The second day went slower than Doc remembered it going, but he knew it was because they needed to make a trail wide enough for the wagon. Because of the slower pace, they didn’t reach the claim site until late on the third day.
The decaying carcass of the bear had a flock of carrion birds picking over it. Doc frowned, “Guess Rosa moved it for me. It had been halfway toward the waterfall before.”
“What happened?” Rangvald asked as he went to set the camp near the base of the waterfall.
“It came for my food, then the horse spooked and it decided fresh meat was better.”
“You shot it?” Joseph asked with wide eyes.
“With my pistol. I didn’t have the big rifle at that point.”
The dwarves all looked at him skeptically, but Jesamin caught up to them after checking the carcass. “Single shot into the roof of the mouth and into the brain,” she said simply. “You didn’t lose a hand?”
“I jumped on its back,” Doc said. “Stupid and idiotic, but it worked.”
The dwarves all stared at him in disbelief, and Rangvald cleared his throat. “Keep moving. We have a permanent camp to set.”
That got them all moving again. Once they reached the waterfall, Tony and Joseph hurried to get the fire going so they could start on dinner. Doc curried his mare, letting the sounds of the camp being set wash over him as he did.
“I’m glad the claim is removed from the woods,” Jesamin said from nearby. “It’ll make defending them easier. I’m sure after a few days, they will start complaining about having to haul wood, though.”
Doc snorted, “People will always find something they don’t like. I’d call it human nature, but it’s not just humans that do it.”
“True. I’ll be setting out scent markers tomorrow to deter the easier threats. Rangvald knows what I need when he goes back to town, and with those items, I can survive out here for months. How long do you think they’ll be working this area?”
“We’ll get an idea of that tomorrow,” Doc replied. “I’ll be showing Rangvald the cavern then while the others set up the sluice boxes.”
“I noticed a number of obvious markers near the stream, but they are not claim markers.”
“Rosa marked where she found gold and other metals for me.”
Jesamin moved away from him. “I need to set my own camp.”
“Why not set it with them?”
“Krisriit doesn’t care for others’ company, and I won’t make him unhappy.”
“Fair,” Doc said. “See you for dinner.”
Dinner was a plain soup like it had been the last few nights. The meat in it was the only thing giving it any flavor.
“Rangvald, pick up more spices next time you go to town. You guys should have better meals than this,” Doc said. “Half the money into the business account for supplies and building it up, half into mine. Don’t skimp on making this a better camp. The better things are, the harder you all work because you’ll want to.”
The dwarves all nodded in agreement as they ate. Rangvald gave him a knowing nod. “Fine, Boss. It is your money I’ll be using. That all depends on how much we can pull out, though. Be at least a week, and that’s if we have an easy time of it. Longer if we have to work for the ore.”
“It’ll be easier than you might think,” Doc chuckled. “Did you see markers?”
Rangvald frowned, “The piles of rocks?”
“Rosa left them. Work at those spots. That’s where you can find the greatest concentration of ore.”
“We got it,” Ivan said.
“You’ll need to show me this cavern tomorrow,” Rangvald said.
“You and one more,” Doc said. “I want a couple of opinions on what we have.”
“Burk,” Rangvald said. Burk nodded in understanding, but didn’t stop eating. “After breakfast?”
“Yeah. I’ll be staying tomorrow and heading back the day after. I want to see what can be done in a single day.”
Ivan chuckled, “Never seen dwarves work?”
“Never,” Doc admitted. “I look forward to being educated.”
A round of laughter came from the miners, with Rangvald among them. “Well, let’s not disappoint him.”
“I will be setting my markers tomorrow,” Jesamin said after finishing her dinner. “After that, you will only see me for meals. Rangvald has a way of calling me back if needed.”
Rangvald patted the whistle hanging from his neck. “I’ll only be using it if we’re being attacked.”
“Good. It has limited uses,” Jesamin said. “Goodnight.” Handing her bowl to Tony, she walked off to her camp.
“Bit frigid, ain’t she?” Urs mumbled.
“We live on her old home. Her tribe was all but wiped from the earth,” Doc said levelly. “How would you be if that happened to your clan?”
Urs looked away. “I…” Sighing deeply, he nodded, “You’re right. I didn’t think before I spoke, Boss. Not used to working with an elf, but I’m thankful she’s here.”
“Good. Besides, her cat gets ornery if she doesn’t stay near him. It’s why she sets her camp away from yours. If you haven’t noticed some of the wounds on the deer she got us, she had help bringing it down.”
Urs looked abashed, “I understand. I didn’t mean to be an ass.”
“Can’t help it, though. He’s an asshole, but an honest one,” Alf snickered, getting laughter from the others.
“True,” Urs agreed.
“Truthfully,” Didi spoke up, “we’re all doing the best we can, sir. Being friendly to a dryad is hard enough. None of us ever thought it would be a thing.”
Fulco spoke up quickly, “But we can do it, sir.”
“You’ve all heard the reasons why, and tomorrow, you’ll see what that friendship means,” Doc said evenly. “When you all take the percentage instead of flat monthly pay, keep in mind it’s because of her help.”
The miners all exchanged looks, not saying anything until Rudi cleared his throat. “Honestly, Boss, we don’t think the percentage is going to be much more than what you’ll end up paying us. The offer is nice, but for an unproven mine to clear eight thousand is a bit hard to imagine.”
“Care to put a wager on it?” Doc asked with an easy smile. “Keep in mind that my goddess is Luck.”
Rudi shook his head. “No, I’ll pass. I just wanted to make sure you understand why it seems so unlikely and why, if we get even more miners, it would be harder to take that kind of option.”
“Understood,” Doc smiled. “I think tomorrow will open all of our eyes.”
Rangvald cut into the conversation. “Same watches. Even if the dryad is helping us, there’s still a corrupted se’sxac in the area.”
The dwarves gave their dishes to the boys and went about getting their things ready for bed. Tony and Joseph were glad to have the stream nearby, as it made their job of cleaning up easier.
Rangvald offered Doc a slug from his flask and spoke softly so his voice wouldn’t carry, “Doc, the claim… you did make sure it was set for more than just gold, right?”
“Every mineral that is worth money, ore and gem alike,” Doc said. “I made sure it was all filled out correctly.”
“Did you have Karmin look it over?”
“No. I get the feeling he’s actually beholden to Suez or Goodman.”
“You’d be right,” Rangvald said, taking another sip from his flask before putting it away. “Suez has him sewn up. If he had seen the paperwork, he would have altered it.”
“Lucky I didn’t do that, huh?”
Rangvald chuckled, “Or smart, but considering, we’ll say lucky.”
“See you in the morning,” Doc clapped Rangvald on the shoulder before heading for his bedroll.
~*~*~
Reaching the cavern the next morning, Doc let Rangvald and Burk secure the ropes to descend into it. Once everything was ready, he followed them down. The only light was the small bit of morning light that was coming from above.
“Bigger than I thought it was,” Doc said. “Glad it runs along the course of the stream, or I’d have to go back and set out a second claim for it.”
“Seems to stretch. We’ll have to walk it, though. I don’t think it connected to the waterfall,” Rangvald said. “Let me get the lantern out for you. We should have lit it before we came down honestly. I forget since we don’t need it.”
Doc coughed, “Yeah, that would help.” He had almost started walking, having forgotten he was supposed to be human and not the hybrid he was.
The light of the lantern pierced the darkness of the cavern once it was lit. The light caught the crystal formations that dotted the walls, reflecting light around the cavern. Burk inhaled sharply as the light reflected off a streak of silverish metal. “Rang? Do you see that?!”
Rangvald had also seen the glint. Quickly bringing the lantern around to point directly at it, he let out a deep belly laugh and the light shook over the vein of ore that was illuminated.
Doc frowned, but after a second, he knew what had caused their excitement as his dwarven knowledge kicked in. “Is that…?”
“Mythrium? Yes, yes it is,” Rangvald laughed. “That single sliver there is worth more than all of our base salaries for five months. If we take a percentage instead, we won’t be skimping on the work anytime soon.”
“The rumors were true,” Burk said, moving to the ore vein. “How long have we been working in these hills looking for it?”
“Years,” Rangvald said. “Fuck.” Sighing, he bowed his head, “Luck, we thank you.”
Burk looked back at Rangvald before nodding. “Can’t call it anything else but guidance from her, can we?”
“We should check the rest of this place, right?” Doc suggested.
“We should indeed, but everything else is likely to pale next to this find. Going to need to block up the dried stream to make sure it doesn’t flood and stop us from working this area,” Rangvald said, making mental notes of the work to be done. “Let’s start walking, Burk. We’ll be mining it out by the end of the week.”
“Can’t wait to tell the others,” Burk chuckled as he patted the rock.
Rangvald pointed out the other pieces of interest as they walked the length of the cavern. There was a gold ore vein, and small bits of gold that littered the floor of the cavern. The cavern narrowed down into a tunnel as they walked, but a natural spring was flowing relatively fast down a foot-wide channel with small crystals dotting its length. The channel led to an area where the water pooled before draining away somewhere. The bottom of the pool was overgrown with crystals that grew larger the deeper they went.
“Rang, spirit stones,” Burk whispered. “This is fucking insane.”
“Luck,” Rangvald said with reverence.
Doc wanted to ask about the spirit stones— his brain didn’t fill him in on why they would cause that reaction, but he knew that might make them suspicious about him. “Do we need more miners?”
“Doc, I could bring another dozen men onto this site, and they’d all take the percentage just from the mythrium if it’s more than three inches deep. Adding in the spirit stone, it’s a certainty that I can pull the entire clan here. The gold is just icing at that point.”
“If the work supports them, it’s fine. I bow to your judgement on that.”
“We’ll need them for transport at the very least,” Rangvald said. “The first load will be easy since no one knows what we have. Once word gets out, though,” he sucked at his teeth, “things will get bloody.”
“You’re the foreman,” Doc said simply. “Manage it. I trust you to be able to do the job.”
Rangvald gave him a long look before nodding. “Fine. I’ll pull the others in when I drop the first load. They’ll leave the other mines without hesitation. Might make you a few enemies that way.”
Doc chuckled, “That was going to happen regardless.”
“It would have indeed. They will try to take this claim away from you, but I’m sure they’ll try legally first.”
“Rang, we’ve been walking back toward the waterfall,” Burk commented. “If we get another half mile, I think we can just punch through.
“Let’s find out,” Rangvald said.
When they found the end of the tunnel, Rangvald examined the wall carefully. “Yeah, we can do it. There are cracks here that make me think the excess water during flooding drains out here. We’ll have to shore it up exceedingly well. Your dryad won’t mind if we take some trees, right?”
“As long as you’re doing it to support the mine, she’ll be fine. If you start clearcutting for no reason, she’ll get pissed. Would help if you could plant some trees for the ones that are removed, too.”
“Never done that before, but we’ll see what we can do,” Rangvald said. “Let’s head on back to camp.”
The walk back was without incident, Doc did grab a fist-sized rock that had gold ore dotting it as they went. “I’ll sell this when we get back and give half of it to the business. I depleted almost all my funds to get this set up.”
Rangvald chuckled, “Well, your gamble is going to pay off. More than you probably realize. Oh, what kind of knife did you want? I’m easily going to be able to make one.”
“I’ll draw it out for you at camp,” Doc smiled. “It’s a common knife where I’m from, but not sure if they’ve made it this far out yet.”
~*~*~
The others were hard at work when the three of them made it back to camp. The sun was almost directly overhead. The five miners had set up a sluice box and were already working on pulling gold from under the waterfall. Tony and Joseph were getting the camp better organized, and Jesamin was nowhere to be seen.
“Lay off, we have to talk,” Rangvald called to the others. “Bring it in.”
The dwarves quickly finished up what they had, bringing over what they had pulled already with them. Ivan was smiling, “We’ve got a good haul going so far. What’d you find?”
Rangvald took a deep breath before starting, “The cavern runs parallel to the stream. It’s only a dozen or two dozen feet through that cliff.” Rangvald motioned to the wall behind him. “We need to block up the overflow outlet that will flood into the cavern, otherwise we’ll miss out on the haul.”
“Haul?” Didi asked.
“Mythrium,” Burk said.
The other five started to laugh, but after seeing Rangvald and Burk’s serious expressions, they stopped. “You’re serious?” Ivan asked.
“One vein,” Rangvald said.
“I want the percentage,” Urs said without hesitation, then was quickly followed by the others all saying the same.
“I understand,” Rangvald said, cutting them off. “We’ll be bringing in the rest of the clan, too. We have important work to do. Besides the mythrium, there’s also spirit stone and a lot of gold. We’re stopping the sluice for now. We’re going to dam the top and break this wall open. Once we have that done, we’re going to prep the cavern for real work, which means getting the easy gold off the floor first. Now, any questions?”
“Yes,” Doc said. “When the news hits town, what do you think will likely happen? I haven’t dealt with boom mines before.”
“I’ll drop the gold with the bank, having them put it all into the business account,” Rangvald said. “The spirit stone has to be sold to them, as well. There is a government mandate that all spirit stones are sold to them. That’s going to cause a major stir. It’ll take them a day or two to get that money to your account. With that dropped, I’ll take the mythrium to the smelters. That’ll start another stir. I’ll have them deposit it into the business account once they know how much they have to draw to pay for it. Once it’s all in, I’ll pull the percentages for us. How much did you want shifted from the business account to yours?”
“Half. Keep the rest in business to cover expenses. What’s the fallout going to look like?” Doc asked.
“A couple of days after I drop the loads, people will start asking hard questi
ons. A week tops before the real trouble starts.”
“Can we limit it?” Doc asked.
“Limit how?”
“Smaller batches of the expensive material going in?”
The dwarves all looked like they were going to object, but Rangvald held up a hand to stop them. “That directly reduces our pay.”
“I can understand that, but I need a week or more after that first infusion to work before it blows up.”
“It’d still be more than we had initially thought,” Ivan said slowly. “We’re all ready for the big payout, but did we think we’d find spirit stone or mythrium? I know I didn’t.”
Suited for Luck Page 30
