"Buying or selling? I've got the finest armor and blades for a hundred miles. Or if you've got some good enough metal, I'll take it off your hooves, melt it down into something useful. I do repairs too, but it’ll cost you if you don’t have any spare parts.”

Goddesses, I needed to have that posted to a sign. It got old repeating the same spiel to every pony or otherwise that wandered up to my storefront as they were passing through. After a few minutes of standing in front of my counter and staring at my wares, asking to examine several weapons in particular, this amber mare decided to try a little conversation, probably to mask her indecisiveness. “So...you made all these yourself?”

One of my ears twitched in annoyance as I put a curved sword back on its shelf next to a pair of earrings. “That is what a blacksmith does.”

She scrunched up her snout as she looked away from the blades and towards the armor hanging on makeshift hooks behind me. “Well, I ain’t seen a blacksmith before.” Alright, it was reasonable, I was the only blacksmith I’d ever seen in my own (albeit limited) Wasteland experience, so it was likely not as common a profession as rancher, mercenary, or raider. Still didn’t stop me from wishing ponies would spend less time ogling and more time spending.

The unicorn mare pointed a hoof at a suit of reinforced leather barding, asking for me to take it down. But, instead of examining any of the practical qualities of the armor, she studied the pattern of engravings I had decorated the metal plates with. It was a depiction of the sun rising above the horizon, which I’d attempted to recreate from a picture book I’d seen as a filly. “This supposed to be the guard uniform for this town or something? I haven’t seen anypony else wearing one.” she asked me, her eyes not leaving the armor.

Here we go. I let out a short, quiet sigh as I idly scratched a hoof in the ground. “No, we don’t have guards in Four Shoes.”

She levitated the armor lower to look at me in surprise and confusion. “No guards? How the hell does that work?” Her eyes shot wide with a whinny and she dropped the armor, looking over her shoulder. “Turrets? Robots? Those things give me the creeps!”

“No. Look around you.” I swept a hoof out across the town market, and she turned to face the variety of storefronts like mine, almost all of them counters and shelves with slapdash awnings and roofs hanging overhead. My own awning was made from corrugated metal and a pair of wooden posts, sitting below a hoof-painted sign proclaiming my store to be ‘ALLOY SHAPER’S SMITHY.’ “Everypony manning one of these stores has a gun close at hoof. Disagreements tend to be short.”

The mare, a bit more at ease after being told there were no robots around, brought her attention back to the armor, specifically the engravings she’d asked about in the first place. “So then what’s this mean?”

I scratched my hoof at the ground again. “Nothing. Just,” I paused, thinking of the right word to use. “Just decoration.” The truth that I’d never tell anypony else was a little more complicated. Making these aesthetic touches to my work gave me a feeling of satisfaction and completeness, even if nopony appreciated it. The businessmare in me galled at the waste of resources, but that voice in my head was always silent when I was alone with my forge. And true to my expectations, the amber mare gave the armor a strange look and set it back on the counter, trotting away at the sound of somepony calling out to her. Fucking window-shoppers…

I suppose I should’ve been glad that ‘annoying non-customers’ were the worst trouble I regularly faced, at least while I was working my shop. I’d like to think it was something about being a unicorn surrounded by a dozen or so knives and swords at any given moment, but really it was more likely because of the ‘everypony has a gun’ policy I’d described to the window-shopper. I don't exactly cut an intimidating figure, being half a head shorter than other mares my age.

I forced myself to keep a neutral face as I hung the barding back on one of the makeshift hooks lining the wall behind me. Out of habit, I first hung the barding so that the engraved plates were proudly showcasing themselves, but then I shifted it around so that they were a bit more hidden off to the side. Around it were about half a dozen other sets of armored barding, all hung on the back wall of my shop, which also served as one of the walls of my house.

This morning in particular, a caravan was preparing to set out on its way to New Pegas, and the merchants and guards were making their last preparations. As one pony finished buying a hunting knife from me, an energetic voice called out, “Alloy! Hey!” I didn’t even have to look up from putting away my caps to know who it was.

“Grit,” I answered flatly, meeting his eyes. “You need something for the road, I take it?”

“You got it! One of my pistols needs a tune-up.” The sandy-coated buck beamed at me bright as Celestia herself, a tousled purple mane framing his face. In addition to our bevy of gun-toting merchants, Four Shoes had help keeping the peace in the form of this unicorn. Grit was something of a local hero, cheerfully keeping the roads safe for traders, and sometimes doing a bit of hunting. Four Shoes was at the northeastern border of New Oreins, built out of what used to be some sort of housing development before the war, out of the way of the biggest raider camps down south by the old harbor. Still, the Wasteland had no shortage of bastards relishing the opportunity to kill and steal, and caravans coming and going were juicy targets. Between them and the local fucked-up wildlife of the Bayou, the roads needed the extra protection, and Grit had done a lot toward securing them.

He levitated one of his 10mm semi-automatic pistols onto the counter, and I broke out my tools immediately. “ ‘Bout how long d’ya think? I don’t want to keep Tart and River Ford waitin’,” he asked in that chewy, drawling accent of most ponies around the Bayou. It was somewhat akin to the ponies from my old home in New Appleloosa, but had its own distinct sound.

I examined the trigger with a frown and a furrowed brow, willing it to divulge the secret to its malfunction. While I loved my smithing, there was something almost as enjoyable as taking things apart and putting them back together. It was like a puzzle, and figuring out how to make things tick kept my mind sharp. “Looks like the recoil spring is wearing out. I’ll have to replace it, but it’s a quick swap. Got a spare-” Pre-empting my question, another 10 mm pistol hovered onto the counter in a cushion of blue magic, and I couldn’t help but crack a small smile at how Grit knew my business model, something I appreciated in a repeat customer. “That should do it.” I nodded at the gun and wrapped it in my own emerald-green levitation field, the same shade as my eyes, as I took it apart. Soon the parts were swapped and I set Grit’s re-assembled gun down on the counter, the slide snapping into place much more fluidly than it had before.

“Now then, if you want to keep this other gun,” I said, tapping my hoof on the counter next to the pistol I had taken the replacement spring from, “It’ll be 50 caps. I’ll buy the spare gun from you for 20 caps, so you’ll only owe me 30.”

Grit winced a little, with a frown. “C’mon, that pistol ain’t in bad shape otherwise. It’s gotta be worth closer to 35 caps.”

I snorted with a swish of my short tail. “35? 10-mil guns aren’t that common, so only a few parts will be useful.”

“Okay, okay, but it still shoots. You could sell it as-is.”

“It’s pretty beat up if you didn’t notice, and nopony comes to my shop for guns. I don’t even carry ammo.”

He gave a sigh, drooping his head a little. I looked from him back to the gun thoughtfully. To be honest, I didn’t mind cutting him a better price for the gun, mostly because I’d probably end up taking more of his caps on either repairs or armor. And while on a personal note I found his efforts to seemingly make friends with everypony he met irritating, I couldn’t deny the help he gave the town. “I’ll give you 30 for the gun, and you owe 20 caps total.”

Grit’s youthful grin returned to his face at that, and he fished out a stack of caps from his saddlebags. He holstered his repaired pistol and began walking away while I started counting out the caps with a sharp winny.

That wily little...

“You overpaid,” I called to him, levitating the extra 5 caps he paid me as I walked from behind my counter.

He turned back to face me with a sheepish grin on his face. “Well, y’know, I just thought I might be courteous.”

I shook my head firmly. “I don’t take handouts. We agreed to a fair price.” He looked a little dejected as he took his caps back. I sighed and proverbially tipped my hoof. “Besides, you’ll spend some of those caps back at my store eventually.” That got a chuckle out of him, and I mentally kicked myself for giving that one away, but it was worth it so I didn’t feel indebted to him, and this wasn’t the first time he’d tried that on me. Though Luna knows why he was overpaying after haggling.

I returned to my smithy, keeping the store open for a little while after the caravan departed. Caravan mornings were always some of my better sales times, even beyond the traders and guards themselves. A trade caravan leaving got ponies thinking about raiders, and occasionally somepony would buy new armor or repairs from me after the caravan left. While the travelers coming and going from the town were concerned out of necessity, raiders weren’t really something Four Shoes itself had to deal with. I stepped out from behind the counter and looked up, brushing my orange-and-grey mane out of my eyes. I’d heard stories that before the war, ponies could tell the time by the position of the sun in the sky, but the idea of it was just baffling. The only times of day we could tell beneath the constant cloud layer were night, dawn, day, and dusk. Not terribly helpful overall. I’d usually keep my store open until a few hours past dawn, when I couldn’t ignore my pangs of hunger anymore, unless I had other work to do.

Today, I had other work to do.

Commissioned work was some of my better pay, and what I enjoyed the most, but it was rare. Not many ponies in the Wasteland thought of taking a load of scrap metal to a blacksmith and having it fashioned into a knife or armor plates. Then again, there weren’t many blacksmiths I’d heard about, so fair is fair. However, among my customers that morning was a griffin who’d asked for a set of wing blades. She’d provided the leather for straps to hold them in place, but the metal was up to me. It was something I’d never attempted before, but forging new weapons is how I ended up in this business. I knew the theoretical technique of how wing blades were made; even before I’d gotten my cutie mark I devoured every scrap of pre-war knowledge I could find on hoof-crafted tools and weapons.

I took down all of my merchandise and brought it into my house with my caps. There really wasn’t much to my living space: an old card table, a bedroll, a locker laying on its back where I kept some of my stuff, and a safe for my money and inventory. I made sure everything was locked away before heading out through the back door of my home, leading to where I truly lived as far as I was concerned. Under a larger awning, braced by the remains of a concrete support, was my forge. It paled in comparison to the forges in faded pictures from before the war -- mine was cobbled from the remains of a fireplace, but it was my life, and I mean that in more than just it was how I bought food every day. Look, the hoofful of times I’ve tried to explain it, I got rolling eyes and chuckles, or something like the morning’s window shopper, so just take it at that. Every morning and every evening, unless I had a commission, I lit my forge with a spark from my horn and I crafted tools, knives, patches for armor, or whatever else I felt like at the time. I was even lucky enough to have a proper anvil.

Being outside the view of most of the town, secluded and alone, was soothing. Realistically, anypony could walk up around my house and disturb my work, though they’d find me in a foul mood if they did so. I hung one item in particular next to my workspace: a straight, light sword that I’d forged for myself so long ago. It wasn’t the first thing I made, but I never let it get too far from me. I was decent at using it too, since I’d learned at an early age how important self-defense was. I dug through my collection of scrap to retrieve a few of my better bits of metal, gauging their weight and size, while referring back to the sheet of paper where I’d jotted down the griffin’s wing measurements. Once I thought I had enough, I leaned my head down and lit my forge with a spark and a crack of magic.

The theory was simple enough, but crafting the blades without fully melting down the metal was the real trick. With my mane in its usual tight braid to keep it out of the way, I focused on the metal in front of me, heating individual pieces of scrap in pairs to fuse them together into a single mass. I was constantly trying to visualize the next step and compensate for any mistakes as I took a haphazard grab bag of pre-war trash and gave it meaning and purpose. With a lot of help from my magic to reinforce the bonds and force it into the proper shape, the weapons began to appear in front of me instead of just in my mind. To make the last step in their transformation, I took my hammer and formed the blades themselves with quick, sharp strikes along the leading edge and regular trips back to the fire for reheating.

Hours later, I hovered the pair of completed blades in front of me for evaluation, and growled a string of obscenities when I realized one of them was bent too sharply. Fortunately, among the books I’d studied on pre-war forging, I’d picked up a few spells that would have been useful in Old Equestria, and that I couldn’t live without now. Setting aside the wing blade that was satisfactory, I lifted the bent one close to my horn, so that the it was almost touching the center of the imperfection. This particular spell was exhausting, and I felt my entire body protest as I flowed heat through my horn and into the metal, softening it just enough to use my telekinesis to bend it into place.

Setting the two blades down next to each other after the hours of work filled me with pride and satisfaction, and I’m not ashamed to say I just took a moment to sit and stare at them, with the excuse to myself of catching my breath after that spell. They weren’t pretty, but there was this inexplicable satisfaction in making something with your own hooves, even though a part of me nagged at every little imperfection.

I didn’t quite feel like stopping, having munched on some Sugar Apple Bombs and radigator meat before beginning the work, so I decided to fashion a new piece of jewelry. I almost never sold any, so I couldn’t always afford to use the best metal for them, but they brought a warmth to me that I couldn’t fully rationalize, a small smile sitting comfortably on my face like a foal’s daydream.

It might start with a particular piece of scrap. Somepony throws away a rusted half-can of beans, and I see what I can do with it. It doesn’t always work that way, either; sometimes I’ll get an idea in my head, something I want to make, and I’ll desperately rummage through my box of scrap metal until I find something suitable, shaping it to my mental image. It never comes out quite the way I envisioned either, but I love the reality far more than my fantasy. The smell of it, the feel of it being a real object I can touch with my hooves beats out a fleeting mental picture any day. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what I’m working on. When my forge is lit, and there’s something floating above the coals, held in place by my magic, I don’t feel tired or hungry or pissed. The world becomes that sheet-metal awning, that centuries-ruined fireplace, and an anvil that just watched. The fire warms me like a blanket and steals away the stresses of the day, leaving a quiet peace.

Only after I finished did the growling from my stomach get my attention, and I looked up at the sky to see that it was getting darker. Setting aside the necklace and wing blades and extinguishing my forge, I walked out to the market to find something to eat, hopefully a skewer of marshlurk. A smell of something stewed wafted past my nose, and I walked over to the pony serving up the unidentifiable meat dish, ordering a bowl. I sat down on my haunches, setting the bowl down in front of me, and started eating as the chatter and conversation got a bit louder. For lack of anything better to do while I ate dinner, I looked to see what was drawing all the attention, and then looked back down at my food when I caught sight of a familiar tuft of purple mane and sand-colored horn.

Grit had returned, and he’d cut it a bit close to dusk by the looks of the sky. I guessed he was recounting a story of something exciting he’d fought off from his expressive emoting, swinging his hooves around, rearing up on his hind legs, and making all manner of exaggerated facial expressions. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but the half dozen or so ponies around him gasped and cheered at the appropriate intervals. After storytime was done, he made his way to the pony serving up the same stew I was munching on, and bought himself a bowl, stopping briefly by everypony on his way to an empty table, asking them about their day or other such nonsense small talk. He gave me a wave as well with his PipBuck-clad hoof, and I returned with a nod. I had to give it to him, he actually bothered to remember inconsequential details about ponies’ lives in Four Shoes, though I wished I knew why he bothered.

I finished up my bowl of stew before heading back home with one last item on my to-do list. On the way, I stopped at one of the other merchants’ stores just as he was packing up for the night and bought a thin sheet of metal that looked like it used to be part of a door. Back in my house, I pulled out a brush and bucket of paint that I’d bought when I first set up my shop a couple years ago and got to work. This wasn’t the same crafting I dedicated my life to, just an extra chore that needed to be done, and didn’t give me nearly the same satisfaction. Still, I got it done and left the sheet lying on its back to dry while I curled up in my bedroll and let sleep carry me away.

Carrying the newest addition to my storefront the next morning in the green grip of my magic, I held it up against one of the posts supporting my awning, then floated a pair of homemade nails in place, one at the top and one at the bottom. A little bit of hammering later, for which my smithing tools were comical overkill, I walked back behind my counter to await my customers for the day. It wasn’t long before an ash-grey buck walked over, examining my wares. When he looked up at me expectantly, maybe about to ask a question or maybe just curious at my silence, I gestured with a hoof to direct his attention at my new sign:

As the buck finished reading and looked back to me again, I prompted, “Buying or selling?”

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Footnote: Welcome to Level 1

Alloy Shaper’s Smithy
Sales Journal

Author's Notes:

Edited by Pipistrelle and Mondo, who I want to emphasize are both goddamn amazing people for putting up with me.
Also thanks to Demo, Beat, and Aetherknite for being sounding boards for lots of my initial ideas.

And of course, thanks to Kkat for writing "Fallout Equestria."

In regards to the prologue in particular, I wanted to wait and upload it and chapter 1 together mostly because this is more slice-of-life than the rest of the story will be. Thank you for reading if you're already this far, and I hope you enjoy.

Because I have now removed it from the summary in favor of a better summary, I'll take the moment now to state that Wasteland Economics takes place 10 years before the events of Fallout: Equestria.