Discord Rules

Chapter 8

Pine Tree Tower

“That’s it!” Harmonia shouted. Her voice was full of relief. It was justified, as the end of her long, tiring journey was in sight. A lone pine tree stood on the horizon, with a large rock beside it, a little shorter than the tree.

After walking for a while, Harmonia realized that the rock was actually a massive mountain. The ‘tree’ beside it was actually thousands of feet taller. The few clouds in the sky barely reached the tree’s middle. The millions of ‘leaves’ on the tree were, as the old pony had said, individual rooms.

After several days of walking, Harmonia finally reached the base of the tree. It towered above her, reaching far, far into the sky. Each room was balanced precariously on branches less than half their width. She hoped they wouldn’t fall while she was in them.

Harmonia walked into the tower’s base. Inside was a lift and a staircase. Harmonia stepped on the lift and inspected the massive number of buttons. There were thousands. She just looked and looked until she found one labeled “Harmonic Objects Floor”. She pushed it and the lift roared up the hollow center of the tree.

It stopped quickly, letting her out on a floor labeled “Dark Objects Floor A1a”. She stepped out into the massive labyrinth of rooms and branches. The first thing she saw was a pedestal in a room labeled “The Alicorn Amulet”. On the pedestal was the amulet itself. A short description was written on a plaque on the pedestal.

Harmonia felt an immense temptation to take the amulet. After all she was an alicorn. Sure, that old guy had told her not to, but why should she care? She was an alicorn, a god, in essence. Why should she listen to some old geezer–No. We’ve seen what that amulet can do, haven’t we? We can’t take it. Not after he warned us.

But that’s the Alicorn Amulet! It’s ours by right! And just imagine, all that power… Harmonia began to salivate, then shook herself. Her minds needed to agree on one thing, and one thing soon.

After a short debate, the minds in favor of continuing on without the amulet argued the other side into submission. Harmonia turned and reentered the lift, which took off again without any prompting.

It stopped again on “Dark Objects Floor D7z”. Harmonia took one look outside, saw a crown labeled “The Shadow Crown”, and got back on the lift, which kept going up.

On “Protective Objects Floor F9x6H5”, and Harmonia exited the lift one more time. Outside the lift were many rooms with various suits of armor, weapons, rings, crowns, and other, unidentifiable objects. Each was labeled with an description of its enchantment: complete protection, fire protection, poison immunity, the ability to breathe underwater, and so on and so forth.

Most of the objects had negative effects too, the most common being “drives the user insane after repeated use”. Harmonia entered the lift for, hopefully, the final time.

After another short ride up into the heights of the tree, the lift stopped on “Harmonic Objects Floor”. It seemed that Harmonic Objects were in short supply.

And indeed they were. Half of the rooms on the floor were empty, and the rest appeared damaged or aged. None appeared to contain anything with any great amount of power.

Eventually, Harmonia arrived at a single preserved room on the floor. She immediately knew what it was. She entered the room, and saw, at the other end, her goal. What she had gone on her long journey for.

It was the Crown of Harmony. Under the Crown was a secondary plaque, which said, “If you be pure of heart and broken of mind, then take this crown, and begin your rule most kind.” The essence was that it was perfect for Harmonia.

After some trepidation at putting an incredibly powerful and ancient artifact on her head, she lifted it with telekinesis, and put it on her head. An extremely bright light poured out of her eyes and everything went black.

“No…” Celestia whispered, “You can’t have…”

“I’m afraid I have, my dear Celestia,” said the True Chaos, smirking.

“No! She wouldn’t… they wouldn’t…” Celestia trailed off.

“I believe they already have. You see, Celestia, time is shortened here. It is much, much shorter. As in, days pass on the outside for every minute,” the True Chaos revealed, “So, in the time of this conversation, your student traveled for more than a month, and made it to the Pine Tree Tower.”

“N-n…” Celestia fell to the floor in despair. Luna looked like she was going to follow.

Discord stepped forward, “I will not–”

The True Chaos rounded on him, “You will not what? Allow this? I’m in charge here, and that’s how it’s going to remain. I am immensely more powerful than all three of you! I can feel it! Balance is already restoring itself, chaos and order are equalizing!”

“B-but I–”

“I already told you! No buts! No excuses! I am the most powerful here, and that will remain the way things are until my succesor arrives. Then even I’ll have to do what she says. And I know she’ll do her best to restore harmony.”

“Wh-what? A-are you switching to our side?” Luna asked, almost fearful, “Harmony is an orderly thing, isn’t it?”

The True Chaos merely smirked at her, “Actually, dear Luna, harmony is a balance between chaos and order. It is the state I’ve always tried to reach for, and it is so often confused with order.”

“But harmony is order! That is how our parents taught us!” Celestia seemed to have regained her ability to speak.

“No, just think about it. Laughter is chaos. The requirements for being a bearer for the Element of Laughter are chaotic. Honesty causes chaos. Loyalty can cause chaos in whoever bears it. Generosity can create conflict between how much the bearer needs and how much they can give away. Kindness means being kind to everyone, even if that causes even more conflict. And I shouldn’t need to explain Magic,” the True Chaos explained, “Your student should be enough of an example.”

“Twilight is–” Celestia began.

“Here,” interrupted Luna.

Celestia turned to her sister and began to ask “Wh–” when a massive light impacted the ground right next to her and knocked everyone over.

Author's Note

So yeah. Much earlier than I usually post these. Oh well.