Pick on coal.
The sound echoed up through the Level 3 passages—the particular ring of metal striking organic rock rather than the harder minerals we'd been excavating for months. Brec's crew had reached the seam, and from the sounds traveling through the tunnels, what they'd found was everything the SEG had promised.
I descended through the familiar passages, past the Level 2 junction where the forge had been producing refined iron for weeks, past the warm-stone section I'd learned to avoid, into the newer excavation corridors where the air carried the distinct smell of exposed coal.
The chamber opened before me at 42 meters depth.
The coal seam ran wide and deep—a black vein cutting through the granite substrate, extending at least sixty meters northeast according to my survey readings. Clean-burning anthracite, the kind of fuel that would support the forge indefinitely.
[+12 DP — Level 3 Chamber Opened]
[+15 DP — Ore Deposit Discovery: Coal Seam, High Grade]
[Current DP: 33/100 | Lifetime: 178 DP]
Brac stood at the seam face, counting the thickness with the particular attention I'd learned to recognize as dwarven thoroughness.
"How many times have you measured?" I asked.
"Three." He didn't look away from the coal. "I don't trust first counts on good news."
"What does the third count say?"
"Same as the first two. This is a real seam. Twelve months of forge operation at current capacity, minimum. Probably longer."
The forge fuel problem is solved. The economic transformation continues.
I walked the chamber perimeter while the excavation crew began establishing extraction protocols.
The SEG showed the expected features—coal density variations, drainage channels that would need management, structural considerations for the extraction pattern. Standard surveying, the kind of work I'd been doing since arriving in this body.
At the eastern edge of the chamber, the overlay showed something different.
White-luminous. The particular signature I'd learned to associate with precious metal deposits.
Silver.
A small vein, not a primary seam—perhaps enough for modest production if developed carefully, nothing that would transform the colony's economics the way the iron and copper had. But real. Present. Detectable by the SEG and presumably by anyone else who surveyed this chamber with the right tools.
I stood at the vein edge, considering.
Silver changes the threat profile. Iron and copper attract merchants. Silver attracts lords, kings, and the particular kind of attention that treats resource producers as assets to be controlled rather than partners to be traded with.
The Temerian Crown. The Mahakam council. Anyone else who learns what's been found here.
The system hadn't generated a notification yet—the deposit wasn't confirmed by physical survey, only detected by my overlay. Which meant I had a choice.
I stepped back from the eastern wall and returned to where Brac was organizing the extraction schedule.
"The seam runs northeast," I said. "Standard extraction pattern, start from the western face and work toward the junction. Leave the eastern section for later assessment."
Brac nodded without questioning the instruction. The eastern section was furthest from the established infrastructure—leaving it for later made logistical sense.
I told no one about the silver.
Triss was at the surface when I emerged from the Level 3 survey.
She stood near the colony's eastern gate, watching something on the road—a rider approaching from the Temerian direction, moving with the urgency of official business rather than the casual pace of a merchant.
"Temerian royal messenger," she said when I reached her position. "He's been riding hard—the horse is lathered."
Royal messenger. Someone important enough to send a rider instead of waiting for normal trade routes.
The messenger reached the gate, presented credentials to the sentry, and handed over a sealed document. The seal bore the Temerian royal crest.
Davan intercepted the document before it reached me, which was his job. He broke the seal, read the contents, and his expression shifted to the particular neutrality he adopted when delivering complicated information.
"Formal acknowledgment of the colony's existence," he said. "From the Crown's administrative office. They've noted the forge smoke columns and flagged us for a preliminary assessment."
"What do they want?"
"Production figures. Resource inventories. Population census." He handed me the letter. "The formal version of 'we've noticed you exist and we'd like to know what you're doing.'"
I read the letter twice. The language was bureaucratic, carefully neutral—no threats, no demands, just a request for information that any legitimate operation would provide.
Triss read over my shoulder without being invited to.
I noticed. I didn't object. She noticed that I didn't object.
"The Crown's assessment process takes approximately two months," she said. "I've seen the protocol in Brotherhood records. First they request information, then they send an assessor, then they determine what taxes or obligations apply."
"You've been here two weeks and you already know our external threat profile better than Davan does."
"I've been investigating your operation for two weeks. Understanding who else is interested in that operation is part of the investigation."
She's shifted from investigating me to investigating problems with me. Without either of us announcing the change.
That evening, I drafted the response to the Temerian letter.
Iron production figures: accurate, comprehensive, slightly understated for conservative reporting. Copper extraction: same approach. Coal: newly discovered, preliminary estimates provided. Population: current census, racial distribution, workforce categories.
No mention of silver.
Triss watched me draft the response without commenting. When I finished, she picked up the document and read it through.
"You're not including everything," she said.
"I'm including everything they asked for."
"The eastern section of Level 3. You walked it separately from the main survey. You didn't share your observations with Brac."
She noticed. Of course she noticed—she's been trained to notice gaps in reported information.
"Some discoveries need optimal release timing," I said. "The forge economics are already enough attention for a colony our size. Additional complications can wait until we have the infrastructure to manage them."
"That's a political answer."
"It's an engineering answer. You don't add load to a structure that hasn't finished settling."
She set the document back on the table. Her expression was difficult to read—not disapproving, but assessing in the way I'd learned to expect from her.
"I haven't filed my Brotherhood report," she said.
"I know."
"I should file it. The mandate requires preliminary assessment within ten days of arrival."
"It's been fifteen days."
"I know." She was quiet for a moment. "The assessment I would file doesn't match the assessment I was sent to make. I'm still determining how to explain the discrepancy."
She's protecting me. Not directly—she wouldn't call it protection. But she's choosing not to file a report that would trigger Brotherhood scrutiny at the same time the Temerian Crown is initiating contact.
"File whatever assessment reflects what you've observed," I said. "If the Brotherhood sends senior investigators, I'll show them the same calculations I showed you."
"They won't correct your material estimates."
"Then they won't understand what they're looking at. That's not my problem to solve."
Triss smiled—small, brief, the first genuine expression of warmth I'd seen from her since she arrived.
"You're very confident for someone running a borderland colony that multiple powers are now interested in."
"I'm confident in the engineering. The politics I'm still learning."
"Then you should know that the Temerian assessment and my Brotherhood investigation will eventually overlap. They'll compare notes. Discrepancies between what I report and what you report to the Crown will be investigated further."
"Then there shouldn't be discrepancies."
"No," she agreed. "There shouldn't."
I sealed the Temerian response and gave it to Davan for dispatch.
Accurate figures for iron, copper, and coal. Population census. Governance structure. Production projections for the coming quarter.
No mention of silver.
The rider departed with the morning's first light, carrying information that would begin the process of formal Temerian recognition—taxes, obligations, the particular attention that came with being noticed by larger powers.
The Level 3 coal seam would fuel the forge for at least twelve months. The silver vein remained undisclosed, a variable I was holding in reserve until the optimal release timing became clear.
Triss remained at the colony, her investigation technically active, her report still unfiled. We worked at opposite ends of the same table, two people with different mandates who had somehow arrived at the same conclusion: that the colony deserved protection from the attention its success had attracted.
The questions multiplied.
The answers would have to wait.
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