Crab Lands - The Jade Mine Of West Mountain Village

[Vutall]

The Jade Mine Of West Mountain Village
Every year, the heat of spring frees the West Mountain jade mine, melting the cagelike icicles blocking its entrance. Condensation beads on the tunnel walls and drizzles down, the trickling resounding as loud as a roaring river in the otherwise-silent dark. Soon after the thaw, the real noise begins. The miners return to West Mountain Village and proceed to purge the mine of darkness. Their initial entry is tense: during the winter, leopards, bears, or even hostile spirits might lair within the mines. What’s more, the tremors from Earthquake Fish Bay may have loosened the support beams.

Once the tōrō have been lit and the tunnels deemed safe, the mine fills with cacophonous clanging. With cloth tied over their mouths and noses, the miners chisel apart huge slabs of grey rock to reveal the milky translucency of jade. It is tedious work, but it is vital. Instead of wielding swords and expiring in glorious battlefield deaths, these heroes wield chisels and slowly choke on dust. They supply the only material capable of striking down Tainted creatures of the Shadowlands; were it not for them, the Emerald Empire would fall.

Whispers in the Depths
Up north, iron miners dug into an abandoned underground city unlike anything else in Rokugan. The miners collapsed the tunnel soon afterward, and they refuse to speak of what they found.

In the tunnels, miners have been hearing voices that sound like they are coming from inside the rock.

Many of the West Mountain miners are really murderers and other criminals who have fled to the isolated mountains to escape justice.

Most of the other jade mines have run dry. Only the West Mountain jade mine is keeping up with demand. If anything happens to the West Mountain mine, it would be dire for all of Rokugan!