Miraak set up altars all across Solstheim, spreading his mind-controlling magic by corrupting the ancient All-Maker Stones.
Once the altar near Raven Rock was destroyed, the entire town snapped awake as if from a dream. They finally realized that, without noticing, their minds had been affected by illusion magic. People with weak willpower would drown in those illusions all day long, becoming Miraak's free labor. Those with stronger wills would be influenced while they slept—then, as soon as night fell, they'd head to the altar and do backbreaking work.
Under the illusion's influence, they wouldn't even notice anything was wrong. Their most basic sense of reality had been rewritten.
Now everyone knew the name Miraak. He was the one who'd planted a mind-control tower at the edge of town and turned the townsfolk into his hardworking slaves.
The local councilor thanked the outsiders for their help.
Brelyna seized the chance to ask whether they could recruit miners in town.
"You need miners? But there's no ore left here. Oh—you want to go mining outside." Councilor Lleril Morvayn looked exhausted. "If you can guarantee the miners' safety, there will definitely be people willing to risk their lives… Don't worry about being obstructed. House Redoran doesn't care much about Solstheim, but I'll still do what I can to make people's lives a little easier."
There was no shortage of desperate miners in town. These Dunmer had once lived comfortably, selling precious ebony. A diligent worker could earn more than a councilor. Now most of them were broke. Outsiders could sneer that these workers didn't know how to save—but their poverty wasn't born from laziness.
The busiest place in town was the inn, with a bizarre name: the Retching Netch. Once afternoon arrived, the idle townsfolk would come here for a drink. The innkeeper's sujamma was widely praised, but with money tight, most patrons preferred to drink on credit.
The layout of Raven Rock's inn was different from Skyrim's. After you entered, it wasn't a grand hall—you had to walk down a set of sunken steps, and the underground level was where people gathered to drink. Back when the mine still ran, the workers would knock off in the late afternoon or early evening, spend four septims on a cup of sujamma—twenty years ago, that was—and sit on a stool at the counter, drinking hard and resting properly. If they tossed in a few more septims, they could buy a sweetroll, or Eidar cheese, as something to go with the drink. And if they paid a dozen or so, they could even buy a slab of meat. In those flush days, the short-tunic crowd would spend freely, sit at the tables, call for food and drink, and eat and drink in lively noise.
Bralsa Drel used to be a top-notch miner. She was tall and lean, with broad hands and feet, and dark red eyes like coals in a furnace. After the mine shut down, she spent the most money here—drank herself into ruin. Not long ago, Miraak's mind control had gotten her too; she'd been stumbling to the altar and working day and night, until she looked half-dead.
The moment Bralsa entered the inn, everyone started laughing. Someone shouted, "Bralsa, begging again, are you?" She didn't answer. She went to the counter and said, "One sujamma. And a sweetroll." Then she set down five septims. The innkeeper rolled his eyes and pushed the money back.
"Don't come here anymore. All you do is waste your food money in this place. Go find a job."
It hit her like a brutal slap. Angry and heartbroken, she stood there at the counter and began to cry.
"Get out! Get out!" The innkeeper was afraid she'd ruin the mood for other customers, so he waved her away like shooing a pest.
"Wait." Among the tables in the corner, a Dunmer woman raised a hand. "I'll pay for her drink. Actually, I'll buy everyone here a round."
Everyone lifted their cups, delighted. Bralsa took her sujamma from the innkeeper. She carefully brought her cracked lips to the rim, letting the delicate foam wet them first. Then she took a slow sip to soothe her burning throat. One cup like this was enough for her to make it last for half an hour.
The Dunmer patron who'd bought the drinks walked over. Bralsa hurriedly bent at the waist. "Kind soul, may Azura light your path." Then she thanked the other outsiders as well. "Azura bless you all."
"She will." A beautiful Dunmer woman nodded absently, as if it were nothing.
Brelyna began recruiting in the inn. Once she explained the situation, the crowd that had been warm and excited gradually cooled off. Bralsa Drel was the first to sign up. She'd rather fight Ash Spawn than keep living like this, starving and freezing.
There were plenty of people like her in Raven Rock. In the first batch, only five miners signed up. Brelyna gave each of them a resettlement bonus: one hundred and fifty septims. Not too much, not too little—nowhere near enough for a ticket off Solstheim, but enough to live decently here for a while.
Bralsa went back to an abandoned shack in town, where she depended on Rirns Llervu for company. The man had once been Redoran Guard. When he froze and ran during an Ash Spawn attack, a comrade died, and he was discharged. That night, the two of them talked for a long time.
"Bralsa, you can't go. Those outsiders just want us to die for them."
"But Rirns… I only have this one road left. Are we supposed to starve to death here?" Bralsa's alcohol-poisoned eyes turned bright again, as if a gust of fresh air had blown into a dying furnace and stoked it back to life—glowing, burning. She pulled out the pouch of coins from her chest and cradled it like a child. "Look. Tomorrow I'll go mining with them. If I don't come back… you live on."
"Bralsa…" Rirns began to sob. His stomach churned with sorrow, joy, and pain, until a pair of rough lips pressed to his cheek, and the hot, acrid breath made his ears burn. They spent the night together, without holding back.
The next day, the outsiders somehow produced a batch of pack horses. They mounted up, and gave each miner a horse as well.
"We'll take good care of the horses. We won't let them be harmed."
The captain of the outsiders said with a smile, "You don't need to worry about the horses. They're made by magic. Worry about yourselves. If you run into enemies, hide first—or run far away."
The North Sea Ghost's crew and the miners they hired went out to gather heart stone ore. They left at dawn and returned at dusk. All five bold miners came back safely, and they were paid. Bralsa truly worked the hardest—she mined three times as much ore as anyone else. The money she earned would be enough for her to waste a whole month at the Retching Netch.
"It's like the good old days are back." Drunk on sujamma, that single line from Bralsa hooked at everyone's heart and pulled more bitterness up from the bottom.
On the second day, twenty people signed up. The third day, even more. In less than a week, the entire town's common folk were swept up in the fever, joining the outsiders' teams.
To the locals, heart stones couldn't be used to forge armor, and they couldn't serve as weapons—just useless waste rock. But to spellcasters who hunted secrets, what lay inside heart stone was the future of the world.
Skyl discovered that this special mineral could absorb thought-strings, condense souls, and remain extremely stable. His first thought was to use heart stone to build a false soul for magical artificial intelligence—but on second thought, that would only raise the risk of a machine-intelligence crisis.
After visiting the old mage Neloth, Skyl gained new inspiration.
Neloth's research into heart stone was also very deep. He had even developed a staff enchanter—a device that relied on heart stone's unique properties to fully automate the enchanting of pre-treated staves.
The soul-form condensed inside heart stone really could preside over an enchanting ritual. In that case, every processed heart stone was essentially an enchanting printer. It only required a skilled worker to operate—no need to waste a professional enchanter's time and energy.
The final missing piece of enchanting industry was found here..
//Check out my P@tre0n for 20 extra chapters on all my fanfics //[email protected]/Razeil0810