Shining a light on the brickwork on my side of the room, I was surprised to notice it was marred by round holes large enough to stick a hoof into, spaced evenly from one another.
I wondered at the drawing in the entry hallway and the chair obviously thrown at the mirror.
These holes did not appear to be made in anger; they were too clean, too perfectly placed for it to have been done in any way other than meticulous planning.
"Spritelight, how's the wall on your side?" I called out, noticing that my voice disappeared into the brickwork and left no echo.
"There are a large number of holes in it," the unicorn called back from the other side of the room. "No door yet."
"It sounds like these holes are to keep conversations from creating an echo," I suggested in a loud enough voice for her to hear.
"Only natural for a room in which they would do teleconference calls, don't you think?" Discord added his two cents.
I looked over to where the draconequus was and found him moving shards of glass around in order to piece the mirror back together on the floor in front of the pedestal.
I decided to leave him to his devices and instead focused on exploring more of the wall.
Coming to the center of the room I realised there was a surge of energy passing over me which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on edge.
I took another step and it was gone again.
Moving back, there was a thin strip where I could definitely feel this energy passing through me, but moving too far left or right from it made it almost unnoticeable.
"I think I found it," I called out. "There's a definite flow of mana coming from a spot here."
I turned my head to watch Spritelight make her way around the table to join me, and I motioned at where I had found the energy flowing through the wall.
I watched as the unicorn moved a little in a similar fashion I had; her own hairs standing on edge as she found the spot as if she was statically charged for a moment.
"This definitely feels like a source of mana in this otherwise dead room," she agreed with me. "The question is; is this just a gap in the brickwork or is there a door hidden somewhere?"
"I can't see a door; it's just bricks with holes in them. Nothing on the other side?" I answered, looking at where Spritelight had come from.
"Maybe it is hidden. Old buildings like these back on Equestria have a lot of secret doors in them leading into tight passageways running throughout them," Spritelight knew, looking carefully at the wall in front of her.
"How would we find such a door?" I asked, also looking over the wall; it was just brickwork with holes drilled into them, no noticeable panel or button or anything suggesting that a door was anywhere nearby.
"The idea is to hide them in plain sight," Spritelight considered. "Even a handle or button would be too obvious."
"There's just holes," I considered. "Don't tell me there's like... a switch or something in one of them?"
The smaller pony lifted her right forehoof up and placed it to one of the holes in front of her. "Big enough for even an earthpony leg."
"Are you really going to test that theory by pushing your leg into a random hole until you find it?" I worried.
Spritelight shook her head at me and then spread her mana out from her horn to cover a large area around her.
Ghostly images of her right forehoof appeared in the air near her, all lined up with the holes in the wall, and she smiled weakly.
"Why try one hole at a time when you can explore many?" she asked, pushing all of the magic hooves forward so they stuck into the wall.
There was a bit of magical wriggling of these ghostly limbs, but then there was an audible click.
All but one of these magic limbs disappeared, and Spritelight focused on the remaining one, moving it a little more until a second click was heard.
"That's more than just a pressure plate," I noted.
"Quiet please," the unicorn suggested with great focus on her face.
She turned the magical hoof a little as it still stuck in the hole in the wall, and a third click followed.
"This is a very well-designed lock. They didn't want this door to open for just any reason," Spritelight mused. "I hope this is the..."
Another move of the magic hoof caused a fourth click, but then part of the wall fell away from us to show an opening big enough for us to walk through.
As it did, a wave of mana poured out of this opening and washed over Spritelight and myself.
I had to take a step back from the ferocity with which it hit me, spreading my legs out a bit more to find my balance back.
"Found it, have you?" Discord grinned, popping up between us and laying his arms over both Spritelight and my withers.
Spritelight almost instantly ducked away from her former teacher and snorted at him. "Don't touch me..."
"Touchy, touchy," the draconequus chuckled, his eyes glimmering as he turned them to look sideways at me. "Can you feel the mana pouring out of there, mon pouliche?"
I gave him a curt nod. "Oh yes, that passageway leads to the mana well we're looking for. There's no doubt about it."
Discord plucked a sticker shaped like a gold star out of mid air and placed it on my nose. "Bingo. You get full credit. Just feel that raw power... Why, one could do so many fun things with even a small amount of that. Even here, just standing in the fumes, I feel reinvigorated!"
"Don't get any funny ideas," I warned him. "I may have been born human, but I don't fear you."
"What's there to fear about little old me?" Discord wondered, letting go of me and standing upright beside me. "No, no... I told you; I'm here to help you fix things. At least put a smile on that face of yours, hmm? We're in the last stretch now!"
I turned to look at him and noticed he was wearing an athletic tracksuit and was running in place.
"Not far now, coach! I can do it!" he told me, wiping some sweat off his brow.
I sighed and ducked my head down to take my first steps into this hidden passageway, the mana flowing past me filling me with an unearthly feeling of energy.
It was like being bombarded by the rays of the sun on a warm summer's day, but more ferocious. Like being in the desert for too long and feeling your skin get scorched.
Yet, at the same time, it felt rejuvenating. This energy was filling me like a... well, three-course meal.
It was enveloping me, encapsulating me, feeding me... and I wasn't even at the source of it; this was just the edge of it.
I shuddered as I fought against these feelings, moving my legs to walk further and further down this passage and noting it was sloped downward slightly.
Pushing onward, ever onward, I felt like I was wading into a pool of ever denser water. Molasses, something of a liquid which gave a pushback when you tried moving through it.
I heard a second group of hooves hit the ground behind me and spread my wings out a little to protect Spritelight from the onslaught of mana flowing her way.
"This is intense," I called out.
"I'm right behind you," Spritelight stated from closer than I thought she had been.
"Don't get overwhelmed by it. Take shelter behind me if you need to," I suggested.
"Already on it," the unicorn returned, nudging my tail with her horn. "Keep moving."
I felt like I couldn't let her down. She was the reason we had to do this, but also the reason I was now able to do this.
She had given me a new form, a new life, an understanding of magic.
I had to prove to her that I could use this understanding to stop the destruction of my world, and potentially hers with it given how they had once been one and the same.
I kept going on until we had passed by where the pedestal had been in the other room, then past where that room ended, and then it finally opened up before me.
This room was round, big, and illuminated by a giant ball of mana floating in its center.
I could barely look straight at it considering how my eyes had gotten used to the low light conditions before, and instead focused on other elements in the room.
The round wall had alcoves set in it which held bundles of something wrapped in light cloth. I instantly recognized these bundles from having played the odd game or two in which similar ones were depicted.
"...It's a mausoleum," I breathed out in shock. "Those are the final resting places of the deceased ponies."
"You don't mean," Spritelight gasped, coming up behind me on my left side since the big ball of mana was slightly off to our right.
I extended my left wing to better shield her from the continuous outpouring of energy from the center of the room.
"We haven't buried ponies like this for centuries," the unicorn beside me breathed out in shock.
"Of course you haven't; this place is over a thousand years old," Discord reminded us, not seeming to care whether he got blasted by the energy as he stepped out past me on my right side. "Are you paying attention to these statues?"
"What statues?" I asked, turning my attention to the center of the room as Discord motioned to it.
I had to squint my eyes to look into the light from the large ball of energy there, but then I noticed what he meant.
Set in a perfect circle in the center of the room were statues of unicorns all stood in a proud pose with their horns aimed toward the middle and slightly up.
The ball of energy was hanging in the perfect center between them, with all of their horns aiming straight at it.
Set beside the unicorns were equally proudly posed pegasi with their wings spread open, also aiming in the direction of the ball of mana.
Earthponies were stood in a similar fashion, staring up at this well of energy between them.
"This is how they created the mana well," I realised. "All those flows of energy you felt must lead here, to these statues."
Spritelight dared to peer past my left wing and gave a slow nod. "Yes, that must be it."
"It's the only explanation, look at how their horns are pointing straight at it. Even the pegasi have their wings aimed at it as if they were mirrors reflecting the energy to a single point," I pointed out, noticing how Spritelight was moving further from my shadow as her curiosity got the better of her.
I watched her take a few awkward steps but she appeared to acclimatise to the sheer volume of mana in this room, much the same as I was.
The longer I stayed in this overabundance of energy, the more it felt less like a stifling pressure and more like a warm blanket.
I moved my wing away from the unicorn and pointed it up behind me as I usually did, the ceiling in this room high enough to allow me this luxury.
"So, we've found the mana well we were looking for," I stated, watching Discord walk around the room taking everything in as much as we were doing. "Now what do we do with it?"