It was quite the clever setup really. The Deep Rock Warren was positioned just so that nobody would ever think to look for it. That's because it was neither in Gem Fido nor in Equestria. It was in both, running right along the border like a snake. And like the name implied, it ran deep. I would say something snarky about Minecraft and hope that they hit lava, except that it would be slaves doing the digging.

When we reached the Warren we were exhausted from our march through the seemingly endless tunnel. Our captors were met by another group, lead by a stern looking dog with the features of a Malamute. He wasn't as big or muscular as Boxer, but he still looked like one tough customer.

“You return victorious as ever I see.” He said in a baritone voice.

“Indeed Silverfang. The information we received from our spies panned out, those boys near Tailton got hit hard. As they made their escape they pulled a smash and grab on a boat full of ponies. They never saw us coming. Well, it's been a long march. I must rest now, I'm sure you can handle things here.”

“As my Alpha commands.”

I was rather surprised. I guess the diamond dog leaders are more intelligent than their minions. Which meant that this guy must have some kind of rank. Boxer and his dogs went underground, and that was the last we saw of him for a long time. The Malamute looked us over, his face an expressionless mask. Then he said:

“All of you listen up as I'm only going to say this once. I am Silverfang, Beta of this warren. From now on you will do exactly as you are told, no more and no less. I know that some of you have seen life under another alpha. That was then, this is now. The other alphas are stupid and inefficient. They waste their resources in idiotic displays of dominance. Here, we do things differently. If you do as you are told, you will not suffer needlessly. Fail to obey even slightly, and you will be punished.

As you came here in two distinct groups I see no reason to split you up with one exception: Those of you from group one who have foals, go with Ironmaw. Those from group two, go with Longtail.”

We watched Taffy, Sundrop and their father be lead away by the one called Longtail, wondering what was going to happen to them. We never found out, because we never saw them again. I hope they're okay. I felt bad about the being relieved, but it seemed like Lily and I weren't going to be split up so at least we had something to be happy about. Soon the beta disappeared, leaving us in the charge of his minions who led us underground.

Deep Rock Warren was divided into five different mines: diamond, emerald, ruby, sapphire and amethyst. Group one got taken to the ruby mine, while those of us in group two were sent to the sapphire mine. We got lucky.

Inside the warren light was provided by gems and torches, allowing those of us without advanced olfactory glands to get around. As we trudged down a long tunnel an old female diamond dog was handing out cloaks. They were dark blue and rather raggedy looking things. We were told to put them on and not to take them off as the cloaks identified which mine we belonged in. When it came to my turn she looked me up and down, annoyed at someone of my size. She tore a strip off the bottom of Lily's cloak and tied it around my arm.

“You wear for now.” She growled. “Stitchy make bigger one later.”

After that we were filed into another tunnel that came to a fork. To the left, a mine-cart rail trailed off out of sight. This was the main shaft, a place we would come to know quite well as the days turned into weeks. From here, carts full of sapphires would be hauled from deep in the mine up to the surface. There they would be taken by carts to who knows where. I wondered how they kept the surface operations a secret, but that was something I was unlikely to find out.

To the right the tunnel led to the cells. They were actually rather roomy, as prisoners were kept three to a cell. The bedding consisted of piles of straw and old, almost certainly flea infested blankets. A trapdoor in the floor opened up to reveal a flowing torrent of water beneath. As one could guess, this was the privy. I immediately assumed that anybody attempting to escape via the water was in for a smelly, disgusting drowning.

Lily and I received a double blessing, by not only winding up in the same cell together but also that there was no one else to put in with us. It kind of disturbed me to think of anything good happening here as a blessing, but weren't separated and we had extra room and more importantly we had privacy. We stuffed the blankets in the farthest corner away from us that we could. The warren wasn't cold or clammy like a cave. Besides, we had each other for warmth.

Having thoroughly checked the straw for rats and finding none we lay down on the floor. Lily rested on my chest, trying to nuzzle a hole in my neck. She reached into her saddle bags and produced roses for us to eat, removing the seeds and putting them back in the bag. I found they had a nice flavor. At the very least, we had unlimited snacks.

All the prisoners had been searched for bits, other valuables or possible weapons, but everything else they let us keep. That was how little importance it was to them. The diamond dog that had checked us was annoyed at how we were dirt poor at the time. He sneered at the seeds he found in Lily's bag, throwing a paw full at our faces.

As we lay there together, we heard the sound of banging on the bars. We looked up to see the old female from before flanked by two guards, standing there with a large bundle of cloth. The guards opened the cell and she threw the bundle at my face. It turned out to be a minotaur sized cloak. Unlike Lily's there was no hood. Made sense, seeing as it would be impossible for me to put on what with the horns and all. So it was more of a cape, really. I didn't mind so much. Plus, since it was newly made it was in relatively good condition. Truth be told, ever since I was a boy I wanted an excuse to wear a cape.

“Put on.” The bitch growled. “Stupid moohead too big, make Stitchy work extra.”

We were extremely surprised to find that our foreman was a pony. A bright red unicorn with a chunk of rock on his flank to be exact.

“Alright you chumps,” He began. “I'm Stalagmite and I'm in charge here and what I say goes. From now on you're Work Crew Eighty Seven. Line up and sound off. The number you wind up with is your new name so get used to it.”

That was how Lily became Number 40 and I became Number 41. We were taken down the tracks to where the sapphires were dug. There we were shown the tasks we would be assigned the following morning. As it turned out, neither of us wound up doing any digging. Lily was put on the bucket brigade, scooping up buckets of gems from the piles that the diggers made and sending the bucket down the line to where they filled up the hoppers that would empty into the carts. I can only imagine how monotonous her job was, endlessly repeating the same thing over and over again. As for me, I was assigned to pull the carts, probably because of my size.

I played down my strength considerably so that I wouldn't end up hauling any more than three carts at a time. I didn't dare try for any less. Stalagmite was pleased to have me on his crew. As the days passed, with my help he was meeting his quotas faster than ever. I wondered about that a lot, how a pony came to be in charge of other pony slaves. I wondered how he could be happy that I was making the dogs even richer.

Since I knew that asking him outright would just earn me a beating, the conclusion I came to was that he was a turncoat. Probably he had been captured and offered his expertise as a miner in order to save himself from a life of drudgery. He made me sick, in more ways than one. The hate was growing inside of me with every passing day. Whenever I saw a pony receive a beating for slacking off I began to fantasize about Stalagmite turning his back on me while standing in front of an open shaft. Sometimes I would imagine holding his mouth open and putting him beneath the hopper, forcing the rough and uncut sapphires down his throat.

I hated what I was becoming, and I hated Stalagmite even more for it. You see, Silverfang wasn't exaggerating about the way things worked here. Most of the time, it was just a matter of making it through the day. But whenever someone did mess up, the beatings were as savage as they were immediate. The result of all this? The prisoners actually started trying to work harder. They wanted nothing more than to please their captors. If the dogs were happy, they were happy. It was a sickening insight into the world of Stockholm syndrome. I refused to let that happen to me. I would haul my loads only because I had to.

I found it strange, other than Boxer, my hatred for the dogs wasn't all that much comparatively. Once Lily and I had been in the mine for a while we became aware of the division of power that was in place here. The dogs who were loyal to the alpha were as cruel as he was, taking delight in the beatings and... other punishments that they doled out. The other dogs? They all followed Silverfang, and they were as cold as ice. His dogs only acted out of necessity. We Blues were lucky that the sapphire mine was run by them. They just punished infractions as they occurred. They didn't come up with excuses to beat us.

Meanwhile in the ruby mine, the pony that would shape my entire future... was suffering.

Author's Notes: I hate interim chapters. They cause writer's block and are the bane of my existence.