Quoted By:
[Meanwhile, Elsewhere]
A small, forested path leads west of Howlhammer. Up ragged pathways along jagged rocks. A path that should not be well travelled. Yet, it bears the imprint of many footfalls. It is not overgrown. It curves, carefully, along the landscape. If you did not know to look for it, you would not find it.
A Smuggler's River, they call it. The little invisible line on no map that lets joy from A flow to B and make money for C.
A few old cottage lingers at the end of this swirling, serpentine road, in an open area caressed by rocks to either side. An old pit mine, abandoned for lack of ore. Spacious, now, with the workers huts remodelled to something else, the old warehouses for ore-storage refurbished. . .
There's an overgrown, less cared for adminstration office. It leans. The second floor collapsed years ago, from weather or thermites, but the lower stories seem solid. Someone has made sure of this. External support beams, new, hold the building in rigid attention. Scaffolding curves along one side.
Perhaps the miners are out, restoring ancient history, so that future generations can appreciate the hard work of ore winning from the cold earth? Perhaps the citizens of Howlhammer simply often do their duty, and that includes caring for abandoned House Cesteriphon mining equipment. We should all be so loyal. All great Houses always assidiously clean up after themselves when they move operations or adjust sites. They would *never* simply write off old, depreciated assets from their books and claim tax creditation for the deed.
And if the Reikans, pigs can fly.
