Blood, Plunder and D&D

As told to The Jezebels by Stronin Stonebreaker when they encountered him and his two brothers deep inside the Old Mine of Cerro Rico. "My two brothers, Droli and Newcomen, and I traveled here twenty years ago, from the Ernthor Mountains, on a special contract to upgrade the mining operations here. You see, the mithril seams of this mountain slant downward at an average 58 degrees..." "57.5" Droli interrupted "Well it depends on whether you mean median or mean" Newt countered "Whatever. Not relevant" Stronin continued, hushing his two brothers. "Anyway, the Vetrini had exhausted most of the mithril they knew how to get at. They needed to dig deep, really deep. Stonebreakers know how to dig deep. Everyone knows the dwarves of  Ernthor  are the best miners in the world, and the Stonebreaker clan are the best of the dwarves. So we came but I tell you we made them pay for it. Those Vetrini shit silver though, so they pony'd up. I'll tel...

      So my name is Benny Barlow, pleased to meet ya. Reckon I am a good person for you to talk to, since I worked that mine for over two years. Which means I stayed alive a lot longer then most, longer then anyone else at this camp anyway. And that was mostly, luck I gotta say. My momma always said I weren't smart nor pretty but  The Gentleman  favored me. Staying alive for two years ain't no mean feat here either, they don't call Cerro Rico "The Mountain That Eats Men" fer nothing. Many don't make it three months, between the cave-ins, bad air, cholera, dead-lung and the crazies, or just plain being worked to death. There are a lot of ways to die here.      The Vetrini don't give two shits who dies neither, they just keep new bodies rolling in to replace the old ones, and as long as the silver and mithril keep rolling out, they are happy as clams. Old, book learned fella I knew once said he did the math and based on how much fresh meat rolls in ...

       Vermithor soared through the afternoon sun, letting the thermals buoy him as he plunged down from his mountain toward the wide road that led to the shore. Anger and humiliation burned in his heart. He craved vengeance. They had defeated him ! They had driven him away, limping and injured. He who had destroyed entire armies and laid low mighty fleets of ships, had been humiliated by a small group of mortals.      "It was because I was arrogant and careless" he reminded himself. This was the well known weakness of his breed, a weakness he was well aware of and still sometimes powerless to overcome. The group advancing along the road toward his mountain had been so small in number, only eight of them, that he had assumed they would be easy meat. After all, he had laid waste to a much larger force on that very road, not half a mile from where he had met this new threat. He had approached carefully and managed to achieve complete surprise...