A Friend on the Road (Dunder Blust and Rok Anarch)

[rokthepony]

Rok had been traveling for days in search of steel. He needed steel to find for Storm so that she would make him a Rapier, it had been a part of the deal they had cut together. Along the road he ran into many ponies. However, he almost never met any that he recognized. Until he saw an old friend that he had met awhile back, and called out to him. "Hey, Dunder! It's me Rok! What are you doing here?" Rok called into the distance loudly. Rok was excited, perhaps Dunder could aid him in his quest for steel.

[Dunder]

Dunder was flying along one of the roads between cities. He was flying fairly close to the ground, and a good thing for that too. He heard a familiar pony's voice. He looked down at the road to see the familiar pony, Rok, in the distance. He flew down to the pony and landed heavily in front of him, "Hey, you. How are you doing?" He asked the pony, "And I'm just flying along here. A better question is what are you doing here?" He asked Rok.

[rokthepony]

"Funny you should ask, because I need your help. I am in search of steel. Storm said if I could find her the necessary materials she would make me a Rapier at an extremely discounted price. . . . do you have any idea where I can find enough steel?" Rok asked Dunder inquisitively.

[Dunder]

Dunder shook his head at Rok, "Nope. And you do know that steel isn't mined from the ground? It's made by mixing iron and carbon... I'm pretty sure." He said. He wasn't too sure and would hate to misinform the already uninformed pony. "But I will help you search for it, none the less." He said to Rok. Not wanting to let the pony down.

[rokthepony]

Rok was glad that Dunder had told him this information. "So we need to find somewhere that mines iron then.... any ideas for where we could start Dunder?" Rok asked expectantly.

[Dunder]

"I don't know. If we looked around, I suppose we could find some mines... Though, I don't have the proper equipment to go mining." Dunder said. Rok was obviously not well versed on how mining worked either.

[rokthepony]

Hmmmmm..... Rok thought for a long time, but could come with no ideas. "I don't know..... Maybe you can fly up and scout for us?"

[Dunder]

Dunder glanced around, "Maybe..these are plains after all." He said. "It'd be easier if I carried you." Dunder said as he started to hover. He held out his hooves for Rok to grab.

[rokthepony]

Rok grabbed his hooves. It was his first time flying since he had been flung off a cliff by Dunder when they last met. He was excited.

[Dunder]

Dunder took Rok's fetlocks in his and took off into the air with great effort. Dunder huffed, "You're going to need to lose some weight before I carry you again." He said as he took off flying. "And keep your eyes out for anything that looks like a mine shaft. Look for rails and carts...stuff like that." Dunder said as he carried Rok.

[rokthepony]

Rok looked hard for a few moments, and then he suddenly saw it. "Dunder, look over there, there's a set of rails leading to what looks like a cave with a square opening!"

[Dunder]

Dunder headed in the direction after looking off where Rok had pointed out. He started to lower in altitude, as the approached the rails. He dropped off and flew over him, landing on the ground. "Come on, we need to make sure this cave was made for steel and not a gem or coal mine." He said as he trotted down the tracks, eventually reaching the mine, there were no signs or markings, making it extremely eerie.

"Well, vanguarding is exclusively for the brave, so..." He teased as he stepped into the mine.

[rokthepony]

Rok was not afraid. . . . or at least he had to *prove* that he wasn't. "LETS GO!" Rok yelled, drawing his stiletto and galloping into the cave at full speed.

[Dunder]

Dunder was surprised by Rok's reaction, there was a fine line between bring brave and being stupid. "Wait, Rok!" He called as he followed after him, the cave was dark, almost too dark to see the ground, so he started to fly to avoid stepping on anything. He soon caught up and tackled Rok, "You stupid pony! You never go rushing into a cave like that." He said before standing up. He pulled out a lamp from one of his saddlebags and lit it. He drew the rapier from the scabbard and used it as a pole to carry the lamp, it lit the cave better, "There, see? Better."

[rokthepony]

Rok began to laugh at Dunder and said,"what are you talking about, I'm not scared of danger. Why in fact, once I --" He was cut off by the fact that he fell into a hole and went sliding down a mine-shaft.

[Dunder]

Dunder looked back, "Oh...my...." He facehooved before putting his rapier and the lamp away and jumping in after Rok. Though, he used his hooves to help slow himself down, and hopefully not crush Rok.

[rokthepony]

Rok landed at the bottom of the shaft with a thud. But there was light here. Many workers were mining some sort of ore. Rok was impressed by their pickaxes and hats. He was thinking of talking to one of them when he heard a strange noise. Wait.... he thought to himself. ... DUNDER! He quickly moved out of the way, but then remembered his stiletto was still sitting there, he grabbed it quickly before Dunder landed right where it had been moments before.

[Dunder]

Dunder landed heavily on his rump, not sure where the tunnel was going to end, so when it quickly cut off it caught him off guard. He hit the ground heavily, and looked at the stiletto in Rok's mouth. "Put that down, I'd kill you before you got one stab at me." Dunder said casually as he stood up, he glanced around. "Awww dang! We fell down one of the holes..." He said as he watched the workers. He suddenly looked nervous.

[rokthepony]

Rok ignored Dunder's reaction and walked over to one of the workers. "Hi, I'm Rok Anarch! Can I get some iron here anywhere?" The worker looked at him pointedly. "We work very hard to mine this, and we can't just give it away. I assume you can't pay for it because you would have just bought it instead of come down here.... you can always get a job mining, we always have a need for workers."

"Mining!? Sounds great! When can I start?" Rock said excitedly.

"Well you can start now actually... but you'll be stuck here until your shift ends. You'll be given water, but little food. And I'll only allow you to keep one-fifth of what you mine.... by the way, I am the boss around here. Grab a hardhat and a pickaxe and start working if you want to." the worker answered.

"Sounds great!" Rock said, moving to go get a pickaxe.

[Dunder]

Dunder looked confused. AS Rok trotted away and talked to one of the worker ponies, Dunder only galloped up next to him after that, "wait, what's going on? Did you get a job as a miner pony? Because if you did, that's good, you need a job anyways." He teased and bumped Rok's flank with his. "Anyway, I might as well join you, not like I'm leaving you down here alone to get free stuff. Besides, Storm might appreciate a little more metals." He said as he grabbed a pickaxe and hard hat. He was surprised they'd get hired right off the bat like this, while they hardly knew the ponies. They must be really desperate for works if they would hire ones who fell out of the sky.

[rokthepony]

Rok began the hard, long shift. It was much harder than he expected. He sweated and sweated, almost parched as he waited for the water to arrive. so this is work, huh. He thought to himself. Dunder looked like he was dealing far better with the heat and the monotonous labor of chipping away small bits of rock. Often the workers would call over some pointers and help them out. Rok thought it was strange that they had hired them so quickly, things didn't usually work like that around here. But he worked on anyway, ignoring his thoughts.

[Dunder]

Dunder just worked the rock as he thought about other things. It was easy to do monotonous labor with other things on your mind. Maybe Dunder and Rok could go to Fillydelphia and get some drinks after this was over. He could pay for them even if they didn't get paid much. Heck, he might even but some more metal ingots for Storm for when he went back up to Cloudsdale.

After a while, Dunder got tired, he put the pickaxe down and quickly pulled out a metal canteen, he was coping with the heat fine, but he hadn't noticed Rok. As he took a peek over, Dunder could tell that Rok needed the water more... Dunder took a sip of the water from the canteen before hoofing it over to Rok. "Drink up, you need it." He said.

[rokthepony]

Rok was thankful for the water, but took only a small sip not wanting to be a burden before continuing on. The work took several hours, but finally he had about five times as much iron as he would need for the sword, and Dunder had an even larger amount. Rok then heard the boss calling over,

"If you guys are done, your payment is getting to keep that one-fifth of the iron and leave. Your getting no bits after being hired on such short notice." He paused for a moment, before breaking out in a smile and adding, "I guess I should have mentioned that a bit earlier."

[Dunder]

Dunder looked at the floor and ran a hoof through his mane as Rok took a drink, he couldn't really protest how much he drank if he didn't see. When the boss pony said that their only payment would be their share of Iron ore, Dunder nodded and looked to the ground. He wasn't even sure how much one fifth was. He quickly shoveled about one fifth into his saddlebag and one fifth of Rok's not at all being generous for the miners. He shot Rok a glance, "Let's leave, quick." He said before closing the bag and trotting down the well lit rail tracks.