This is a chapter title. It was made by SCIENCE.
Buck.
What a weird word. Something in my mentality is causing it to replace any notion of a similar word starting with an “f” instead of a “b”, which is rather odd. Not to mention it makes Applejacks job sound like something a night elf would have. And it sounds wrong in several sentences, like “go buck yourself”. Just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Need a different word.
Maybe “plough”. That might actually work.
DO YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I THINK?!
This is the problem with having too little to keep your hooves busy, you start thinking about everything and soon you end up theorizing and pondering philosophy!
PEACE MAKES BRAIN THINK, MURDER MAKES BRAIN STOP.
Also, I’m on a train. I like trains. Not a fan of railroad tracks. The tracks exist only to confine the magnificent trains within their reach, hindering them from exploring the world. It’s a clever form of slavery, one nopony questions as trains are not known to be sentient. But what if they are? What if trains have been sentient all this time, and we just don’t understand their language? This puts a whole new perspective on what a railroad engineer really is.
What the hay brain. Stop thinking.
You might wonder why we were on a train instead of being flow back on chariots. Chariots are for important matters. I don’t mind, trains are cool. If they ever decide to rebel against their masters, I’ll happily lend a hoof. Unless it doesn’t benefit me, of course. Maybe lend them a catapult for their kamikaze squads. But what if they won? What if they weren’t any better than their captors, and decided it was our turn to become slaves? Can you imagine a world ruled by trains? Or pants for that matter, there’s a horrifying thought.
So there we were, sitting on one of these trains. One that either didn’t have any plans to overthrow the equestrian monarchy or was just waiting for the right moment. We passed through a tunnel, confirming that I still possessed my ability to see in the dark. I was still miffed that my eyes didn’t glow, thinking how Xia’s and Lorn’s eyes did when we arrived here.
So. Apples, or glowing blue eyes. Apples. Glowing eyes. Munch munch. Apples it is.
With that out of the way, Xia said she wanted to test something during the picnic. Not like I really have anything better to do, which brought up the question of what I was supposed to do while Xia and Twilight searched for a way to get us home. While getting back to Azeroth wasn’t the most prominent thing on my mind, I honestly missed some of our guild mates. Especially one of them.
It’s complicated. Maybe later.
Xia wanted to test something alright. Had I known what I would’ve said no.
No, it didn’t involve me dying, obviously. Or any incidents involving my head being chopped off. But if it did, it wouldn’t exactly be pleasant. I would know. What’s it like? Oh not that much different, except you’re a head shorter than everypony else. At least I make a pretty blood fountain.
No, Xia was more interested in talking, which was worse. At least I had sandwiches. Dandelion sandwiches are delicious. Thinking about it, I may have eaten more the last week than I’ve done for more than a year. I’m going to need something to spend all this energy on.
Maybe knitting. Actually no, how an earth pony would even knit is a mystery I’d rather not solve. Or pegasi for that matter, do they use their wings as hands? I bet they do, because I’m not one and the universe hates me. Well it can go plough itself for all I care. Why did you not make me a pegasus pony instead?! Earth ponies have a connection with nature, which kinda clashes with the whole “death” part of my class description. Hang on.
No. Wings be damned, I’m not getting magic butterfly wings. Twilight knows a spell that can give me wings, but they’re fragile ones made of morning dew. And butterfly shaped. And time limited.
Back to the talking. Xia was actually after simple chatting, which was okay. We exchanged stories, but there was one I paid more attention to than the others: The Appleoosian Battle, where the settlers of Appleoosa fought the local bisons over a plot of land. The settlers had planted trees over the bisons old stampeding grounds, which the latter did not approve of. So they had a small battle where apple pies were used as ammunition. I asked for a moment of silence for the brave souls who lost their lives during the war, and that their fruity existence would forever be remembered. After all, plants are alive and can feel pain just as we can. Whenever you eat something freshly plucked, you’re eating it while it’s still alive. Sometimes I like just watching a herd of herbivores grazing while imagining the grass’ screams. I’m such a horrible pony.
There were other stories, we told some of ours as well. Mainly slice of life ones, like the time I tried engineering. Needless to say, I was banned from ever entering an engineering shop ever again. Ever. And all because I put a sock in a goblin bread heater to see what would happen. How was I supposed to know it would gain sentience and go on a washing machine killing spree? Which, I might add, was totally justified as goblin washing machines are a crime against science. Or maybe the sock was a victim of circumstances, and it was infact the toaster who was supposed to gain sentience. Toaster sounds like a better word than bread heater anyway.
Me and Venera “might” have broken into a similar shop afterwards to try the same with a gnomish toaster, but that time it merely shrunk. The toaster, not the sock.
It should have felt odd letting myself go around these ponies this early, but it didn’t. I was having fun. Simplistic, friendly and in-no-way-involving-dismemberment fun. Unless the sandwiches count, we left no survivors.
I lay down in the grass, making out shapes in the clouds. One of them had this weird shape of something Pinkie called a “muffin”, which is some sort of baked goods. She yelled “Twitchy tail!” as I noticed a growing dot getting bigger and bigger until I could make out the face of a certain pegasus.
In a flash I called my blade to me, dodging the incoming pony meteor who crashed into the ground on my right. An upside-down shaped hole in the ground appeared as the smoke cleared, revealing Lorn with his weapons drawn and prepared for combat.
It turned out Xia wanted to test the extent of my pacification, which I was all too happy to comply. I’ve missed fighting.
Even in our equine forms, we had no trouble wielding our weapons. Lorn wielded his sword and shield flawlessly, switching between using his mouth to hold the hilt and somehow holding it with his right hoof while standing on his rear legs. I just used my mouth to hold Arvenrarth due to how runeblades work, as it allows me more control. ‘The runeblade is an extension of your being, a death knight cannot battle without a runeblade,’ my old combat instructor used to say. Before he was killed by a small army of so called ‘heroes.’ Funny how robberies suddenly become heroic acts once you throw justification into the picture.
A blood death knight can initiate the Dance of the Runeblade for a short period of time, allowing them to wield it with their mind. Which is also why most dancing runeblades flail about like hyperactive goblins that have stumbled upon a shipment of ‘DO NOT PUSH’ buttons.
Only, one problem: all I could do was defend, as I couldn’t get myself to use any of my offensive death knight abilities. Which sucked as we made a “friendly” bet on who would win, where the loser would have to perform the dance of our people. I really hate our dance. We kept at it for minutes before Lorn finally fell down in exhaustion. Silly living and their limited energy. We agreed on a draw, mainly because I didn’t want to expose the locals to the atrocity that is the blood elven dance. It really is that terrible. I prefer the dance of death, much more artistic. Xia was taking notes, obviously creating hypotheses and overanalyzing as per usual. She asked me to try again, but without fighting to kill.
Of course, how silly of me. Obviously I should’ve fought without trying to kill Lorn, there’s just one problem with that. In case you need a reminder, I’m a death knight, with “death” being the main word here. I DON’T DO NON-LETHAL.
Onto other matters, I was running out our of apples and needed to get more. Problem was I had no local money, or “bits” as Lorn called them, and farm work is just not for me. I have a few five-digits of gold, but what use are they here? Money is stupid and is only worth something because people and ponies alike think it is. It’s oddly comfy to lie on though. Haven’t slept while lying on a bed of gold though, nor a normal bed for that matter, not since the day before I became a death knight. Ever heard the expression “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”? The dead do not sleep. Xia doesn’t sleep, she meditates to keep her own magic under control.
Lorn had a proposition for me. He’s earned quite a hefty sum of bits with his profession, being a jewelcrafter and all. But he was interested in the prospecting results of this world’s ores, and required my mining expertise.
Yes, I’m a miner. I find, mine and smelt ores that sometimes contain gems. And no, I do not build castles. I’m a destroyer, not a builder. If I ever built a castle, it would be so I could beat someone with it.
Rarity had told him where she usually found hers, which was somewhere up in the mountains. So that’s where we’re going. Family trip!
We were climbing up the mountainside, when Lorn decided it was time for a little brotherly talk. He always picked the best spots, like steep mountainsides and giant battles. Our main subject? Hair. Which is a very important subject, thank you very much!
His hair is a disaster, end of story. He even had the audacity to claim the two tails on my forehead are hugely impractical, which is a downright LIE. I look spiffy, and it never slowed me down before. After all, I can sense where the living are if I’m low on energy so it’s not like I need eyes to fight. Not that I want to lose my eyes, especially now. Even the mountains view in this world is breathtaking, and considering I don’t really breathe that’s saying something.
Wait. I’m actually breathing. This could be a problem.
Lorn came up with a horrible comeback. He said spiffy is something squirrels are, so I punched him in the jaw.
A few minutes later we reached a flat area where I started to sense nearby deposits. I found quite a lot of spots, there was only one problem.
They were invisible. Honestly, who decided it was a good idea to make ore invisible? What’s wrong with ore deposits being easy to see, too manestream? This was a random occurrence in Azeroth that happened way too often, where visible ore deposits would suddenly disappear once you got near them. Except this time I never actually saw any of the ore deposits, which would mean... oh hay no! They aren’t invisible, they’re underground!
I jumped on top of a nearby boulder and scanned the area, looking for cave entrances. Rocks as far as the eye could see, with wide paths of dirt spread across the ground. Bushes and trees here and there. But no caves. What was I supposed to do, dig for them? My gnomish army knife doesn’t even have a shovel. It has a pick axe, skinning knife, torture cables,flint and tinder and other useless things, but no shovel. Stupid gnomes.
I drew a cross on the ground where a deposit was buried underneath, when I was hit by this ridiculous idea. “What if I actually dug for- ARGH PAIN LEAVE ME ALONE!” Stupid hooves, mimicking my ideas without me giving them authorization to do so and thus ending up with me striking something hard. Colourful gems, several of them in fact, just beneath the surface. I ran over to where I sensed another deposit and did the same there, apart from the whole painfully finding more gems. More gems, but no ore.
I dug up several deposits, but they all seemed to lack ore. Looking at the ground around me being covered in the gems I had dug up reminded me of a certain island in Azeroth where the Exodar resided. All the mountainside needed now were some mutated animals and alien goats and it could be called Exodar-two, although it lacked the spaceship sized crystal.
I was immediately hit by nostalgia as I remembered the draenei mount and its multiple uses, especially the elekk cannon. Made entirely of elekk bones, it couldn’t shoot anything but it was sharp enough to serve as an impromptu oversized stabbing tool. Told you I was creative.
The mountain does not approve of my creativity, and it displayed this by causing the ground to give away underneath me, dropping me into a vertical tunnel. Clearly the mountain planned this for years, even conspiring with gravity. Everything conspires against me, nothing values artists these days! Shortly after it started going horizontal, becoming a makeshift slide. It was actually quite fun for a while, my eyes having no trouble seeing anything. Then there was a small ramp before the ground disappeared, showing a dark chasm below. Luckily, there was a hole in the wall on the other side, with another tunnel.
Which is why I hit the wall right above it, flailing my legs as I briefly flew across the chasm. I hate earth elementals so much right now. Barely landing inside the other tunnel, I found myself rubbing my face as Lorn came sliding, made the jump perfectly (of course), crashed into me and sent us both sliding in a rolling mess. Then the ground disappeared again, and I landed on flat ground.
Lorn landed on me. Of course he landed on me. On the plus side, I found the cave! Be patient my dear apples, I shall unite you with your doom soon- wait.
That was odd. I just sneezed. Place isn’t that dusty.
We weren’t lost. Lorn was clever enough to suggest we create marks to guide us back, so I made some crosses on the walls at regular intervals. Not like they were needed as my surroundings were filled with so many gems, it would cause the biggest bitch fest in the auction houses since the day it became known that smart people used stupid people to get rich. It was just basic economics, buying low and selling high but of course that was unfair. I wouldn’t touch any of those places with a polearm, not like I could due to someone being anti-polearm. Polearmist.
But the most important thing was the ore. There were a few deposits of iron, silver and gold, but these deposits were simply... fascinating. Augmented iron ore, glowing with a shimmer of green as if infused with an emerald gem. Such a thing should not be possible, and yet here I found several rocks containing similar pieces that could be smelted and prepared just like any normal ore. Not only the emerald kind, but also several sapphire, ruby and topaz augmented ores. You could barely notice the gem fragments due to their size, and an idea appeared in my mind, followed by another sneeze. Ore infused by gems. Imagine finding a diamond one!
Imagine the physical properties of diamonds and how they are formed. Now imagine finding it in a state in which it would be smelted and fitted into other shapes. Imagine a sharp edged diamond sword which can withstand pretty much anything that isn’t of a divine nature. The idea was so absurd, the concept so surreal, it would kill logic. Screw Azeroth, Equestria has diamond swords. Well, might have, but screw Azeroth anyway.
I showed Lorn the copper ore I had just unearthed, its rubies giving it a crimson glow. He eagerly grabbed it, checking it out with his monocular, which is some sort of fancy jewelers loupe. The ore was of seventy eight percent purity and contained gem fragments with the potential to serve as magic foci. When Lorn tried prospecting it, it became a ruby giving off an orange shimmer. It was like the components switched places, hinting at the presence of natural transmutation. Short version: Blah blah blah magic rocks.
More importantly, I am now fifty bits richer. Maybe I’ll try a different fruit once we’re done here, as long as it’s not pears. Tastes as bad as they are evil.
I sneezed again. There’s not even that much dust here, not to mention the multiple tunnels look like they’ve been altered by someone, or something. Question is, who did and why hadn’t we seen anything to them yet?
I spoke too soon. Rule number one when adventuring, never say things like “at least it can’t get any worse” or “where is the lava” out loud. The universe has a terrible sense of humour.
Looking over to the source of the voice, I saw a pack of what looked like brown skinned dogs built like gorillas, most clad in iron armour on their torso and head. At the head of the pack, another one wearing a red vest was glaring at us with its light green eyes. He, or I guessed it was a he, said something I didn’t really register as my brain was currently focusing on the most important thing at the moment.
They were dogs. Dogs. I DON’T LIKE DOGS. I grabbed hold of Lorn, lifting him above my head. “GET AWAY FROM ME! I have a paladin, and I’m not afraid to use him!” I shouted, swinging Lorn at the approaching dogs. You’d think that’d be enough to scare them away.
Of course not. The vested one shouted orders to the rest, while Lorn who disapproved of my clearly brilliant plan caught flight, and addressing the hunchback fleabags. He was trying the diplomatic approach. I was too busy sneezing.
In the small break I got between my sneezing fits, I managed to pull my helmet out and put it on, only to remember it didn’t cover the lower part of my face. I hadn’t used a helmet in ages, so the only one I had available was my old gray helmet with unnecessary spikes and two horns fashions like an ox’s. Stupid vrykuls and their viking ways, rumours had it these giant humans were the ancestors of today's humans. As if the fact that they already looked like humans, only bigger, didn’t make it obvious. Vrykul are also sort of related to dwarves, seeing as both their ancestors were actually stone creatures that became mortal as a result of “the curse of flesh”.
It’s a long story. And I’m too busy wondering why on earth I have a goldfish bowl on my head. Doesn’t help that I sneezed just as it appeared on my head, leaving a big patch of snot splattered all over the inside of it. EWW. It looked worse than Draic’s last experiment, except it wasn’t on fire. Which was a relief, as I wasn’t in the mood to get singed.
The gorilla-dog hybrids accused us of stealing their gems, which was totally unjustified. They was buried in the walls! Yet Lorn wanted to return them. He dumped all the gems I had gathered into what became a large heap on the floor. Amongst the muck on my bowl I noticed Vestie’s eyes growing large. I sneezed my bowl off in time to catch him being impressed by the sheer amount of gems we had collected. And now my eyes were starting to water.
You see, I have a small problem when it comes to dogs. I’m allergic to dog hair. And these caves “belonged” to them, meaning this place was full of it. Buck my life.
You see, I have a small problem when it comes to dogs. I’m allergic to dog hair. And these caves “belonged” to them, meaning this place was full of it. Buck my life. I just wanted to get out, but Vestie had other plans. We were going to dig gems for them. Before we had any chance to say anything else, we were both jumped by several of the primate canines. I stepped out of the way, causing my attackers to crash into each other. Lorn, however, found his wings and muzzle bound by ropes.
Any time now.
Any time.
Lorn exploded.