A few days before the solstice, I gathered an exploration party and headed out for a few promising locations. I rolled the little magnetic lodestone in my hand, and asked Kelser to open up the field map I’d made for our little journey.

The static electricity spell that I’d invented after my experiments was very useful. In hand to hand combat, I could probably incapacitate most people and monsters with just a touch, and it could form the basis for many other types of spells and even weapons. I’d already shown that I could use the static charge to create a small spark, which could be used to light fires. Of course, that ability was kind of useless when fire magic was around, but I couldn’t really proceed much further without one very important material:

Iron.

And that was why we were going out to various promising locations with a little magnet. Of course, the magnet wasn’t strong enough to detect iron ore deposits just by holding it in my hand, but I could use it to confirm ores that I wasn’t too sure about. I’d also been on the lookout for tin, since I could use that to make bronze in case we didn’t find iron, but I really wanted some iron to replace the small amounts of natural copper that I was stuck using at the moment. I also wanted to use iron for a few experiments, especially ones involving the creation of new magnets.

Finding iron ore shouldn’t be too difficult. I had already asked hunting and foraging parties that had left Bek Tepe recently to be on the lookout for certain types of exposed ore or other signs of iron deposits. The first stop for my party was one such sign, discovered by a foraging party that had been tracing the length of the nearby rivers.

“This is it,” I said, as I crouched to the ground and ran the lodestone over the sand. Little flakes stuck to the lodestone, although they were easily brushed off.

“We’re looking for sand?” asked Kelser. “Shouldn’t we go to the beach, then?”

“No, we’re not looking for beach sand,” I said, “we’re looking for iron sand. Like this stuff right here.” We were spread out over the area right beside a major bend in the river. The water lapped at the river’s edge, threatening to flood over the banks at any moment. The iron sand deposits in the area were likely a result of this bend, since the river probably ran over this piece of land at some point in the past.

“Iron sand?” repeated Kelser. “You said iron was a metal, like copper. How are we going to turn this stuff into weapons and tools?”

“I’m not sure if we can,” I said as I gestured towards a few members of our party. I told them to gather as much of the iron sand as they could and load it up into gourds and hide bags. “You can return to Bek Tepe, but don’t bring the iron sand all the way to the top. You remember the small hut in the woods I pointed out on the way over? Just take them all there and go back up to Bek Tepe. Make sure to leave everything down there, and to wash your clothes off in the nearby creek before you return.”

Half of the party split off from us here, digging through the area in search of iron sand. Kelser looked over them, helping them along with some magic hands. “Are you sure they need to be so secretive?”

I nodded. “I don’t trust that princess. At least, not yet.”

“Is it because she’s the only survivor of her party?” asked Kelser.

“Yes, that’s part of it. A pampered princess surviving when all of her hardy bodyguards died? That’s a little difficult to believe. Especially in a society without powerful, systematized magic. But no, it’s her story. About her people and their religion,” I said.

“The Heavenly Eye?” said Kelser.

“Yep,” I said, “the princess’ red pendant is a gift from the priests of the Heavenly Eye. She said it helps the royal family with diplomacy and communication, but all it does is apply a sort of translation magic to her.”

“Why is that a bad thing?” asked Kelser.

“Because I know who gave me my translation magic,” I said, as I helped scoop up some iron sand. “It was the same evil being that dragged me into this world. The Immortal of Evil!”

After collecting as much iron sand as they could, half of the foraging party left back the way we came. I brought the rest of the party with me up the length of the river towards the mountains in the far north. Of course, I didn’t have enough time to go all the way to the mountains and be back in time for the solstice, but I knew I probably wouldn’t have to go all the way. The people of this world had not industrialized, and the people on this side of the mountains hadn’t even entered the iron age. Lots of easy to access, high grade ore should be easy to find as long as one knew how and where to look. And now that I’d found iron sand settled on a bend in the river, I knew the river itself must run through or near several major iron ore deposits further up its path.

I squinted my eyes. “There!” I pointed at a few rocky formations up ahead of us. The formations weren’t actually in the path of the river itself, but there was a small tributary rolling down the formations to join into the main river. The water in the tributary was dark and murky. A good sign.

We walked up all the way to the spot where the tributary appeared from inside the rocky formations. I figured there was some sort of underground body of water that flowed out through a few openings into the water that we could see out here. The rock in the exterior didn’t seem all that promising, but I asked everybody but Kelser to spread out and look for certain signs of iron ore. I also told them to avoid the area near the flowing water, since I would be blowing it up shortly.

I positioned Kelser on one side of the water, and stood on the other side myself. When I gave him the signal, he launched earth magic into the front of the rocky formation from one side while I fired my earth magic on the other. Soon, we had dug into the rock, sending debris into the water and a cloud of dust in front of our eyes. We had to step back to avoid the dust, and used air magic to blow it all away. I even cleared out the debris from the flowing water so I wouldn’t disrupt the river too much.

“This is amazing,” said Kelser as he stepped through the narrow opening and into the large hollow cave inside. There was a lake full of murky but strangely reflective water, with a bunch of dry rock circling around it. The lake was probably fed by an underground source, possibly a river, but the cave itself didn’t seem too dangerous.

Just to be sure, I had Kelser step outside, and made sure all the humans were far away. I then launched a few small, controlled fireballs into the cave. Luckily, there wasn’t a large concentration of natural gas or similarly flammable materials, so we could walk inside with a small torch to help us see the walls.

And as soon as I walked inside with a torch, I felt excitement flow through me. “Bingo!” I shouted.

“What?” said Kelser, giving me a strange look.

“I mean, we’ve found it,” I said as I traced my hands over the walls. Veins of iron ore, most of it dark, and possibly magnetite, filled the walls. There were even a few areas further in where I could extract the ores directly with earth magic.

I called in all the humans and we started extracting as much of the iron ore as we thought we could carry back. We filled several emptied gourds and strengthened hide bags, before we had to leave in order to make it back to Bek Tepe before the solstice.

I made a large pillar outside the rocky formation, and marked it on the working map that Kelser had been carrying. I was sure I’d be able to find a few more locations full of iron ore in the near future, but this source should be good enough for the first few tools and weapons that I wanted to teach the humans about. In fact, this area might be a good hunting spot as well, since I’d already killed a couple of powerful monsters nearby, although they hadn’t been worth mentioning because of how powerful our magic had become. Any hunting parties that come here might be tasked to bring back a little ore too, since we’d already run through the copper from the mines near the Roja tribe’s home.

We arrived at my secret hut near Bek Tepe just one day before the summer solstice. I was tempted to hunker down and begin smelting the iron ore, but decided against it. All of the preparations for magic and weapons was complete. I would be able to strengthen the humans very quickly, which would help me cross over the mountains and meet the demon kingdoms on the other side. Then, I could finally follow the clues to the other elfin tribes and figure out the mystery of ‘annihilation.’

But first, I had to prepare for the summer solstice festival. Our party left the iron ore by the bags and gourds full of iron sands near the hut, and began making our way towards Bek Tepe.