Upheaval: Reckoning
Chapter 17: Unwanted Legacies
The Everfree Forest occupied a unique place in the minds of Twilight Sparkle and her friends. Like most ponies, they've always considered the forest to be a dangerous place, full of creatures like cockatrices, parasprites and timber wolves as well as unnatural things like self-moving clouds and independent wildlife. Yet, it was also in this place that they went from random acquaintances to the closest of friends, where they freed Princess Luna from Nightmare Moon as well as the place that their friend, Zecora, lived in.
Some of the trepidation that came from visiting Everfree had disappeared now that they were back here again. Twilight realized that it may be because they had gotten used to uncontrolled weather in the Barrier Lands as well as being around constant danger. The danger was still there, but, instead of fear, all she felt was a heightened sense of caution.
The trip to Everfree Castle proved to be uneventful however. The most danger they encountered was when a pack of timber wolves investigated their presence at a distance and then gave the group a wide berth. It was an understandable sight. Predators preferred easy pickings: lost fillies or injured animals, not a group of armed and dangerous ponies. Twilight had decided to subtly steer the Special Operations ponies away from Zecora's hut as well. She didn't know the Barrier Lands attitude towards zebras, but now wasn't the time to find out.
It was a late afternoon sun's rays that filtered through the canopy of leaves by the time they were looking up at the ruins of Everfree Castle. While the forest lost some of its mystique to Twilight, the castle made up for it by gaining a dark aura about it. This was a place of betrayals; not just of Princess Luna betraying her sister all those centuries ago, but also of Clover the Clever betraying the legends of her greatness that Twilight had grown up with. She found it odd that, despite hundreds of years of abandonment, the forest had barely even started reclaiming the area around the castle. A few vines and stunted trees were the only attempts on the foliage's part to blot out a site where Clover the Clever did who knew what.
"No lollygagging now," Nightcanter said as she walked past Twilight. The ponies from Special Operations didn't seem affected by the dark atmosphere around the castle. Twilight couldn't say the same for herself. She swallowed nervously, taking note that the sky seemed darker around this place even though it should still be afternoon. She looked to her friends; their expressions told her that they felt something similar. She then trotted after Captain Nightcanter.
"So where are we going?" Twilight asked Nightcanter. "We didn't see any other passage the last time we went here."
"We're not looking for hidden passageways," Nightcanter replied. "You don't really think that ponies like Lexarius and Princess Celestia would simply rely on hidden passageways to hide a place like Clover the Clever's last refuge, do you?"
"I suppose not," Twilight said. She looked around. They were back in the Chamber of Elements, the same place where Nightmare Moon was driven from Princess Luna. Nothing had changed since their last visit here. The gray stone walls perhaps looked a little more worn and there might be a few more cracks on the floor. She saw Nightcanter pull out a scroll from a saddlebag and hold it telekinetically. "What's that?" she asked.
"Lexarius's incantation to get us to the last refuge," Nightcanter replied. "We'll use it to both enter and leave. Everypony get close to me, we'll be teleporting there once I read this."
Everypony gathered around Nightcanter as she began reading out of the scroll. Twilight couldn't make heads or tails of the words, but the language sounded familiar. She turned towards Applejack. "Do you think it's the same language that The Queen used?" she asked.
"Dunno," Applejack replied. "I can't even tell where one slippery word ends and another starts, to be honest."
Before anypony can say anything else, a circle of golden light surrounded the group. They heard a faint humming sound just before a blinding flash forced them to shut their eyes tight. The familiar feeling of a teleportation spell tugging at them was all it took to guess what the incantation was for. This was no ordinary teleportation, however. Even the earth ponies and pegasi in the group felt as if they had passed through something, some kind of intangible wall.
It took a while for Twilight's vision to clear. The first thing she felt was that she almost neck-deep in some kind of cold liquid. She heard Rarity cry out followed by some frantic splashing and, for a bleak moment, she thought that they were under attack. "Nopony told me we were going to start wading in water!" Rarity said. "This moisture is going to wreak havoc on my hooves!"
"What's going on?" Fluttershy yelped. "Help! Something just slithered past my legs!"
"That was just my tail," Rainbow said. "I think…"
"Shut up and stop splashing about!" Nightcanter snapped. "We're blinded and the first thing you do is drown out any sound?"
The splashes and cries stopped at once. Without any distractions, Twilight could now focus on her other senses. A deathly silence had fallen upon them. She didn't know if they were in water or some other substance, but it did feel cold and the ground beneath them felt slick. The air was musty and damp. There was a foul lingering odor she couldn't quite place as well. As her vision began to clear a bit, Twilight noticed another problem. It was pitch dark.
"We need a light," Nightcanter said. Both Twilight and Captain Foxfire in Special Operations cast the same spell. Two balls of soft-glowing light materialized and floated next to their casters, bathing the nearby surroundings in pale blue illumination. The first thing Twilight did upon recovering her vision was look at what she was standing in.
The dead eyes of a pony's corpse stared right back at her.
Despite Nightcanter's previous warning, Twilight screamed. She reared up in a panic which quickly infected the rest of her friends.
"Where in tarnation are we?" Applejack asked loudly.
Fluttershy looked down, shrieked, and then flew right out of the water. Rainbow also began hovering even though she didn't know what the commotion was about. Rarity and Pinkie Pie were floundering about as if they were about to drown. Even the Special Operations ponies looked disturbed.
Thanks to the light, the group got a good look at what they were standing in. They were wading in a wide pool of what appeared to be water. Scattered around the bottom of the pool were the bodies of several ponies, their eyes still open. Despite what may well be thousands of years, they were remarkably well preserved. All the trashing also caused the water to displace them, panicking Twilight and her friends even more.
"Settle down!" Nightcanter snarled. "It's just corpses!" She looked around and then pointed towards the elevated edges of the pool. They were inside a large chamber with this pool as its central feature. Their lights didn't extend far enough to see the edges of the room. "Let's get out of this pool," she said. Everypony else was all too happy to comply. A minute later, they were collecting themselves by the edge of the pool.
"W-w-where are we?" Fluttershy asked. She shivered partly from the cold and partly from the sight she had just seen. The others were concentrating on drying up. Twilight cast another spell, this time conjuring a small ball of flames to help them warm up. After that, she looked around. The floor was dark blue marble as were the walls. They appeared in good condition, perhaps as a side-effect of the sealing.
'Got to give it to Clover the Clever,' Nightcanter remarked. "This may be her last refuge, but she still built it with some style. Sparkle, can you get your light to the ceiling?"
Twilight did as she was asked and pale blue light soon illuminated the ceiling, the rather high ceiling. There were no windows that she could see. It was likely that they were deep underground. She tried not to think of the tons of rock that were bearing down on them. Instead, she focused on making her light hover across the room to get a better look at the surroundings.
"Check that out…" Nightcanter said breathlessly as the light made its way to the center of the chamber's ceiling. Twilight could understand the sudden sense of awe as she saw it as well.
An enormous engraving dominated the central part of the ceiling. Twilight increased the intensity of her light to give them all a better view. At the very center of the engraving was what appeared to be a pony's head that stared directly down on the pool of water beneath it. Twilight wasn't sure if the head was supposed to be a stallion's or a mare's. Its features closely resembled an alicorn's instead of a normal pony's. A great mass of tentacles emerged from the head like a twisted version of the sun's rays. They extended throughout the ceiling so that they reached where the edges of the pool were beneath. Caught in the morass of tentacles were several ponies: unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies and even alicorns.
"Oceanus," Nightcanter whispered.
"What was going on here?" Twilight asked in an equally soft tone. It was as if they were standing in the presence of the mysterious alicorn himself and were trying futilely to avoid drawing attention among themselves.
"This must be the sacrificial chamber," Nightcanter replied. "Sacrifices were done often in the Old Kingdom." She looked at the pool of water and wrinkled her nose in disgust. "The preferred method was drowning. They broke the legs of victims and dumped them in the center of pools like this one."
Twilight refused to look at the pool again. It wasn't just the sight of the bloated dead bodies that disturbed her. It was the idea behind them. The idea of ponies sacrificing each other for power. She stared at the central figure in the engraving above them. What kind of alicorn prince would demand that his ponies drown others for his favor? She then remembered the outrage in Prince Terrato's voice when she had called Oceanus his sibling. She understood that outrage now. Oceanus was supposed to be their progenitor, the father of all mortal ponies. That made him her father in a way and the thought of it was disgusting. She felt tainted inside.
"That's enough drying off and warming up," Nightcanter told the group as she stood up. "We're not here to get cozy with each other so let's go."
The others complied. Twilight observed them carefully just to make sure they were alright. Nightcanter's squad was doing fine. So was Fourth Squad. Captain Foxfire had introduced herself and the rest of Fourth Squad earlier and then didn't talk much after that. The Special Operations ponies seemed to have an agreement that Nightcanter would take the lead. Twilight's friends seemed to have taken a hit from just arriving in this place. Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rarity were looking a little sick. The darkness and dampness were smothering their spirits. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were holding up better, but were still clearly affected by this place.
A brief search quickly turned up a corridor leading out of the sacrificial chamber. Nightcanter cast her own light spell to help brighten the conditions. This hall was large enough to accommodate their group with ease. Like the chamber they just left behind, the floor was marble. The only sounds came from their steady hoof falls as they walked through the corridor. Nightcanter passed a hoof over the walls as she walked past. They were adorned with an undecipherable, spidery script that seemed to dance about if stared at for too long.
"Captain Nightcanter," Twilight said.
"What is it?"
"Once I get to Canterlot, you think I can spend some time in the hidden archives? I'd like to learn more about this 'Old Kingdom'."
"Not really my call there, Sparkle," Nightcanter replied. "Try talking with one of the royalty."
"I will," Twilight said softly. She tried once again to make some sense of the writings. The characters seemed to writhe before her eyes as she focused on them, mocking any attempt at trying to get them to make sense.
"Woah, what was that?" Rainbow hollered. Loaded crossbows were quickly pointed towards where she was looking at only to end up being pointed at a wall. The Special Operations ponies looked at her askance. "The wall moved!" she protested. "I swear I saw it move!"
"Don't look at those squiggly letters, sugar cube," Applejack said. "They do some funny stuff to your eyes if you look too hard."
The group moved on until they came upon an intersection. From where they were facing, the hallways going left and right ended in double stone doors while the hallway straight ahead continued to go on.
"We'd better split up," Foxfire said. She surveyed the group and then looked at their choices. "Two groups of five and a group of four?"
Nightcanter nodded. "Make sure each group gets a light," she said. She looked over to her vice captain, Shale Hide. "Shale, take Riproar, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack and that white unicorn with you. Quillfeather and I will go with the pink earth pony, the yellow pegasus and the rainbow pegasus."
"You could at least learn our names," Rainbow muttered as she took her place by Nightcanter's side.
"Fourth Squad will take the central hallway," Foxfire said.
Nightcanter led her group towards the left hallway and gestured for Shale Hide's group to keep going straight ahead. "Call out at the first sign of our objective or trouble," she told them.
With that, the three groups split up.
It took three ponies to eventually pry open the double doors that blocked off Twilight's group. Though Shale Hide was clearly the leader for this occasion, it was Twilight who walked ahead of them. She shone the light into another room. This one was smaller than the sacrificial chamber, but still quite sizeable. The ball of light hovered over a fallen bookcase and a large pile of scattered books. With a gasp, Twilight moved the light about quickly and saw even more books around them.
"Library," Shale Hide muttered. The dark green pegasus picked his way the scattered books and then looked back to the rest of the group. "See if you can find anything useful among those things."
Twilight eagerly went over to the nearest book she could find and opened it. To her disappointment, she was faced with the same spidery script that marked the walls, making the book useless. She doubted that the others would make sense.
"I don't think you should just go around diving into any book that Clover the Clever wrote, Twilight," Applejack said worriedly. "This whole place doesn't feel right and I don't trust any book written by a pony who'd live here."
"Clover the Clever is dead, Applejack," Twilight replied. She continued to search through the books anyway. Perhaps, at some point in time, Clover the Clever switched languages. "Knowledge about her and what she associated with can't be inherently evil."
"I'm not so sure about that. Anyway, are you really going to head for Canterlot after this?"
"Probably. I want to find out more about the Old Kingdom as soon as I get there."
"I think you should see your family first."
"That goes without saying, Applejack." Annoyance tinged Twilight's tone again. She was getting completely fed up with Applejack. Even the orange earth pony's presence was setting her teeth on edge. It must be that sweaty farm pony stink that clung to her constantly. Combine that with her better-than-you "integrity", her shameless flirting, her obsession with apples, those ugly freckles, and that annoying accent, it was no wonder that Rainbow tried to beat her face in back when Bastion City was still under siege. Why couldn't she just fade into the background? Nopony liked her. She was just some backwards, inbred, caricature of a countryside bumpkin.
A thought suddenly came to Twilight's mind. The right spell should put Applejack in her place. Something flashy to make her an example to others…a fire spell sounded just about right. She could just imagine it, flames charring that orange hide, the flesh melting right off her skull, her cutie mark turning into roasted apples…
'What…what am I thinking?" Twilight pressed a hoof against her head. 'Was I just fantasizing about killing Applejack?' She dropped the book she was holding and looked guiltily behind her.
Applejack continued to stare at Twilight as the purple unicorn flipped through book after book. It was becoming more and more obvious that her "friend" had to be put down for everypony's good.
Twilight Sparkle was out of control. She stuck her nose into things she shouldn't and her magic made her dangerous. This should have been considered a long time ago. How many times had Twilight's magic caused trouble in Ponyville? She wielded spells that took away the free will of others without any hesitation. She bossed everypony around at every opportunity and paraded her status as Princess Celestia's student as if that made her farts smell like perfume. She should have had stones thrown at her until she was dead for being so obnoxious.
Applejack's eyes shifted to the chain she had around her neck. Twilight's magic was dangerous, but if she could slip a lasso around the purple unicorn's neck, she was sure she could snap it with a single tug before the first spell could fly. It wouldn't be too hard either. The miserable bookworm probably had glass bones from the lack of any proper exercise. But a surprise attack was too quick and unsatisfying. No, it would be better to knock Twilight down by shattering her jaw with a single well-placed kick and then choke her. Unicorn magic was useless if they couldn't concentrate. That was a better plan. She was going to enjoy seeing the smug little nag struggle desperately as her lungs started to burn. Twilight's eyes would bulge in terror, realizing too late that all the knowledge she had learned, all the magic she had accumulated and all the plans she had carefully prepared would amount to nothing. Then her tongue would loll and her heart would stop…
Applejack shook her head. 'What in tarnation? Why was I-?" She saw Twilight now looking at her. She looked away, suddenly afraid that Twilight had caught a glimpse of what she had just been thinking.
Twilight opened her mouth to say something. "Applejack I-!"
A scream from a stallion interrupted Twilight's halting apology. Their entire group turned around and then galloped towards the intersection.
Nightcanter found herself looking at a bedroom. While her group spread out, she guessed that this must be the place Clover the Clever slept when she wasn't trying to break the seals on the rift. The trappings of luxury were still in place despite all the centuries. The bedside table had eating utensils on top of it that looked to be made of silver,the canopy bed had sheets of fine red silk embroidered with gold thread, and the pillows looked soft and inviting.
Nightcanter suddenly felt an urge to try the bed out. Instinctively she glanced towards the three chosen mares in the room with her. That would be an interesting situation...she shook her head. That was crazy, she was in the middle of work and she wasn't going to go that far no matter what. She placed a hoof on the bedding. Confirming her observation, it was still soft and looked functional. It was as if the room had removed itself from the passage of time.
"Pinkie, are you alright?" Fluttershy asked worriedly. Her friend was visibly shaking. It wasn't even due to the cold as they had already dried off and this room was not even particularly chilly. She looked around to see if there was something terrifying in the room. Nightcanter's light didn't show anything of that sort.
"What's going on here?" Nightcanter came over and asked. She looked over at the shivering Pinkie Pie. "Is she coming down with a fever or something?"
Fluttershy felt Pinkie's forehead with a hoof and shook her head.
"W-w-we should get out of here," Pinkie said despite her chattering teeth. "My Pinkie sense is going crazy!"
"Not until we get what we're looking for," Nightcanter replied. "Now, spread out and look for anything we can use."
Fluttershy continued to stay with Pinkie while Rainbow Dash and Quillfeather did as Nightcanter ordered. "Can't you turn your Pinkie Sense off?" Fluttershy asked. "All that shaking can't be good for you!"
"I wish I could!" Pinkie answered. "I think my teeth are going to fall off!" Her eyes widened as if she remembered something and then went for her saddlebags. She pulled out a small piece of slate covered in strange writing and some gems.
Fluttershy gasped as she saw the glowing piece of slate. She looked to Pinkie Pie who had stop shaking and was now staring ahead of her. "Pinkie?" she asked, now even more worried than before.
As soon as Pinkie touched the piece of slate, she noticed what seemed to be a stream of faint colors running through the walls, ceiling and floor. She squinted at the sight. It was as if the walls had become partly translucent and she could barely make out something at the other side. As she looked on, she noticed even more of the stream around her. There was something going on with the walls as well. They looked…squirmy.
"Are you alright, Pinkie?" Fluttershy asked again.
"Ooooh…"
Before Fluttershy could try to make sense out of what was happening to Pinkie, a loud cry from Rainbow followed by a loud thud of something striking the ground made both of them look. Something flew past Fluttershy and struck the wall with a metallic clink. She didn't look to see what it was, however. Instead, she ran over to Rainbow. "Rainbow, are you alright?" she asked. "What happened?"
Rainbow was lying on her side. She looked dazed after apparently hitting her head against the wall. Her unloaded crossbow lay right next to her. She shook her head to clear it and then looked worriedly at Fluttershy. "Fluttershy, are you hurt?" she asked. "Are you bleeding?"
"I'm fine," Fluttershy replied. She looked back at Pinkie Pie, who was now holding the piece of slate intensely and fiddling with it. "It looks like Pinkie is fine too."
Rainbow stared at the crossbow before putting it away. What had just happened? Why was she trying to shoot Fluttershy and thinking that useless, whining mares were better off being put out of their misery? The next thing she knew she was already pulling the firing lever on her crossbow. She had managed to jump to the side to make sure she missed.
"What do you think you're doing, Rainbow Dash?" Nightcanter asked as she came over.
"I…I don't know. I'm with Pinkie, I think we should get out of here."
Before Nightcanter replied, the group heard the scream of a stallion coming from outside the room. Fearing the worst, all of them swiftly ran out. They encountered Shale Hide's group and then headed straight for the central corridor. It was Nightcanter who first crossed the doorway. "Foxfire!" she shouted. "What's with all the screaming? Celestia drill my backside, what happened?"
The central hallway had also led to a pair of doors. Inside was a circular chamber as large as the one with the sacrificial pool. This one had no pool, however. Instead, a large podium stood at the center of the chamber. On top of it was a plain, leather-bound tome. In front of the podium stood what appeared to be a coffin made of black glass
Nightcanter and the others saw three ponies lying on the ground while a panting Captain Foxfire stood just a few feet away. "Fogbound suddenly pulled a knife on us," she said between pants. "He got both Palemane and Cloven before I took him out."
Nightcanter scowled at the sight. "There goes Fourth Squad," she muttered. She walked over to inspect the tome while Fluttershy trotted over to Foxfire to check her injuries.
"Wait!" Pinkie Pie cried out before Fluttershy could even come close to Foxfire. The others stared at her in puzzlement, but she didn't notice them. As she continued to hold on to the piece of slate, the colors slowly became more vivid. Now, it was as if the entire refuge was submerged in a giant river of colors. The walls were still black and translucent, but she saw something else as well. Slithering out of the letters were slender black tendrils. They were all over the place, like some monstrous infection. Some were trying to touch her friends, but she could clearly see a bunch of them wrapped tightly around Foxfire. "She's the bad guy," she said softly.
"What?" Nightcanter asked. She took a step towards Foxfire, who was now staring intensely at Pinkie.
"She's the bad guy!" Pinkie said again, louder this time. Foxfire snarled and then pointed her horn at her. Before the unicorn could cast anything, however, a pair of bolts and a lone blade struck her side. The group looked towards where they came from to find both Rainbow and Shale already reloading. The blade removed itself from Foxfire and floated back to Rarity, who immediately set about cleaning it.
"Why did she do that?" Rarity asked aghast. "Was she…was she working for Black Rose?"
Pinkie Pie barely heard Rarity however. The colors were fading and she felt as if all the energy in her body had just leaked out. The next thing she knew, the ground was coming up to meet her and everything was going dark.
"What just happened?" Nightcanter asked softly as she looked at the unconscious pink pony.
"It's this place," Twilight answered as she helped her friends carry Pinkie. "It's doing something to us. We need to leave."
Nightcanter nodded and then went over to get the tome. It looked like it was the most important thing here. She looked over to the coffin and considered bringing it along as well. "So Clover the Clever spent her last days sleeping in a room next to a tomb," she remarked. "That mare had odd tastes."
As Nightcanter touched the coffin, however, the lid suddenly slid to the side. All of them gathered behind her in alarm.
The inside of the coffin was still covered by a clear glass pane. Inside, suspended as if by magic, were the skeletal remains of a pony.
"Twilight…" Applejack said. The purple unicorn turned toward her curiously. "Why is that skeleton wearing your country music star outfit?"
Twilight swallowed and put a trembling hoof against the glass pane. It looked as if she was having trouble breathing. "It can't be," she whispered. "The bells...the hat...the cloak..."
"Brace yourselves," Nightcanter said grimly. "We're taking it with us."