I took an old rusted shovel lying in father's shed and headed to Ocllo's mining camp. Miner's guildmaster chuckled at me as I slowly descended into the murky mines wearing my white fancy shirt. Few flickering lights, which lit just a couple of spots, made me regret I forgot my torch, but that did not stop me. I stepped away from the stairs and started digging. At first, it was just dirt but then I heard a muted clank when my shovel hit something in the ground. "Yes! My first ore!", - I exclaimed a little bit too loud. That was a big mistake. Suddenly I heard squeaks from the darkness of the mine. "Rats!", I gasped. I was not ready for that. As squeaks turned louder, a giant rat came into the light of a hanging lantern. I had to retreat. I turned around, run back up the stairs and out of the mining guild, hearing sniggering of experienced miners behind my back. Minutes later, I returned up with my trusted sword. Who's laughing now? Rat was waiting for me, rushing for attack but I managed to dodge it, striking a lethal blow in return. That was my first lesson: Mine is a dangerous place. It may seem abandoned but you never know what evil lurks in it's dark corners... or even under ground. Wiping rat's blood off my sword, I glanced at my digging spot. Ore was gone! What in the name of balron was that?! Rat could not take it, then who did? I looked around but saw no one. "Anyone here?", - I hailed, but only echo was an answer. "Better keep going then". My eyes fell on dark swell on the ground. "That would be a perfect spot!". But as I aimed my shovel at the swell, it miraculously turned into a man in the dark clothes. "All right, all right! Take your damned ore, I don't need it anyway!". He dropped the ore onto the ground and disappeared into the deeper mines, leaving me with my eyes and mouth wide open. Lesson number two: Miners are not an exception for thieves. Distract for a second and you might loose precious ingots and there will be no guards to help you. Luckily, I forgot about that unusual stranger in a few minutes, cause I hit the gold mine ... well not "gold" gold, but I dug that iron vein like it was gold. After a while, ore started to recede and then eventually all I was left with was this huge hole in the ground with nothing but dirt and myself covered in it. Happily, I started picking up my bags, deciding to head to the nearest forge. Bags didn't budge. At first I thought they stuck to something, but it was not the case at all. I was too greedy and proud of myself, digging ore up, that I forgot I was a punny fellow and won't be able to carry all that ore at once. Shaming myself of not being humble, I promised to strive to the path of virtue from now on. This was my third lesson: dig whatever you will be able to carry. Refreshment potions can be of help, but keeping track of your ore's weight is far more effective. Surely, constant mining will make you a lot stronger, yet remember not to overload thyself. At last, sweating profusely, I managed to drag all that ore to the forge. But what now? Just throw it all into the smouldering coals? Yeah, that should do it! What could go wrong? Well... everything. Being an unexperienced miner, I had no idea how to smelt the ore, what are bellows for and how to control the temperature of the forge. Standing there, unsure I did everything right, I watched my pile of ore slowly dissolving into the unusuable mess. I managed to recover some ore from it, but more then a half was lost. Frowned, I decided to split ore into smaller chunks, so I won't loose that much and still have a lot left to practice. So that was my fourth lesson: with no practice - comes no responsib... no no, comes lots of failures. Trying to smelt a big pile of ore at once may lead to loosing almost half of it and you still won't learn much. So while you're green on the whole mining deal - you better split your ore to a smallest smeltable chunks, so you can try as many times as possible. Lost in my thoughts of the smelting process, I accidentally broke a shovel. Oh how lucky I felt at that moment that I brought my tinker tools with me. Having a spare shovel or pickaxe is nice, but able to make them on the go is priceless. That tinkering lessons father gave me when I was a kid payed off! I quickly made some shovels and one spare tinkering set just in case. Loosing all shovels AND tinkering tools deep in the mines could very well frustrate you, to say the least. It was time to return to the surface. Coming up from the mines, a bright light of outside world blinded me for a second. Covering my eyes with a hand I finally noticed that my hands and legs were dirty, my clothes were torn but I was smiling. I was holding my first ingots and even though they were iron, they sure were the most valuable things for me at that very moment. I made them! Mining guildmaster noticed the ingots in my hands and nodded at me with an approval, saying "You'll do good, kid. You'll do good!"
