A/N. Rarity the fashion designer in her wartime job. OK then, let's get this over with. Is it just me that dislikes Rarity? I cannot pinpoint what I don't like about her but I can feel my dislike.
Chapter 14
Hello dears, I am going to tell you all about what I did in the war. I was a miner due to my ability to find gems using magic. It was horribly dirty and dangerous but I hardly complained at all because I knew that I was relatively safe compared to some of my friends on the front lines. Most of my day was spent down in the mines finding gems and other things but sometimes I would be allowed to stay on the surface and operate the machinery that we used.
The mine was a shaft mine with branches off at ten different levels that had been calculated to contain the most ore and gems. We were mining in the Crystal Mountains for they had shown the most potential for rare materials such as iron or lead. Our main mining operation was for the many gems that lie in the ground underneath the green grasses of Equestria. This was because we could turn gems into a third of their weight in metal so we needed lots of gems. The mines were dark and we only had our horns to light the way as unicorns so I had no idea how earth ponies could work in the total darkness. We changed jobs often, I worked for a few days pulling carts filled with gems to the lift that carried them to the surface and I spent days at the controls of the machines that extended the tunnels into a maze that we could lose many ponies in and we did. About 100 ponies went missing in the mines, went down in the morning and didn't come up at night. This machine was a monster, 15 meters long and weighing 2 tons it was one of the biggest things down in the mines. The front of it was totally dominated by the digging machine as the whole thing was actually 3 machines connected, a digger, a sorter and a very big engine. The digger was made up of a circular, pulsating mass of metal teeth that crushed all the rocks offered up to it by the 20 claw-like appendages that surrounded the "mouth". It ate up the rocks and broke them into gravel and sand and passed the rubble into the sorter that picked out all the ores and gems. Most of the debris was reused in the finer workings of the mines, shaping the gems for optimum processing output and it was our mine that first used laser technology, from our gems, to mine out large portions of tunnel in small amounts of time.
The uniform for the miners was so unfashionable that I was uncomfortable wearing it but I have to give it to the designers, it was practical. Those hardhats were solid and I got hit on the head once or twice and was I grateful for them, the clothes were tough and I never got a scratch trough them and the boots, dear sweet Celestia the boots were so strong that my hooves were never chipped and they were never sore from walking so many places. The mines were not only dangerous from being underground and in darkness but from the working conditions. The floors were almost always wet and slippery and tunnel that looked perfectly safe could collapse at any moment. Not only were we physically damaged, we were psychologically damaged. Knowing that any minute of any hour on any day you could be crushed or you could break your leg and be forgotten or you could reach a dead end and forget the way back but the worst part was not knowing what time it was. Our body clocks didn't work underground and without much sunlight the ponies soon became paler and paler until we were mostly white or cream. This created confusion and so you were more likely to be left behind. When we did see the sun, it burned our skin and our eyes and we were forced to spend the days outside in caves or under trees. We were becoming more and more like animals then civilised ponies. Only the constant thought that if I wanted to be with my friends again then I would have to beat the sun and so I stood in the light on the sunny days, I stood and I burned until it was natural again. I lost so much in those deep, dark places but I gained one thing, one great thing that I would never, ever forget. Never trust authority. They say that they are looking out for your best interest but sometimes they aren't. Sometimes, all they want is power and money. The authority in the mines, all they wanted was the money that they were paid and they were paid by the weight of the metal they produced. The weight all depended on us and our working hours.
The lift was another thing that was a work of genius. The pulleys used reduced the weight to almost nothing and a single pony could lift a weight of 1 ton. The engine used however, could lift weights of 4 tons without pulleys and so it powered the entire lift system. The mine was traversed most easily via the network of rails that spanned all of the main tunnels and some of the less important ones. These were used the get all that we mined to the lifts so that they could be taken to the surface and processed. The taking of the minerals to the carts was backbreaking, carrying heavy loads in almost total darkness was a paved road for injury and so many ponies' lives were destroyed by their broken backs and necks from carrying the substantial masses of gems and metal ores. We got paid very little to nothing at all to do hard manual labour in dangerous conditions but we did it without question because we all knew that what we did and how we died would affect the war and the survival of our royalty.
A/N. I have to say that was very strange. I did not see that coming. I usually write what comes to me as I'm writing but I am surprised that I came up with that. Wow! Anyway, that is the end of the Mane 6 spotlights and we are back on following Falfrea and back in 3rd person! I always love 3rd person. Have I got plans for the next few chapters and the final chapters of this story I would like to say. I may have said before, but I want to write a trilogy but I can't do that without reviews so get reviewing if you want a second and third story. They won't contain as much gore and violence as this one but more focusing on Falfrea and him fitting in to society after killing so many ponies… I have said too much.
Vale