The first hellstone mutations that appeared, in the earliest groups of settlers, were in fact less likely to appear on the miners and more likely to appear on those who handled the pure, unrefined hellstone after its removal from the mines—couriers, bankers, or those scientists who first worked to develop the refining process that would come to be standard. The image of the mutated specter, a potent and lingering phantasm of anxiety in the mind of the Antarran settler, didn't become the norm until much later, when external pressures to meet new quotas forced the miners to stay underground for longer and longer shifts.

This week, on Ruin's Gate: Something moving in the Ruin.

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