History may be accurate, but archaeology is precise.
The desert is an unforgiving place, in the day temperatures soar and the night they plummet. Plants shrivel and die, reduced to husks of their former self, animals seek refuge under the sand. There's a reason why no pony goes out here and why trees don't grow there.
However, there were a few ponies who didn't get that memo.
"This is ridiculous. Why are we even here?"
"Archaeology, that's why."
"That doesn't even make sense now Do! We can't stay here forever, water is going to run out tomorrow, and the others just want to go home."
"Why should we go back Fossil? This is uncharted territory! No pony has even gone digging here, never, could you imagine what we could find here?"
"Yea no pony has gone digging here because it's nearly impossible, you can't dig holes because the sand just covers it over again, and don't get me started with the sandstorms. I still have sand in my ears from that."
The brown stallion tilted his head to the side to prove this, watching Daring's expression as unimaginable amounts of sand poured out of his ear. Her expression was unchanging.
"That is why there are so many unicorns with us, they can use their magic to solidify the sand for us and we can properly excavate."
"Excavate what exactly? Sand, why yes! Because sand is such a fascinating thing to study!" To prove his point, he lifted up a pile of sand with his magic, pretending to study it laboriously." This is ground breaking stuff right here!"
"If we knew what was here, we wouldn’t have to dig here Fossil."
"But you didn't go out here with any sort of knowledge at all! You were like, let's go out here! There's bound to be interesting stuff out here! Then when we arrived you told us it was a desert!"
"Of course there is stuff bound to be found here, no other pony has ever gone digging here!"
"Except us, and this is our 53rd site in 4 months, and we keep going deeper and deeper into the desert, exactly what are we going to find?"
"Some thing that launches us into the history books, I can feel it here, there's something big here to discover. You've been on digs with me before, you know what I'm talking about."
Fossil sighed, "I know, I know, but we can't keep this up forever, only reason why I'm talking to you about this is because the other ponies in the group asked me to."
He looked over to the other ponies working to their right. Twenty ponies were digging away at the magically solidified sand, which had been separated into blocks by a string. One blue mare unicorn with a black mane was drawing a sketch of the site, her cutie mark was as a pencil and a piece of paper. She kept surveying the site, looking for problems in her sketch.
"I guess I'll get back to work then.", said Fossil.
"Yea......", replied Daring Do, who was deeply engrossed in her own thoughts.
In the deep crevasses of Do's mind,
"Archaeology is the search for fact. Not truth. If it's truth you're interested in, Doctor Tyree's Philosophy class is right down the hall. So forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel, and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and 'X' never, ever marks the spot. Seventy percent of all archaeology is done in the library. Research. Reading.", said Daring to her class of eager students. Who we're looking up at here awestruck, writing down every word. Then one mare stuck up her hoof, asking a question,
"Can you tell us of your first major discovery Ms. Daring?"
The seasoned explorer chuckled in response, "Of course, well it was 10 years ago and I wa-"
Suddenly two Royal Guard ponies burst through the door, "Miss Daring Do, we need you!"
Daring jumped into the air, keeping herself in the air for a few moments. The mare from before giggled at this.
"Were you daydreaming again Do?"
"Yea, why did you wake me out of it?"
"It's almost dinner time Do."
"What?!", she looked to the horizon and saw that the sun was beginning to set. The cold began to creep in as the two mares returned to the tents.
The next day,
Daring woke to the sound of tools and grunts coming from beyond the tent. As she walked outside she was blinded by the sun.
"I got the others up early, I hope you don't mind."
She looked to her left and saw Fossil,
"No it's ok, we'll get more done in time."
She failed to see the angry face of one of the stallions who was working. Fossil didn't look very impressed at this either, but Daring saw that.
"What's wrong?"
"I need to talk to you in private."
"Is it really necessary?"
"It's VERY necessary!", hissed Fossil rather loudly, then he started walking out to the desert, Daring right behind him. Once they were far enough from the camp, Fossil turned to talk to her.
"The others want to go back to the university, Doo. Last night when you were sleeping over half of the team dragged me out of my tent and demanded that I ask you to stop this and go back, if you don't decide to go back, they'll abandon you."
"When do they want to go back?"
"By the end of the day, at latest."
"But that's to quick! We have a dig here! They can't be serious!"
"No pony here really cares about the dig, to them it's the reason why their suffering here in the middle of nowhere."
A cloud of sand shot into the air behind them, the shouts of a few ponies could be heard. The two paused to look at the scene, but quickly turned back to each other.
"At this point I'm not asking you, I'm telling you what's happening, they're going to leave with or without you, and I will too."
Suddenly a stallion came running up to them, his face mixed between horror and happiness.
"Miss Daring! Paint Brush found something! She actually found something!"
Then the screaming came. It was the voice of the mare from last night, the three started to run back to the dig. Galloping at full speed, they reached the spot, there was a massive hole, Daring peaked over the edge, looking down, it was at least a 20 metre drop. At the bottom was a stone floor, but no sign of the mare from yesterday.
"Hellllllllllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooooo?.", shouted Fossil. Nothing responded, the rest of the crew stood tense, fearing for their colleague.
Daring looked at the others and shouted, "Quick! Some pony get a rope. Now!"
The crew scrambled, searching for a means of getting down the newly opened shaft. One Pegasus stallion came running with a rope firmly in his mouth, he stopped and gave it to Daring Doo, who gave it to Fossil.
"Hold this while I go down.", said Daring Doo. Fossil only nodded in response.
And she began to descend into the hole. Eventually she entered into the cave, but it wasn't a cave. It was a structure, a building perhaps, covered under all of this sand? Are there more buildings like this? Questions zoomed throughout her mind, as she approached the floor. She was so amazed she didn't even support herself with her legs, she just lay there grinning like a fool. She took in the architecture around her, pillars and stained windows. It was over 50 metres long, at the end was a podium with strange symbols, nothing that she had even seen before. Before she knew the others came down as well, all in awe at their discovery, jaws gaping wide.
Then they heard sobbing over to their left. They looked over and saw the mare who had fallen down, curled up, Fossil approached was the first to approach her.
"Are you alright?", he asked. She didn't respond, but she pointed with her hoof to another side of the structure.
They all looked over to where she had pointed. There was a skeleton, of some bizarre creature leaning against the wall, torn worn down pieces of clothes draped over it.
This time Daring was the first one to take the initiative. She approached to skeleton, her eyes the size of plates as she inspected the creature. It was massive, it seemed to have two long legs, and two arms like an ape. But the chest and skull were different. She caught sight of something cradled at the ends of its arms, within the five digit thing was a black cuboid, clearly not apart of the creature. She pushed it and it fell to the floor with a bang, all the ponies jumped back carefully watching the weird device. It didn't move so neither did the ponies, Fossil was the first do something, as his horn glowed, the object began to float over to him. He caught sight of some text on it, but it was too worn to make out.
"Do, there seems to be writing on this, and it looks like Equestrian."
"Really? Quickly lets me see!", Daring didn't spend anytime rushing over. She took a look at the text.
Designed b Ap le A embled n hina Model B
"Damn..", sighed Daring, "Yes its Equestrian, but its pretty much unreadable. What is this thing?"
"No idea, it doesn't.......seem......to do anything, perhaps its just a trinket?"
"No, no, it must do something.......", Daring's hoof rubbed of the object, she felt something click.
Suddenly the object began light emitting from the other side, a strange symbol appeared, the two stared at it, ignoring the gasp from the others.
"Is that..?", asked Fossil
"Yea, it is.", replied Daring Do
"An apple, what?"
"A bitten apple."
"Let's see what happens."
They waited for something to happen. Eventually something did, words and numbers appeared on the glass pane, they were strange, but there was one thing they understood. The date, Tuesday1 July .
"They have the same calendar as us?", questioned Fossil
"It seems so, this is amazing, this is probably one of the greatest discoveries made by any pony, griffon or anything...."
"But what is it?", asked the mare from the corner.
The two ponies looked to Paint Brush. Daring was the first to respond,
"I have no idea, but this....this thing, its amazing. These creatures must have dominated their environment, probably even environments not suited to them. There is no documentation of such a species, and it seems we have many things in common. They have been incredibly advanced. We'll send for more supplies tomorrow, but for now we will take a rest for the day and decide what to do with this."
This received a cheerfully response from the other ponies, who looked eager to continue this. They began to ascend the rope back up to the surface. Eventually the only ponies remaining were Daring Do, Fossil and Paint Brush. One by one they ascended. Then Daring began to leave, she took one more look at the skeleton.
"Who are you?", she asked the dead ancient creature. It didn't feel like responding, at least for today. "Shy eh? I guess I'll just have to take your toy from you then!", She giddily picked up the black device from the floor with her mouth, and placed it in a pouch, with a massive grin on her face she ascended the rope.
"No, stop, what are you doing?, I SAID STOP!", Daring hurled herself at the Royal Guard pony burning important notes and reports on the site. He merely dodged her as the paper began to burn, she desperately tried to put the fire out with her hooves, tears clouding her eyes. But it was helpless, months of work was left as a pile of burnt scraps, before she could do any more the guard pony dragged her out of the tent with his magic. As she was sliding against the ground she saw various items being taken away by other ponies, object of all shapes and sizes they had excavated from the site during the last few months. Eventually she came to a stop, in front of the other ponies in her team, they looked scared and confused, encircled by a wall of guards.
Everything was silent for a moment, Daring could hear her heart beating in her chest, pumping with rage. Suddenly the wall of ponies began to dissipates and a large pony walked towards them.
"Prin-Princess Celestia?", asked Daring outlook.
"Yes it is my little pony."
Daring was lost for words, just dumbly staring at Celestia with an open mouth.
"Why are you doing this Princess?" Princess Celestia looked towards the pony who asked this.
"I can not tell you why I am doing this, Paint Brush, for that is a secret."
"How do you know my name?!"
"I know all of your names, I have been following your work very closely, and now I feel the need to intervene. Also, there is something I you to do for me now."
Celestia's horn glowed and out of nowhere, a table, quill and pile of papers appeared.
"You must sign these, everypony here must sign these."
One pony lifted up one of the papers with is magic, and began to growl.
"What is this, an NDA? Tell me why we should sign this?."
"Ready the text at the end of the contract Fossil.", Fossil didn't bother looking at the Princess, his eyes searching for the text, he froze for a moment.
"Whaat?!"
"What's in the text Fossil?", asked Daring.
"See for yourself." Another contact floated over to Daring in front of her hooves.
I BY SIGNING THIS, I ----------- SWEAR ON CELESTIA THAT I WILL WORK FOR THE NEEDS OF THE CROWN UNDER THE OCCUPATION I AM PREFORMING AND WILL NOT MAKE PUBLIC WHAT I LEARN DURING MY WORK. IF I BREAK THIS CONTRACT I WILL DECLARE MYSELF AN ENENMY OF EQUESTRIA. BY NOT SIGNING THIS I DECLARE MYSELF AN ENEMY OF EQUESTRIA
