Soup Mining in Equestria

The Western line ran three trains a day departing Manehattan. I caught the regularly scheduled 5:30 PM out, but a monster incident delayed the train at Ponyville station for almost two hours and we didn’t reach Pea Ridge until just past 10. Fortunately, I was able to telegram ahead during the delay to inform Lemon Hearts and Boundary Layer of my expected much-later time of arrival. Despite the passenger compartments being half-full, I was the only one to get off the train at Pea Ridge, where Boundary Layer and an enormous minotaur met me at the station. As we exchanged greetings, I noticed the minotaur unloading bound stacks of newspaper off one of the cargo hauler cars, enough to fill the big pushcart sitting next to one of the station benches. It seemed odd to me, as Pea Ridge’s workers surely didn’t need that many reading copies.

Upon learning that I had only brought a single suitcase, Boundary turned to his companion and said, “Tonny, you can just put Mr. Turkel’s suitcase on top of the papers. We’ll walk back to the Pav since I’ve got to talk to some of the night shift anyways, and head to the bunkhouses from there.”

The giant minotaur – over a head taller than most adult bulls, and proportionally wider – nodded and easily hefted my large suitcase and carefully placed it atop the cart. As we departed the station, he pushed the full load along without apparent effort. Boundary asked, “How was the trip, Mr. Turkel? Feel free to call me Bounder; it’s what most of the work crews do. We’re headed to what we just call the Pavilion, or the Pav for short. We put it up to use as an all-purpose gathering spot, mess hall, and office.”

“Call me Spuds. I don’t mind train travel, normally, but I’m starting to reconsider that stretch of track through Ponyville. I’m just glad that they got the manticores that wandered out of the Everfree off the tracks before the train actually got there,” I replied.

Mounted on a pole at a corner of the pushcart was a magical light globe, a common device for providing illumination at night. I suspected it was for my benefit, as my companions seemed familiar enough with the path that they could’ve followed it in the dark. We set off at a brisk trot against the chill of the early January night. It was cold enough that I was glad I was wearing a sweater and hat; both of my companions wore vests. As we covered the trail’s mile and a quarter over to the Pav, I was struck by the fact that we appeared to be walking through groves of slightly peculiar trees.

Noticing my glances, Boundary said, “Most ponies don’t realize it, but ideally, soup mines are found in forested areas. Or at least, places that can support a timber farm. Coppicing trees is a common practice. Manehattan Soup and Stew Shipping even has our own teams of arborists, and some mining teams get used to partnering with particular forestry teams. I know the major competitors to M3S have their own in-house lumberjacks as well. We need the wood in order to drive the steam engines that run the pumpjacks, and just about every large soupfield was either found underneath a forest or else the companies brought the forests there.”

Boundary continued, “It’s not just the prospectors and soupjacks working out here. We’ve got to have an entire team of creatures set up in our own little integrated ecosystem in order to make soup flow. Once we give you the basics tomorrow of how we’re trying to extract soup from a dry field, you’ll soon realize what else needs to be done to get things from within a mine to your kitchen tap.”

We rounded another small grove and I could see the Pavilion a couple hundred yards further down, underneath a bright light that must have been mounted on a pole atop its roof as a sort of beacon. On an overcast night, even without any guiding stars, a pony on the ground would have no problem seeing it from two or three miles away. Though the trees might block direct sight, the slight glow would tell them roughly in what direction to go. Pegasi cruising several hundred feet above ground would certainly be able to spot the beacon from ten times that distance.

“As you’re probably aware, we stop pumping a soup mine when extraction starts costing more bits than the soup is worth. But that doesn’t mean there’s no soup left. And very often, the rock around which the soup was found – the soup dome – is crusted with dried-out soup. Dehydrated soup concentrate, or soupbrick, as it’s more commonly called. And in some cases, the would-be mine was dried out even before it was discovered. In some places like Pea Ridge, there were both some excellent liquid mines as well as dried-out domes that never produced pumpable soup but contain loads of soupbrick,” said Boundary as we reached the Pav.

The large wooden structure was open-columned on three sides with a smaller solid-wood section on the fourth. Heavy canvas curtains hung from the rafters between the columns blocked most of the wind and kept the interior much warmer than the outside, though still cool compared to a farmhouse. Upon entering through the only section with the curtains halfway down, I saw it was filled with rows of wooden tables and benches that could easily seat a couple hundred ponies with plenty of clear space to spare. But at this late hour, there were only nine ponies – and one griffon – around. Perhaps twenty large light globes on the exterior posts of the pavilion provided steady if subdued light. About twice that number were mounted on interior posts, but almost all of those were no longer lit.

What a few hours ago must have been a roaring fire within a large stone pit at the center of the pavilion had burned down to a low smolder, but still provided light and warmth to a muscular stallion lying face-down upon a padded massage bench next to it and the light purple pegasus mare digging her hooves into the muscles along his hips. A few smaller fire pits around the pavilion were already completely out. A pair of teenaged colts looked to be almost finished with cleaning the tables and sweeping the floors.

Underneath the only table still well-lit by light globes, an earth pony mare and a griffon tom in their middle years were poring over a laminated map and discussing something in low voices. The griffon held an orange grease pencil in his right foreclaw, making a few markings on the map while the tan-colored mare worked an abacus.

“Spuds, I’ve got to check in with some of the evening shift,” Boundary nodded at the remaining four ponies waiting at a table near the enclosed section. “You can take a look around the Pav, but don’t bother anyone since they’re probably wrapping up for the day. This will just take a few minutes, and then you, me, and Tonny can head to the bunkhouse.”

I took his suggestion. The first thing that caught my eye was the large map, bulletin board, and chalkboard taking up much of the enclosure wall facing us. The map was more than three times the length and height of a pony and appeared to depict all of Pea Ridge; the distance from the train station near the far right of the map to the little wooden model of the Pav wasn’t even a sixth of the way across. Little grid marks at the top and side provided an easy way of referring to map coordinates, while pins held down colored string that seemed to mark off potential areas for mining.

The bulletin board seemed to be fairly typical for a moderately-sized community. A large calendar listed a number of events but using mostly two and three-letter acronyms; clearly, anyone reading it would be expected to know what they referred to. A smaller number of other standard informative postings were pinned to the board, but the notifications that changed on a daily or weekly basis appeared to be written on the chalkboard. Most notable of these was the slightly cryptic declaration in the top right corner reading “Team of the Month: Shorty’s. They chose cherry pasties and deep-fried tofu.”

A table just in front of the wall held a detail map, with colored strings that allowed me to easily tell which part of the big map it corresponded to. On the detail map were a couple dozen little pins with flags on them. The pictures on each flag appeared to be one or more cutie marks, so perhaps this indicated which ponies were working in which location the next day. Oddly, one flag’s pair of marks appeared to be a bull’s horns and three chess pawns, and another included a set of talons alongside what looked like lumberjack-related marks. I guessed that those flags might be for the teams that Tonny and the griffon were on.

Against the nearest support post, directly opposite the bulletin board, was a large, well-crafted grandfather clock. Leaving the table and walking past the large fire pit and the massage table to the far end of the Pav, I noticed another table next to a support post; on top of the table was a silver trophy cup upon a fine walnut base. A base plate on its front declared it the “Warden Pear Memorial Boules Trophy” with smaller plates on the left side indicating the pairs who won it the previous four years. Mounted on the support post itself was a framed display holding a Celestial Cross medal and a portrait of a middle-aged earth pony in a Royal Guards dress uniform, and another frame with the Alicorns’ Feathers medal.

The boules trophy could be explained by the markings and boards I saw on the floor past the support post, as it appeared that the area could be quickly converted to set up four boules courts. But why was the highest medal for gallantry in service to Equestria, and the highest group commendation to civilians in a war zone, displayed with the trophy? I mentally filed this away to ask about at an appropriate time.

Circling back around, I passed a shelf holding a variety of board games, and a table with chessboard markings already burned into the wood. Standing up against another two interior support columns were well-made quads of thin but tall chestnut bookshelves. Each sported closeable wood-framed doors with glass panel inserts to let one see the contents inside. A quick inspection revealed a wide variety of both fiction and nonfiction. Oddly, one entire shelf appeared to be filled with books on chess theory.

I gave the griffon and mare working over their map a wide berth, not wanting to disturb them. I completed my loop as Boundary Layer was finishing his instructions.

“—and if nothing else needs to be done, you two can sit in the lean-to and start on sharpening up the axes and saws so the regulars can get through that faster next morning.” Two ponies nodded and trotted off, one picking up a covered basket as he did so. The other two he had been talking to went through a door into the enclosed portion of the building; as they did so, I could see desks and office furniture within the room they entered.

“Ahh, perfect timing,” said Boundary Layer as he turned back to me. “Let’s head to the bunkhouse.” He led the way out of the Pav toward a pair of distant lights as Tonny and I followed along, the minotaur carrying not just my suitcase but a dozen fascines of sticks tied into an even larger bundle. A hundred and fifty yards away were a couple of single-story dormitories with a slight upward bump in the middle of each. The lights I had seen were a light globe mounted at the apex of a flagpole atop each dorm, similar to but less luminous than the one atop the Pav. As we approached, I saw that each building was made up largely of brick, with a slightly-slanted wooden roof further overlaid with thatch. The windows were small and shuttered against the cold. A half-dozen chimneys poked up from the structure, with a particularly large example at the rear of each dorm.

We entered through the main double doors, which seemed to have been built a couple feet taller than usual. Bounder noticed my glance up and smirked. “I had our chief architect and construction manager Piano Slab design the central areas of the dorms to comfortably accommodate all hundred and ten creatures on the team and their families – including those of us who are absurdly tall and wide – so they can walk right in without scraping their horns.” The pegasus and minotaur shared a laugh as we walked into a large high-ceilinged room with three sofas, some comfortable plush chairs around a coffee table, a large bookshelf, a card table, and a writing desk. The entire area was brightly illuminated by light globes at the four corners and a lit fireplace in the back of the room. Near the roaring fire was an earth pony curled up on one of the plush chairs and reading a novel.

Just inside the entrance, Bounder pointed at a door to my right. “Mud room’s through that door, if you come in really dirty for some reason and need an initial hose-off. Go through that and there’s the main bathroom with showers, a communal bath, and toilets. There’s another entrance to the main bathroom off the hallway we’ll go down.”

Waving his hoof around to encompass the entire room, he continued, “This is the main lounge. Creatures who aren’t interested in the activity at the Pav that night often hang out here. We keep a couple of light globes on even if everyone has left for their own room. That cabinet over at the far wall is the snack cabinet for anyone who’s hungry after hours. Crackers, peanut butter, bread, jam. It also holds a few extra light globes that someone can take back to their room for a smidgen more light if they want to do a little table work in privacy.”

“Given how it's well below freezing outside, it’s surprisingly warm in here, even with that fireplace going,” I said.

“You should ask Piano Slab about his design sometime. It’s brilliant. If you want to shower before bed, we’ve even got hot water.”

“Speaking of hot water,” Tonny said in a surprisingly quiet voice as he put down my suitcase, “I better get down to my room and make sure that the main fireplace is going strong before bedtime. It’s going to get even colder the next few hours, so we’re going to want plenty of heat coming through the floors tonight.”

With that cryptic statement, the minotaur walked off down the hall and entered the door at the far end. Boundary Layer led me to a room about halfway down. “Here you go, Spuds, room eight. You’re in luck; as the only guest, you get a room with a bed meant for two ponies! If you need anything, I’m in room forty-one all the way at the other end of the hall, and there’s also usually going to be someone out in the lounge at all hours. We’re on a winter schedule and I’d suggest getting up around the sunrise at 7:45 or shortly after that; breakfast at the Pav starts 7:30 and goes until 9.”

I entered my guest room to find a double bed, a wardrobe, a chair, and a small table. The furniture was unadorned wood, though the craftsmanship was excellent. The sheets, blankets, towels, and the mug on the table were similarly plain but well-made. Tapping the small light globe on the table to turn it on, it didn’t quite provide enough light for easy reading and seemed to be meant to give off the minimum light needed to accomplish basic tasks. Probably why Bounder had told me about the extras in the lounge. The room itself was small with little space not taken up by the furniture, but gave off a safe and comfortable feel similar to the no-frills guest rooms used by seasonal laborers at rural earth pony farmhouses.

Despite the lack of a fireplace, the room was indeed warm, and I doubted I would even need all the blankets. As I put my suitcase atop the shelf in the wardrobe, I got the feeling that I would be talking to a lot more ponies – creatures – than I had initially expected. But that could wait, I decided. It was time for a shower, then bed.