Hoardsmiths
* * *
Hoardsmiths
Jeffrey C. Wells
www.scrivnarium.net
* * *
They are the Hoardsmiths, and they are completely insane.
You would have to be insane, popular reasoning went, to willingly set up camp so close to a dragon's lair. But, set up camp they did; a stalwart troop of earth-tribe craftsponies, gem-loving unicorns, and a few exceptionally bored pegasi looking to do something more "radical" with their lives than make weather day in and day out. They did it for the love of the hoard, the love of the beautiful crystalline cave in which said hoard resided, and for the love of the majestic and awe-inspiring green beast who took repose upon said hoard, slumbering peacefully and occasionally venting awe-inspiring plumes of smoke out through its cottage-sized nostrils.
It had started as such a small thing. Genius and madness often go hoof-in-hoof, and when the Everfree Forest opened somewhat in the wake of the recovery of the Elements of Harmony, a hoofful of disaffected artists and craftsponies of the nearby settlements started doing the unthinkable: they began making willing sorties into that old bastion of primal nature, looking to find inspiration in the exotic and unfamiliar plants and animals to be found there. And yes, some of them were turned to stone by cockatrices, and yes, some of them were eaten by timberwolves, and yes, some of them had their fundamental biology shuffled completely around by the innocuous blue flowers that grew in great lake-like patches in the shadows beneath the canopy of the Forest's gnarled trees. But they were crazy, and they were artists; and, since in many of the communities they hailed from the two terms were largely regarded as synonymous, they found a certain charm in being part of a fellowship of individuals sharing the same mind, even if that mind were, well, a little unbalanced. The occasional horrific casualty was a trivial thing in comparison.
Craziest among these ponies were the Hoardsmiths, the ponies that delved deep into the Forest, found the dragon's cave located deep within its heart, and never came out again. One might suspect (understandably so) that they had been devoured by the dragon itself, but this was not the case. In fact, they were devoured in quite a different way: by the wonder of what they found there.
The dragon of Everfree had accrued a mighty hoard over the course of its long life. Mountains of gold coins, seas of gemstones, priceless objets d'art from long-lost and long-forgotten masters of previous pony generations. The hoard was an overwhelming thing, a terrible thing, a thing of brain-melting beauty and splendor. Some of the ponies who saw it (many of whom would later become Hoardsmiths) saw in it a completion of sorts, the filling of a missing piece within themselves that many hadn't even fully realized was missing. So great was the rapture of many of these ponies that they vowed to set up camp outside the cave, just so that they could look at the contents of the cave every day that remained to them. They would graze on wild plants, drink from deepwater pools and fresh springs, and live in makeshift shanties constructed outside the cave-mouth; anything, anything to be closer to the hoard that gave their lives a little more joy and a little more meaning.
But, as noted, they were artists. An artist cannot be satisfied for long merely in the act of gazing upon a thing. She must create in response to it.
And so, the day soon came when the maddest and most adventurous of the camper-ponies delved into the cave on her daily pilgrimage, but this time, she emerged with a single gold ingot literally stolen from beneath the nose of the sleeping dragon. It was an audacious move, but this particular unicorn pony – whose name was, inevitably, "Goldie" – was a driven one. In her former life, she had been a prodigiously-skilled maker of gold statuary. Her family had actually encouraged her to take up the trade professionally, but she found no particular artistic joy in it and had settled into a career in chartered accountancy instead, only occasionally whipping out the odd beautiful statue when she could find the time. All that changed with her discovery of the hoard. The day she first looked upon that mass of wealth, her eyes flared and sparkled and her brain was pierced by an awl of pure noble metal, and she was filled with unbridled zeal for creation.
Goldie wanted, needed to construct a statue in honor of the hoard that had so inspired her. Unfortunately, gold was a commodity in short supply there in the depths of the Everfree. In fact, the only source of gold for fifty miles in any direction was, well, the hoard itself.
The other ponies in the camp looked on in horror when they saw the shining ingot Goldie had brought out of the cave. "What did you just do?" they demanded.
Goldie shuffled her hooves. "I... I took an ingot," she said. "It's to make a statue with."
The others blinked, horrified beyond the power of speech.
Goldie, sweating a little, began to babble. "It's just... it's just that the dragon has so much gold," she said. "I can't imagine that he cares about this one little ingot. And even if he does, well, I'm making a statue in honor of him! Surely he'll be pleased with it?"
"Did you ask him before taking it?" said a brownish earth-tribe stallion, recovering his tongue.
"Well, no," said Goldie. "I mean, you know how huge the dragon is! I don't think he could hear me talk, even if I yelled. Even if he could, I'm pretty sure we don't even speak the same language. How am I supposed to ask permission of a creature like that?"
The others muttered amongst themselves, admitting that this might in fact be a problem. "All right, all right," said the brown stallion. "You didn't ask permission, we get that. But if he saw you doing it, and was okay with it, I think it's all right. Did he see you taking the ingot?"
Goldie hesitated. It was always so difficult to tell with the dragon; nictitating membranes and whatnot. "Yes...?" she hazarded. "Yes, I'm... I'm pretty sure he knows that I took it."
The others were unconvinced and backed away slowly. "Okay," said the brown stallion, "but it's your funeral if the dragon comes knocking, wondering what happened to his ingot."
Goldie squared her jaw. "Don't worry," she said. "I'll make him proud."
And so Goldie set about fashioning a statue from the gold ingot. For weeks she slaved upon it, melting and casting and beating and stamping. The end product was a wonder to behold, a perfect miniature representation of the dragon itself, all in gleaming metal. Such was the beauty of the finished statue that it touched the heart of even the most trepid pony in that camp, and on that day, the Hoardsmiths were born.
The chink that Goldie had made in the dam became a flood. One sortie turned into another, turned into another, and turned into another as the craftsponies were, one by one, seized with the same fervor that had taken Goldie. They took treasures from the dragon's hoard and fashioned them into new and beautiful things, all in honor of the hoard itself, and its serpentine keeper. The sewers and seamstresses fashioned great curtains for the mouth of the cave from the bolts of raw and expensive cloth found therein. The sculptors produced a forest of bronzes and intricately-carved gems and arranged them into a prodigious sculpture garden at the foot of the rock. The painters found gilded frames in the trove and fitted them with canvases of their own devising, masterwork depictions of the cave's glittering interior. Quickly, the little camp in the dark woods became a little town, a tiny bohemian community with its own identity, its own lingo, and its own spirit. Wandering bards and minstrels were enchanted by the place and took up residence, devoting their song-writing talents to majestic ballads about the glory of the hoard, and, increasingly, the glory of the little village that the hoard had itself inspired. Pony mixologists happened upon the idea of creating specialty alcoholic drinks based on the hoard, and other ponies bought them, encouraging the mixologists to create yet more such drinks; and the soon the nights were filled with song and laughter and revelry. Ailing ponies and ponies in need of shelter would sometimes come to the town, because the artists there were known to be prosperous and joyful and generous. Many who would have gone sick, cold, or hungry were healed, clothed, and fed by the largesse of the little community.
The funny thing was, by some perspective, the mass of the hoard was not actually being decreased by all this rampant larceny. All the gold was still in the general area of the dragon (some of it was outside the cave, true, but everything was at most a couple hundred yards from the motherlode). On top of this, the fussiest of the unicorn craftsponies had actually started bringing in gems from their own stocks back home to serve as the crowning, sparkling touches for their latest hoard-inspired masterworks. And none of this accounted for all those coppers that had been tossed into the hoard by wishful petitioners who hoped that a little sympathetic magic might be worked in their lives, or those that had been tossed by ponies who were simply grateful to the dragon and all the good that he had done simply by being there. The dragon, and his hoard, had changed all of their lives for the better.
And so the day came when a group of skilled craftsponies, who could easily have been making their living elsewhere in Equestria with their talents, decided to construct a grand and monumental sculpture of celebration inside the dragon's lair: a scale model of the entire cave, cast in solid platinum. It would, yes, require them to lift quite a bit of raw platinum from the hoard, but hardly anypony even batted an eye at that sort of thing at this point. Not everypony was particularly jazzed about the sculpture itself; some would have preferred to see gold instead of platinum, others weren't all that "into" scale models, but whatever the opinion on the piece itself was, it was generally regarded as a thing of scope and wonder, and it made the ponies of the little town happy to contemplate it. For several years the craftsponies slaved over the thing, making sure to get every last detail just right. All their craftsponyship was to be presented, free, for the good of the community, for all to enjoy. Never mind that they could have charged admission to see the replica-cave, and likely made a fortune off of it. They were driven nigh-exclusively by their love. News spread to the surrounding communities about the beautiful masterwork being prepared by the crazy ponies out in the forest, and it attracted the attention of many outside the circle of Hoardsmiths. These newcomers ventured into the dragon's cave to look at it, and though there were some exceptions, most of those who saw the work-in-progress were pleased and awed and delighted at this marvel of pony hoofwork.
On the eve of the unveiling of the celebratory sculpture, the dragon shifted in its sleep, hauled the entire piece back into its hoard and buried it out of sight, much as you or I would fold and adjust a pillow. It did not seem to particularly even wake in doing so.
A... mood fell over the little community that evening. In the many cider-houses that had sprung up within the bohemian village, you would invariably hear some variation of the following exchange, lasting deep into the night...
"Well," a pony would say, staring into his mug, "let's be honest. We were stealing all that platinum."
"But we weren't taking it," another would say. "Never farther than the mouth of the cave. And we were just doing it to show how much we loved the dragon!"
"I never particularly loved the dragon," another would pipe up. "I'm glad the dragon put the hoard together, but I was only really interested in the hoard. Gems and gold are beautiful. Dragons are monsters."
"Shame that you need a dragon to gather that much gold and gems together, though. Wonder if there'd be a different way to do it...?"
"It was such a beautiful model!" another would wail, who had been quite silent the entire evening up until that point. "Why? Why did he do this to us? We were giving him money!"
"He's protecting his hoard," another would note. "If you don't protect your hoard, ponies will come in and take it. It's the way of dragons. It's written into the law of their genes. I doubt there were any hard feelings behind it; he probably wasn't even conscious of it."
"I thought he approved of us! He never protested before!"
"Dragons can sleep for hundreds of years," another would note in response. "Has he ever actually been awake, this whole time?"
"It's always so hard to tell." A scrape of a hoof against the peanut-husk-strewn floorboards. "Nictitating membranes and all."
"Bollocks to this," another would say, pushing away his stool and standing up angrily. "I'm done tossing coppers! This whole community is based on a big, fat lie. The dragon doesn't want us here. It's not pleased by our tributes. It sees us as an annoyance and wants us to leave."
"Please, sit back down."
"No!" the pony (probably a pegasus) would shout, stalking toward the door. "I'm not sticking around here to have my art snatched up by a dragon! This is just the first step! Next comes the fiery breath! It'll melt everything you've worked for! It'll melt you! We have no idea what that thing is thinking at this point!"
The pegasus would shake his head. "I won't be treated like this," he'd say, and then he'd march out into the cold night.
Silence would fall for a moment around the little table.
"He'll be back," the first pony to speak would say.
"He'll be back, perhaps. But was he wrong?"
And no one would answer the speaker. Because they didn't know. None of them did.
That's simply what life is like, when you live in the shadow of a dragon.
Celestia's dawn eventually broke, and the morning saw the little town in the Everfree still standing. No dragon-fire had consumed it overnight. The community of Hoardsmiths was a strong one, and though tribulations would cause many to (quite understandably) leave and rush off into the night for greener pastures, many more elected to stay, living there at the foot of the dragon's rock. Whether through faith, blithe spirit, or some true hope for a better future, they had built a good thing here on the shakiest of all possible grounds. It was not a thing, they thought, to be lightly abandoned.
They are the Hoardsmiths, and they are completely insane.
But...
...they build things of beauty.
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Interesting. Will follow.
What you did there, I see it
I feel like this is metaphorical of something...but I can't figure out what. Regardless, it was very interesting. Short and sweet, just the way I like it.
Edit: Now I understand. I knew it was something involving the fandom, what with how the ponies were creating so much. I haven't really been following news related to Hasbro recently so I didn't connect the dragon to the company.
Inspiration can come from the strangest places, at the strangest times. And, as you yourself noted, genius and madness are often separated only by degrees of success. I, for one, admire the Hoardsmiths, though I'd never dare go and see their work for myself. One part of that sentiment is a
bowel-loosening fearrespectful wariness of the dragon. Another is the worry that I too would be consumed by passion and never want to leave...In short, cool story.
A parable, eh?
Knighty! KNIGHTY! Someone's posting meta-fics! Where's the "report" button gone? RULES MUST BE OBEYED!
2097489 THE DRAGON IS HASBRO
I'm so glad that wasn't all just leading up to a pun.
So, I figured it out about halfway through the paragraph that begins, "The chink that Goldie had made in the dam became a flood." What about you guys?
2097516
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
This truly captures the essence of the fandom within it. Hasbro is the dragon, and we are the ponies. It is not through malice that the dragon protects its hoard, but by its nature. If we wanted to, we could go and create away from the hoard, and what we create would then be our own, but the hoard lures us so, and so we stay.
It's a tale we would all do well to heed.
I have nothing particularly meaningful to say, really, other than that this was a wonderfully crafted metaphor... and that I might have to steal this "Hoardsmiths" concept for an RPG session...
2097560
Who, I ask you, would write a story which seemed at first to be about a lesson or something but which ended up being just a framework to tell a stupid pun?
Oh, right.
Yes, we are all completely insane.
Aww. Calling me insane? How adorable.
Guess what?
I'm not insane.
I am so, so much worse than that.
I feel no pity, no love, and feel sad only when something is extremely sad.
Anger? Same deal.
Am I a sociopath? Not really, because I know what I am, and I do feel some emotion.
But calling one with a mask immovable that is cracked over emotions insane is an understatement.
You know...this doesn't even have to be a fanfic. The parable works even without the Equestrian setting. I wonder what the general public would make of it. Would they sympathize with the Hoardsmiths? Or would they see them as, well, insane?
Mind, they are insane
Completely insane.
...
Ah well. Sanity is overrated.
2097516
Are you sure you aren't at the cave's mouth right now? Stay awhile, friend. We've many wonders to show you. Pay no heed to the rumble and the occasional flame. Life is fleeting. Beauty is forever, or until the dragon sets it on fire. Whichever comes first.
2097560
Metafiction? I see no sign of it. Nope. None whatsoever.
Would I lie?
2097781
I'm wondering if FOME trolling is trolling us or honestly didn't pick up on it.
But the dragon only cares about the gold. It's indifferent whether it's an ingot or an artist's masterpiece.
So while the dragon can take all the stuff back into the hoard it can never take the idea and the meaning from the Hoardsmiths.
2097805
It would be some damn subtle trolling. If indeed, it is trolling, my hat is off.
Well done, writer. Well done.
Who's right, between the hoardsmiths and the dragon ? Only time will tell.
That was awesome. A fav, two thumbs up, and all of my love.
2097781 Oh. Oh. Herp-a-ma-derp.
2097805 I honestly completely failed to pick up on the parable. At least, until now. I'm not sure if that says more about Skywriter's skills or my lack of self-awareness.
2097979
A subtle allegory is a skillful allegory.
Besides, you are to be envied. You essentially got two Skywriter stories out of this. And it is well known that one of the few, very very few things better than a Skywriter story is two of 'em.
RIP Fighting is Magic... *sniff*
Sad thing is, we might be able to work some things out with Hasbro if they were willing to take a risk with their brand image. How much money could Hasbro make for getting a cut from publishing Fallout: Equestria (Though ZeniMax media would have to be in on it as well).
Companies just aren't structured to keep up with consumer content demand anymore. It isn't impossible to build a framework where we can make beautiful things and there is profit all around (look at Red vs. Blue, for example).
I won't fave this story for meta reasons, but have a thumb for inspiring thought and reflection.
Commence read.
I liked it.
Hmm. Nice story. I feel as though there is a lesson in there, if only I was awake enough to put it into words.
*Reads comments*
Wait, what? Metafiction? What?
*Re-reads story*
Oh. Oh, wow. Well played, ser. Well played.
2098047
Regarding Fighting is Magic, have you seen the way Lauren Faust responded to the news about the C&D? Now that's classy.
What is Lauren Faust in this extended allegory, I wonder?
Oh! Took me a minute after finishing the story, but I got it!
You, sir, are a clever man.
That was beautiful.
And the fact you didn't name the dragon "Orbsah" merits a medal or something.
I wouldn't have been that strong.
Ya know what this story is?
It is a thing of beauty
As always, my friend, you astound me.
Also... I can't help but think that this works even better if you think of it less as a dragon and more as a hydra, some heads sleeping and some occasionally waking to act and others bickering, except that hydras don't hoard... do they? I don't know any personally, not yet.
(And Millimax would love to meet Goldie. They probably wouldn't get along, but still, that sculptor's love for particualr materials....)
Hasbro as a dragon. I wonder if they would be flattered by that?
I love eet!
Your mind works in mysterious ways.
2098200
That is now my new headcanon name for that green dragon.
2098140
I did see that, and I'd love to see some palette-swapped Faust characters. Unfortunately, with some of the developers dropping out, I think the damage is done.
From what I know about game development, it's a pretty delicate process and a setback like changing the art style and removing all reference to the show is a lot of effort down the drain. With the morale drop and fewer devs, Mane6 is going to have a huge challenge shifting their project (assuming they still want to build a pony fighting game).
I'm just going to vote Bungie for best dragon ever.
This is about Bronies and the cave sculpture was the mane-6 Fighting is magic project right?
As Applejack wandered through the Hoardsmith camp, marveling and shaking her head, she suddenly stopped dead.
"Rainbow Dash?" she said, jaw dropping.
"Oh! Hey, Jackie," Dash muttered around the pencil she was frantically scribbling with. She smiled but didn't get up.
"What're you doin' here?"
"What does it look like?" Dash spat out her pencil and grinned. "Just writing the most awesome story in the universe." She gestured around them. "It's about here."
AJ opened and closed her mouth. "But Dash, ya write Daring Do fiction. Ya sell Daring Do fiction. Tarnation, you're good at that. Shouldn't you be off earnin' a living instead of bein' here swapping stories with hoardsmiths who won't give you nothin' but praise?"
"C'mon, AJ, this is art." Dash's grin broadened. "Pure. Unfettered."
"You could do that out there, too."
"But. C'mon. Dragons! They're super awesome! They're chock full of, um, allegory and stuff!"
A unicorn tourist wandered by while they talked, raising his camera, taking photos of the stalls in the surrounding artists' market.
"Well," AJ allowed, "it is true that dragons are the most awesome things pretty much ever, I reckon. But if you're writing a dragon story because it's allegorical, it's not really a dragon story, right?"
Dash rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof. "Okay, yeah, you got me. But stories don't always have to be direct metaphors about the people who write them, right? Can't you just enjoy them on their own merits?"
The blue pegasus and the orange pony gave a significant glance at the camera. The tourist wandered away. Applejack glanced out at the horizon and coughed.
"Don't know what came over me there," she mumbled.
"Oh, it's this place. It does that to you. You'll get used to it."
"I might, at that. There's something seductive about being here."
Dash smirked and gave her a hoofbump. "Welcome to the Horde."
wow just wow
2098489
It's art. It can be whatever you want it to be.
Fighting Is Magic, ladies and gentlemen.
Something nice to read in the aftermath of the dramacoaster that has rocked this community these past two weeks...
2098047 Oh, damn. I didn't even know. From mane6.com:
The dragon stirs.
Loved the story. It applies so well to any company-fanbase relationship, the DMCA, and more.
This is absolutely excellent!
This story is insane. And awesome. Inawesane-um. Such a bizarre premise, and done so well!
Very, very clever. I loved this.
2097706 My first instinct was still to hit you with a wet fish, but thinking on it I'm not sure if it's appropriate. Something about this story really bugs me, but I can't quite put it into words. It's not the insane part, I have tendency to call myself insane all the time. Well I liked it regardless. You can add my thumbs to the pile and what have you.
Serriously, what do you even do with a hoard of thumbs?
I generally consider myself too dull-witted to pick up on things like this. There was a brief moment, upon reaching the end, where I went "...Huh? Those crazy ponies didn't leave?" and then I saw it. Well-done. :P
I realized what this story was about when I was a third of the way through. When I did I went:
image.wtfux.org/0b969832/clap.gif
2099411
I am building a cool fort.
2100076
Certainly one that gets plenty of thumbs up.
2098140
Rarity. You see, the dragon didn't gather the hoard itself; it lacked the skills and imagination to do so. Instead, it enlisted Rarity to use her skills and magic to find the gemstones and shape them into a thing of beauty. When she was done, she left for fresh pastures to find more gemstones for other dragons. But she heard about the Hoardsmiths and occasionally returns to admire their work. The Hoardsmiths love her for it, but she is just as powerless as they before the dragon.
I was able to read it as a story before letting it's allegory come to the fore of my mind. The concept and name of Hoardsmiths is something I'm going to keep, I think. I hadn't heard about the mane6 thing until now (though the fear of it had been rising higher), and read the platinum model as the risk of larger swathes of the community's work disappearing rather than a single, grand project having actually gone. I'm not sure why, that's clearly the more correct interpretation.
Did not know about the fate of Fighting is Magic, so he applicability to the present situation didn't jump out at me. Nicely done.