text: [Themes: sci-fi]
  
  The cart and the mule make the trip out take a few more days than you would like it to. You can't quite follow the same path you took back. The trip is still under a week so you call that a win.
  
  When you get there you imediatly set to work. That work for you starts with taking care of the mule and making sure it isn't hurt or sick, and that it stays that way.
  
  Following that you set up camp, making sure that there will be warm food and at least a basic shelter for when night comes. While you're doing all this the Singhs are gathering up the iron ore. It turns out that hemetite doesn't always take a lot of work to mine, so they have a respectable pile of near iron needles sitting by. David has even found a couple of rather large quartz peices that he's set to the side as well.
  
  Once they've tired themselves out they settled into the camp and you all sleep for the night.
  
  The next morning you have visitors.
  
  "Hello the camp!" comes from a band of miners down the draw from you.
  
  "Ha! We haven't even got our first shipment back to the settlement and we already have people lining up to work for us." David crows.
  
  They look like claim jumpers to you, but you don't want to smother Davids joy just yet. Who knows, you could be wrong. You pick up your rifle, and put your hatchet and knife on your belt just in case.
  
  You stand a bit off to the side of the Singhs as you stand in a line. The miners form up a line about fifty meters down the hill from you.
  
  "You can't just be setting up a mine without the miners union. We'll be taking over the hassle of getting all of this iron out of the ground for you." A barrel chested man with grey hair and a craggy face yells up to you. He does it in a joking tone of voice, but there's something about it that puts you off.
  
  "I don't believe you will. This mine has been registered in town as belonging to the Singhs and mister Donaldson here. It isn't owned by the union nor is membership in a union neccessary as part of the charter for Godbole's respite." Marrissa replies in a firm voice that the sides of the draw carry down clearly.
  
  You look over the faces of the miners down below you and you can see that not all of them are willing to attack you. You think the man leading that band of men down there is going off script.
  
  "That's all good and fine for the good people of Godbole's respite, but we aren't in Godbole's respite now are we. You need to work with a union outside of Chartered Georgian land!" The miner yells back.
  
  You think Godbole's respite is the name of the settlement. No one's actually mentioned it to you, but that would make sense. A few of the miners say something in hushed tones to the foreman but he cuts them off with a sharp gesture.
  
  "Why don't we just hire them Marrissa?" David asks.
  
  "If the union takes over this mine we'll only own this place in name. We won't actually make any money off it and we'll be back to square one." Marrissa replies.
  
  You slowly pull the hammer back on your rifle to half cock. All of this talk sounds like banditry to you. It might be dressed up with half laws and the like, but they're here to take your land all the same. The click of the hammer setting at half cock echoes down the draw in the clear morning air. Everyone stops speaking.
  
  "Are you going to try to gun me down for looking for work!? You think you can aviod the law on this!? Georgians hang murderers!" The grey haired foreman yells up at you.
  
  "Frontsman shoot bandits. You've come up to take my land trying to hide behind half laws. It's the bullet or the rope for you my friend."
  
  "I'm talking about the full law, here. In the Georgian kingdom you need to work with a union unless the city charter says otherwise. We aren't in the city, so the full law applies here!"
  
  "That's all good and well for the good people of the Georgian kingdom, but if the city charter doesn't apply here, then we're in Frontsman land. Seeing as you're trying to take a mine that was registered in Godbole's respite. I'd say that makes you a bandit no matter how you pretty it up." You speak clearly and calmly. You think you may very well need to kill this man and that means you need to make a conscience effort to keep the shake out of your voice.
  
  "Be reasonable..." The man says and takes a step forward. You line up the sight posts of you rifle with his chest and pull the hammer back into a full cock.
  
  "Do you think you can take us all!? You're a fool if you think you can!" He screams at you.
  
  > try to talk the Union Foreman down.
  You can't quite bring yourself to shoot a man down in cold blood, but no one here needs to know that.
  
  "Oh. I don't imagine that I'll need to. None of this will matter to you of course, because you'll be the first man I shoot. Your fastest runner willing to do something about it will just be the second man to catch a bullet."
  
  "You're trying to tell me you can reload that peice of yours in seven seconds?"
  
  "Of course not. I'm feeling tired today so it might take me a whole fifteen seconds. While I'm certain everyone here can run fifty meters in that time, I doubt everyone could do that running uphill, on uneven ground, with a mattock in their hands. Everyone after that is welcome to try me if they think they can take an indig fighter."
  
  You've never even seen an indig but no one here needs to know that. It's not like you said you are one either.
  
  "You can't take us all!" The foreman glowers.
  
  "Oh I don't know about that. Sure you're big stong miners and I'm certain I'd be in danger if I stood here like a rock. You're no indig fighters though, and that's a whole different animal. Which is why you're going to turn around and walk away. You came here for work. Not to become some sort of claim jumping bandit." You say.
  
  Some of the miners turn around and walk away at this. The few of them that were willing to fight you over this are losing steam and the union foreman is running out of steam.
  
  The foreman looks for some other arguement and more of the miners leave. He turns on them and starts cussing and swearing at them. He actually finds himself in a position where he needs to follow them to continue his tirade.
  
  You spend the rest of the day with your rifle near to hand and sleep on it for the next few days of work. When that's done the three of you leave back for the settlement to sell your ore to any metal workers that are willing to pay for it.
  
  You let David handle the dickering. He likes talking to people enough to where there's no way anyone will be able to talk him into a worse price for us. If they try that just means he can talk to them some more. It turns out that you've got the only real mine so far. Some gold flecks have been found in a stream a bit to the east, but you're it after that.
  
  David is swarmed with potential buyers and employees alike. You're mine is going to take off after this. You don't really know what to do with yourself at this point. You aren't a mining expert by any means and you don't know how to read, so you don't quite know how you can help from this point on. You let David know that you're going to go look for more prospects, and the reasons you're doing it.
  
  "That sounds great Arthur! Let us know if you find any other potential mining sites."
  
  "Will do. Don't tell Marrissa for the next day or so. I feel like she might try to talk me into doing something I'd rather not. I'm no mine manager, and I'm not literate."
  
  "Of course, best of luck."
  
  > go back to hunting for the time being.
  You go back to the cabin where you've kept your belonging and gather up all of your hunting tools again. As you leave the building you are stopped by a tall man in a government officials clothing.
  
  "Are you Mr. Arthur Donaldson?"
  
  "I am."
  
  "I'm Mr. Marcus Hefran. I work for George Godbole. It has come to my attention that you have experience as a Indig fighter. I have some work I'd like you to take care of if possible."
  
  You think you might have said that the miners weren't as hard as an Indig fighters and that might have been warped in the retelling to what this is now.
  
  "Well Mr. Hefran what do you have in mind?"
  
  "One of the migratory tribes has come back here from their winter quarters and have killed several men. We need a message sent with such violenct that they never do anything like this to the people of Godbole's respite ever again."
  
  "You're certain it's indig's that's done this?"
  
  "Yes. The have a tradition of eating the hearts of their victims. Not far from where we've found our citizen's bodies we've found their killers. They won't last long with that practice, but I don't want to lose a citizen for every dead warrior of theirs."
  
  "I'll do it." You reply.
  
  You don't even need to think about it. You know that if you don't do this you'll be killed and eaten. This way you'll be getting paid to kill that threat and if you fail you'll be killed and eaten anyway.
  
  "Good. You can meet the other fighters at the lighthouse tomorrow morning.
  
  > begin your career as an indig fighter.
  You meet up with ninteen other men. They're mostly older but not quite to the point where they've become long of tooth and grey of beard.
  
  Mr. Hefran is there and gives the group a general direction of where to go. The attacks have been happening to the East near where the stream carrying gold flecks is. You don't have a specific place to look where they might be camped. You do know that they most likely came from further east though.
  
  After that little bit of direction Mr. Hefran introduces a man named Michael Farmer.
  
  "I'll be the Captain of this group. We'll go quietly and if possible quickly. No camp fires at night so I hope you've brought plenty of furs to stay warm with. We get paid by the scalp so don't let any of them get away."
  
  A mule with provisions is provided and your merry and near silent band goes on it's way. It's three days before you find out the name of the man that walks beside you. That's all you find out about him. You only just exchange names before going to bed. On the fourth day you see smoke from a lone camp fire. When you arrive at the camp it's already gone out. The man that made it has had his chest cracked open and his heart cut out. Following the footprints which are to wide and short to be a man's footprints you come across another body.
  
  The body is the sort of thing that looks like it was made by somebody that heard about what a man looks like, but has never seen one. It's a short, squat grey skinned creature that has a thicker torso than a man. It's general features are still the same though. Mostly flat teeth with canines and incisors, five fingers on each hand, two eyes, and one nose. The indig also has more hair across it's body than most men would. You've met one man that could compete. That man said his ancestors came from Greece. You don't know what that has to do with anything, or what it means, or if he was just hairy and blamed it on his family.
  
  The dead body does give you a direction the indig camp might be in. Your group spreads out into a skirmish line and continue in the direction the body was going for the rest of the day. You all gather together and huddle for warmth when night comes. The next day you form the skirmish line again. After about an hour of walking you see the smoke from several campfires. Your band starts walking closer together as you close with the source of the smoke.
  
  Entering a clearing you see a small village with hide huts set up in the middle. The indigs before you look just like people to you. They might be primitive mishapen people, but they still look like people none the less.
  
  Your band forms up into a single line and the indigs have had more than enough time to notice you. Warriors quickly gather together between you and the village and the whole clearing goes silent. The villagers staring at you and you at them. Even the birds have ceased their song.
  
  Your captain says "Ready... Aim..." and you pull back the hammer of your rifle and line it up with the warrior across from you. Your hands are shaking, this isn't like the trouble you had with the miners. Some of the people in this conflict won't walk away from this. You remind yourself that the people that aren't going to walk away from this are cannibals and you hands steady for a moment.
  
  The world explodes and the rifle in your hands kicks. The Indigs across from you start screaming in fear and pain. The captain bellow two more words clearly.
  
  You pull the hatchet off your belt and run to keep up with all the others. Your heart is pounding in your ears and you feel an adrenaline and endorphine high that kicks up higher as you join in the battle cry the other fighters have taken up.
  
  Hurdling over the line of dead warriors you enter the village to find a wounded warrior blubbering to himself. He managed to get away after getting shot in the stomach but he didn't make it far. You finish him off with a hatchet stroke. It turns your stomach as you do it, but that same high picks up a bit more when you see his spirit leave his eyes.
  
  Moving on you see where some of the fighting has knocked over one of the tents. Someone is struggling under it so you move over to help them get loose. On the off chance it's one of the fighters you don't want to kill a freind. If it's one of them you won't have the hide protecting them.
  
  When you pull the cover off of them you see three indig children looking up at you with terror in their eyes. It take the high you were feeling right out of you. Looking up and around you see that most of what's left of the camp is women and children. They're getting cut down just the same.
  
  > cut down the children.
  This world isn't any more fair than the one your ancestors left. You could spare them, but unless you wanted to raise them yourself they wouldn't have a chance of survival. All of the warriors of the tribe lay dead behind you. The mothers of the tribe are dying now. Cutting their throats right here and now is more merciful than waiting for the cold, starvation or wolves to do it instead.
  
  You start with the youngest and work your way to the oldest. Your stomach roils when you pass the knife across their little necks but the deed is done and it's something you'll need to live with. You don't take their scalps. Killing them was bad enough, but getting paid for it seems worse at this point. You manage to step away from the bodies to throw up. You heave and sob for a moment before someone else comes by and pats you on the back. He gives you a water skin to clear your mouth and tells you a few comforting things you only half hear.
  
  After your party gathers the gruesome trophies needed for payment you turn around and head home. There's actually some talking this time around. Talking to them you find out that most of them feel the same way you do about the work. It's a nasty job, but a man does what needs to be done. Some say that the Indig aren't real people, they just look like it, others say that cannibals aren't worth crying about. One man tells you that they are people but these ones needed to die because of what they were doing to your people. You don't like it all, but some of it's comforting.
  
  When you get back you all make a good bit of coin for it. Not actual coin just yet. You're still getting paid in scrip. but it gets you a bit of food and drink for awhile. You try to find something to do with the mine but it doesn't feel right. Eventually you take the combined cash you've earned and buy a mule and a plot of land somewhere between where the mine is and the settlement is, and go back to hunting.
  
  > Continue
  You plant corn in the space that cutting lumber has cleared around your home. You even make a decent sized vegetable garden behind your house. To your surprise there are only a few hours of night during the summer, and while that's extremely irritating for your sleep cycle, it's great for your vegetable garden,.The vegetables in your garden grow to absurd sizes. It's more than what you can eat and keep in your root cellar so you end up selling to the miners up the mountain and actually make a decent amount of coin. The corn you grow is also more than enough for the needs of yourself and your mule.
  
  You keep in contact with the Singhs because you do own a business with them. You try to socialize with them, but it isn't the same anymore. One time and only one time you tried to explain what it was like to go to that fight and kill. They didn't understand it. They tried to understand and maybe they did at some level, but they couldn't comprehend what you were trying to say at an emotional level. Not being able to fully explain it to them hurt you in a way you still can't quite explain.
  
  Come winter the coats of the animals in the wilds thickens again and you go back into the fur trade. When the spring thaw comes you start all of this over again. Every year there are different miners on the mountain, so you never get to know any of them well. You get called back to the settlement, which come to find out was named Godbole's respite at first landing. You work as a common laborer building some sort of castle, lighthouse combination.
  
  The next spring there are more bodies found that have had their hearts cut out and a call for Indig fighters is made once more. To your surprise you answer the call. It feels good just to be around people that know what it's like to be in a battle. Just like the year before you come across them right as the sun rises and you don't lose a man among you.
  
  When your three years pass you decide to stay right where you are. You have a bunch of coin built up at this time, you've dug a well, and you've cleared more land around your home to the limits of what you can maintain on your own.
  
  After five years of living here, war comes. You volunteer to fight in this one just like you volunteered to fight the Indigs. The Georgian government decided that your little settlement in the wilds wasn't paying proper taxes or some such. The war never reached your hill. The Georgian navy spent a while bombarding Godbole castle, but gave up on that plan when the castle shot back with larger cannons. So they sent the army in who managed to take the settlement but were destroyed by the Frontsmen in the wilds. Your band of Indig fighters led that effort in the wilds as well. The Georgian army carried muskets that ranged to fifty meters instead of proper Frontsman rlfles that were accurate up to three hundred meters. The Georgians eventually retreated and your part in the war was done.
  
  The Singhs were fine during all of that. David actually managed to become an officer in the Army of the North and led one of the platoons that broke the siege in the last battle.
  
  After the war you went back to what you did before. Hunting, Farming and occasionally war when one of the Cannibal tribes came down. You actually amassed a sizable fortune in gold coins once the gold vein was found at the top of that stream. You hid it away in your home. You were to used to a simple life to buy to many luxuries. So you just saved up for a rainy day.
  
  That rainy day came thirteen years after you first made landfall. The original band of fighters you wandered with had split up a few times as the years went by but the originals were always respected. You were with a group of newer fighters when you were ambushed by one of the mountain tribes of Indigs. Your body was found later with your arms and feet crossed. The Indigs were kind enough to close your eyes and had learned better than to eat a man's heart. They did take your rifle, knife and hatchet though. The Singhs both cried when they got the news and paid for your burial. They sold your land to new settlers having no need of it them selves. The siblings had finally broken ground on their fourth mine.
  
  Treasure hunters spent years trying to figure out where you hid away all of your coin. It wasn't until forty-seven years later that a new immigrant family moved in that it was found. A Henry Thatcher aged thirty one found it when he tried to replace the wellhead and found that the thick log that the well rope wrapped around was heavier than it should be and turned out to be hollow. You unintentionally saved a family from starvation and left them with medicine to save one of their sick children forty years after you passed. It was your eighty third birthday, which was known to no one but that family decided that you were a friendly ghost to them.