Clang! The pick dug deep into the rock. Clang! Again, but deeper still. Clang! Stepping back from their work, arms trembling with reverberation, they admired the deep crevice they had cut into the underground rock face. Philip Arnold, and his associate John B. Slack had been working at the Bisbee Copper Queen Mine just North of the U.S./Mexico border for seven and half years, and had been entrusted with the monotonous task of drilling holes for the explosive charges, a job so simple that not even they could screw it up.
    Philp began to reach for the pneumatic drill as John prepped the lines, collecting the fittings and attaching the hoses, which got their pressure from the surface. Once propped up in place, the drill came to life in a thunderous roar, chipping away at the rock and echoing throughout the short jagged tunnel at a volume unbearable to most people, but tolerable to them because they already had years of compounding hearing damage. Preparing for the next step, they acquired a few charges from their two crates chock-full of the foot long red sticks. Stuffing the holes in the rock with cotton, they carefully laid the charges in, and began connecting the fuses, twisting many junctions of the wires in sucession. With roughly twenty of them dotting the wall, all of the charges were primed, and waiting. Waiting for a little spark of electricity to be shared amongst them through the web of fuses, and trigger the blast. Philip and John took up crates by the armful, and stood back.
    Windup. 3.. 2.. 1.. With a forceful shove, the plunger sank into the box. Emitting a loud whir as the generator spun up and provided the energy needed so that the... B A N G! The charges tore through the rock face, pulverizing it, and only leaving behind a plume of dust and a pile of rubble.
    Philip and John just blasted a 20ft hole in the wall, exposing a very small ore deposit. This deposit consisted of twenty-five unevenly sized dark green metallic rocks, speckled with pieces of quartz, and an almost wartlike appearance to the small green details on it. Warm to the touch, the stones seemingly had an almost otherworldly feel to them, or at the very least: an unsettling feel, as if they had somehow held both the heat and the shock of the blast, and were slowly releasing that energy back in a slow motion recoil, pulsating in a manner reminiscent of the recent explosion that had just exposed them. They were able to gather the entirety of these stones in one trip. Sharing a few words, they resumed mining in search of large ore deposits to give to the company.
    After a few more hours of laborious picking, drilling, then continuing again with the deafening blasting, they had loaded nearly 10 carts full of unprocessed common ores—that had been taken to the surface throughout the day—for the company. At last, it was time for them to finally go home, they loaded into the cart, and with the help of the large motor at the surface, were pulled from the dismal abyss. They hung up their grime caked helmets, and both went to their homes; however, unbeknownst to anyone else at the company, John and Philip had each taken home half of the small ore deposit they had found.
    The next day John met with Philip; they came to an agreement to each keep a small chunk of the ore, and that they would try to sell the rest and keep the profits. In an attempt to maximize their payout, they decided to refer to it as a highly precious metal, and they named it Aznite on account of their discovery of it occurring in Arizona.
    With their chunks of Aznite, they went to some visiting investors looking to stake their claim in the mining scene in Bisbee. The first person they came across showed interest, offering a generous $30,000; however, in their deal Philip and John had promised something they could not quite deliver: mineral rights to the mine. Click here to see what became of the Aznite Ore!