"It is a unenviable work the dregs do in the salt mines, it is grueling and dangerous, one error and in a second your body will be furnishing the tips of the crystals below. After the easternmost territory (known for their salt production, and contrary to the westernmost territory which produces its salt primarily from the sea, the salt here is of the most precious quality and dug from the ground) began allowing criminals and slaves to work in the mines to shorten their sentence, it was as if crime skyrocketed all over the territory. Eventually the regular mine workers were completely substituted by these prisoners and the mines began to be seen more and more as actual prisons rather than figurative prisons where those from the lowest rungs of society would have to go to find some sort of income. of course those prisoners who ended up in the mines would work there far longer than their actual sentence as bookkeeping was quite lax, and if they worked a few years more, they would only be benefiting the society as a whole, and what else would someone who struck against their land want?"