Later That Evening:
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"Took us a month to find the first seam. It was a tough one, let me tell you, not least because of the stakes. Bought our way out of a contract, me and Lennard, used what we had for two weeks, and that stretched to three, and that turned to chewing on boot leather. I kept telling Lennard the place was a bust, his nose was wrong, but he wouldn't have it, kept on plugging away, pick to metal, pick to metal. Not saying he was stronger than me, he being a Midlander and all, but you could see in the night, he was hammering away at something using I-don't-know-what for fuel. Not muscle, I know that.
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"End of it came, we could barely swing down in the sink shaft, but once you've seen copper in the rock, hunger doesn't matter so much. We struck good, you know, saw the gleam. Brought some investors on, account of we didn't have much money to do any more than dig that pit deep enough to go out the other side of Hydaelyn. Wasn't a mine yet, not really.
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"Money came in,though, and we were digging horizontal and vertical. Lot of the guys were new, industry just starting to boom back then. So a lot of the boys were just leaving rocks by the wayside, not clearing their paths. If you know what you're doing you know to keep the rocks secure, keep them safe, otherwise you get coblyns, scuttling in, looking for a meal. They won't do a man any harm if there's rocks around, just bad for business. Came to be that we'd see men break away rocks, open up a new shaft, and they'd make their way down the new path and the coblyns would be scurrying right behind them, chewing up all the leftovers, pleased as I suppose one of them can be.
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"Well, we kept seeing that, and took a liking to it. We were the Palmer-Blood Mining Cooperative at the time, just a name we threw together, something to look official for the investors, but we liked that a little better, so we went through the paperwork, one of the men drafted up the little picture - I forget which, but he's gone to the Calamity now, I think - and there it was, Coblyn's Fancy Mining Company."
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Wahlbert paused, and took a drink from his flask. "Put it on just about everything," he said once finished, holding it up so Verad could take a look at the faded logo on its side. "But just Lennard and I got the flasks."
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Uncertain of what to say at first (an admittedly rare occasion), Verad leaned against the commissary's wall. From this position, he could vaguely see the outline of the company's head office, from its position to the west, only a faint shadow blocking dark with more dark. Wahlbert sat nearby, having commandeered one of the better-quality stools within his own stores. Verad could not begrudge him his preference for quality.
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He had planned to ask the man a few questions, to perhaps push another of the levers he had mentioned to Gliding Bone earlier on; however, all it had taken was the briefest of greetings and to lean nearby, and Wahlbert had started to talk. "You're one of the owners, then?" he asked, unable to keep some of the surprise out of his voice.
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Snorting, Wahlbert took another long drink from his flask before he continued. "Was," he said. "Hurt my leg in the Calamity, and it never set right. Too much pain to mine, and I never did do much of the paperwork. Lennard bought out my shares and set me up in the commissary. Used to be a nice job. Quality goods, got to interact with the boys. For a few months, anyway.
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"Don't know if the seam got busted up five years ago or if it was always close to drying out, but output got less and less. Not as much ore going out or money coming in. Investors might've been fine with that, might have just squeezed the workers, but Lennard wouldn't budge. Always gave the miners a fair wage, tried to help them out, you know."
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"Did you use debt-laborers?" Verad stopped himself from clasping a hand over his mouth even after he couldn't stop himself from asking the question. Wahlbert's glare was dark under the lantern light, thick brows casting a shadow over his eyes.
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"Of course we did. Don't be stupid. You want to find somebody who will look down on that, go join the Sworn and the Royalists. It was good business." The look faded, and he turned his head to examine the offices. "Not like this, though. No contract extensions or bleeding them for a mug of beer. Nor - " He paused, as if hesitating, and continued. "Anyway, we didn't treat them any different than the skilled laborers. There but for the grace of the Twelve, and all. We could have wound up the same way if that first month hadn't paid off.
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"But he kept pushing and the seam kept failing. We prospected, surveyed, stretched it out, but something had to give, break. People holding the purse-strings cut him loose, would have taken over entirely if his daughter hadn't stepped in. Businesswoman, you know. Raised right on honest gil, but a Monetarist for it all the same. They gave her some time, and I guess the money started flowing again, right around the time the camp started going bad."
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"Not a coincidence,I'm sure." Verad chewed on the inside of his cheek in thought. "Why tell me this?"
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"Because you're about as subtle as a bomb in a firewood shed." Wahlbert held his flask up, closer to Verad. The contents smelled foul, vaguely sulfurous. He took it all the same. "New workers cause some trouble," he went on, "But they don't cause as much as you, and they definitely don't stretch out their contracts with whole feasts at a time in their first week."
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A gracious guest, Verad took a careful sip of the flask's contents, and the familiar taste of Qiqirn firewater conducted a full military offensive upon his throat. He fought back the urge to cough and expel the contents of his stomach through his nose as he returned the flask. Wahlbert seemed to take the silence as another prompt. "Don't do it at all, really. Used to be that we'd have them often as we could - sharing drink, food, stories. These fellows? The void's in them, or it might as well be. Dead inside, no breaking the contract, trying to ride it out as cheap as possible to get out and get done. Nothing like last night."
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"Surely, you can stop it, then. You can't contact your partner?"
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"Not without a shovel." There was another dark look on his face. "Passed just after Milith took it over. Died happy, at least. Company was carrying on in the family. And she always did think he was too soft on the workers anyhow, so I can't see as how it would matter much."
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"Then the law,certainly. Perhaps the Blades - well, some of the Blades, or - " He was cut off by Wahlbert's stare. "There must be an honest one somewhere."
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"For certain there is. That's not the point. I may be cozy here, I may be secure, with a full flask and a simple job, but I'm also under watch. If you don't think Hatemonger wouldn't hear about me getting up and trying to leave camp, same as any of the other workers, then you take him for a fool." He offered a rueful smile as he tipped his flask over to find it empty before closing its cap. "Hope they'd at least let me drink to death."
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"So there have been deaths, then."
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"Sure. People get too close to their contract, and a mine's a good place for accidents. Not often - about . . . " He counted out on his hands, once, twice. "Too often, but not often. Most of the boys here are extended through the next year. No telling what'll happen then."
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Wahlbert leaned forward in his seat, rubbing a thick, calloused hand through his hair. Verad watched him, uncertain. There were a half-dozen pitches he could offer. He could appeal to the man's better nature, to nostalgia, to the need to quit the drink, to spite, to any number of things. No one seemed like it would fit, no sophistry would function. In the face of that, he chose the simplest question he could conceive.
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"Do you want to stop them?"
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Quiet settled between the pair, the kind of silence full of noise, surrounded by the workers and the clang and clatter of the night shift, the occasional low laughter and cough from those off-shift. Rubbing his face between both hands, Wahlbert sighed and sat up. "I do. The place needs to die." He pressed his hand against his face to hide something, Verad thought a laugh at first, before biting down on his knuckle as he kept his gaze on the offices in the distance. "It's not what it was, and it needs to not be."
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"Then here's what you can do to help me."
Verad Bellveil's Profile | The Case of the Ransacked Rug | Verad's Fate Sheet
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
