The sound of slot machines echoes through this windowless room. Pauline Jordan, age 57 takes another spin at the machine. Once again, she fails.
“That will be it, I think” she says
As we walk, through the Sun-Mart the gambling parlor was connected to, the owner calls out to Pauline
“Out of money?” he asks
“Yep” she says, going up to the counter to collect her small amount of winnings, just 900 Marks, enough for instant noodles and maybe a Splice Grapefruit Soda. Yet, today Pauline decides to just head home. After all, it’s a big night in the small town of Quarryham. It is located near Mt Jiaxiang, the highest point on the island and only had 1,850 residents as of the 2025 Census.
Quarryham was founded as a mining settlement in the 1800s by Sanctarian settlers looking to mine the nearby Mt Jiaxing for emeralds. There was initial success, and by the 1940s, there was a permanent rail link to Kirkwall on the coast, which transported goods and brought workers to the area. Many of the town’s municipal buildings were built then, including the Town Hall, which I am now walking to with Pauline. Then, during the 1960s, the demands of National Reform led to most miners leaving to join the military. Many were deployed to nearby Haesan, some didn’t return. A memorial honors those lost, it now stands just outside the Town Hall. Many of those who survived returned with either Haesanite wives or Haesanite children. This included Pauline.
“I never knew my mother; my father was an alcoholic,” Pauline said as we walked by closed-down shops.
“The quarry then stopped producing the volume of gems; all we could give was stone.”
Pauline is correct. In 1988, the Quarryham Mine closed, leaving a giant unused hole near town.
“All anybody knew was the mine.”
By 2000, the population had decreased so much, the daily train to Kirkwall was cancelled entirely. People fell into depression, alcohol and the newly legalized gambling. Introduced in 2007, it was meant to be an economic boost for the entire province, which had little to offer besides fishing. Yet, the money didn’t come to places like Quarryham, all the town got was several video gambling machines and a population dependent on it. Taxes on new casinos could be avoided as the multi-national groups that owned them simply changed tax law.
Tonight’s big event was for the Winter Olympics. Quarryham sits in a unique area of Slokais in that it can regularly snow in the wintertime. In 2019, a teenager named Johnny Liam after seeing a video of Curling decided to head to a nearby frozen pond in the dead of winter. He managed to convince a couple of friends to join him, and soon his videos shared online drew the attention of the prestigious Reiterland University in San Fernando Province. They gave him a scholarship and joined one of the first collegiate teams for Curling. Tonight, the Bronze medal match for the Slokasian National Team against Opthelia included the local boy. Those gathered in Town Hall were friends and family, as much of the town had become to Johnny. His mother, Ha-Yoon was in attendance along with his seven siblings. As the room waits for the event to begin, I begin to ask political questions.
“One thing we don’t need is more war. Kaijan can be independent for all I care” Pauline says. When I ask for her chosen political party, she can’t give a good answer.
“Anybody who can bring money back to this town. Joseph Chavez, maybe?”
“He’s a big-city elite” a passerby says
“He grew up on government assistance in New Liverpool. It means the same thing everywhere,” Pauline responds. The Northern Isles have the highest percentage of people living on government assistance, with 30.5%. Gambling has only made this issue worse in the eyes of some. Johnny does win the Bronze Medal. The entire town erupts with joy. This is the first and only medal for Slokais in these Olympics and will lead to national hero status for each member of the team. In a town with no future, no hopes of winning, a local has just done that for his country.
As light snow begins to fall, Pauline walks with me towards the pond where Johnny and the other local boys used to play.
“Everyone helped out,” she said as we turned the bend in the short gravel road leading to the pond.
“It brought the town together; people quit being miserable and did everything for this kid. I even helped tutor him as he prepared for his NCSE Exam” Pauline says as we sit in the small stands. Neither one of us, like many Slokaisians, has ever skated on ice before.
“This pound was here; we just used it for fishing.”
Quarryham may have been unlucky before, but now their bronze child looks to be the start of the winter sports movement in Slokais.
