The Mines of Basalt were a necessary evil of the age. Kept and maintained at the northern most point of the continent of Lemuria, they were the source of the base metals for the building of Atlantis, as well as the source of the crystal formations that were routinely used as a part of the ritual referred to as the Alkemy of the Soul, as well as the lesser known rituals, "the Enhancing of Flavour" and "the Warding of the Sinister".
The mines used a network of tunnels that would be used by miners to trace the veins of the various metals to their natural conclusion. Rumours abounded that some of the tunnels were so deep and went for so far that some came out in to a hidden valley in the highest mountains of the Orient. The record number of unemployed, that the Census Board records show, were drafted into becoming miners on a daily level was through to be the popular reasoning behind the rumours, rather than concession of the dreadful safety record of the mines themselves.
Q'lad, the reining king of the Basalt region at the time of the Great Disaster, was often heard to comment on the lesser contributions that the workers actually made, base don the fact that most were so young as to be barely considered men.
Chay-san
justified and ancient scholar of nature.
