text: [Themes: sci-fi]
  
  "I'm sorry Marissa. I don't think it'd be safe to bring you along."
  
  "It can't be safe for you to go by yourself. We can't afford to stand by and do nothing without some kind of income. We'll need food soon."
  
  "The pair of you will do fine. Keep some of the food you're issued off to the side in case things get tight. The old scans from before landing said there was plenty of metal in these mountains. No way the stone tool using indigs around here could use it or move it."
  
  You leave before she can put forward another arguement. Arguing is something Marissa is good at and something you've never had any practice at. She'd end up talking you around if you gave her half a chance.
  
  You walk past the fence that's been built up around the town that's just been started. Passing by open ground that's covered in the stumps of trees that now make up the town, you find yourself in a position to make another decision about your future.
  
  You can head up to the mountains and start prospecting for the metals up there. The scan printouts that George Godbole saw before bringing you here only stated that the mountains had metal in them. Never did he mention anything about what kind of metals. One of the fastest ways you can help the Singhs is to find a vein of silver ore for them.
  
  On the other hand you don't know a ton about prospecting. Sure you can recognize gold, silver, copper, tin and the like. You just couldn't say much more than that. Maybe that's all you need though.
  
  You do know how to hunt though. You know how animals think for the most part, and you know what they need. You've killed and skinned plenty of animals, and you have the gear you need to process the carcass. If you can bring down an earth beast you have food, a hide, and maybe even the oil you can get from the fat. A Heran animal will get you a hide, and the oil. God knows you can make a decent living off of lamp oil and all the furs you're going to be able to ship back. It's the trade you had in mind when you came on this voyage, and it's the trade you came equiped for.
  
  > try prospecting in the mountains.
  Might as well try your hand at prospecting. The animals will still be there when you're done looking for valuable metals. Once someone lays claim to the land the metal is under, you won't have access to it.
  
  You shoulder your pack and start walking to the mountains. You spend the next several days walking. You walk through the open areas and the forested areas and little bit by little bit the incline increases. You eventually hit foothills and start meandering through those. You see sign for some of the same creatures that were reported before. You occasionally see smoke from the fires of other prospectors or maybe some of the natives.
  
  While looking through the hills you find a few roots you can add to your rations. Not much else seeing how early in spring it is. Traveling slowly up the mountain you look back and see the settlement on the horizon. It's a brown patch surrounding a stony outcrop, that itself is surrounded by the large fields and forests still covered in snow. Beyond that is the slowly rolling waves of the sea. You take it all in for a moment before continuing to where you think streams have dug into the mountain side.
  
  You've chosen one of the deep draws up the side of the mountain range that no one else has bothered with. You know copper is green and gold glitters much like it does when it's smelted. After that you don't really know what you're looking for. You come across some brownish rocks that are crystaline in form and pocket that. After several hours of walking around and looking at rocks you've decided you're wasting time and should get back to hunting.
  
  You bag a few of the opax and take the fat and hides off of them before heading straight back to the settlement. You're out of rations the last day of walking back. You get scrip for the hides near where the administrative tent has been set up and sell the animal fat for much of the same. While you're there you feel the crystal in your pocket which you've forgotten about. You take it over to the tent some of the mining administrators are at and show it to them.
  
  A craggy faced, gray haired man is manning the desk. He glances at the crystal and perks up.
  
  "Hemetite. We've got iron in the hills. I'll be more than happy to buy that claim off of you."
  
  You didn't leave any marker on the mountain as a claim, but no one here needs to know that. You can still sell it to these miners. Actually, come to think of it you don't need to sell it. You can keep it and hire a few people to mine it for you. Everyone is getting paid in scrip anyway so you could do just more of that. If you own the mine you'll be making decent money here without breaking your back yourself. It's at least something to consider. It'll also be a lot of hard work that you aren't familiar with. It might be wiser to take the cash that they'll give you and go back to what you've always done before.
  
  > sell the hemetite vein.
  You"ll need to guide them to the claim, but you were going that way to hunt and prospect anyway.
  
  "I'll show you to the claim before we try to settle on a price. That way you know I'm not trying to pull one over on you."
  
  The craggy grey haired man stands up and offers a hand to shake, which you take.
  
  "David Mason."
  
  "Arthur Donaldson."
  
  "It's a deal mister Donaldson. Would you be willing to guide us there in the morning?"
  
  "I can do that. I'll meet you here at Daybreak mister Mason."
  
  You crash like a stone into your cot barely taking notice of the changes in your cabin before going to sleep. The next morning you take a small band of miners out to you claim. The walk goes slower than before and it almost takes a full weeks to get them there. They had brought a cart for supplies and to bring some of the ore back. This means you lead them along a wider path than the one you took before and the party needs to stop occasionally to move a fallen tree or break a boulder. You manage to lead them to the draw without any injuries and show them to the hemetite that you've found.
  
  "Well that's a fair seem mister Donaldson. I'll give you two thousand scrip for it."
  
  "I'll take that deal mister Mason."
  
  The two of you shake on the deal and the pieces of paper are given to you. You find yourself returning back to the settlement in a long slow way to pick up a few more furs before summer sets in. You'll need to find a place to build a homestead soon. At least where you can keep some of your belongings and plant a field or two. You won't live long in this place without something to eat besides meat, and forage.
  
  The question is where do you want to do this. Sure you have the cabin in town, but a real house would be preferable to a little five by twenty room. You could at least get a five by twenty room to yourself. Maybe you could try to get yourself a home in town or on the outskirts of it. Then again as a hunter setting up somewhere in the wilderness might be better. It'd be nice to have some place to keep furs before bringing them into town. The town will be safer though. You haven't had a run in with any of the Indigs yet. You don't know if anyone has just yet. They still might be hostile or friendly, or maybe just opportunists.
  
  > build a home back in town.
  Safety might be the better option for now. You take your time going back to town. The animals you come across will likely shed their winter coats soon so any hides you take now will be the only ones worth selling. It takes you nearly two weeks to get back to the settlement.
  
  You once again sell the fat and the hides and take the money you've earned from selling the hides and mine to buy a small plot of land. You build a small cabin on it and grow some corn on it. The cabin is about the same size as the one you were sharing with the others. You set aside the land on one side of your house for a vegetable garden that actually does better than the corn in some ways. At the height of summer the sun barely sets and this means that the vegetables you do grow become enormous. You sell off more of what you grow because it's more than you can eat or keep in your root cellar.
  
  > Continue
  Living just outside of the settlement you spend the summer growing crops and the winter hunting. Some of the other Frontsmen have built cabins to winter in and everyone has made the tradition of cutting as much firewood as possible before leaving.
  
  By the second year the settlement which was apparently named "Godbole's respite" at landing, though no one told you that, has developed coinage so you turn your scrip in for gold and silver. You haven't managed to keep in contact with the Singhs in all of this, but think about them sometimes during the winter. Summer always seems to be to busy to find them. The few times you think to look them up in the summer, going outside seems to be a terrible prospect because of the massive amount of mosquitos that appear shortly after every spring thaw. Some of the open flatlands nearby turn into swamps every summer, and while there's been talk of draining it, no one's been forthcoming with the work.
  
  George Godbole does call on you for the time you agreed to serve directly. You spend a bit of time after harvest each summer as a common laborer building the castle which functions as a fortified lighthouse for the harbor. This all goes on for three years.
  
  At the end of your three year contract more immigrants come into town and a well to do Georgian offers good money for your land. You've built up an impressive sum of money but you also realize that you have no ties. Not even a contract is holding you here. You miss your mother and father fiercely and haven't had word from them in years. You take the man up on his offer and gather up your meager belongings before leaving the settlement in the North.
  
  Returning home a wealthy man you do well for yourself and live out a rather well to do life. You eventually get married and have a family of your own leaving your loneliness behind in the frozen wastes you made your small fortune in.