The mine's interior wasn't quite what she was expecting. Instead of a dusty, dirty tunnel littered with rocks and debris, it had instead a paved floor that extended into darkness with a hint of a staircase in the far distance. The tunnel-like entrance widened into a giant cavern with remnants of wooden structures scattered around.
"This used to be a very productive mine. At least, that's what the stories passed down in my family say," Blue said, glancing around.
When they'd entered, small globes had come to life, proving scanty light. As time passed, they grew brighter, but a great number of them had broken. It was barely enough to light up the main part of the cavern near the entrance.
Cora shifted the pickaxe in her grip, adjusting it so it felt comfortable in the palm of her hand. The whole scene was eerie like an old school horror movie or video game. She could also imagine banshees or zombies lurching out of the darkness, still wearing mining clothes.
"There's nothing here that can hurt you," Blue said, glancing at her. Then the leopard walked towards the stairs. "You can't mine on the first floor. You have to go down."
Cora took another glance around the wide floor before following her. Obviously, this floor was meant to be for processing the ores brought up and maybe, perhaps provide living quarters and amenities to keep the miners working for longer hours.
The stairs weren't as decayed as the rest of the mine had been. That could be because they were hewn out of the rock itself, Cora mused. Each step had been carefully cut, sanded and then meticulously carved with treads to prevent slippage. She looked back towards the huge main chamber thoughtfully. Perhaps the mine had started with that first floor but then had moved downwards as the ore there ran out.
Blue stopped at the second floor which was nearly as large as the first. The tiny glowing balls here were intact but more than a few had stopped working. Only every one out of four lit up as they walked. As the big cat approached a wall, the tiny balls overhead flickered before only two stayed lit, the other three going dark.
"If you want to learn another skill, you can fix the light globes," Blue said, flicking a look at her.
"They can be fixed?" Cora asked, examining the balls more closely.
The balls themselves were opaque when not lit. Decorative designs littered its surface. A quick comparison to the lit globes showed that perhaps the designs weren't entirely decorative. Lines were scratched, and chips had broken off on the defective globes.
Cora put the riddle away. She'd have plenty of time to think about it later. So far, she'd had a lot of downtime while waiting for the crops to grow. It could also be something to think about when she was harvesting or planting.
"You just swing the little wooden stick at the wall, and something should be mined," Blue said, sitting a bit away from Cora with sparkling eyes.
"That's it?" Cora asked, glancing back at her.
"That's what the stories say. I'm not from mining stock. How would I know if it's true if you don't give it a shot?" Blue looked from Cora to the wall and back.
Cora sighed. She'd hoped for more information than just swinging a stick. Glancing at the pickaxe in her hand, it sparkled as if encouraging her. She adjusted so the pointy end was facing outwards with the broad flat edge facing her. Taking a deep breath, she raised it up with both hands and struck at the rock face.
She was rewarded by a ding and a notification. 'Experience +1, 1 piece cloud iron found, 1 stone shard found.'
Cora looked at the small pieces of rock by her feet. One was a dark grey with bits of silvery metal floating on its surface, a little like clouds on a night sky. The other was a small, broken bit of rock, nondescript and plain grey like cured concrete.
Cora looked from the rocks to the obviously brown wall of rock in front of her. She couldn't tell exactly where her pickaxe had hit.
"Oooh! Iron ore!" Blue said, pouncing on the nugget and batting at it. She chased it as it skittered away. "Looks just like the picture."
"Picture? What picture?" Cora asked, picking up the shard and tossing it into the small gunny sack. She decided it would be easier to keep track of her 'earnings' so to speak if she kept the shards separate. "Where did you see this picture?"
"The picture in the blacksmith quarters. They had a school once upon a time, and this is on one of the walls," Blue explained, trotting back with the nugget. She batted it in front of her like a toy. "Fifteen of these will make one iron bar."
"Fifteen?" Cora repeated, staring at the little nugget in front of her.
She sighed. She should have known that it wasn't going to be easy. At least she knew that there was a forge somewhere in her little ruined town.
Cora picked up the nugget and stowed it in the medium gunny sack. When she checked the stats, she was surprised to see that the nugget earned a whole experience point. Happy, Cora then looked at the small gunny sack, shocked to see that the shard only earned her little sack one tenth of an experience point. She hadn't even known that that little experience could register on a display.
Feeling a sense of trepidation, she then checked her own status.
Cora
Level (2/051.1/10)
HP: 140 MP: 10 (20)
Stamina: 340/405 (+5 afternoon) Luck: 8 Charisma: 9 Intelligence: 9
Speed: 13 (+10 afternoon) Constitution: 8
Class: Leader of the Wildlands (2/052.1/10)
Title: Draconic Friend (Intermediate / active) Mayor of Wilderven Diplomat
Skills: Pioneering 4 Farming 5 Masonry 1.5 Blacksmithing 1
Veterinary 2 Canning 1 Ranching 1 Alchemy 1
Crafting 2 Mutlilingual (max) Diplomacy (max)
Inspect (max) + Identify (max) + Examine (max) = Appraise (max/merging)
Mining 1.5
Subskills: Wild Run (Initial 2/64/100) Gilded Tongue (max)
Combos: Stamina Boost +5 (Farming + Blacksmithing) afternoon
Speed Boost +10 (Ranching + Alchemy + Canning) afternoon
Sprint Queen +1 (Wild Run + Ranching + Pioneering + Veterinary) morning
Appraise (omni / merging)
Cora frowned thoughtfully at her stats. Some of them were shown as being boosted because it was still afternoon game-time, but the Appraise skill baffled her. It was listed under both Skills and Combos. She clicked the combo version with a swift tap of her finger.
'Appraise - permanent skill set detected. Adding to skills; removing bases' was appeared in a neat little box hovering over the display. She eyed the word 'permanent.' It had the glow of a term that would be explained. After a second she tapped it as well.
'Permanent - skills that are not affected by the time of day. Permanents are generated by unique combinations of related skills. Once generated, base skills will be removed and must be reacquired for use in other combos. In some instances, the new skill will be used in place of removed skills, but this rarely applies in cases not related to observational and occupational skills. Example: Blacksmithing (max) + Metalworking (max) = (combo) Engineering (omni / stats individualized). Engineering can then substitute for Blacksmithing or Metalworking in subsequent combos. As always, stats are only applied once per combo for permanent increase, and reuse of new skill in new combos does not affect stat gain.'
Cora blinked. She hadn't been expecting that explanation. She wondered if the two new skills she'd seen, Diplomacy and Multilingual had also been the result of some merge. Clearly, her intelligence and charisma had both benefited from something. They'd just been the base given for finishing a couple of quests when she'd encountered Sycamore. She briefly wondered if the little dragon was okay. Since she was stuck in Wilderven for the foreseeable future, she had no way of contacting any of the dragons.
Cora paused at the thought and glanced at Blue. She hadn't bothered to actually ask the leopard any questions that didn't pertain to her immediate circumstances. Blue more than likely knew a lot more than Cora was aware. It was obvious that the only population in Wilderven was her, not Cora. According to her displays, mayors didn't count as population because they couldn't vote for themselves.
"So, I need fifteen of these ores for an ingot?" Cora asked Blue who bonelessly shrugged before flopping down on the floor, tail tip twitching.
"I'm not a miner, but that was the number on the wall. Maybe they expand or the so-called ingot is really small. Whatever, it's nice and cool here." Blue yawned. "Keep going. Only fourteen more to go!"
Cora rolled her eyes as Blue closed her eyes, clearly deciding to nap. She swung the pickaxe at the wall.
'Experience +1, 1 piece cloud iron found, 1 stone shard found' appeared again, floating in front of her before disappearing a couple of seconds later.
Cora paused. Then she checked her stats again. As she thought, her experience had increased by 1.2, but her title experience increased by 2.2. She puzzled it out slowly. Clearly, she was earning experience like the sack, but also got the experience point for mining counted for both the title and her own experience.
She smiled at the thought. If she didn't need the crops to trade with the warcorns, she might be tempted to keep mining. The measly one hundred experience per harvest meant that it would take increasingly longer to level up. This was much faster, maybe.
Cora double checked her stats. As expected, swinging the pick ate up 10 stamina per swing. That meant that even at the fullest, she'd only have forty swings before having to rest. Cora blew out a breath as she chucked the two new pieces of rock into their respective bags. She'd just wait and see what happened.
She swing the pickaxe one more time.
'Experience +1, 1 piece copper found.'
She curiously picked up the greenish piece of ore and glanced around. As usual, the rock face was still a uniform brown, though there seemed to be the slightest of dents in it now. She stowed the ore, feeling an ominous premonition as she started swinging nonstop.
'Experience +1, 1 piece copper found.'
'Experience +1, 1 piece silver found.'
'Experience +1, 1 piece iron found.'
'1 piece granite found.'
'1 piece granite found.'
'Experience +1, 1 piece cloud iron found, 1 stone shard found.'
'Experience +2, 1 piece uncut star emerald found, 1 stone shard found.'
'Experience +1, 1 piece mystic gold found, 1 stone shard found.'
Cora stopped and looked at the small pile of rocks and gems in bewilderment. As fas as she knew, mines only produced one sort of thing, at least in the real world.
"Oh, you found a star emerald!" Blue reached out a paw and snagged out the ping pong ball sized stone. "This is a good size. You could probably sell this somewhere for enough for some actual tools."
"I have tools," Cora protested, shoving the stones into gunny sacks. "What I want to know is just why there's so many different things here?"
She paused as she found that the granite blocks wouldn't fit into the medium sacks. With a sigh, she opened up her lone large sack and shoved the two blocks inside. Cora felt rather annoyed by them. Not only were they large and bulky, taking up fifty percent of the bag's capacity, they also hadn't given her any experience when they'd appeared.
Cora checked the small gunny sack. In addition to providing just one tenth of an experience point a shard, they didn't take up that much space, no matter how oddly sized they were. Some were the size of quarters while others weren't much bigger than her pinky finger. The small sacks were showing that they only had less than five percent of their capacity used versus the medium sacks which were showing ten.
"You should mine until you have a couple more granite. Then I can show you where the lathes are that will fashion them into bricks." Blue stood up and stretched. "It shouldn't take long. They seem plentiful enough."
Cora frowned at her before turning back to the rock face. She was interested in seeing what else would pop out of the mine.