Mithril Mining Node sits in the tunnel like a fallen star, its outer crust a rough iron-gray shell that glints with a cold, silvery sheen when struck by torchlight. The surface bears pocked hammer marks, as if some ancient smith carved it from the mountain itself, and the metal within hums faintly with a memory of old battles and old bargains. Threads of moon-white mithril run through a stubborn dark rock, catching the flame and throwing back a cold, patient light. Legends say this ore was tempered by dwarven hands during the elder ages, bound to the earth like a vow, and to touch it is to feel history pressing at the fingertips. In gameplay, the node is a quiet but loyal source of progress. Strike it and the glistening vein yields Mithril Ore, a prize sought by blacksmiths keen to forge blades and armor that carry more than weight—they carry a story. The ore can be refined into bars used in weapon and accessory recipes and into rare components that unlock selective patterns in the guild halls. It’s not always a haul, but when the camp flame burns low and the path grows quiet, a handful of nodes like this one become the center of a small economy: a route that miners walk, a trade that merchants track, a reputation earned with each swing of the pick. What gives the Mithril Mining Node its place in the broader tale is less the shine and more the arc: a resource tied to mountain kingdoms, to smiths who refuse to bend to time, and to adventurers who carry tales of the gorge in their pockets. When the ore is gathered, smiths across districts will melt and hammer, weaving mithril through chain and plate, imbuing armors with a legend that is passed from smithy to smithy as if a chain of memory. The cadence of this work—the percussion of pick on stone, the hiss of enchanted ore meeting heat, the patient waiting as the metal cools—becomes a rhythm in the lives of towns that depend on it for shelter and prestige. The market breathes in on a different note, though, and a scene unfolds at the Saddlebag Exchange, a hive of clattering carts and barter-sewn conversations where prices drift with the tide of demand. A vendor with grease-streaked gloves trains an eye on the moonlit vein and prices the ore not in gold alone but in stories traded as currency—tales of explorers who found a vein beneath a ruined temple, or a caravan that vanished with a shipment of mithril bars. It is here that a miner might swap a few stacks for lumber, straps, or a pack of lantern oil, and suddenly the Mithril Mining Node becomes more than a node on a map—it’s a thread in the town’s fabric, tying the present to a centuries-old promise that metal can be remembered and remade every dusk.