text: [Themes: sci-fi]
  
  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.
  
  > keep the hemetite vein.
  There's going to be more money in this for you in the long run. Yeah. You'll need to head back there yourself and make a mark as a claim. Bring back some more of that hemetite and you'll be able to use the scrip to buy tools. Bring back a bit more after that and you can hire some men to do the digging for you. This'll work out great for you. It's not work you're used to, but you'll figure it out anyways. Most of the work that's done here on Hera started out as people just trying to figure out how things worked hundred of years before.
  
  Turning your attention back to the old miner at the desk you say. "Oh I wasn't intending to sell the mine. I was hoping to sell the ore."
  
  The gray haired man gives you a look that could shatter stone before going back to a more genial expression.
  
  "Oh. Well we can take that off your hands."
  
  He passes you a few scrip for the crystal.
  
  "I'd still like to buy that land off of you. We'll even pay you in Miners union scrip that I guarantee will be exchanged for the very first coins we make here in this Settlement."
  
  "Oh. I'll hang on to the plot of land and bring the ore I find to you. Give me a few weeks, and I'll hire some of the guys from the union." you reply.
  
  "That ore would move a lot faster and benefit everyone quicker if you just sold the plot to us." The Foreman stands up. While his hair might be gray and life has quite obviously not been kind to him, from the scars on his hands, and the muscle across his arms and shoulders, you can tell he's responded by being unkind to life. He steps around the table that's been set up rolling his shoulders forward as he approaches you. He stops just inside of your personal space. His voice has been polite this entire time, but his stance tells you he's willing to fight you for this mine.
  
  "It might, but it wouldn't do me as much good, and this place is a new beginning for most of us, myself included. I'll keep my claim."
  
  You watch as the man get's furious with your decision and a vein bulges from his forehead. Then suddenly like a bolt of lightning in a clear sky, he changes his expression to a smiles.
  
  "Ok, that's well and good. You just bring the ore you mine to us. My name's David Mason. Ask for me by name and I'll make sure you have a fair price."
  
  "Arthur Donaldson. I'll keep that in mind Mr. Mason." You say to him in reply. You're not certain you'd like to, but it isn't worth arguing about.
  
  With that business done you purchase a pick to attach to your pack and make your way back to your claim. It's several days there like it was before. This time you have the shelters you set up on your way and a better understanding of the land so you make better time. When you arrive you take a small scrap of cloth and tie it to a stick that you place at the base of the valley. That's all you technically need to make a claim here.
  
  You spend a day knocking hemetite loose from the stone of the valley and collecting it in a pile. Deciding that you have more than what you can take back you turn in for the night making a plan to travel back and use your earning to hire a few more men to help you with the work.
  
  You settle down for the night in your lean to shelter and go to sleep. Waking to the sound of crunching snow you stand up to see you little camp surrounded by men standing in a semi circle about ten feet from you. They're all armed with mining equipment.
  
  "You should have sold the claim to us!" a familiar voice says.
  
  "It's my claim. I would have hired some of you to help me with it."
  
  "You know that wouldn't be good enough."
  
  His figure takes a step towards you and the others follow. This is going to end in bloodshed. There's no way for you to run and even if you did you aren't wearing boots or a coat. You wouldn't last long like that. Do you reach for your rifle or draw you knife and close with Mr. Mason?
  
  > pick up your rifle.
  You lean down and snatch up your rifled musket. It only takes a moment, but that's all it takes for the miners to close with you. As you come back up you raise your musket to block the mattock that's swung overhead at you. You stop the swing from busting your head. Your block only stops the one swing though. As the various tools come down on you your musket goes off either from a convulsive squeeze from your hand or one of the jarring blow.
  
  One of your attackers drops without a noise and your world fades to black as you hear cussing from Mr. Mason.