Part One - The Scroll
A week after the Summer Sun Celebration, I was called to the Canterlot castle archives in order to aid in the yearly record keeping. Only a few years ago this was a common pastime for me. I wasn't very social for a pony my age, but more recently I have developed a small network of friends that have made that much less true. The past few months have left these friends with little time to spare, and I have once again found myself sitting alone delving into all things arcane and obscure.
I was at work in the Star Swirl the Bearded Wing, reordering the spell books and tomes contained within, when a row of books fell flat on their sides, opening a view into a dusty crevice beyond them. I would have passed it by, taking the space to be a quirk of the castle, had not a second glance revealed a small, decrepit scroll barely large enough to seen behind the toppled books.
The scroll appeared far more aged than anything else the archives had shown me thus far. The idea that this forgotten corner held, perhaps, some ancient secret, lost to pony-kind for untold ages, intrigued me so greatly that the toppled books were knocked to the floor as I eagerly removed the scroll from its nest of dust and cobwebs.
It struck me immediately upon grasping the scroll that its material was not the fibrous paper that had been the standard for the length of recorded history, but was something more pliable, smoother. Something more organic.
When I brought it to the study desk to unravel, the scroll proved stranger and more awful still. The crimson writing hidden inside was runic and unfamiliar, spiraling around an intricate and jagged glyph. What I held before me disturbed me, and my first inclination was to destroy the foul thing, but my curiosity overwhelmed me, and I began my research.
The sun had long since set. My eyes became heavy and sore, having passed over every word the archives offered on the subject of equine language. Despite this exhaustive effort, I found no additional example of the odd script in which the scroll was written.
Looking for another lead, I began to gather books on the subject of glyphs and symbolism. I was nearly under the belief that this would be more fruitless effort when a phrase caught my attention.
Forbidden magic.
Few examples were provided, but few were needed. I read on, both horrified and fascinated. Upon turning the page, however, I reeled back. Before me, surrounded by dark and ominous words, was printed the accursed glyph. I stood aghast at the thought that a thing of such evil could exist, much less exist on the desk before me!
My nerves calmed slightly upon reading that the magic connected to this vile scroll was lost to the ages, although I also found myself oddly disappointed. Having found an answer, I was overwhelmed by the exhaustion that only my desire to learn held back, and collapsed where I stood.
I don't believe I slept for long, as the sky was still dark, but I felt fully refreshed regardless. I glanced at the eldritch scroll laying innocently before me. Surely Princess Celestia would want to know of something of such an evil reputation as soon as possible, but it would be rude, I thought, to wake her so late at night. After all, without the proper spells, the scroll was essential harmless.
It felt like a shame that something so powerful was lost to time. Just one simple spell could unlock a world of potential, but that simple spell was long forgotten.
No magic is by itself evil. Many of the spells used in everyday life were at one time condemned as unholy, and many of the greatest sorcerers known to unicorn kind were once called heretics for their use of unduly forbidden magic. Perhaps this scroll was no different.
I've always been proud of my ability to learn new spells, often being able to imitate them at first sight, but to learn to use a new source of arcane energy is something different altogether. Like learning a new language, learning a new class of magic can often require a completely new approach. Typical pony magic draws strength from the positive and negative emotional interactions between the user and those around him or her, while elemental magic draws its energy from a basic concept for the purpose of advancing or amplifying that same concept, and is primarily known from the Conflict Magic of the Windigos, the Chaos Magic of the elemental spirit Discord, and the Humor Magic found in Poison Joke. This Scroll had none of the typical signs of any such magic, but energy pulsed from it like the thumping heartbeat of some unfathomable slumbering beast.
I shut my eyes. I cast a tracing spell into the arcane current and allowed it to drift, like dust into the wind. Once I felt the directionality of the current, I forced my spell against it. For a typical enchanted object, this process reaches the power source within a matter of seconds, but the tracing spell drove deep and distant, far further than our current knowledge of enchantments suggests is possible. The resistance from the arcane current began to mount. For powerful artifacts, this acts as a security measure, repelling the probing spells of tamperers, but is in fact merely a side effect of connecting an object to a strong source of magical energy. Fortunately, tracing spells can overcome this resistance by forgoing the unwieldy manipulative capabilities of a probing spell.
At the levels of resistance I was experiencing, I expected to hit the core at any moment, but the arcane current continued to push back with impossible force. I poured every ounce of my will into the tracer, and manage to make steady but slowing progress. The energy flow seemed endless and unstoppable. I felt doubt press its way into my mind, and felt the tracer eroding away under the force of the screaming torrent. The spell would fail. I would never know from where that colossal force came. The forgotten power that this scroll promised would remain forgotten, lost to the ages.
These facts sank into me like stinging thorns, and unquenchable anger bled out.
I want this power.
I want this secret.
It will be mine, and nothing will stop me!
The tracer flared back to full strength, blazing forward with wild force, slicing through the storm. I payed no heed to the immense force this feat required. I was consumed by the effort. I felt there was no greater need than the unraveling of this ancient power, and I was chosen to unravel it.
I raged against the stream. I could feel raw energy being ripped from the tracer, only to be replenished in the same instant. I threw my wrath against the stream, and it threw wrath back. A numbing roar filled my mind, drowning out all thoughts but the savage thirst for the untold secrets buried within the ancient scroll.
The stream began to waver. The once steady force fluctuated wildly, at one moment an immovable bastion wall, at another a mere breeze, every snap resonating endlessly through my mind. The roar became maddening and chaotic. I could hear cruel laughter, whimpering screams, and deafening whispers. The stream lashed furiously, like a savage beast ripping against its chains. I pressed onward. I could neither stop nor wanted to. The maelstrom raged with unknowable power, and the gibbering madness consumed me. The core was ahead, and I felt joy.
Then all was still.
The monstrous stream vanished, and tranquil silence filled me. I drifted eagerly to the core. I laughed gently. The core appeared as nothing more than a black wisp encased in a small, transparent sphere. Who could imagine! All of that terrible might, that horrid, screaming power, was smoke in a bubble! The great forbidden evil the writings described with such ominous words was a marble drifting in a sea of nothingness! The unstoppable resistance was nothing but an anomaly, I thought, perhaps some ancient sorcerer's idea of a joke.
I laughed coldly. So excited I was! How desperately I wanted this power! How disappointing, that I find so little reward after so much strain! How taunting! How infuriating! This wretched little thing was never worth a moment of my time!
In an outrage, I directed my tracer toward the fragile little core and shot it forward with all the force my wearied mind could muster.
The orb shattered, and blackest terror blasted through my mind.
I opened my eyes. I collapsed onto the now soot blackened floor, gasping desperately. My vision blurred by stinging ash, smoldering scraps of paper drifting through my sight. I laughed. The archive representing the greatest magic known to Equestria lay in ashes by my hoof, and I could feel nothing but sheer ecstasy. Why bother with those silly parlor tricks, I thought, when this single scroll has all of the power one could ever need?
