As luck would have it I am forced into speech. Forced to recreate and withhold visions of past times and dreams of which were obliterated by a certain inambition that seems to be exceedingly prominent at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, such is the ways of often many followers of knowledge. Seekers of such accommodations must seem as such more than mere ponies and souls of great horrowing. Nigh, hitherto they are nothing more than crushers of such awe inspiring and well thought of dreams. Dreams for them to crush beneath their cold iron hoof.

As it would seem that though I am forced to speak, my words are fallen on no ears. Fallen on deafening and blistering winds, sent forth from the goddess herself to come and test my will and conviction of seeing mine own dreams come true. Cold bitter screeches of such nightmarish thoughts. For my throat is dry and gripped with astonishing fear. Though my soul remained clear and my mind at alert for anything to stop our path from being reached. Again, I might glanced over some minuscule detail but a rather thick curtain of snow and hail flows forth from the anxious breaths of the gods.

For what I receive on this most cold night is hitherto nothing more than dark whispers. Oblivion's most rendered rumors and most loved hatreds. I can feel the demons and their cold hands bracing hard against my own skin. Cracking and sundering my mortal flesh with their icy embrace. A deed most certainly few tend to follow, and so few wish to seek out. I do this not for the betterment of my own knowledge, but for the betterment of my most faithful friends and mentor. For their love still burns ever brighter in my heart, dreams of their past conquests remain fresh in my mind so that I might not grow mad over the bitter winter.

It must be said that we are not, in the strictest sense, that any more professional than the last pony. All here not of their own accord or of their most present merriment, but for the betterment of Equestria. I would think them fools had I not been apart of it myself. All stirring with theories and calculations of our quarry. As the student of the goddess of the sun, I must remain to myself my own theories and lead this band of fool hearted ponies. CSGU students and professors alike accompanied me on the grand expedition of most present concern to the alabaster monarch. Of whose objective, most presently, is to find and protect the Eight Relics of Meadowbrook.
These eight relics came up in hopes that we might secure them and guard them from sinful hooves. More over, since we bring our expedition to the far north of civilization we as well must be accompanied by members of Geode University, from the Crystal Empire. For they most recently banded with our own expedition, granting us numbers of an army. And I left to lead them.

We had planned that about one or two northern seasons should be sufficient enough to bring the relics back to Canterlot. Operating and setting up mostly in the mountain ranges of the Blue Spire Ridge. A giant wall of mountains painted blue with eons of frozen grandeur. To dig the ageless ice we have brought Harvest Crystals. Harvest Crystals are giant magical gems with apparatus' to carry. These crystals gather the energy of nearby unicorns or from various Weypoints that connects magical energy and concentrates it into a thin beam that is capable of slicing through diamond itself. I look to see these towering spectacles, thin and lithe spires of magical energy bleeding out of them. It was raw and uncontrollable by any mere mortal unicorn. Ponies risk madness if they alone try to harvest the raw energies of a Harvest Crystal.

We find ourselves here because the great enchanter Meadowbrook secluded himself to this remote location so that he might conduct his experiments in peace. Though he kept close ties with Starswirl, he saw no other pony worthy of his company. He created these eight relics so that in case the Elements of Harmony should fail, Equestria has some back up line of defense. Unlike the Elements, these eight relics do not read the scripted energies of a pony to determine whether or not the pony is able to wield its power, they are still mighty tools to use in defense of Equestria. Either from foreign or domestic evils.

It took time to dig, even with the Harvest Crystals at work they still had to break through one to two miles of glaciation which would take time.

Meadowbrooks stowed away his relics as he believed them to be too obsolete to even consider them able to be used in case the Elements failed, so he buried them deep into the heart of Blue Spire Ridge, deep into the arctic shelf so that they might be buried and forgotten forever. But with further study a few centuries later, it was discovered that Meadowbrooks created artifacts that matched the power of the elements. Much of the research I conducted myself.

Our team consisted of twenty ponies in total. Four from Canterlot -including myself- and the other sixteen tasked with using the Harvest Crystals to mine through the deep shelf of Blue Spire Ridge.

My gaze moved over to the CSGU members were off and set up their own little encampment. The students to offer their services were Oxymoron, Juniper Soul, and Novella Stormquill. I kept an especially close eye on Novella, mostly because he was very mysterious and hid behind a hood most of the time. Nose deep into a tome, his bright emerald eyes fixed into the mystical book. For his coat was a bright silver color and his mane and tail a frost white, though his age was a few years younger than my own. He carried a secret power beneath his muscular but lithe frame. Oxymoron and Juniper both were fresh acolytes, while Novella was a graduate student that worked the library if my memory suited me to remember. I had no particular emotions glued to this odd unicorn but I had known him in my younger years of being a student attending that school. To my knowledge he had shown quite the output for magic.

I magically tightened the scarf wrapped around my neck and flicked my mane out from under it as I tore my gaze away and focused back at the Harvesting Crystals. They would be at that for hours on end, about a few weeks and they would be close to the resting grave of two of the relics. I could sense the residual magical output of them, they were nearby. Deep under the glaciation shelf locked in a sustained and seemingly endless slumber. I know not on whether we will even be able to break through the couple miles of ice that layered itself onto the blue mountains. But one thing was certain, they definitely won't be able to if the blizzard killed them before they made it to the mountains. Though the princesses went ahead and postponed the winter clouds to be pushed over the sky for the next few weeks, it would seem that winter set it quicker than expected. Making it that much harder to navigate the cold north.

Miles upon miles of sprawling snow driven flatlands extended out for miles as we made our way into the unknown and fearful curtain of blizzard winds. My throat became dry and my mind cleared of thought, focusing only on what the future might unfold for us in the coming future. We had a good few days before we laid down our first encampment and about a week until we reach the Blue Spire Ridge. I could not help but not shake the feeling of unease and unsettlement. Something tells me that things will not go as exactly as we planned.

Author's Note

Respectful comments are most appreciated. And preferably written with post haste and most fortuitous of respect of the horror written as above. And so the build up begins.