A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

- John Keats

Hank’s class related issues faded with the grumbling from the wee people, actually it was really only Gruffly. Apparently, everyone knew Hank was now sole mine owner. He opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted as a Warning appeared. Obviously it was more important than his no interruption preferences.

Warning

Warning! Please ensure you understand these cautionary notes.

Notes :

Two people abstained during the vote. They may cast their vote at any time. Should they do so there may be a change in ownership percentage. Due to the votes already cast your ownership will not drop below 50%.

This territory is unclaimed. Consequently nobody will enforce your ownership. Under these circumstances possession is nine-tenths of the law. You will need to enforce ownership yourself.

Hank wasn’t sure who else received these notices. He hoped not everyone. “Not the best result,” Hank mumbled to himself earning a curious glance from Jamie, the only person standing inn range.

Hank turned to speak to Jamie when an icon appeared in the corner of his vision. He shut his mouth and chose the icon. A window appeared.

Mine Status : Hank’s Mine

Type :

Gem Mine

Stage :

Prospective

Quality :

Accept or reject?

Gem Type :

Unknown (Spinel ???, Other(s) ???)

Gem Quality :

Unknown

Production :

None

Notes :

Mine options locked pending mine realisation and increased owner knowledge

Ownership is currently unenforced, consequently there is no limit to theft.

Gruffly mumbled complaints finally spilled over into actual Compidg.

Sabine neglected to translate Gruffly’s words responding in common instead. “Well, let’s be honest, spinel’s are not corundums nor diamonds. Still, it is better than tin or a nonexistent gold mine. Yep this will be a good thing for us.”

Hank hardly heard, he was still thinking about the vote. He hadn’t anticipated the vote scenario, but if Gruffly found out he had kept Marko from being present during voting, there could be problems. Fortunately, it was a problem for another day.

Gruffly responded to Sabine in Compidge obviously saying something confrontational as Jamie’s head snapped around to regard the diminutive miner.

Sabine snapped back at him in common. “Of course I’m being serious. We spent three months traipsing around northern Indlu and this is the only thing remotely close to a job. It’s time to get back to earning a living not floating around on dreams and wishes.”

Gruffly started to reply but Hank decided enough was enough, interrupting what looked to be another upcoming sibling argument. “What’s a prospective mine?”

There was a brief flurry of Compidg ending with Sabine making faces at Gruffly before finally snapping at him in common. “I can explain without you. You forget that I made my mining journey before you.”

Turning to Hank, she continued. “Mines go through various stages; prospective, new, mature, old and exhausted. Prospective or exhausted mines generally have a limited yield. In the second and fourth phases, produce much better. Mines are most productive whilst in the ‘mature’ phase.”

“Seems simple.” Hank nodded.

“Not really,” she replied. “Those are broad categories. The complications come from the sub categories. For example, ‘exhausted’ only means for commercial mining. Gem deposits are very esoteric, making this particularly hard to gauge. But back to the main point, exhausted has a number of sub categories, for example ‘Haunted’ is common for exhausted mines. Stories abound, dead miners, cave-ins, fortunate finds, ghosts and the reckless and desperate souls who venture into them. All of it true, sort off.”

“But you mentioned the first category, prospective. When a recognised master miner, in this case Gruffly, declares a deposit suitable for mining, it is designated as a prospective mine. Meeting other criteria will allow us to convert the mine to the next stage in the prospective category. Continue meeting criteria and eventually progresses the mine into the “new” category. This process we wee people call ‘realising’.”

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A quest window appeared.

Quest : Convert mine to type “New"

Part :

Summary

Description :

Complete all actions required to convert “Hank’s mine” to a “New” type mine

Status :

Accept or reject?

Reward :

A gem mine, hello.

Failure :

No mine, obviously

“The interface is getting more sarcastic,” Hank muttered. Still, he accepted the quest without a further thought. “So how’s that different to mine quality? Or gem quality?”

“Hard questions. Gem quality is easiest to explain. Each stone’s quality is assessed. Quality is a grouping of several characteristics including size, colour, clarity. There are a bunch of other factors, but they’re contingent on gem type.”

“Mine quality also covers several factors, once again we are dealing with a gem mine, so certain factors are more relevant in than other mines. So you ought to be think in terms of gem type, mine size , average gem quality and strike rate. Strike rate being a fancy way of saying how much mining is required for each gem. Gem mines often have multiple types of gem which can influence value greatly.”

“I don’t understand the difference between strike rate and mine size.” Hank asked

“Simple in concept, hard in reality. The later term, size, refers to the total number of gems the mine contains. And as previously discussed strike rate is how much digging you have to do to get the next one. In practice, short of clairvoyance there is no easy way of gauging mine size. An expert can inspect of the surrounding rock and guess but that’s all you have. Consequently strike rate is generally the de facto attribute for resolving any desire to mine”

“What about gem type? You said that plays a big part in one value.” Hank asked.

Sabine took a breath. “Now what you seem to have is a spinel gem mine. Spinel’s aren’t common, which is positive, but most species also aren’t valuable so this mine might struggle to pay for itself. Gruffly’s hoping we discover another gem helping us to determine the deposit’s value.”

Hank contemplated showing them one of the other gems he had previously found but something held him back.

Everyone just looked at each other for a few minutes until Gruffly made some comment in Compidge.

Sabine spat back an answer and Hank realised that the foreshadowed sibling argument hadn’t be averted. For the next few minutes, the bickering intensified. Fritz looked anxious as Sabine’s hand strayed towards her belt hammer. Out of the corner of his eye, Hank saw Jamie’s eyebrows rising as he listened to the argumentative duo.

Hank opened his mouth to intervene again, before Sabine spoke. “Fathead over here, wants me to keep my mouth shut about what else we might find in this mine. I pointedly reminded him that we have a contract with you which states that you own any mine that is found, but we get to run it. The condition being that you receive all the produce and we get paid 90% of the produce’s value at sale.” She paused for a moment. “So, don’t welch on your promises.” She glared at both Gruffly and Hank in turn. “Either of you.”

A sense of foreboding suggested to Hank that there may be problems down the track, but like most people who knew the brother and sister pair he understood keeping Sabine on side kept Gruffly under control. So without skipping a beat, he replied. “Of course, noted.”

Gruffly’s response was a lot more guarded, and there was a grumble or two that didn’t get translated. What happened is they decided into another one of those infuriating discussions they had where Sabine spoke in common and Gruffly in Compidge leaving Hank to guess half of what was said. Sabine turned to Hank. “Yes, but setup costs weren’t covered.”

“We can discuss that over dinner.” The sun was starting to get low on the horizon. “We need to head off, anyway. It’s quite a trek back to camp.” Hank differed an answer.

Ruadh had skinned the bear, or what was left of it, recovering a disappointing amount of fur. Not enough for sale, but watching Ninyette, Hank was certain it was earmarked for about million different uses.

Ninyette was an interesting character. Hank understood she was younger than Ruadh, barely out of her teens. But all Ore Cane danced to her tune. The children seemed settled, following her lead. Their obvious mourning and sadness from loss of family and friends, the young women handled with grace. That triggered a further thought. What about his village?

Hank was certain Ninyette wanted to restart the Wolf clan. It was her culture. Ruadh would do anything that Ninyette said. The wee people repeatedly made it quite clear, they looked after themselves first, second and every other place. Jamie was a Wanderer. No matter his promises, his people wandered. Hank was certain he would return to his people. He had family and a tribe to support.

Being honest with himself, there was little reason for anyone to remain at his side. He needed people to build his village. Persuading them to follow him, accept his vision, that would be the trick. One of his leadership books had been right. You can’t lead from the back with a whip and chains. Leaders chose their own path, others follow or not. He just didn’t have any reason to make people follow him here.

In real life he had been good what his mum called politics and persuasion. He hated it. It took effort and required him to give up what he wanted to always appease people he didn’t like or care for. He was out here on the fringe of nowhere so that he didn’t have to do that.

Hank wasn’t usually given to introspection, but he realised he had to build something more than shelter. Any one of the million towns scattered the length of Indlu provided food, shelter and work. None of them inspired him. Why would just another inspire anyone else?

Persuading, yuck there was that word again, people to brave the wilds of Great Northern Forest would require more. He couldn’t just build a normal village, it had to offer something else. Refuge from oppression would serve to entice some. But protection doesn’t satisfy the soul. People would only remain if what they found captured their hearts. In Hank’s experience, there were few places people wanted to live. Beauty, he decided, would have to be deeper than skin, more than window dressing.

Beauty might be its own reward, but it drew people, lifted spirits and buoyed the soul. Hank almost stopped walking. He could visualise the falls from yesterday. A garden at the top, between the tributaries. A statue maybe, a small bench seat, a roof perhaps. Somewhere people could sit watching the entire valley. A mine dump five hundred metres away would ruin the picture. He needed the mine, even with its ugly support facilities. He was would need to plan carefully.

Hank really needed to scout the mine and valley surrounds. From a strategic point of view, the gap at The Sister was a perfect choke point. The dark rich soil of the valley floor would be excellent for farming. There was the Tabor nearby for water. Perfect for a village. However, something niggled away in the back of Hank’s mind. “Why grassland? There were no trees or bushes. Why?.” Hank paused his monolog. “No that’s not it. Well, maybe it is. But something else, too.”

The valley was uniformly open and flat. Consequently, anything that passed The Sister had a straight run at any village. Not wonderful for layered defences. Secondly, mines, notoriously, dumped all sorts of waste into local rivers. A problem Miylan was only just starting to understand with Londinium’s mines. Any village food source would need to be upstream from the mine. Hank wasn’t certain what was up stream. The mine was close to the valley end. The wrong valley end. What he did know is that Gruffly would be truly grumpy if he had to walk for 2 hours every morning and evening to the mine. He would need to think about it.

He caught up to Sabine again. “Sabine, I understand it’s not quite a mine yet. What’s needed to do to make it a mine?”

“That’s a complicated question. In short, build the required infrastructure.” She responded.

“Why is that hard to do?” Hank asked.

“Well Gruffly is a master miner so he can get us started but he hasn’t any experience with gem mines. Experience counts.” Sabine said.

“What do you mean?” Hank asked

“Well there are a few steps common to all mines. First, dig out the overburden, the stuff between you and the mineral source. Then remove the mineral source. Then depending on the source; crush, grind and wash or some combination of this. Gems are easy, only requiring sorting after all that. Other minerals require chemical treatment, smelting, furnaces, cupellation and so on.”

“Huh. So, your people will do all this.”

“Actually no. Our agreement says that we agree to mine, which is the first two of those stages. The processing steps are for your account. It’s why we didn’t take any mine ownership.”

The Tsuki dropped, Hank realised they had duped him. “I think you and your brother have conned me. There is no way those latter stages are only worth 10% of the gem value at sale.”