12

We crested a hill and walked down along a frozen stream, passing a small pond crusted with ice and snow. Just beyond the next row of trees, I could see a clearing and some small wooden buildings.

"There it is," Gaea said. "Welcome to Raven Rock."

We walked into the clearing and I looked around to see several ramshackle buildings scattered haphazardly around a central area where the grass had been trampled to mud, although the ground was frozen solid now. There was a fine layer of snow almost everywhere, and only a few stray footprints marred the serene surface. The buildings – barracks for the miners, I assumed – looked hastily built and not very sturdy.

The compound was built around the base of a tall rock formation that rose up from the ground and sloped further uphill, meeting with the beginning of the mountain range in the distance. The only building in the compound that looked well-constructed was the large, two-story mine building that was built against the side of the rock formation, and what I assumed was the entrance to the mine itself.

Gaea and I walked unhindered into the compound. The place seemed deserted. No one came to greet us, or even ask who we were. There didn't seem to be any guards anywhere, which hardly seemed intelligent, given the dangers of the forest and the supposed wealth of the mine. I was genuinely surprised that we could just walk right in.

"Is there anyone here?" I asked, looking around.

"They're probably all working in the mine," Gaea guessed.

"They don't have a wall. Not even a wooden fence."

"I know. Not very smart, huh? I guess the East Empire Company doesn't want to waste the manpower to build proper defenses when there is ebony to be mined. Even these barracks look like an afterthought."

Finally, we saw someone, as a miner came out of one of the side buildings. He was a Dunmer wearing baggy black trousers, a ragged brown tunic, and boots that seemed far too large for his feet. I soon noticed that his pants were actually brown as well, they just appeared black because they were so dirty. He stopped in his tracks when he saw us, and then gestured toward the two-story building.

"You lookin' for the office? It's over there," he mumbled.

"Hey," Gaea said to him, "Don't you have anyone keeping watch here?"

"Not now," the Dunmer said. "At night time we do, but not really in the day time. Sorry, but my break time is over. I got to go back inside." With that, he trotted away from us and went towards the mine.

I looked at Gaea and shrugged. "Come on," I said. "Let's deliver this stupid note and get out of here."

We went to the main building and walked up a ramp to a raised wooden deck. It continued to the left, and the walkway disappeared behind the office and into the mine, where the Dunmer had just gone. I saw a mass of dirty footprints all over the walkway, indicating that this is where the miners came and went on a regular basis. Gaea and I went up to the front door and went inside without knocking.

If I had been expecting a tidy and orderly office, I'd have been mistaken. There were tables and cabinets scattered around in no particular order, and stacks of papers and documents all over the place. There were two people in a corner leaning over a map and they glanced at us when we entered.

"Who are you?" one of them asked.

"I'm here to deliver a message," I answered. "Who's in charge here?"

"Talk to Falco. He's upstairs."

Gaea and I went to an open staircase and walked up to the second floor. It was almost as disorganized as the first floor, but not quite. Instead of random tables, there were two rows of desks, and some flimsy wooden torch racks hanging from the ceiling instead of proper chandeliers. There were a few more people here as well, hunched over desks or carefully perusing documents and maps. I noticed a bunch of black rocks stacked on a table in the corner, that I realized were chunks of pure ebony.

"Excuse me?" a portly man said as he walked up to us. "Can I help you with something?" He was a middle-aged man with a receding hair line and a poorly-trimmed beard, and he looked like he'd slept in his clothes.

I held out the envelope and said, "I have a letter for whoever is in charge here."

"Oh, well I'm Falco Galenus. I'm the manager here, so I'll take that."

I handed him the letter and he walked over to one of the desks, picking up a pair of glasses and placing them on his face. He tore open the envelope and quickly read the letter, frowning slightly as he did so.

"Oh well," he muttered. "One more thing to worry about."

I crossed my arms and walked over to him. "Can I ask what the letter says?"

Falco shrugged and put his glasses back on the desk. "Oh, it's just another warning about those barbarians. Not a lot of good a warning will do, I'm afraid."

"Don't you have any guards here at all?"

"Not at the moment. We are supposed to have an arrangement with the Legion, but they haven't sent us the soldiers we asked for. It's been two weeks now and we're still defenseless out here."

"Can't you just have some of the miners stand guard?"

"I wish I could," Falco said. He sighed heavily and leaned on the desk, running a pudgy hand through his thinning hair. "But the miners are all under contract. They aren't qualified or trained for combat, you know. And I can't spare them in any case, because our quotas to the EEC are so high that I need every miner I have just to meet them."

He paused then and looked closely at me, as if noticing for the first time that I wasn't one of the mine employees. "Excuse me, but who are you again?"

"My name is Sasha. I'm just the messenger that Captain Carius sent."

"Oh, okay then. You aren't wearing a guard uniform is all, so I was confused."

I smiled. "No offense, but you look pretty confused. Why are things so hectic around here? I would have thought that this place would be more organized."

Falco sighed wearily again and shook his head. "We don't have enough workers, enough supplies, or enough time to keep track of all our paperwork. My supervisors want everything done yesterday, you know? We have to fill out all these quality reports on the raw material we find, and they also want constant progress reports on the mine. Plus we have to calculate all the workers' commissions for each discovery they make."

"I couldn't help but notice that you don't even have a wall around the mine. Isn't that kind of dangerous?"

"I've been begging Carnius Magius to fill out a requisition form for some workers to finish the construction projects around the mine," Falco insisted. "But all he seems to care about is how much ebony we produce. We barely have enough supplies to even keep the mine operating, but if we don't meet our production quotas they threaten to dock our pay."

"Seems like a pretty bad place to work," I said bluntly.

Falco managed a tired grin. "Yes, right now it is. But in a few years, when we have more people and production really takes off, it will be a very good job to have. I'm confident that the ebony reserves here are quite sizable. There is a lot of money to be made here."

I was hardly an expert in Empire trade or the market for commodities, but even I knew just how valuable raw ebony was. "A lot of money" sounded like an understatement.

All that money on the line, and the East Empire Company couldn't even bother to hire some workers to build a wall to protect their investment?