Within Everhoof

by Timeless Lord Slayer

1 - The First Strike: Meeting The Lonesome Smith (Edited)

Chill bit at her already worn winter coat. Chill that was growing into a threat of frostbite. Each crunch of hard, thickly packed snow beneath her hooves only expedited the process, despite the heavy snow boots she bore on them. Shaking breaths escaped her mouth in ever increasing frequency.

The storm had not been kind.

Snow had started to pack itself into the crevices of her winter coat, sending freezing bitterness down the mare's small form. The amount only grew with each harsh fall of snow that hit her body, wracking her with cold the likes of which she never thought possible.

Still, she continued to take her shaky, shuddering steps. Behind her goggles, molten gold eyes burned bright. Her steps, whilst still shocked by shivers, remained resolute. A burdensome pack was strapped tightly to her barrel, tinkling and jingling from side to side with each step the mare took, it's contents clinking and clanking and clanging together as if trying to outdo the already piercing howls of the winter gales.

Through the blur of snowflakes, the mare could look up and easily see the towering titan of snow and stone, with a telltale smoke rising from it's peak.

Mount Everhoof.

Many simply knew it as the tallest mountain in all the world. However, a small few knew it as an abode. An abode, of the greatest blacksmith known to any race. Minotaurs called him The Iron Hand. Ponies called him The Artist of Metal. Changelings called him The Shaperate. Dragons, The Molder. Many more titles had been given to him over the centuries, but few recalled his visage, or even his form. Most recalled only the wonders of smithing genius he had made. One such wonder was Netitus, the fabled shield of Flash Magnus. One was the Cloak of Clover the Clever. Another was the Bloodstone Scepter. Yet another was the Helm of Yksler. Truth be told, many could simply name an artifact of the past and easily trace it back to this divine creator of arms and armors.

And yet, very few had ever laid eyes on him. Indeed, those that had had been the ones to ask for these many artifacts to be made. The bodies of those who were felled by the cold journey to the mountain showed the fate of those whom had wished for their own mystical item of renown.

One such body caused the mare to trip and fall face first into the freezing white. With a low groan, she slowly and shakily pushed herself back up, looking behind herself to see the body of a fellow pony, long since lost to the passages of time and left with bones so pale it was no surprise she did not see it before. The mare grunted, then looked to her heavy pack to make certain she had not lost any of her items.

With her check complete, she muttered a prayer for the lost soul whom had died so long ago, then continued on her quest. Long was her trudge towards the mountain, but she knew there laid no hope in making shelter in this storm. Nay, instead, she had to find it.

And the only shelter that she knew to be nearby was the home of the Artist of Metal. Knowing this, she continued to push forwards, even as her body screamed in over-exertion and trembled from the bite of winter. Had she not known better, she'd have sworn the Wendigoes themselves had summoned the tempest of cold.

The wind grows harsher, biting deeper, cutting deeper, it's icy children slicing away at her orange-furred cheeks. The storm was getting too fierce. She couldn't see anymore. She raised a shaking foreleg up to shield her face, gritting her teeth as she pressed on nonetheless.

'I can't... Stop now...'

She stumbled, but managed to regain her footing and push onwards. The winds she was so unused to were taunting her with thoughts of home, reminding her with cruel brutality that she was far from the verdant hills as they continued to try and push her back with their screeching, sharp flakes of ice.

'I...made a promise...' She stomped a hoof down, forging ahead even still, even as her teeth chattered wildly. '...to Grandpa...!'

She tumbled, letting out a cry as she tripped over an unseen corpse once again. She fell face first into the snow, but instead slid. "W-WhaaaAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" she cried as she slid down an incline of ice as smooth as glass. She tried to slow herself down with her hooves, but they slipped out from under her, the momentum of their movement slamming her on her back with a grunt of pain. She continued to slide down, mane whipping about in her face.

And then, she felt heat. It started out as a small warmth. Then grew, slowly, just as the light and her visibility went from little to nothing. The heat slowly became like that of a bonfire, and then...

...Her slide halted, and she fell bodily to an oddly warm, tiled floor. She groaned as she slowly pushed herself to her hooves and then shook herself, flinging a good deal of the not melted snow off of her, and resulting in another, lower groan as she felt a number of aches in her body.

She shook her head, hoof on her forehead to try to help with the coming headache. "Uugh... That's not gonna be a fun thing to wake up to tomorrow..." She shook her head again, then looked around. Her golden eyes widened. "Woah..." She uttered, slowly, shakily pulling her goggles up, taking in the sight before her.

A gigantic, smooth, silvery face sat just a few hundred meters in front of her, the tiled floor leading straight into it's maw. It bore a large, ornate beard, complete with gold braids littered with gems and engravings. The face itself was unlike any creature on Equus and alien as could be. It bore no muzzle, no snout, no beak. It boasted no prominent or large eyes as nigh all species of Equus did. Nay, instead they were narrow, beady, piercing, and oh so exotic. The eyes of the monolith were made all the more awe-inspiring by the solid orange jewels that they were composed of. The jewels seemed to glow and even burn with flames, yet also crackled with some form of lightning, so yellow as to stand out just a tad. It's nose was just as small, but the eyes, the eyes just stared down at her, as if daring her to make some move.

Flashfire, forgetting all about her previous exhaustion, fumbled with her hoof, staring up at the face, her gaze never leaving that of the jeweled eyes as she hurriedly tried to open the strap on her saddlebags. "Ack, come on, hooves!" she urged. Swiftly, and after much fumbling, she opened it and scrounged around. Feeling through her various tools and materials, she tried to find the item she sought, all while still gazing up at the eyes with an open mouth. Finally, she pulled out a weathered old journal, and hurriedly flipped through the pages.

She skimmed the contents until she found what she was looking for. After flipping through dozens of pages, she found it. A drawing, a picture, of the very same face before her. She looked back up at the face as if she was looking at some sort of god, eyes sparkling and mouth agape.

"It's really true..." She took a step forward. "...Grandpa was right. It's the Mouth of the Forge..." She put the journal back, trotting slowly forwards, as if in a trance.

Soon, she reached it, and when she made it inside it's maw, an intense heat washed over the mare, followed by a searing, flame-like glow.

"Visitor," a roaring voice spoke, it's tones like that of a roaring inferno. "You have walked into my home. Knowing, willing, prepared or not, you MUST be tested. None whose hearts and souls are not seared by fate, shaped by iron resolve, and tempered by discipline may ever enter." There was a rushing wave of flames, and while they were certainly hot, she found they did not burn her. The flames roared and crackled around her, then smothered her. They pushed closer and closer, almost as if they were grabbing her. Then, after a short while, the flames receded. "Your heart is refined. Your soul is as tempered steel. You may proceed." And like that, the glow, the flames, the heat, all of it was gone.

When she looked around again, she found a hallway, long and stretching, lined with statues, banners, and braziers and chandeliers with purple flames crackling away in them. She looked over herself swiftly. "I'm not burned?" She said in surprise, patting herself down and finding no scorch marks or burns on her coat nor fur. She looked up from her inspection back to the hallway ahead. She put a foreleg over her eyes, squinting them, just able to make out a larger chamber in the distance, one with even more light.

She sighed, shoulders sagging. "Well, I guess a little more walking won't kill me."

Slowly, she began to trot forwards, her hooves clicking and clacking on the still warm and smooth tiles. She looked to the statues, stopping in front of one. They were all almost reminiscent of armor, but she was certain that they were statues. All of them were made of Damascus steel, a steel forged by techniques Flashfire had only heard of in stories. Yet, the steel looked to have been an alloy, as the water-like patterns contained trace colors of legendary Coffernite, the same bronze-colored metal Netitus, the legendary shield of Flash Magnus, had been forged from. The heads of the statues were laughably small, though with the sheer weight and thickness to the arms, chestplates, pauldrons and leggings, few would dare to laugh. Flashfire certainly wasn't going to.

However, they were certainly styled like helmets. They bore no visors, instead, they bore masks seemingly modeled after the Mouth of the Forge. The statues all bore pectorals as well, ones so chiseled that she was certain they'd make any Minotaur cry from feelings of inadequacy. The statues even had gems for eyes that were exactly like the ones on the Mouth, coupled with various weapons in their hands that Flashfire couldn't help but be mesmerized by.

"Wonder if these were made before or after the Mouth..." Flashfire mumbled as she turned and continued her journey. "Sure as Tartarus must've taken a long time to make everything here." She glanced to the pillars supporting the hallway, taking note of the Fire Rubies that had been engraved into them, forming very angular patterns of flames. "Sweet Celestia, I know The Artist has supposedly been around as long as the Princesses and Discord, but the time he's had to do all this is insane." She shook her head and forged ahead.

Finally, she made it to the end of the hallway and into the chamber. And once more, her eyes widened to comical proportions. And, once more, she felt intense heat all around her, so much she had to shed her coat.

Before her lay a mindbogglingly titanic chamber, cavernous in shape, yet also heavily, heavily modernized. Flashfire would even go so far as to say futurized. A low, rumbling, rhythmic beating echoed throughout the chamber, emanating from a massive pillar-like shaft that shot up to the ceiling and even went down below, and held glowing, pulsing red and blue molten lava inside it's glass. A deceptively simple concrete bridge with no rails led straight up to it, with three more going north, east, and west, all centered around the shaft.

Multiple tubes - which the auburn mare assumed were lava channels - carried the strange, molten rock to multiple areas from the shaft. When Flashfire chanced a glance over the side to see where the channels exactly led, her eyes managed to widen even further. The channels led all the way back down to the floor of the chamber, where they pooled into corners of said chamber, hundreds of glittering rocks scattered around said pools. Around those collections of minerals were minecart rails, a good number of minecarts already lined up around them and filled to the brim with the precious and no doubt highly sought after materials.

Flashfire's ears perked up, then, when she finally picked up a constant noise that also echoed throughout the chamber. Her eyes once more widened, until it seemed impossible for them to widen any further. "No bucking way..." she swore, sweeping her gaze towards the sound. Among a number of strange machines and the forge she'd never dreamed she'd see, was a massive, metal figure, shaping some similarly massive blade with a similarly massive sledgehammer.

Flashfire shot her head up, hooves scrambling. "Holy buck, holy bucking buck!" she swiveled her head about rapidly, searching with frantic golden eyes for a way down. Quickly, she found an elevator right at the edge of the bridge she was on, in the corner between where her bridge and the eastern one met. She galloped straight for it, quickly reaching it and rushing on before slamming the lever down to activate it like her life was on the line.

She paced around the elevator as it descended, rambling to herself. "Oh my Celestia, oh my Celestia, oh my sweet, sweet Celestia!" she squealed, holding her face and bouncing on the spot. "It's him! It's him it's him it's him it's him it's him!!"

The elevator finally reached the bottom, and she turned on a dime and bolted straight towards the looming figure currently forging some new legendary weapon on a massive, slate-black anvil with glowing blue veins. She screeched to a halt just in front of the anvil, it's size dwarfing her by at least double.

And for one, final, impossible time, her eyes widened again.

Staring down at her, sledgehammer paused mid-strike and literally blazing, golden eyes staring down at her, surrounded by his forge and ingenious machines, was the one she had come thousands of miles for. His form was like that of the statues in the hallway, but much more ornate, and much more defined, chiseled, and dare she say regal.

His body was made of bulking, hulking metal that had a Damascus pattern to it, but it was made of a metal that was supremely, rare; promethium. The bottoms of his shoulders, the pauldrons, were lined with ermine fur that hung loosely, yet still held no hope of reaching anywhere near even a quarter of his arm's lengths. His hands bore spikes of purest, refined uranium on the knuckles, and Flashfire could swear the inside of his hands had gems of pure painite inlaid in them, adding two whole hoof-sized additions to the single gram that had been found the world over despite millennia of search. His head was still the same as those of the statues and the Mouth, save for the blazing golden flames he had for eyes alone.

The behemoth of metal slowly lowered his sledgehammer, placing it head-down on the floor. Before he could get a word in though, Flashfire blurted out with clenched eyes and a deep bow, "PLEASE MAKE ME YOUR APPRENTICE!!!"