“Hey.” the other boy said softly. “How do you think this ends, for us?”

  James’ eyes widened. Would they just all die, eventually? Despite their best efforts? Even if they behaved?

  “It’s been months since we got any new slaves, and last time we only got you, all by your lonesome.” The boy continued. “Before, slave traders and bandits would bring in a bunch of boys all at once. Or one or two every week or so. But now it’s been so long. And none of us were properly sold into slavery. We were all kidnapped. The way I see it, eventually, someone’s gonna figure out what’s going on and find us. They’ve gotta.” The boy had a hopeful look on his face. “It just stands to reason, see? Eventually, someone’s gonna see people coming up to this camp with boys and coming back with iron, and they’ll put two and two together. Then maybe some knights, or at least some adventurers, will come up here and rescue us. It just stands to reason, see? Eventually, someone will catch on. But we gotta hold on until then. We gotta survive until then. You get it, right? You can’t be dumb, not if you’re a mage. You get it?”

  James nodded. Yeah, that did make sense. He was sure his parents had notified the lord that he was missing. The lord had known James wanted to be a Smith, and the lord would probably not want to lose a valuable Class like that, not when the only other Smith was Jared. Of course, Jared was a fantastic Smith, but eventually someone would need to replace him as he got old and retired. Lords thought about things like that, way into the future. So, yeah, they were probably looking for him. And even though James wasn’t really a mage, real mages were even more rare than Smiths. If people were looking for James, then surely they were looking for all these mages that were going missing, right? Like the grey-eyed boy said, it just stood to reason. Filled with a sense of hope, James met the grey-eyed boy’s gaze and nodded.

  “Yeah, you’re right. I’m sure they’re looking for us.”

  “Yeah.” A smile flickered across the boy’s face, just for a second, before his expressionlessness returned. “So, will you back me up? Can you throw a punch, knock some sense into someone without really hurting them?”

  “Er…” James thought. Yes, his mother had taught him to throw a punch, knock someone off balance, Brawler stuff like that. He just wasn’t any good at it. “I can try. I’m pretty sure I can knock someone over, if they’re not expecting it.”

  “Hrmm…” the boy groaned quietly. “Well, as long as you’re backing me up, I think we can make it work. Just, don’t talk to the other boys, ‘specially not about getting rescued. If you get their hopes up, it’ll make them hate the work even more, and someone might blab about it where the slavers hear, and they won’t like that. Just back up what I say, and if anyone steps up, knock em over. Got it?”

  James was uncomfortable with this. Of course he was. His parents had always taught him that self-defense was the only justification for violence against another person. But given the situation… It was a matter of survival. And not just his survival. He knew he was getting special treatment from the slavers. They wanted him smithing, repairing tools, smelting iron. Enough that they pulled him out of the mines, twice. And if he was busy repairing tools, he’d probably be out of the mines more and more. Sure, he was still a slave, but compared to mining for hours and hours every day, smithing might as well be a vacation. That was sure to breed resentment among the other slaves. If they just took it out on him, he felt like he could accept that. But now that he knew some of the history of the slave camp, of the collective punishment that was hanging over their heads, he felt like he couldn’t just accept that resentment. What if one person refused to work, and everyone else was doing their work, and everyone got whipped just because of that one person? If he and the grey-eyed boy could keep that one resentful person from misbehaving, it would actually save everyone else, and that person, from the collective punishment that would start a vicious cycle.

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  On top of that, it was likely that the grey-eyed boy was right. Eventually, someone would come looking for them. Would follow a bandit or slave trader out here, find the slave camp, and either report it or fight off the slavers and free them. Or maybe even a bandit would track down the source of the iron ingots they were producing and start a fight, or leak the location. Nothing could stay hidden forever, surely? The other boy had to be right: it was a matter of time, and surviving until they were rescued.

  James looked the other boy in the eye and nodded firmly. Alright. He would back up this boy and help keep everyone focused and out of trouble. Sure, he would not be in the mine with them, not all the time, but he would do his best not to be the reason someone messed up and got everyone else in trouble.

  The other boy nodded back, then got up and left. The other boys in the lean-to were starting to awaken. James got up and headed over to the smelter to see how his anvil and hammer were cooling. They looked cool to the touch, but he carefully dripped some water on them first to see if it would sizzle, then quickly tapped them both to see if they were hot when the water did not sizzle. (Editor’s note: do not attempt this, whether you are a smith or not! It’s incredibly unsafe. If you suspect that metal has been heated, inspect it with a remote temperature sensing magical tool to determine the temperature, not your hands!) He was pleasantly surprised to find that both were cool to the touch, even without being quenched. However, they both appeared oddly green as he inspected them. They were greyish-black, as cast iron typically is, but they seemed to have a very minor green reflection in the light. As he looked closer, a thought intruded.

  [Material Identification: Cast Green Iron].

  Huh. Well, James thought that was no surprise, given that he’d mined and smelted the Green Iron himself. Another surprise was how light anvil was. A chunk of iron the size of a man’s head is heavy. But this chunk wasn’t as heavy as it should have been. Hefting the anvil, he noticed that it was about half as heavy as it should have been. He felt like he could carry this around for a while without being too fatigued. Not that he would need to do that, he figured. Once he set up his little forge, it probably would never move again.

  James then set himself to making a pair of tongs. Suffice to say, trying to make tongs by casting with a handmade mold in such primitive conditions was incredibly frustrating. He spent the rest of his allotted time on this task, never quite satisfied with the results but eventually reaching a point where he could work on repairing tools. In the evening of the last day, he assessed the pile of iron ore that had accumulated over the last five days of mining. Even though he had not added to the pile himself, the other slave boys had produced the same amount of iron as normal every day. He was just about to set himself to smelting as much as he could in the evening before going to sleep, he spotted two of the slavers approach out of the corner of his eye. He froze, hoping they would just pass him by, but no. The one James figured was a Merchant, who usually collected the iron ingots and took them away from the camp, called out to him.