The Archive of the Soldier; The Battlefield of the Scholar

She backed into the shadows, doing her best to stay out of the light that brightened the center of the corridor. Up ahead, four changelings crouched in an open chamber, their backs to each other. They had felt the presence too, and were on high alert, making sure that nothing could creep up on them. "I can take them," Twilight thought. "I just need to distract them somehow.". And although a plan had already begun to take shape in her mind, she would not need it. A grey, sparkling smoke began to roll into the chamber, coming from the corridors that branched off the chamber. Before the changelings could react, the smoke was swirling around them, quickly obscuring Twilight's view of the creatures. From deep within the roiling vortex there was a white pulse and a deep "boom" noise, causing Twilight to jump. The smoke quickly massed in the air above the center of the chamber, taking on the loose form of a grey stallion. And while much of the smoke had remained on the ground, making the room difficult to see through, enough had risen into the air to reveal that where four changelings once stood, there was now four stone statues, each frozen with a look of shock on their faces.  The stallion in the air turned his head and faced towards Twilight, and with a deep voice that seemed to emanate from all around her, he spoke,

"Well well well. Look what we have here."......

-two days earlier-

Twilight felt like a kindergardener again, looking up at the towering shelves in awe. This wasn't the first time she had been in the royal archives, nor was it the second, or even the 70th. It didn't matter to her though, there was more knowledge stored here than anypony could absorb in a lifetime, not that it would stop her from trying. Every time she walked through the massive oak doors, no matter how many times she had seen it before, the sight still took her breath away. Shelves 30 times the height of a pony, and hundreds of times as long. She gawked at the spectacle a few more seconds, and would have continued to do so for hours, had a small, slightly whiny voice at her side not drawn her from her trance.

"C'mon Twilight, you know we don't have all day. We need to be out of here to meet the girls out by the donut shop in a few hours." Spike said as he did his best to rouse the lavender alicorn. He was used to this after all, but there has been several instances where, despite his best efforts, he could not break the trance his caretaker had fallen into. Luckily, fate was smiling on him that day, and it didn't take much more to bring Twilight from her stupor.

"Sorry Spike. You know how much this place amazes me." She said, shaking her head and trying to think of something else to take her mind off the collection of knowledge that lay before her. She caught on to a few words her assistant had spoken, remembering why she was here in the first place. She and her five friends had been invited to Canterlot for a few days, as it had been a year since they defeated discord with the Elements of Harmony. While they no longer possessed the mystic objects, they were still the guests of honor at the party celebrating the release of Equestria from the mad ruler. Discord may have been reformed, but that didn't stop anypony from celebrating the anniversary of his defeat, least of all Pinkie Pie. The six had split up to see various sights around the equine capital, with Twilight sparing no time rushing down to the massive library. This was always her favorite part of the castle, and as a filly had spent countless hours sitting in the massive hall with a pile of books several times her size stacked next to her. She hadn't been in the archives in quite a while, and was even more delighted when she spotted the reference list sitting on a large table near the entryway. The book was massive, tens of thousands of pages long, and listed the way the library was organized by subject, as well as where to look if you wanted to find one of a particular type. Twilight had spent several hours at a time in her youth sitting by this book alone, committing large passages of it to memory. And although that had been years ago, she could still list the exact shelf positioning of every book by Starswirl the Bearded simply off the top of her head. Wasting no time, Twilight rushed to a more secluded wing of the library, with Spike doing his best to keep up. Locating the correct shelf, Twilight sat down, closed her eyes, and reached out with her magic. Without even grabbing hold of anything, she could sense the power that was practically dripping from the spells located in the nearby volumes. It was a feeling she hadn't known in years, and the memories of her childhood brought a small smile to her face.

Spike watched, wide eyed as the violet haze spread across the nearby shelves. Even though he lived with Twilight, he sometimes forgot how much magic she truly contained, and couldn't help being impressed by the tendrils of power that now probed the books. but something caught his eye; a few of the wispy strands had begun to mass and sharpen near one end of the bookcase, with more magic following close behind. Looking at Twilight in bewilderment, he saw not the puzzled look the he expected to be on her face, but instead saw a quickly growing grin.

"I see whats happening," Spike thought, recognizing the look. "She's found a book she hasn't read yet.". It was true, Twilight had sensed a magic not familiar to her. She quickly tried to yank the book from the shelves with her magic, but found it tricky to grab ahold of. No, not tricky; impossible was a more correct word for it. No matter what she tried, it was like the book was repelling her power, preventing magic from affecting it. Puzzled, her curiosity got the best of her. She had to know what information warranted such protections. Flapping her wings to get to the high shelf, she gently grabbed hold of the tome, noticing a tiny spark a energy jumping between her hoof and the leather spine, like a charge of static electricity. gliding back down and settling at one of the tables, the bewildered look on her and Spike's face only grew as they took in the battered manuscript.

It was a thin volume, no more than a hundred pages. But it was the cover and binding that caught Twilight's attention. The book seemed as if it had been dragged through several battlefields, before taking a swim in a volcano. The front was charred in places, slashed by what looked like a knife in others, and, despite the temperate climate kept up in the library, a few spots were even frozen solid, covered in ice that refused to melt. All of this surrounded a rough "S" that was engraved into the cover, looking like somepony had tried to scrape the letter into the cover with some awkward tool like a chisel. All in all, the book looked like it defied every law of science and common logic simply by existing, and was pleased with the fact that it did so. When she tried to open the battered tome, a small flash of light came from the side where the pages opened up. Looking for the source of the glow, she saw that a small, night-blue lock had appeared, sealing the covers together and preventing Twilight from opening the book. Some ponies would take this as a warning to put the book away; others would have grown frustrated at the tome's blatant defiance. But Twilight, on the other hand, only grew more curious. Setting the book down, she began to scan over it with her magic, attempting to see if any spells had been cast on it. Instead of finding a few simple incantations as she expected, she was almost knocked out of her chair by the incredible menagerie of arcane runes, hexes, blessings, and possibly a few curses that had placed apon the weathered manuscript. Amongst these spells, she could feel the ward that had prevented her from grabbing the book off the shelf and the locking spell that had clearly just taken effect. The placement of the spells was strange, almost poetic even, as different castings leaned on one another, using the others to make themselves stronger. Whoever had placed such a variety of magic on the tome in such a precise and advanced way was clearly a master at his craft, and the level of complexity was so great that not even Twilight had a hope of cracking it open. Even as she was thinking these words to herself however, she decided to give deciphering the locks a try, and began to probe further, trying to find a chink in the armor. This was a decision she almost immediately regretted however, as the spells griped ahold of Twilight's mind, and began to probe right back. After a few seconds, the magic gave off a almost... disappointed pulse of emotion, and pushed her away before retracting back to the confines of the tome.

"C'mon Spike. lets go ask one of the librarians where this... thing is from." Twilight said as she began to gallop away, holding both Spike and the mysterious piece of literature in her magic. Relying on her knowledge of the library layout, the duo rushed through the massive shelves coming to a skid at the front desk. Apon arrival, Twilight wasted no time slamming the book on the table and asking what the tome was and what it contained.

"To be honest, I've never seen this particular piece before." The grey mare said confusedly, after picking up and examining the mysterious slab of paper and leather. "Im sorry, but theres no information I can give you, besides that this book is probably a fake knock-off of a relic or something of that sort."

"What makes you say that?" Twilight asked, somehow managing a more confused tone than the old librarian.

"Look on the back cover. The royal seal is imprinted there, although there are a few stars put throughout the design that are not normally put there. My guess would be that the seal is forged to make the book seem valuable, but the counterfeiter didn't do their research properly and included the extra stars by mistake."

Twilight thanked the librarian for her help and trotted over to a table, doing her best to resist face-hoofing right then and there for not noticing the seal in her preliminary examination of the book. Apon sitting down and flipping the book, she saw what the librarian had mentioned, the sun and moon that made up the royal seal. Twilight also noticed that, like the old mare had pointed out, there were several stars surrounding the crest, as well as a larger one in the center of the whole design.

"What do you think it means?" Spike asked. Even though he was still a toddler in dragon terms, living with Twilight meant you learnt quickly, and he was as much as an expert in the field of identifying, caring for, and classifying books as she was as a result. "I've never seen anything like it before."

"I don't know Spike. But the royal seal doesn't appear on books unless they are associated with royal affairs. And I find it hard to believe such powerful magic would be placed on a counterfeit. Why would somepony put so much extra effort into something that was fake anyway? It just doesn't add up. In the case this is book is genuine, the seal means the princesses would know about it, and I'm in better a position than anypony to be asking them questions."