Steel Pickaxe

Metal is difficult to mine with inferior tools. A lesson that one dwarf tried very hard not to learn. Baralas, a dwarf from Keldagrim, once refused to trade up his bronze pickaxe for anything else. He was convinced that any metal could mine any other metal, because what he was targeting was the stone, not the ore itself. An interesting plan, and one with tragic results.

While mining a rare metal with a particularly solid structure, his pick struck a single piece of the ore, no bigger than a pebble, and his bronze pick shattered into countless pieces. In an explosion of tiny little metallic shards, Baralas was shredded to nothing more than a lingering stench of regret.

Now, dwarves make it their business to find the hardest, strongest and most impressive pickaxes out there, lest they become as much a stain on history as Baralas was on the mine wall.