The Weeping Core

Floating among the wreckage is a heavy, soldered ore-assayer's sample tin. Inside, packed in damp moss, rests a core of clear sky-crystal that continuously beads and drips with liquid mana as you watch. A waterproof slip tucked inside lists a mine shaft number and nothing else.

The ore appraiser weighs the crystal core, then weighs it again a minute later and writes down both numbers. "A weeping seam. The shaft it came from was sealed as worked out, and it lies in the next region." Two people are waiting when you come out: a Guild company agent with a purse, and a laid-off miner with her cap in her hands.

The miner leads you to a room above a dockside tavern where nine laid-off miners from the old shift pass the weeping crystal tin around in reverent silence. "The ladderway is solid down to the third level," an old ursine miner rumbles. "Below that, cave-beasts have moved in. We can either send a veteran timberman with you as a guide, or give you our spare provisions and mining gear—we can't afford both."

While the company cutter has already sailed ahead, the Guild agent catches you on the pier beside two company surveyors and a crate of heavy instruments. "My cutter didn't have room for the survey team's gear, captain. Carry these two surveyors to the shaft head in the next region, and the company will pay you another fifty silver." At the end of the pier, the laid-off miner is still watching you.

The mine entrance is boarded shut and wrapped in rusted chains beneath a weathered company closure notice. Cool, damp air smells of ozone through the planks—and from deep down the shaft comes the steady drip of liquid mana alongside the scuttling of underground beasts.

By the time you arrive, the mining company has already pitched tents and chained the shaft entrance. The two surveyors descend into the pit and return an hour later, pale with excitement. While the company clerk pays your passage fee, one surveyor pulls you aside: "The weeping mana-seam is real! Before the company posts armed guards down there tonight, I can smuggle up a sack of crystal cores for you—or sneak one of your mages down to study it."

Deep beneath the cliff, a glowing vein of crystal runs across the tunnel ceiling, weeping pure liquid mana into a clear pool below. Just standing near it makes your mages feel invigorated. You can chisel out one loaf-sized Wellspring Core safely—cutting any more without shoring up the rock will bring the ceiling down.