Spritelight just stared at the mana well in the center of the room and shook her head. "Mana is more usually stored within a crystal, or a living tree, or some such. I've never before seen it contained in a ball like this."
"It's like the pegasus wings are placed in such a way that they form a shield of sorts," she pondered. "This was by design."
"Remember the drawings from the hallway; they started construction on the temple before all the unicorns had fallen," I remembered. "You think it was part of a larger plan?"
"Maybe just a pool to draw from to more easily create a portal between Equestria and Earth," Spritelight considered. "And perhaps even to make sure the humans had no easy access to magic as a way to protect themselves. Siphoning all this mana away from the world..."
"You know, there are legends about humans using magic in the past, but nothing recent. Some monks are thought to have abilities bordering on magic through deep meditation, but nothing like the stories of old," I mused. "Maybe this is the reason for it?"
"The continued draining of magic from the world in this fashion could very easily be the reason," the unicorn agreed. "Magic plants need to have their seedlings undisturbed as they sprout in mana-rich soil or they will wither away, and they're the primary way for mana to replenish."
I studied Spritelight's face as she spoke, noticing an air to her which I had seen before.
"You should consider taking up teaching when all of this is over," I pointed out. "You make me want to listen to you speak about how magic spreads around the world. Not just because of the task ahead of me, but also to know just how Equestria differs from Earth."
"Magic plants grow in magic soil, magic animals eat magic plants, and the dead return mana back to the soil again," Discord muttered, straightening his back again. "It's a circle of life and mana replenishment. Keeping these bodies here, wrapped up in a mausoleum, keeps their mana from returning to the soil."
"So, there's every indication they wanted to keep the humans from having access to magic," I decided. "Like Spritelight said."
"Considering what we saw depicted on the walls, it was likely to prevent a repeat of what happened before," the unicorn pondered, her gaze moving across the room. "Keeping all mana contained in this room would prevent humans from gaining the upper hand again and storming Equestria to get more captives."
"They did travel halfway across the world before settling here. They were very careful about it," I noted.
"Except for when they decided to leave their fallen comrades here," Discord remarked, motioning at the alcove beside him. "Not only did they keep the magic they had in life from returning to the soil, but these bodies have been filling up with more of it while resting here."
Spritelight and I turned to the alcove closest to us and I tried to sense the magic energy within the bundles before me.
"No, this might be by design as well," Spritelight considered.
I frowned as I could sense the energy coming from these dead ponies. I could clearly sense where they were in relation to the cold stone around them which was void of it.
"How do you figure it was by design?" I asked of Spritelight.
"How do you store a thousand years of energy if you don't want to use crystals or other storage which can only take a limited amount before breaking apart?" the unicorn asked me, motioning with her head at the dead pony beside us.
"Our bodies naturally take in mana from our surroundings," Spritelight spoke as if she were teaching a class. "If we don't use any of it, we simply store it inside ourselves until we're full of it. But we do use it even a little of it just by being alive, so there's a constant ebb and flow of mana in any living being."
"...but dead ponies don't use up the magic they store in themselves," I realised. "They're like batteries! And this temple was built to keep out moisture and other things which would cause them to rot away. A climate-controlled tomb."
"Not the most respectful of ways of dealing with the dead," the unicorn sighed, "but I can see where they were coming from."
"Why, it was because of these wonderful ponies that we now have this immense amount of mana at our disposal," Discord chortled, drawing our attention.
"Even just half of this would be enough to reshape the world to your own image," he continued as I raised my head to get a better look at him.
The shadow cast upon the wall behind him by the light of the ball of energy in the center of the room seemed to grow and darken as the draconequus spoke and I started to feel worried seeing it.
"Just imagine how beautiful Earth could be under new management," Discord suggested, now suddenly wearing a manager's gilet over his oddly shaped body.
"Discord, are you doing okay over there?" I asked, cautiously. I had seen from the show what happened when he went out of control, and I had no interest being there when it happened.
"Oh, I'm absolutely fine, just fine," he returned, peering at the orb of mana in the center of the room. "Just being here in this room is charging us up with the mana it draws from the world around us, haven't you ponies noticed? It's not just the dead who get charged."
I considered his words, then tried to figure out how I could tell how much mana I had actually stored within myself. "How... would you know?"
Discord was beside me in the blink of an eye, leaning against my right side, and whispered in my right ear. "Just feel for the energy inside. That force of life which is eager to come out and play. The pressure of barely withheld music ready to pop on stage if only you decided to let it loose."
I flicked my ear at him and took a half-step away to get some distance from the draconequus. Ever since my transformation I had felt this sensation in the back of my mind, a sort of background noise of available energy which I had manifested through my horn in the form of magic.
I had been aware of it, but had been using it more instinctively than I was sure Spritelight was doing. I lacked the training she'd had back in Equestria.
Focusing on it now, there was definitely more of a metaphysical pressure within. Like that bloated feeling you get when you've eaten too much and your stomach is distended.
I felt it somewhat naturally gravitate to my horn as I put my attention on it, but then remembered what Luna had told me about the way Celestia and her were using their mane and tail to offload excess energy.
I directed this pressure into my mane, into my tail, letting it flow freely through the individual strands of hair. The pressure subsided almost instantly, went down to a low simmer, and then stayed there at a more comfortable level.
Opening my eyes again, I found Spritelight staring at me with an annoyed look on her face, while Discord could barely contain his proud smile.
"What?" I wondered, looking behind myself to see my tail moving behind me in the air as if a gust of wind was continuously moving through it.
As it moved, the green hairs were shimmering like small emeralds were woven through them and were reflecting the light from the orb in the center of the room.
I moved my head more until I could catch sight of my mane and noticed it was doing much the same as my tail.
"Oh, that worked out better than I had imagined," I exclaimed, turning my attention back to the others.
Discord had taken to wearing an old press outfit and was aiming a photo camera at me. "Strike a pose, Josey. Oh, our little girl is growing up so fast."
Spritelight narrowed her eyes at her teacher's antics, then frowned in my direction. "I'm just not going to ask how you've managed to do that."
"A little trick Luna taught me," I suggested back to the unicorn. "You should be able to do it yourself with the energy floating around in this room, although it might be more dificult a trick to perform when we're not being bombarded with mana to replenish our own energy."
Spritelight raised an eyebrow at that.
"Just send your excess energy out through your mane and tail instead of your horn, I suppose," I explained to the student of magic. "Luna suggested it's how Celestia and herself keep from overloading on mana, but also said that unicorns may not have enough mana to do it under normal circumstances."
Discord took a photograph and half-blinded me with the flash. "Why, I'd almost ask you to help me teach the youngsters, Josey dear. In my case I just summon assorted items around myself in order to offload the energy at my disposal."
"So I've seen," I coughed uneasily. "I'd say the mane thing is less disruptive."
"But also less fun," Discord posited, manifesting a cup of tea to sip from, the press kit and camera gone in the same instant.
I sighed at his antics, noting Spritelight was turning to watch the orb in the center of the room again beside him.
"You know you've always given me a headache?" I asked of the Draconequus. "You just never seem to take things seriously. How much of a mask is it, I wonder? There's just the three of us here."
Discord simply sipped from his drink, but Spritelight drew my attention away from him.
She clearly had taken my instructions to heart as her mane and tail started to move and shimmer.
Her light blue hairs made the light reflecting off them look like light reflecting off the waves on a clear blue ocean.
It looked good on her, even if it was an awkward thing to see on a unicorn rather than an alicorn.
"How are you doing, Spritelight?" I wondered, knowing how much of my own energy was flowing into my hairs to maintain the appearance.
She turned to look back at me, a bead of sweat rolling down her forehead as she did.
"I definitely wouldn't be able to do this without an external source of mana to tap into," she returned in a slow but deliberate statement.
"Too much of a drain?" I surmised. "Too bad; it looks good on you."
She dared to smile at the compliment, turning her head to look back at her magic at work.
"It does, doesn't it?" she realised, but then had to drop the effect a moment after. "It was nice to try once, but the drain is too much to maintain."
"Perhaps you should wait until after you become an alicorn?" Discord suggested, bending over awkwardly to be able to look at Spritelight at her height.
"Shut up," Spritelight bit to him, shaking her head to make her mane fall back in place properly. "Like that's ever going to happen."
"Oh, like you're not as smart with magic as Twilight Sparkle? She managed to push through the boundary, so why can't you?" Discord posed with a grin.
I considered the possibility. "There's something to that, honestly. And, you know, Cadance got a special consideration or something. I'm sure I can put a good word in for you with Celestia?"
The unicorn dashed forward in the direction of the door to the room, clearly aiming to get out from between Discord and myself, then turned around to face us, her cheeks flushed.
"I'll get there if I get there on my own. I don't need help from either of you," she protested.
"Get where?" a voice called out from the passage behind Spritelight, and I could barely see Cadance approaching us, struggling to put one hoof in front of the other as she battled the strong force from the mana well in the center.
"Oh, Cadance," I spoke, rushing past Spritelight and raising my wings up to block the flow of mana to the hallway. "Let me help you. You should acclimatise to it once you're in the room with us, but it's a bit of a struggle to get there."
"Thank you Josey," the other princess sighed out as the ferocity of the energy hitting her let up a little. "You found the mana well then?"
"What does it look like?" Spritelight grumbled, nodding her head back at the orb in the center of the room.
"Enough power in this room to create a new Equestria, if we would so choose," Discord offered up. "The ponies who built this place have done a marvellous job collecting it for us."
I saw the twitch in Cadance's right eye because I was close to her, but she managed to keep her composure fairly well regardless.
"Well, I'd rather go back to the Equestria I know and love, if you don't terribly mind, Discord?" she called out past me, stopping her forward motion after arriving in the room proper.
I was still shielding her from the blast of energy, but I knew it was bouncing off the floor, walls, and ceiling as much as coming at us directly. I considered for a moment that my own body was radiating almost as much mana now.
"Oh, I love what you've done with your hair, Josey," Cadance suggested, looking me over. "Taking a page out of Celestia's book?"
"Luna, actually," I returned with a smile. "She's been far more helpful for me to learn how to use my magic; I'm more instinctive like Luna is."
"Ah, yes," the other alicorn agreed. "There's something to be said for building a magic spell with a cool head, but I fell short of the more instinctive magic used against me by Chrysalis when she displaced me. I tried to learn it as well but I'm too set in my ways."
"Ah, well, we're both a lot younger than those two. Maybe we can get together with Twilight Sparkle after this is all over and work on our understanding of magic?" I remarked. "Let me know when you feel prepared enough for me to drop my wings."
"Ah, a moment longer please?" Cadance warded off. "I am feeling stronger by the moment, but this is an amount of energy I have not felt before. It is intense."
"And so tempting," Discord mused, stroking his chin. "If we didn't need this to save the worlds, I would have loved to play with it."
"About that; we're miles under the surface, aren't we? How are we going to get this energy back up to defeat the wall of flesh coming our way?" Spritelight wondered, having regained her own composure.
"Why, we lift the temple to the surface and take the top off, of course," Discord answered as if it was the most natural of solutions to think of.
"You... lift the temple?" I repeated, not having considered it myself.
"Oh yes, that's the easy part," Discord returned with a smile. "After that, you're going to have to figure out how to use this to restore the borders between worlds and restore the damages done. I don't envy you."
"I'm not sure this ancient brickwork can handle being moved that far," Spritelight considered, looking around. "And if we open the ceiling to the atmosphere, these bodies are going to decompose rapidly. They're only held together by the mana flooding them."
"Bodies?" Cadance asked, peering past my left wing.
I lowered my left wing enough for her to see past more clearly, motioning with a nod from my head in the direction of the many alcoves set in the walls.
"The ponies here have slept for centuries. I would rather not disturb their final resting place any more than we have already done," I spoke. "We need a different plan."