheel it to the door, and knock. I hear clattering inside, likely the sounds of pots and pans crashing, as a person runs to the door. I see my assistant throw the door open, she has two bowls of soup in her hands.
"Hi Selena,” I say, grabbing the bowl of soup.
“Hi Olen, I made some food, I’d imagine that you’re tired after such a long journey, also, just call me by my nickname,” She peeks behind me, “Is that what I think it is?”
I move out of the way so that she may bask in the full glory of the mana-stone I brought.
I nod and respond, “Fine, I’ll call you Sell, and yes, this is what you think it is. I wasn’t able to identify exactly what kind of mana-stone was though.”
She pushes past me and begins inspecting the stones, as she picks them up her hands glow some and I feel heat begin to push off her.
I give her a light kick to the back of the leg and say, “Hey, water shielding, please.”
She mutters as she puts the shielding up. Her technique is sloppy, some of the water she transmutes around herself is lost in the process.
I sigh, she has a lot of potential, she really does, but I can tell she has been neglecting her shaping exercises. As she picks the stone back up her hand glows again, though I don’t feel the heat. As she inspects the stones I eat some of the soup she prepared, it’s okay. It’s made with Geroth bone broth, I can tell due to the more gamey taste of the soup. There are some different types of beans and meat chunks in it too, and most of the flavors clash, but it’s still better than partially stale bread and stasised fruits.
As I finish the soup she turns to me with a grin and says, “This is type-c mana-stone, very mana-dense and it leaks dangerous mana much more than most other stone types, but this should work well for what you’ve been planning.”
I grin, this is perfect, “Alright then, I’d like to go home now, I’m tired, thank you for the soup.”
She takes my empty bowl and waves me off, “Alright then, sweet dreams! I’ll be staying here for the night, I have a few things to finish up.”
I wave and begin walking off, I probably should’ve checked inside the lab to make sure she hasn’t destroyed all the equipment, but I’m sure it’s fine. This walk is also fairly uneventful, I do see some Halifane berries that make for good snacks, they are a little overripe, I can tell due to the berry holding a more pink exterior. I pick a few and pop them in my mouth, I swish them around for a bit and get all the good bits off before spitting the pit out. The berry is sweet, I should probably try to find more later for Selena to use in some of her “culinary masterpieces”. Truly, I’m happy that she’s found a hobby she enjoys, but it sometimes feels as if she puts more spirit into her cooking than she does into her magical studies. I’m not complaining though, her food skills do make her a decent potion brewer.
I break the brush at the end of the trail and see the town, it looks about the same, most of the buildings still holding their dull gray exteriors and brown roofs. Not that much should have changed, it's only been a day. Night is falling over the town so I, thankfully, don’t have to worry about saying hi to everyone I know. I make it to my house, it’s still as drab as when I left it, the two-story houses/shops on both sides of it overshadow its thatch roof and small build. I walk over to the door and open the lock with hardened air as I don’t feel like fishing out my key. As I head inside I kick off my shoes and trudge over to my bedroom, realistically I should be doing my mana purge right now, but that can wait until the morning.
As I push myself fully onto my bed I get into a more comfortable position, which is something akin to a knot. Once I settle down, I drift off to sleep, content with what I’ve done today.