The name Iron-Vein Compact comes from a warning older miners gave new crews: a black line running through an iron seam could carry poisonous air, and anyone who ignored it might never return. The name was kept after the warning marks became the workers’ sign of mutual protection. The Compact began when dwarf pit-workers, Oread haulers, and forge-smiths at Iron-Vein Mines refused to descend after a series of fatal collapses and gas pockets. Their first pact was practical: no crew would work a marked gallery alone, and no lift would run until a missing worker was accounted for. In the Split-Lift Season, mine owners ordered a loaded cage lowered despite a failed brake. Workers chained the winding gear, then held the lift for three days while rescuers reached those trapped below. That confrontation became the Compact’s defining watershed. The stranded miners survived, but the authorities arrested several organizers and dismissed dozens. In the years that followed, the Compact evolved from a mutual rescue pact into a disciplined league of stewards, tally witnesses, and strike defenders. It won safer bracing rules in some galleries and lost them in others. Its strongest achievement was making collective stoppage credible; its most painful setback came when a later strike ended after an unverified promise, followed by renewed quota abuses. Today, the Compact is powerful underground and largely shut out of formal council votes.