Orichalcum Mining Node sits on the edge of a sun-warmed ledge, a squat, stubborn thing that looks as if it grew out of the rock itself. Its rind is a weathered copper-burnished skin, etched with pale gold veins that catch the light and flicker like tiny embers. The surface is rough, almost scaly, each facet catching a different shard of the sun and throwing it back in a dozen hungry glints. When you lean in close, the air seems to hum with a soft, mineral resonance, as if the earth itself is listening to your breath. The core glows faintly, a warm, turbid heartbeat beneath the outer shell, and the color shifts from burnished bronze at the rim to a molten gold where the seam breathes. Lore has it that orichalcum is the metal of smiths who once carved legends into the world—the kind of metal that remembers heat, hammer blows, and the glow of a forge long past. That memory lingers in the node, a weight you can feel in your knuckles as you grip the haft. I found mine after a morning march along a crumbling slope, half hidden by shale and scrub. A routine strike sent a bell-like tone echoing through the valley, and the seam yielded to my pick with a reluctant sigh, revealing a core that glittered with threads of pale gold braided through iron. The rock parted with a whisper of stone dust, and I angled the pick for a clearer view, as if the ore itself might choose to reveal its fortune. When the first chunk came free, it carried warmth in its heft and a subtle tremor in the air as if the ore still remembered the furnace’s breath. Each strike released a spray of micro-sparks, dust that glinted like pepper in sunlight, and the scent of copper and rain rose from the ground. It was patient work, coaxing the vein loose, tracing the path the miner knows by instinct rather than by map, moving with the river of other prospectors who learned where these veins prefer to lie. Back at camp, the ore becomes promise rather than pattern. Refined into ingots, it lights the smith’s bench with a fevered glow, a material strong enough to temper blades and bright enough to set a workshop abuzz. In the hands of a skilled crafter, orichalcum ingots become the backbone of late-game gear—armor that holds to the skin under heat and pressure, weapons that sing when drawn, tools that reshape a battle itself. The supply is never endless, and every successful melt carries with it the memory of the hillside where the node slept, the long walk to the foundry, and the price that kept the mine’s lights burning for another day. That price threads into the day’s drama at Saddlebag Exchange, a market stall where a weathered clerk tallies ingots and ore with a practiced eye. Prices drift with rumors and shipments, and merchants speak in hushed tones about the latest pickups from far-off ranges. You learn to read the market the way you read a vein—by listening to the chatter, watching the scales tilt, and weighing your coin against the optimism of a new shipment. You walk away with more than metal; you carry a memory of the hillside, a sense of the forge’s needs, and a future barter at Saddlebag Exchange, where the rock’s quiet strength meets the city’s hunger for fire and shine. Orichalcum mining is a story etched in heat and habit, a world that keeps turning piece by piece, one glowing node at a time.