After lunch, James rejoined the other slave boys to work in the mines, but before they got back to work Coin had them line up and handed each of them a shovel to go with the pick-axe they had been given in the morning. At some point handles had been affixed to the shovel heads. Coin glared at James as he thrust the new (ish) shovel in James’ hands. “Don’t forget, you still owe me six extra ingots.” “Y-yes sir.” James replied.
Inside the mine and out of sight of the slavers, the grey-eyed boy wasted no time in approaching James. After getting a quick rundown of the situation, the grey-eyed boy advised James.
“It doesn’t seem like they know about your skill, but that was close. You shouldn’t have taken that extra iron. It would have been better to just not make all the shovels instead. Not like we had ‘em anyway. Make sure you’re last out today, a fair bit after the rest of us, and look really tired. I’ll get one of the other guys started on the smelter until you come out.”
It took James hardly any time at all to produce his daily quota of iron ore, the ore seeming to pop out of the tunnel wall eagerly as he swung his pick-axe. And by the time the rest of the boys were finishing up, he had finished mining out the extra iron ore he needed to replace the six ingots. After shoveling the ore into a pile against the side of the tunnel, he resumed expanding the tunnel while the grey-eyed boy explained that from now on, they’d be clearing out the rubble at the end of the day, with the shovels, rather than getting up early to do it by hand. He silenced complaints with a stern look and the rest of the boys half-heartedly cleared out the day’s rubble using their new (ish) shovels. A little later than normal, the boys left to go have dinner.
James stayed in the mine for a bit longer, working up a sweat before leaving the mine, trying to look tired. He made several trips from the mine to the smelter, bringing out his iron ore, while one of the Fire Mage boys warmed up the smelter. James then quickly ate dinner, glad that there was some food left after arriving late, and got to work smelting.
He wound up starting later than normal, and so finished later than usual, but after pouring out the last bit of molten iron into an ingot mold, he had another intrusive thought.
[Smith] skill [Smelting] has reached Level 3.
“Hey.” a low voice called out.
James nearly leapt out of his skin. He whirled around and there was the spear-wielding slaver, holding a bit of metal in his hand.
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“Smelt this down too, smith.” he said, then tossed the metal at James’ feet and walked away.
James picked it up and instantly realized the metal was enchanted. Or, at least, it had been enchanted. The enchantment was clearly unpowered and broken. On closer inspection, he realized it was one of the metal stakes that were stuck in the ground surrounding the camp. However, due to how the metal had broken, James’ [Template Memorization] skill failed to activate and he was left unsure what the purpose of the enchantment was.
He thought about keeping the stake and studying it further, but thought better of it and tossed it into the smelter. In almost no time the iron stake was reduced to just another regular iron ingot.
The next morning, a cold wind woke James early. He got up and made his way towards the latrine, but on the way back stopped and took a closer look at one of the nearby metal stakes. The rays of dawn struck the metal stake and has his fingers stroked it, he felt the flow of light element magical energy flowing through the iron material of the stake.
Intermediate Light Enchantment: Ward? memorized
He quickly walked away, making it back to the lean-to before realizing there was no need to clear rubble in the morning, and so he had nothing to do but shiver and try to get warm in the sunlight before breakfast.
The Smith did not know at the time, and of course neither did Kevin, the grey-eyed boy who led the slaves, but the Ward around the slave camp ensured that no adventurer, no knight, no wandering hunter, no wild monster would ever stumble upon the illegal mining operation.
The days quickly grew colder and shorter. Over the next couple months the slaver Coin left and returned several times, taking away the iron ingots and returning with stocks of food. James was assigned to tool maintenance and repair on an as-needed basis, and he was shown how to trim down branches to function as handles. It was not exactly [Forging], but his [Smith] class did seem to respond and help him pick up the skill quickly, although he did not learned a proper [Skill] for it.
One day Coin returned with a young-looking boy in tow. A new slave. James looked around at the other slaves and caught the grey-eyed boy’s eye for a moment, before quickly looking away. He remembered their discussion about setting an example. The other slaves, for their part, had not been acting out. Although they were working less hard due to James running the smelter every night, and clearing out rubble from the mine was easier thanks to the shovels, the cold and short days and minimal food kept everyone, for the most part, too worn out to complain or start trouble. A couple of the boys had also sustained injuries that for the most part had healed, but still caused pain or slowed them down mining. They were especially disappointed to see a new slave, but not the slave trader who also could use healing magic. Although they could not produce as much iron as everyone else, James quietly filled in the gap himself and kept the output stable.
Not that anyone ever thanked him for it.
The slaver with the whip walked up and spoke with Coin, then spent a few minutes intimidating the new boy and explaining how things worked before shoving the boy to join the rest of the slaves.
Apparently, the new boy had not tried to run away like James had.
James quickly glanced at the grey-eyed boy, but his face was impenetrable and showed no reaction to the lack of an example for the rest of the slaves.
