The Deepcut Pans

Freelance panners scraping a worked-out silver prospect for whatever temple-bronze or silver still fetches coin — and skimming past the Silt Hands' cut on every grain they pull.

When the silver gave out, the Silt Hands wrote the Sunken Cut off and posted it as theirs anyway, out of habit and greed. The Deepcut Pans moved into the flooded lower workings the smugglers wouldn't dirty their boots in and found the played-out ground still paid — silver dust the surveyors missed, and seams of temple-bronze that sell well to anyone buying. They pan the cold water by lamplight, dodge the ash-hounds, and move their take through the Free Finders rather than hand the Hands a cut they never earned. It is a hard living wrung from spent rock, and the margins are thin. Sresha's people have started 'inspecting' the Cut to muscle in on the find. The Pans have started posting lookouts.