Expansion - Chapter 8

 

8 – Brammir – Old Tools

While quickly eating Forge‑Breath, Brammir hears his companions talking back and forth.

“Have you found any gobblers’ tools?”

“Tools? They don’t have tools. They use rocks like animals.”

“No, I heard they found hard, heavy rocks and used them like hammers.”

“Why not just make iron hammer heads?”

“If you have a heavy rock that already works, why cast or forge iron?”

“How can you tell, if it just looks like a rock?”

“It would have—”

Brottan cuts off Varnik before he can answer. “They would write their name or their family’s name on it.”

Everyone stops and looks at him.

Brottan finishes his root-tea. “That’s what I heard.” He stands. “Almost time.”

Before anyone can ask anything else, Elder Hadrik says, “Yes, if everyone lines up, I will give a blessing for safe work before you depart.”

Varnen adds, “An excellent idea, Elder. Let me help you prepare.”

Brammir finishes and rinses his plate in the wash basin, dries it, and returns it to his cubby. Grabbing his tools, he checks the fuel levels of his lamps again before lighting the helmet lamp and carrying the other, his pick resting on his shoulder.

He gets in line and closes his eyes as the Priest gives the same blessing he offers most mornings. When it ends, Jorvik says, “Let’s go. Listen for the bell’s Deep‑Meal signal.”

They move out at a steady pace, with Brottan bringing up the rear as usual.

 

Brammir’s mine cart still has a little ore in it from yesterday, and it makes a deep rumble as he pushes it down the tunnel he carved and smoothed. At the end of the worked passage, he sets his lamp into the wall sconce and turns the wick up to full brightness. The light spills into the natural cave beyond — the place where he’d only followed the seam, not shaped the stone.

Between the wall lamp and his helmet light, he studies the debris scattered across the floor. He pushes aside the loose rock he’d mined yesterday and crouches to look more closely at what lies beneath.

Wedges.

Not metal — root‑fiber, dried and cracked.

A couple of broken pieces of… bone? Or antler?

He picks one up, turning it in the light.

“How would antler get down here?” he mutters.

He sets a few of the fragments by the wall lamp, the better to examine them later. The stone around him carries the faint echo of other miners — the rhythmic ‘ping‑ping‑ping’ of picks striking rock.

“Enough wasting time,” he says to himself, pushing the thoughts aside.

He hefts his pick, steps back to the seam, and begins digging again.

 

Three cart‑fulls later, Brammir pauses to take a sip from the fountain. His shoulders ache in that familiar way, but his mind keeps drifting back to the fragments he found earlier. He picks up the broken antler piece again and holds it closer to the lamp.

In the brighter light, the details sharpen.

Cut marks.

Not random scratches — worked edges, shaped by a steady hand.

“I wish I could’ve seen it in one piece,” he murmurs.

He turns it, and something catches the light at one end. Strange symbols — lines, curves, angles. Not like runes. Not like tool marks either.

Something deliberate. Something written.

He frowns, takes another sip of water, and sets the antler fragment down.

His fingers linger on it for a moment before he forces himself to grab his pick again.

The deeper tone of the Chapel bell echoes through the stone, signaling Deep‑Meal.

Brammir slips the piece of antler into his pocket without really thinking about it.

He turns the wick of the wall lamp down to a low glow — he’ll be back soon — and shoulders his pick.

When they arrive back at the camp site, the miners see the engineers leaving with a Legion escort. “Must have another assignment” Brammir mutters to himself.