Dawn.
Ten miles out of Silverhill, on a dry riverbed.
Lyonel sat a grey rock the sun had split and ate black bread bought on the road.
A beetle worked the dust by his boot.
The pane refreshed with the first edge of light.
[System]
Daily trait draw in progress—
The card turned.
Green blew across the eye.
[System]
Green trait acquired: Ground Sense
Vein line: +40% true.
Rock: +35% read.
Metal inside ten feet: +25% hit.
The bread stopped in his mouth.
He read the card three times.
“…You had mine-work in the deck and I spent a month scratching under the Rock.”
[System]
Draws are random.
Host luck.
“And the other cards.”
[System]
Slight Cold-Proof.
Sense of Direction.
Night Sight.
All valid.
“Night Sight digs ore.”
No answer.
Second line.
[System]
Unsurveyed ground, ten miles off Silverhill.
Dry bed.
Mark 73.4N, 112.7E.
High chance of a vein.
Advise: go now.
He shoved the rest of the bread in, five chews, off the rock.
“Bloom.
Bronn.”
Bloom’s head came out of the shade.
“My lord.”
“Up.
We ride.”
Bronn tossed half an apple to his horse.
“Where.”
“Up the bed.
Two miles.”
“Mines.”
“Treasure.”
Three horses.
Half an hour up the dead water.
The walls pinched in.
Fist-stones went table-stones.
Dark green-black threads showed in the grey, like veins on an old hand.
The bar on the right side of the pane jumped.
[System]
Ground Sense (Green)
Twenty-five yards ahead.
Eight feet down.
Dense metal.
First read: silver.
Gold riding with it.
Lyonel stopped the horse.
“Here.”
Bronn looked around.
“There isn’t a tree.
You’re telling me mine.”
Lyonel dropped off and put a palm on the pale crust.
Ground Sense (Green)
Top: weathered limestone, about eight feet.
Under: dark sediment.
Metal sits where sediment meets granite.
“Pick.”
Bloom pulled a bag off the saddle and put a miner’s pick in his hand.
Lyonel swung.
First blow: a chip.
Grey grit under it.
Second: something hard.
The point kicked back.
Third — the bar went red.
The pick opened a thin dark shell.
Bloom made the sound first.
“…Silver.”
Lyonel dropped the pick and worked a piece out with the dagger.
A palm of break.
Silver-grey grain packed in black rock.
Sun on it.
Fine gold points winking between the grains.
Bloom went down on his heels, turned the chunk over for a long ten seconds, and sat in the dirt.
“My lord.
This density.
A shallow open vein.
I have only seen it in a book.”
“What does the book say.”
Bloom looked up.
Mouth shaking.
“Last lord in the West to find a rich shallow silver like this was his grandsire’s grandsire.”
Bronn dropped off and peered into the hole.
Scratched the back of his head.
“This worth anything.”
Bloom turned on him.
“Silver with native gold.
Stone like this: two hundred ounces of silver a ton, five of gold.
If the line runs the whole bed—”
He stopped.
Swallowed.
Voice down.
“…My lord.
We may be rich.”
Lyonel crouched at the lip and looked at the silver grain and the gold specks.
[System]
New vein logged.
Rich silver, gold with it.
Open.
Shallow.
Line ≥ three-quarters of a mile.
First value in dragons: 20,000 and up.
No claim on the ground.
Advise: bind and register before the lord of Silverhill speaks.
He gave the twenty thousand five seconds.
Twenty thousand.
Cash he could put a hand on: three hundred dragons.
“Bloom.”
“My lord.”
“Paper.
These marks.
Your own eyes.
A sketch of three miles of this bed.”
Bloom came off the ground with sheepskin and charcoal.
Lyonel stood, slapped dust off his knees, and looked at the break again.
Sun full on it.
Silver and gold enough to hurt.
“Bloom.”
“My lord.”
“What’s it called.”
A blink.
“It hasn’t a name.
Lyonel looked at the pane.
Twenty thousand dragons.
Fifteen years old.
Three months in this skin.
Three hundred in the purse.
An open rich vein in front of him.
The mouth hooked.
“Lyonel’s Cut.”
Bloom’s hand jumped.
The charcoal dragged a long line.
“My lord.
That’s… plain.”
“Plain is the point.
A man hears it, he knows who dug.”
Bronn had his arms folded, looking at the shine in the hole.
Two clicks of the tongue.
“My lord.”
“Mm.”
“Luck like yours.
I’d have bought Broken Tooth whole when I was still on the hill.”
Lyonel picked up a chip and weighed it.
Half again a common stone.
Heavy in the palm.
He turned and tossed it.
Bronn caught it.
“What.”
“Keep it.”
“For what.”
“Luck.”
“A rock for luck.”
“That rock is twenty thousand dragons.
Buys you ten wives.”
Bronn closed his hand on it.
Disgust, then quiet, then something mixed — respect and a kind of confusion.
“Fuck.
First time in my life a stone felt heavy.”
Lyonel got up on the horse.
Bloom put the sketch inside his coat.
The three of them took the bed toward Silverhill, slow.
Two hundred yards on, Lyonel looked back.
Grey-white watercourse.
Same as ten thousand dry beds in Westeros.
Twenty thousand under it.
[System]
Westerlands economic index +11%.
Opening the West — Stage One
Silverhill survey: vein found.
Not yet registered.
He killed the pane and turned the horse.
Sun from the east.
His shadow ran long on the grey rock.
Short.
A lump.
Twenty thousand under the lump.
Bronn came up and hefted the chip twice, then stuffed it in the saddlebag.
“My lord.”
“Mm.”
“We dig this out.
What’s my cut.”
Lyonel looked at him.
“A wife.”
“…I want coin.”
“Coin too.
Wife too.”
Three seconds.
“…Fine.”