"And you sure this is a good idea?" Ambrose asked as he pushed his back against the wall furthest from the ore vein. "We do have picks?"

  Trelen carefully placed the carved piece of bone into the small crevice they had chiselled into the cave wall. "I mean..." They simply shrugged and smile before jogging over to join him.

  They looked at him expectantly for a moment, before Ambrose sighed and raised his bow. "This might take a few tries, Gro-lag will tell you, I am not the best shot." He knocked and loosed the arrow which clattered against the rock as it hit the wall and settled on the floor. He walked forward and picked it up and returned to his companion.

  "We are gonna be here all-" He had barely gotten the word "day" out of his mouth when the force from the explosion pushed him against the hard wall behind him. The impact painfully caused his breath to leave him and he found it hard to stand up straight.

  He was about to enquire about Trelen's wellbeing when he noticed them quickly moving towards the other side of the cave. They bent and picked up a piece that had come loose and fallen in the blast.

  "That worked perfectly!" They yelled.

  "What!?" Ambrose yelled back, his ears hearing nothing but muffled sounds behind the ringing.

  Once they had both recovered, they busied themselves with removing the ore that had fallen in the explosion.

  "We are going to have to blast out some more." Trelen shouted down as they emptied the bucket they had used in a makeshift pulley system to get their spoils out of the cave.

  Ambrose looked back at the dent they had already made. They weren’t that deep and he had already worried the ceiling might fall in during the first blast.

  Once they had removed all the loose ore he climbed out of the cave. "I think before we do anything else down there, we should reinforce the cave."

  They seemed like they were about to protest but then sighed and nodded. "Your probably right. Safety has never really been my strong suite. Staren was the one who always kept me for maiming myself."

  The mention of the Trelen's sibling seemed to catch both of them by surprise. Luckly Ambrose thought that he had been able to hid the mild shock that hit him. "You never said what their job actually was? I am guessing something involving woodwork?"

  Trelen seemed to hesitate for a second, still trying to process what they themselves had said. "Yeah, I guess that's what you would call it?" They said finally. "Staren was always good at making things, even when we were little, they used to make me toys." A smile formed across their face at the memory. "They could and did make anything anyone needed. A house needed roof supports, Staren could take one look and make them to perfect size, the mine is getting too deep and needs support, they could set it up in a way that not a single miner felt unsafe." Trelen's smile grew and they gave a deep sigh. "They could walk into the woods, cut down a tree and make whatever you needed."

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Ambrose let them sit in the memory for a time before speaking. "Well, you are being just as invaluable here. I wouldn't have a clue how to do any of this without you."

  They looked at him and for a second, almost looking like they were blushing. "Well, we better get this all smelted so I can keep being so useful."

  They filled the ore into sacks and carried it back to the kiln. The area that surrounded it had slowly been turning in to a dedicated work area, with Trelen clearing more and more or the brush, as well as bringing over tools and equipment. This included and number of hammer and some tongs that Ambrose had brought back from the city. This was all placed around the main reason Trelen had built the kiln where they had. A large, grey rock that while it had been rather flat to begin with, they had chiseled to an impressively even finish.

  "Ok so first we need to break the ore down as much as possible." They said, holding up two hammers.

  This process while seeming quite arduous actually proved to be rather meditative. Since it was only when Ros came to fetch the for lunch did either of them realised how much time had passed.

  Once they had eaten and done a bit more work Trelen said that the ore was ready to smelted. Whilst they had been breaking down the last of it, the Slovèi had also begun breaking down a significant amount of charcoal, which while was a lot messier, went a lot quicker. They stored the crushed ore in one of the larger buckets Ros had made. Trelen looked over it and compared it to the amount of crushed charcoal.

  "We need to make about an even mix of both." They said, starting to crush some more.

  Once they were happy with the amounts, they took handfuls of both and mix them in a ceramic pot. "Now we just need to add one more thing." They picked up a white rock that they had also taken from the cave and began crushing it. "This one's got to be very fine."

  "What is it?" Ambrose asked.

  "Limestone, Luckly that cave seems to have many deposits of it as well."

  As they were grinding it with the hammer butt to make a powder, Ambrose turned and looked at the kiln. "I still can't believe this thing can get hot enough to melt metal."

  Trelen poured the crushed limestone into the mixture and placed it in the kiln. "It's not an easy thing to get it hot enough, though this is a big help." They walked over to the kiln and picked up something that was leaning on it. It was made of leather, ended in a point that had a rounded pipe hand had two handles. "We only had two portable bellows in the village, I thought I was going to need to make a pot one, but when I saw this beauty in what you brought back, well I was so excited I made the rod I showed you right away."

  "How does it work?" Ambrose asked, intrigued.

  The Slovèi smiled and gestured towards the kiln. "Well, if you do the honors of lighting it up, I will show you."