Gallopocus Island [Thunderhoove Volcano] Tempered in the Flames

[Pony_Sage]

The Gallopocus Island's weather was always hot and sticky, it was a tropical island after all. The plants relished in the moisture. Green was abound everywhere, from the treetops in the canopy to the floor of the forest. There was many different animals going about their daily lives in this green heaven. Their calls and cries combined to make a sort of peaceful and very serene background noise. This was shattered intermittently by a rather rhythmic “PING" coming from somewhere in the distance.

These strikes came at regular intervals just a tad slower than a moderate walking speed. If one were to listen closely they would be able to her a faint melody twisting and twirling its way around these sharp and harsh strikes. There was a metallic quality to the strikes that was alien to the very natural environment that they were pealing through. They may have been strange and alien but they were definitely the cadence that the lighter more familiar tune was using to keep its self in time.

A quick walk through the forest in the direction of the tune and the cries of metal a small shop could be found. The whistle was emanating from there and so were the strikes of metal on metal. It was not a large shop, but then again not too small. Two stores in the main part seemed to be embedded into the side of the mountain that sheerly rose up into the clouds. There was a small house connected to the shop, this was also embedded into the face of the cliff. Large white barn doors were open on the front of the Shop and the whistling poured out of there.

The inside of the shop was dingy, dusty, and most of all dark with smoke and soot. There were four forges in the shop proper. The two towards the front were normal forges, albeit large but they had two stage billows and up-draft chimneys. The two towards the back, however, seemed to be of a different sort. They looked like that they were almost part of the mountain that formed the back wall of the shop. Formed out of the stone and fired by an unknown source. Flames leaped from the maw of one of these forges.

Before this forge stood a truly massive pony. He wore an odd smirk on is face as he watched the fire heat some unknown object. He retrieved a pair of tongs and quickly pulled the almost white hot metal out of the forge, the front edge of which sparked and sizzled in protest of the sudden temperature change. He roughly placed the wedge shaped metal onto the anvil that was close at hand. He reared up on his hind legs, he stood rather tall for a pony. He made sure that his aim was dead on and brought a hoof down on the steaming lump of metal. “CLANG!" Sparks flew out in all directions. Again. “PING!" The metal seemed to be protesting this beating. And again.“CLING!" The colour of the metal had changed from white hot to a dull red. He returned to all fours and put the metal back in the furnace.

He looked away from the furnace and sighed. He wiped his brow with a dirty piece of cloth and smiled up into the rafters of his shop.

“Akh lookin' mer an mer leek ahn acks ain't eet?" His voice boomed over the shop. It seemed from years and years of working in very loud conditions he had forgotten how to talk softly.

“Yah yah, dat stheel iz herd tah geet tah co-up-er-ate bah unce et dahs. Ye gut ahn acks dat wheel last ya fer-evah." His voice was up-beat and bright in comparison to his surroundings, the“R's" rolling ever so slightly.

He chuckled at his unseen companion before returning to his work. The whistling and the cadence of metal on metal soon filled the shop and the surrounding area yet again.

[flutterscotch]

Chase climbed slowly up a densely forested hill towards the direction of a metallic clanging, concentrating his unicorn magic as hard as he could. Behind the steel-colored unicorn, in a cloud of orange magic, a metal contraption hovered and bounced up and down with every hoofstep. Ordinarily, carrying his press would not be such a burden, but he was holding the body together as well, and had traveled all the way from Manehattan. He had heard that there was a blacksmith pony who may be able to help patch the crack in the wrought iron. All this movement was probably not helping the integrity of the iron. Every now and then how hoofsteps would be in rhythm with the far-off sound of the hammer.

Chase wasn't quite used to the climate on the islands "Why the hell would anyone put a forge in this infernal place?" he lamented, his normally neat gunmetal and verdigris mane drenched with sweat and flopping in his eyes. Flies stung his flanks, but he was too tired to shoo them away with his sopping tail.

He dragged himself to the mouth of the cave, where a stallion much larger than himself was talking to, no, YELLING to himself in some strange language.

"Oh, er. Ahem? I heard you might be able to help me?" he said, a little tentatively, eyeing all the metal pokey things laying around. He didn't want to make this giant stallion mad.

[Pony_Sage]

Coal stopped whistling as a faint voice filled his ears. They twitched but he didn't immediaely recognize that someone was speaking to him. He stoked the fire and moved the ax head around in the coals so it would be better heated. His back was turned to the grey stallion that was standing in the front of his shop, and he made no indication of turning around to speak with him.

Faint leathery wing beats could be heard circling around the shop. A soft brown blur darted around Chase's head and then his flank. The flies abated from nibbling on the grey pony's flank, as though they had just disappeared. The leathery wing beats shifted all around Chase, it was almost impossible to pinpoint the direction that they were coming from. Finally the brown blur darted towards the roan stallion standing before the forge. It negotiated its self and hung from the massive pony's ear and chattered. The pony turned his head towards the chattering and caught a glimpse of the other pony out of the corner of his eye. The stallion looked a bit surprised at the visitor and turned about and walked toward the other stallion. Sooty, the bat, was still hanging from his ear, eying the visitor suspiciously.

"Akh, ah deent seh yeh der. Plezd tah met yeh! Ahm Kohl Bretfer an des ez meh ferge. Ah ken mek -ne'tin yah ned! Ah elso -ave deh herdest stheel en E-quest-ria. Wat'cha beh neden wee pohne? Shez? Plegh? Acks?" Coal's voice boomed.

He peered over the stallion, thin and not very muscular. He wouldn't be needing farm equipment most likely. Coal though about what this city slicker of a pony could need from his shop and why he would come walking all this way out to the forge in person rather than just send him a letter asking for a part to be made. Being that Coal's forge was so remote he did most of his business via the mail and shipping lines. Luckily he had met a rather exuberant zebra on one trip to Hoofington who was able to ship almost anything to and from Coal's remote location. Quite an odd zebra but Coal was pleased with Monty's ability to ship in some rather rare metals and minerals out to him.

Coal's train of thought halted as his eyes fell upon a heap of metal parts and strange looking levers floating in the air behind the grey pony standing before him. Coal shifted his feet a little and craned his neck to get a better look at it. He hadn't the foggiest as to what it might be. Although he was a blacksmith, Coal was not very 'Mechanically Inclined'. He could fabricate parts from drawings or other parts, but he was lost when it came to putting the parts together to make a functioning machine, he left that up to the pony who ordered the parts. His mind wandered to an odd little mare that he had met on another trip to Hoofington. Now that pony was definitely better at putting things together than he was. Come to think of it, he had shipped more than a few disassembled components to her on various occasions, and she was one of his best customers. Coal shook his head slightly, ever mindful to not dislodge his ear's guest.

"Ahn wet beh dat der? Sem'ten dat neds teh beh fext? Et 'az seh meneh pertz. Et leks ahl breken, -ow mene pertz yeh ned fer dat tin?" Coal asked the grey sweat drenched pony.

Comparatively Coal looked like it was a balmy temperature outside and as though he hadn't been working at all. Other than the soot that covered his body, but that was hardly noticeable due to his roan pelt.

[flutterscotch]

"Er... Um... What?" Chase asked, staring blankly at Coal. About all he understood from that exchange was "Wee Pony" and "Broken".

"Oh, er, sir, My name is Chase. I hail from Manehattan. I would have written, but you see my press is cracked and I couldn't afford to lose time sending a letter, waiting for a reply, and then taking the chance that you wouldn't understand what I am talking about." Chase was being a little bit pushy, and definitely brave, because he was stark-terrified of this behemoth of a pony. "This is my printing press, and the body is cracked. It doesn't need to look pretty, just be sturdy. Do you think you can patch it...sir?"

He crossed his hooves, hoping that Coal could help him....and wouldn't knock him down and use him as fuel for his fire. He was so terrified that he didn't even notice how hot it was anymore. Any pony that cheerfully kept blood-sucking vermin on his ear while he used massive hoof hammers in billion degree heat without breaking a sweat was nopony to be trifled with.

[Pony_Sage]

As the new pony talked Coal stepped a bit closer to him, tilting his head to the side. Sooty now hanging mere inches from Chase's face. Coal was not trying to intimidate Chase, he was just hard of hearing and had never known other people's personal space. When Chase mentioned, 'Fixing and patching', something Coal's eyes began to twinkle. He always loved fixing things, even if he couldn't put it back together, making something able to be put back together into a functioning item always made him feel good about himself. Coal nosed past Chase with a goofy smile and looked closely at the floating pile of parts. A large hollow piece that seemed to house all the other pieces had a large fissure running through it.

“Mehnhetten? Yeh treked ahl de weh den her fer meh tah fex ah wee tin lek daht. Ahm ehnered!” Coal said with a bit of a chortle.

He pushed back past Chase again and walked into his shop expecting Chase to follow. There was a small square table that had some papers laying on it. The outside of this table had been made to hold tools, creating an interesting boarder on the table its self. As Coal walked past the table he thumped it with a hoof as if to say, 'Place the thing to be fixed here.' However he did not stop walking, he trotted over to a small door and ducked his head to walk through. In a few moments he returned with a dusty bottle of cloudy yellow liquid. He plopped it down on a stump that was being used as a table and went to look for some mugs. He found a pair of dusty mugs and blew the soot out of them. Mind you Sooty was still clinging to his ear and keeping an eye on Chase. Sooty was not one to warm up to new ponies that quickly, she was also a bit protective of what she thought of as 'Her Pony.'

“Ah dent geht mehene pohne felk her she ahl ah gaht ez Pehnehppehl Jehs. Ahv sehm!” Coal boomed as he poured the juice into the mugs and schlurped some of his.

Coal glanced over at Chase again with a smile. He walked towards one of his supply corners. Here resided many types and shapes of steel and iron. He poked through the piles a bit, he was looking for the perfect piece to weld up the crack. There were two ways he could do this, he could create a sand cast and weld the crack shut with molten metal and let it cool. Or he could heat up a piece of square bar until it was pliable, shape it similar to the crack, and then just smash it into the chasm and hope that the patch would hold. He opted for the molten welding, it usually took longer but the risk of furthering the crack with the hammer welding method was far too great. Coal picked out a nice steel ingot and plopped it down on an anvil. He would have to find his crucible for this job, an often under used piece of equipment. His crucible was of his own design and was made of a special alloy, made from very rare minerals and metals, that was not only light but had an incredibly high melting point. He could easily melt steel with in it with crucible only turning cherry red. Also the advantage of it being an alloy was that steel and iron would not adhere themselves to the walls of it. Coal would also need to get out his black sand and wooden frames to make this work. He set about his business without a word, just a whistle of an old tune. Coal expected Chase to just make himself at home in the shop. There were a few chairs, covered in soot, some stumps, covered in tools and soot, and even an anvil or two, that were also covered in soot.

Sooty grew tired of the wiggling of Coals ears and flitted away. She flapped about Chase for a bit looking him over and then landed on a table in front of Chase and awkwardly stood looking at the pony. She could discern no malcontent from him nor ill will, but she still didn't trust him completely. She flitted her wings and lifted off of the table, she positioned herself hanging inverted from a low hung chandelier. She had the perfect view of the new pony and she could see Coal going about his business out of the corner of her vision. She hung there and waited for something to happen.

[flutterscotch]

At Coal's unusual, and in Chase's opinion possibly rabid and flea-infested, ear ornament dangling less than 24 picas from his face, and a seemingly mad twinkle in the behemoth's eyes at the mention of the broken metal, (not to mention his alarmingly close proximity and booming voice) Chase flinched. He boomed something else incomprehensible at the smaller unicorn (of which all he caught was "Manehattan"). Even the pony's smile was horrifying. And Chase had often run afoul of some rather large specimens of stallionhood, guard-wise, in his nightly propaganda jaunts (and once at the dive bar he frequented, but that was a story best left untold) but he could generally avoid or outrun them.

Walking up to one of the beasts and requesting his help was another story, and a story that Chase was not quite comfortable living. He followed the blacksmith into his workshop, and gently plunked his broken press down on the worktable that Coal had indicated. He looked around the walls of the room with what little light was being thrown onto the sooty hewn rock by the four hell-fires situated about the room. Tongs, tongs and more tongs on the walls, odd spikes or metal stacked up in corners, "torture implements" he thought.

The roan stallion disappeared, and returned with two mugs and a bottle, the creature Chase considered a "Flying Rat" swiveling its head in Chase's direction as to not have him out of her sight for even a second. Coal plunked the items on the stump Chase was leaning over to hard that the unicorn was surprised that the glass did not shatter all over the room.

“Ah dent geht mehene pohne felk her she ahl ah gaht ez Pehnehppehl Jehs. Ahv sehm!”

"Oh, er, thanks", Chase responded, taking the freshly poured mug in front of him. Already a few particles of soot had landed on the surface.

"Pehnehppehl Jehs? What in Celestia's name kind of rotgut would "Pehnehppehl Jehs" be? Here's hoping it'll make me forget how blasted, suffocatingly hot it is in here", Chase thought to himself. He was having a heck of a time trying to understand what this giant grinning monster of a pony was talking about, even when he wasn't distracted by his melting hide. Taking a tentative sip out of the proffered mug. "...And WHAT a mug", he internal dialogue continued as he studied the mug and its contents, peering at the stylized unicorn face with its tongue sticking out, embossed on its side. The pale golden liquid inside was FAR sweeter than he had anticipated (his imagination was lending itself towards a very harsh gin flavor). Involuntarily, he grimaced and stuck out his tongue as well, a perfect emulation of the idol emblazoned on the mug.

He sat there sipping the pineapple juice and silently returning the stare-down of the tiny bat hanging from the chandelier for a few moments before he sullenly stuck out his tongue at her too. The tiny bat was relentless though, and just kept eyeing him up as he drank the rest bottle of pineapple juice. "Just waiting to tell that monster to come over here and punish me for drinking up all his juice, I bet. But at least I won't be melted when I die", he thought a little ruefully. He really couldn't understand why this pony hadn't knocked him to the ground yet. What was he waiting for?

"Surprised if I'll have any fur on my flank by the time this is over", the grey unicorn lamented, trying his utmost to hold all the interlocking pieces to his press together to ensure that the weld did not put anything out of alignment. "How is it coming, er, sir?" he asked Coal earnestly, sneaking up towards where he was working with the molten metal. Chase was fascinated that something so bright beautiful and flowing would eventually be solid, sturdy and cool to the touch like his press. Most of the time the contrasts in life escaped him.

[Pony_Sage]

Coal was in the process of tamping down the black sand with a shaggy hoof as Chase approached him.

"How is it coming, er, sir?"

The question startled Coal, he had not heard Chase walk up to him. A combination of slight deafness and being engrossed in his work turned most of Coal's hearing off. With a goofy smile Coal looked at Chase.

“Ah she ye leked deh pehnehppehl jehs yeh? Nah mach ah kan geht aht her. Ne-weh, ahm gunnah welt dah krek weet melten stehl. Shend gehd?”

Coal's voice still boomed over the shop, Sooty looked over at the pair and then closed her eyes for a moment as if sleeping. The sand was thoroughly tamped down Coal looked expectantly at Chase, as if the city pony knew what to do.

“Ooh serreh, whet ah ned ez fer yeh tah pet dah breken tingeh ahn deh send plehz.”

With another smile Coal abruptly took the broken shell of the press and mushed it into the sand with a heavy hoof. He put more wooden planks surrounding it and what looked to be a balsa wood plank he wedged in the crack and broke off. Next he put another balsa wood dowel jutting up towards the ceiling in the crack. He then proceeded to pour more black sand over the top of the broken press. He pressed this sand especially tight, leaning most of his weight down on it. He didn't want the sand to shift during the process ahead.

“Neh sthend behk plehz. Et whel beh het ahn ah dun whan yeh the get hert.”

Coal looked over at the super heating forge where the crucible sat, gaining its familiar cherry red glow. He grabbed a pair of tongs from one of his many caches and gripped the swing arm with them. The red crucible slowly creaked out into the room from its fiery bed. The molten steel protested the temperature change by spitting what looked like sparklers in every direction. Carefully Coal poured the contents onto the sand mold. The balsa wood instantly went aflame and disintegrated. The syrup like molten steel slowly funneled down to take the place of the balsa wood. Mind you this only served to raise the temperature of the surrounding area. Beads of sweat finally began to form on Coal's muzzle. He wiped them away with the crook of one of his fuzzy hooves.

[flutterscotch]

Chase paced nervously. This demon-stallion was handling his precious press a bit roughly for his liking. As he moved the contraption around, tamped sand around it, stacked it with wood, and then to Chase's horror, lit it on fire with melting steel.

"Um sir, is it supposed to do that?", Chase asked, alarmed as the body of his press was engulfed in flames. He pawed the floor of the cave nervously, trying to edge closer to the work area, but both the heat, and the glare from the tiny bat kept him at bay. He sat back on his haunches, and said out loud, because Coal couldn't hear him anyway. "This was a mistake. I'll never be able to get my press back in working order so I can make the money to move to Stalliongrad."

[Pony_Sage]

Sooty leered at the grey pony, who was looking rather dejected as he sat upon his haunches. She didn't care for this pony, there was something off about him. Maybe it was his city up-bringing or maybe it was the way he carried on about Coal's working. Sooty scoffed at the wiry pony as she flitted over to another rafter, closer to the warmth of the Vulcan Forge. As the steel flowed into the mold Coal pressed a heavy hoof down on the top of the sand, making sure to keep all the broken pieces in place.

"Akh, Dun yeh lehv whan eht flems lehk deht?"

Coal 's voice was filled with glee and an odd grin was on his muzzle. This was, after all, his favorite part of the job. The chassis of the press at the moment was being knitted together beneath the black sand. The molten steel was filling the gaps and slowly hardening. Coal glanced over his shoulder at the dejected pony mumbling to himself in the corner. He trotted over to Chase and gave him a hard pat on the shoulders, stopping only for a moment to give him a wink of his eye. Trotting over towards a pail in to corner, he reached down and picked it up in his mouth, its contents sloshing from side to side making the sound of a small ocean. Coal placed the bucket next to the sand mold, this part was tricky, if he poured the water too soon it would deform the steel, too late it would not temper it correctly. As the tell tale smoke started to rise from the sand mold's flash point Coal quickly poured the water into the boxes. An audible hiss could be heard as steam rose from his general direction. The sand quickly lost its coherence and fell from the sides of the chassis, revealing a fixed but not yet finished printing chassis.

"Lekkeh Her, Ahlmest gehd ahs neh!"

Coal hefted the chassis up onto one of his stump workstations, with a clang the tools on the side of the stump jangled. Pulling a chisel out he pressed it against the flash on the side of the chassis. With a swift fore-hoof smack on the top of the chisel the flash went shooting across the workshop, at this Coal laughed, sometimes the smaller details slipped his mind. Next up was a filing, with a rather rough looking rasp in his mouth Coal began to make the flash around the edges smooth and contoured. The whole process of finishing the piece took somewhere near an hour or so.

Coal was hoping that Chase would be appreciative of his newly fixed printing chassis as the big Roan pony pointed to the object with a hoof and said with excitement,

"Ahn eht eez dune! Hew yah leek eht?"

A big smile was on Coal's muzzle, he really did hope that this fancy pony liked his work, maybe even enough to recommend it to his fancy city slicking friends!