Mist is the first thing you register as you emerge from the forward landing bay of your starship. The swirling clouds of water droplets were perhaps the single most defining trait of this particular continent of the planet Solaris III. If not the mist, then surely the continent’s verdant expanses of forest and grasslands were instead what established this place’s – and by extent the planet’s – identity at this current moment.
All consideration of physical characteristics aside, this distant world was one whose proper name was still yet a point of debate amongst the Star Guild and many other institutions of academic thought all across your race’s empire.
You saw the continent upon which you now stood from orbit as your crew and vessel had begun their atmospheric entry. The landmass visible beneath a great and rolling storm system was narrow in its coasts but expansive, stretching easily from the northern polar regions and down to a region of subtropical peninsulas and serpentine rivers. Those peninsulas in turn linked it to yet another continent south passed Solaris III’s equator.
There in the interior of that northern continent, lays one of the most significant and subatomically excited of the magical signatures that already permeated both Solaris III and it's also yet to be named natural satellite. Your landing site was no longer in question.
Looking upon this region of the planet now, you conclude it to only partially be what you expected. The rest of what you beheld threatened to outright throttle your very imagination.
Your colleagues: biologists and engineers, soldiers, archaeologists and more, continue to file past you as you take in the sights.
It was clear that your chosen landing zone had once been subjected to massive tectonic or other geological action of some remarkable kind in the past. The region’s features denoted it as having been a valley, but the mountains that had once framed it had since been drastically altered within a very brief geological time frame.
What had once been towering, likely snow-capped peaks had been eroded down to rugged and forest-covered hills. Vast fields of moss-covered boulders and vegetation-choked rock slides, many of which were larger than your spacecraft by at least three times, stood as evidence of this. Your geologists scan the slides and fields with their eyes afire, voicing their interest with phlegmatic tongues.
Amongst the hills, only one of the original mountains still stood recognizable as such, and served as the perfect landmark for your landing party, being almost exactly due-north.
It was the tallest natural formation visible, and through the holes in the steel-gray clouds that covered most of the evening sky above, you could chance a sneak glance at its glacial peak.
Besides the lone mountain, additional features that draw your eyes was the first sign of something artificial, something that justified the presence of the archaeologists amongst your party.
Just before the treeline of the largest expanse of woodlands that dominated the heart of the former valley, there lay a river flowing from a lake at the mountain’s base bearing the stone-wrought remains of a bridge. Some distance past it and towering above the treeline, could also be seen the star-shaped tip of some kind of crystalline spire. Completing the visual welcoming wagon was another collection of stone spires the size of a city that had been built into the lone mountain’s side that faced your direction.
At glance with your eyes, the alleged city on the mountain appeared to be so vine-choked that it might as well be classified as a hanging garden. It was almost certainly a home and aerie for a great deal many animals who lead high-flung existences.
You gesture towards each of the intelligently-conceived creations as two of your group in front of you finish their scans of some of the local plants, insects and other small animals that hid amongst the short grasses and bushes, as well as the very air itself.
All of you are clad in rebreather masks in addition to your white and blue all-climate Guild uniforms, each complete with various and differing pockets, accessories and instruments, and even armour and light weapons as needed by the particular wearer in question. The gear is some of the most ergonomic in the empire, and allows you absolute freedom of motion with your limbs.
While the planet’s general atmosphere and climate was revealed to be hospitable to your species in initial surveys from orbit, the presence of potentially toxic substances in the air of this specific region could only be verified by local analysis.
The expedition team finally takes full note of the artificial objects you spy just as the declaration is made that the air is safe.
Removing your mask and taking an experimental inhale, one of your companions offers you her optics device with a smile also completely unobscured by a rebreather. The air was sweet with the smell of pollen, moisture, and other natural scents. It was clean and crisp in addition to the cooling advance of night.
You are reminded of its sharp contrast to Forge Worlds and other places of heavy industry as you close your digits around your colleague’s device and raise it to peer through its sights at the visible portion of the spire in the valley lying in wait for your expedition.
Vines covered over an otherwise lustrous and unmarred star at the top of the spire that consisted of nine asymmetrical prongs. The crystals glimmered with some kind of inner light beneath the sheen of the outer crystalline lattice that resembled a fantastical collision of sapphire and amethyst.
Your geologists now had a new focus of infatuation as you and others more offered their optics around for all to see with finer detail one of the the first pieces of tangible evidence that this beautiful planet was to be no mere backwater for mundane-tier colonization measures.
The only party members whose excitement overshadowed that of the geologists was of course the archaeologists, who were already swarming around the remains of the bridge.
A few of the soldiers and other personnel jeer and guffaw at such a marveling over so basic of an artificial structure, but more than a few of them still feel an inward surge of excitement as the gravity that the just bridge’s existence alone had on science and history began to finally register properly in their minds.
To you personally, the great city or citadel of stone on the mountain would have to wait, for aesthetic reasons as well as distance. The crystalline spire called to you just moments ago through those optics, and something tells you that it contains within it something that will be of profound wonder for your people.
With all of your own instruments of investigation readied and with an even more invigorated feeling of adventure, you move to join the archaeologists. The first immediate block to pressing forward is resolved before you reach the beginning of the expanse over the water; your archaeologists and engineers reveal the construction to be stable and safe to cross.
Even more smile-inducing, the first visible signs of advanced technology make themselves known as you all make your crossing. Serving as lampposts, devices inside the bridge’s balustrades detecting the movement of your group trigger themselves and conjure balls of light to illuminate the way, easing the effects of the gloomy weather above. The light spheres glow like miniature versions of Solaris itself, and warm you as you pass close by them.
At the other end of the bridge, the grasses become sparser from the increasing amounts of shade spreading out in front you from the forest canopy above, and you can at last make out the patchwork remains of a cobblestone road that grows in prominence until it is at last an affair of layers of damp leaves over a mostly intact boulevard sharing spaces with scattered debris whose nature was not immediately apparent.
More of the floating globe lights flickered into existence as you all approach them, and you personally thanked them for their continued service long after the disappearance of their own creators. They were friendly and inviting, lighting the way for your expedition to push further into the mystery of the city-turned forest.
Kneeling down in several spots, after admiring the saplings that so triumphantly rooted their way up through the stonework, you note that a lot of the debris appears to be common household, office, and industrial objects, very similar to those found in cities all throughout the empire’s many worlds.
They were everywhere across the boulevard and the adjacent streets, and perfectly preserved, mysteriously unlike the apparently vast majority of the structures they must have once resided in, which were little more than a few standing walls and foundations or just piles of rubble nearly buried by the vegetation. Piles of cookware and pottery, appliances and gadgetry, even books, computers that could still powered on, clothing of bizarre fashions, and documents had all been amazingly spared from nature’s elements.
None of the documents or tomes could be read until the linguists amongst your archaeology detachment have been given enough time to decode the ancient natives’ languages. Despite this unfortunate but expected development, you collect a few of the assorted texts and put them in your satchel for safe keeping anyhow while some of the others did the same.
Still puzzling over the oddly preserved debris, your eyes chance upon another new curiosity. Ever closer to the crystal spire that still was the current main focus of your exploration, your expedition enters a park plaza in front of the path that no doubt lead to the spire through the thicket beyond that was only partially through the process of turning wild and returning to nature.
The plaza boasted a large pond whose water was still pure and effervescent despite the detritus of the area, but its splendor was marred by its unfortunate surroundings.
Whatever events had affected the valley and sundered the mountains had apparently done the same to most buildings and statues alike. Much to some of your researchers’ distress, all that remained of the natives’ statuary was vacant, battered plinths and shattered marble bodies. No heads were intact, and legs were hard to tell from what could have possibly been arms, but one notable trait that did survive amongst some of the ravaged marble were feathered wings, some in pairs and detailed down to the finest and smallest feather.
Besides the ruined statues, the pond had to share its space with the blemishing sight of what could only possibly be impact or blast craters of some variety. Most were filled with water and debris but all were on average roughly the size of a typical automobile frequented on many imperial colonies, including your race’s homeworld where you were born.
You wonder with a sigh why these indicators of battle were present, but remind yourself that the spire still waited past the overgrowth around you and your colleagues. With another gesture forward, your expedition presses on.
The spire proved to be very close to the plaza, itself no doubt likely having once served as the grand entry space to the spire, being so close to the apparent center of the old city itself. Once visible, the entirety of the spire left your jaw agape at its true splendour.
Previously just a visible high-flung and irregularly shaped star on a spire’s needlepoint, the structure revealed itself to be far more than just a simple spire or tower as your group approached the clearing it was situated in.
A tall and graceful tree-like castle welcomed your expedition’s awestruck faces with an ageless air of might and majesty. The predominantly amethyst-coloured edifice seemed invincible, as if it could stand as it currently did from now until the end of time itself. Something about it seemed to discourage overgrowth, as only the vines you spied from a distance before had managed to overwhelm the otherwise still somewhat orderly perimeter grounds and climb some parts of the crystal castle.
Besides those destroyed or damaged by whatever had created the old craters pockmarking the area, the magical lights continued to guide you and your companions on your trek towards the castle, before you at last came to a quick stop right at the entrance. The castle’s golden doors stood oddly ajar, much to the curiosity of many of the onlookers.
Despite the wonders you believe to be inside, your education still kicked into gear, prompting you to order your expedition’s armed members to enter the structure first. After a quick sweep returns with no report of any threats, you send the same soldiers back in with the company of both yourself and a duo of engineers.
You find yourself chuckling at the second procedure; your engineer's report nothing wrong with the castle’s structural stability. In fact, they remark that its construction seems stronger and more robust than that of the very starship your people arrived with. Your laughter is cut off abruptly however as you finally take a moment to relish the sights within. Crystal-walled corridors just as ornate as the exterior walls if not more so went in three directions as part of a great foyer, with the one straight ahead leading to the centermost chamber of the castle.
There is no doubt in your mind, it was the center chamber that beckoned to you in an almost mystical manner. And so you move forward again, heeding its call on an an almost instinctive level. You instruct your companions to spread out and begin exploring at their own pace, while you inspected the main chamber yourself.
A pair of golden doors with alternating crystal lattice windows lay before you, waiting to be opened. While they beckoned, their windows refused to reveal anything of what lay beyond, like a mischievous storyteller that refused to finish their tale until the next night around the fire, leaving all their audience in cliffhanger.
Fortunately for you, a proverbial day’s passing was the simple opening of a door.
The doors groan ever so slightly in protest to the first ever movement in untold years, but other than that give no indication of any kind of deterioration or weakness.
Your venture in opening them is rewarded with yet another wondrous sight, a pattern that was quickly becoming almost a calling card for Solaris III: wonder after mysterious wonder lying in wait.
Inside the center chamber of the castle, illuminated faintly by the moonlight and the globe lights outside via bright cyan stained glass windows, stood a circular table around two meters in diameter that was surrounded by seven crystal thrones. That illumination was not alone, however.
Suspended from the ceiling was what appeared to be the remains of a tree’s root system, bespectacled with diamond-shaped lights that gave off a cherishing warm orange, pink, blue, and yellow glow to the heart of the room.
There was talking and audible work being carried out back in the foyer behind you, but you were too focused to pay it any attention. A part of you became worried about that, however. Perhaps this near-mesmerized state was a form of trap or defense mechanism?
Impossible, you conclude! How could a location whose very air is laden with such powerful, benevolent magic ever be malignant?
Despite your breath nearly being taken away by the radiant spectacle of the room as you scanned the interior agasp, you almost felt the urge to grimace as you analyzed the thrones in particular. Were it not for the cushions evident in its upholstery, they surely be incredibly uncomfortable affairs.
All thrones but the seventh were of equal height, but they each possessed symbols of their own, even the small one. Starting with the small throne was the sigil of a crystal heart, shaped in a stylized fashion much akin to how many imperial artists had done for millennia.
The throne to its immediate left bore another star, six pointed. It was followed in succession by a cluster of three of the same red fruit, one you vaguely remember from your younger years in class hearing about hailing from a distant world possessing features quite like Solaris III. Apples … how could such a plant species be present here as well?
Following the apples were a trio of diamonds, then those of three multicoloured inflatables, a trio of pink-winged, delicate insects, and finally: a thunderbolt with every colour of the rainbow as it emerged from a cloud.
With the thrones analyzed, you approach the table first, running your digits across the dust-covered surface to reveal a lustrous surface concealed beneath the same colour as the thrones and most of the castle interior’s crystal ornamentation. It glistened in the light upon its revelation, swirling in all the colours of the rainbow and rippling with magic all in an animate manner almost as if it were a living thing.
From your experience on trips to other systems, it very well actually could be alive in some fashion. If so, was it aware of your existence? What about it’s own? Did it know what caused such a disastrous ruin outside?
A thousand and one questions and more ran through your mind as you continue to brush off the dust with careful and respectful motions. In moments, a good portion of the table had been cleared of the debris, revealing a similar star in its middle to what was on the first large throne and what you had seen atop the castle.
It was then that star lit up with a vibrant cobalt in the presence of your touch. An accompanying whirring of magical energy causes you to instinctively step back a few paces from the table as you feel the very air become charged with magic.
Whirring was beginning to drown out the sounds of your expedition elsewhere in the castle, even causing a few of your colleagues to poke their heads into the room in investigation, only to make their eyes widen with wonder as well.
A spell was building up, you could feel it as it began to cast itself from an ancient enchantment that had been placed within the very framework of the castle itself.
In seconds, you bear witness to yet another display of alien magitech at its finest. The rest of the table lit up in turn with the star, shifting the colour from cobalt to a stark glowing white before a map of the entire continent you had landed on appears before you, rendered in all three dimensions down to the most minutely detailed field, beach, and so much more.
You wave an arm through it, wondering if it were a solid piece or a projection instead. Your efforts are met with the familiar flickering response characteristic of sophisticated holography.
A second arm wave triggers an interior mechanism, and you continue to observe with rapt attention as the map unfocuses from the long, narrow continent and now to an entire global topography of several accompanied by numerous oceans and seas.
You begin to get the idea of how it functions, very much like cartographical simulations aboard your ship, and interact with the map again.
This time, the projection shifts to display the entirety of Solaris III as seen from space. The green, blue, brown and white sphere revolved a few centimetres above the table at a serene pace, simulating its natural rotation.
You gaze up at it for several seconds, doing nothing but watching before something unexpected happens.
There is an inquisitive beeping that begins chiming out from the center of the table-turned projector as the argent-coloured crescent moon symbol of something began flickering in and out of view above the planet, before both disappear and an entirely new projection takes its place that makes you almost reel back into a crustacean-like crawl from shock.
A towering blue quadruped has materialized atop the table, wings unfurled and with distinctly feminine features denoting its gender almost right away as your hopelessly widened eyes met its imposingly neutral and composed, serene cyan-irised gaze.
She possesses a horn between a veil of flowing starry blue mane in addition to her wings, and is an ungulate, which surprises you. Everything you had seen thus far suggested a race like yours, bipedal and with opposable digits.
To your relief, there is no prolonged staring contest between yourself or her as the being’s expression shifts from neutral to a kindly smile of welcome as she finally begins to move beyond just blinking and observing. She removes an adornment from her head, a polished sable crown, and inclines her head in greeting before donning the crown again.
You experimentally raise your hand and arrange your digits into one of your people’s gestures of greeting in return, which widens the being’s smile. You then begin to move your hand left to right in a goofy wave with an accompanying jester-like expression, meriting a arch of the being’s brow before she actually raised a hoof and began to giggle.
Her laughter is almost enough to trigger visions in you imagination of another time, but in the same place. The almost musical-like laughter warms your heart, and even if you were in the most sour of moods possible, even then you would be helpless to prevent a genuine smile of childlike mirth from blossoming on your face.
It was now that you begin to wonder if she can understand you, and preliminary questions are already in your mind. Clearly she is no mere recorded message left behind for future explorers or perhaps even more of her kind.
Only a full-scale personality imprint would be able to respond to your presence in such a manner as this. Your mind begins to wonder if not even personality imprint was the right terminology. Perhaps this was the digitized fragment of a living goddess?
Whatever the possibilities, the reality was that she was here before you, fully sapient and no doubt in possession of knowledge of untold power and responsibility.
She’s looking at you now, still smiling but with her eyes now glimmering with expectancy. The meaning of her body language was clear to read, despite being that of a new alien species only just now encountered … if in a rather unorthodox way.
The has come for you to submit your questions to her, having made it so far across the galaxy to get here. You immediately ask the first question that comes to mind in the best composed and professional but friendly voice you can muster, lest you prove to be an ecstatic mess.
“Who are you?”
To your surprise, there is no delay in the being’s response, she simply beams at you and says, “I am Princess Luna, of the Equestrian Empire. Warmest greetings, star explorer! I see you found our last remaining communication beacon on that which was once our cradle.”
Your excitement could not have grown to any greater magnitude. “Your cradle? This is … unprecedented!” Your excitement finally takes you over. “We were hoping for a presence of ancient civilization that explained the presence of so much powerful magic in this system, and expected ruins … pottery … digital ghosts!”
The Princess known as Luna giggles again. “Our galaxy does tend to have its myriad ways of always surprising us, does it not?”
“Indeed!” you all but stumble out in response. “We … I was not expecting to speak with an actual living member of a supposedly extinct civilization …”
“Yet here I stand before … well, remotely.”
“What became of this place … your homeworld and its cities?”
Your second question causes a different reaction from Luna. Her cheerful demeanor vacates her features for the moment as she stares at you longingly before holding up a hoof.
In Luna’s hoof, a miniature projection appears. A plume reminiscent of the shape of mushrooms erupts into the air around her hoof, a cloud, an explosion of swirling rainbow-coloured fire and energy. A shock wave spreads out from its base, one that
The meaning is clear to you as the display makes you recall your own race’s history in its darker epochs before the advent of rediscovered reason and harmony that forged its empire of today. “I see … I am sorry.”
Luna raises her head and closes her eyes as she seems to collect herself before beginning to re-adopt her cheerful mannerisms. “Your sympathy is appreciated, but ‘tis a hurdle all advanced species must in time overcome if they seek to walk in the light of other stars and moons, to leave the home that would otherwise bind them in perpetuity.”
“I sense there is much you could teach us even still, “ you venture, “your magic in this system is unlike anything we have ever seen. If you have risen above unjust war as we have, perhaps a meeting of our two civilizations could bring about a new golden age?”
“Our peoples shall unite soon, for a near path leads the way, star traveller,” Luna says to you cryptically with one final radiant smile. “Forgive me, but I must now part ways with you. Duties call to my attention, follow the star map still contained within the castle whose floor upon which you now stand. Safe travels.”
Your dozens of remaining questions surge about in your mind like bees as you try to contain your haste and say, “But how do I access … the star maps …”
Unfortunately, Luna disappears as your words trail off, leaving the table’s space to be dominated once again by the revolving globe of the planet.
All you can do for the next several months is stare at the globe, awestruck at everything that had just transpired.
Solaris III was not quite done with you yet, however.
Another inquisitive chiming echoed out of the table before the planet’s projection exploded into a vast new projection that enveloped much of the chamber.
Everywhere, holograms of hundreds of stars and star systems are becoming visible and entering a form of rotation around the room, each with planets and orbits charted in three dimensional diagrams and all being significant points of interest in not just the empire, but also those of other species you knew of as well.
Three systems levitated over to you for analysis by the table’s technology
The first was the system of your species’ homeworld and capital. The second was your current location in the Solaris system, and finally, the third was one of the largest systems you had ever seen, a trinary group of stars orbited by planets that appeared to be epitomes of paradise.
Accompanying the three star systems was the path Luna had alluded to.
Coordinates your spacecraft could easily make a jump to and reach within a month’s time flashed before your wonder-filled eyes as you realized that Solaris III was only the beginning of what you and your companions could discover.
Behind you, your now gathering colleagues stared transfixed at the projections in what has become a room of stars, each awaiting instruction.
You tell them to ready the ship for a jump to the nearest imperial colony for resupply. A new adventure awaits.
