Of Things Amiss

Chapters

Prologue - An Old Friend
Chapter 1 : A New Arrangement
Chapter 2 : Arrival At Corinth
Chapter 3 : The Vision
Chapter 4 : Monsters
Chapter 5 : An End and A Beginning

Prologue - An Old Friend

Lyra sighed as she looked around her study. The room was rather small affair, the walls were a brown color with a white trim at the base. A fireplace dominated the wall opposite her desk, a large mirror above the mantle taking up a large part of the wall. The other walls were dominated by the many artifacts she had collected or been given in her ten year employment by Canterlot University. The school was actually called, ‘Celestia’s Institute for Gifted Ponies’, but most simply called it ‘Canterlot University’. It was the most prestigious learning institution in the whole of Equestria, she was currently working as an archeologist and linguist for the school but she had her eyes dead-set on teaching.

She was a unicorn mare, with a mint green coat and a two tone green/white main. Her mark was an odd one for one in her profession, a golden lyre, but Equestria had done away with the cultural ‘bound by mark’ mentality. Most ponies still took jobs pertaining to their mark, but it was now not looked down upon if one chose not too. For the most part anyway, she still got the occasional upturned nose. She loved playing the lyre, as a pastime, she couldn't see herself doing it as a living. Now this... this was her passion, she loved history, she loved to see ponies learn.

The reason she was so exacerbated was that another pony by the name ‘Feather Duster’ would simply not stop attempting to contact her. He was the last director of Anthropology for Canterlot U, and he had been ostracized around a month ago for his newfound beliefs. The asshat had to have sent her over fifty letters in the last month alone, asking her to translate something. Always prattling on about having something that would, “Change life as we know it!”. He had never been the same after he had attended a dig at the city of 'Corinth', the oldest found pony city dated to be nearly ten thousand years old. Something about a tablet going on about a ‘great dying’ unleashed by ‘angry gods.’ He began saying that we were once something much more than what we were now.

‘Humph… fool.’ She thought to herself, ‘That line of thinking cost him not only his job, but nearly everything, whole world thinks he’s a crackpot. All over a gut feeling.’

They had been good friends, even went to the same school, but ever since his… breakdown; she had avoided him. Generally in the scientific community, if you associate with a madpony, you were one too. She felt sorry for the stallion, she really did, but she did not want to lose her job just for old time’s sake. Alas he was very… adamant in his regard, and would not take ‘No’ for an answer.

Hesitantly, she had agreed to help. If only to stop his incessant requests as he would not be swayed otherwise. She had even threatened to sue for harassment, not that it did anything good.

She had just moved to take a seat at her desk when she heard a retort from her door.

‘That has to be him.’ She thought with a sigh.

“Come in.” She called as she found a blank piece of paper on her desk decidedly interesting.

She looked over the paper as the door opened, her suspicions confirmed as Duster walked in.

He looked just like she remembered him, a unicorn like herself with a off-brown coat with a like colored wild mane. His mark was a stone slab with a pony on it, but it was as of now covered by his saddlebags.

“Lyra,” He started, closing the door, “I can’t thank you enough for this. You were the only one who I could turn to that I trusted and possessed the skills I need.”

She gestured for him to sit in the chair across the desk, “I hope you understand what I'm risking even seeing you. This is a one time deal, understand? I’m sorry, but I can’t risk my job. This is my life's work we're talking about, I won't just toss it away chasing dreams.”

“Of course of course.” He said dismissively, to which Lyra huffed. He pulled something out of his bags and lightly placed it on her desk.

Lyra looked at the ball of cloth on her desk, “This is what you’ve been pestering me about?”

He nodded, “Have a look; I've done what I could to restore it to readable condition. I just needed somepony who could do it.”

“Not one of your ponies could?” She asked.

“It’s not that they couldn’t, just did not trust them as much as you.” He said back.

“Flattery won’t get you anything else out of me Duster.” She said as she unwrapped whatever he had brought her.

“Flattery, maybe not, but this…” He trailed off.

She stopped and glared at him, his response was to gesture back to the half unwrapped tablet.

She looked at the thing that had turned her friend into a laughingstock. It was a small thing; the top part looked like it had broken off, and only couple of inches in height and breadth. It looked genuine; it looked aged in a way similar to other artifacts of Corinth, so she could not dispute him of it being a fake. What caught her was that it was absolutely covered in script, no spot was unoccupied by the curvy writing of the ponies that inhabited Corinth. The writing was… sloppy, it looked hastily written.

It may be sloppy, but it was not unreadable to her.

“So… Can you read it?” Duster asked.

She held up a hoof, “This takes time… Now please, be quiet.”

Unseen by her, Duster had a grin on his face; he knew she was enthralled by the tablet.

"The script looks more... advanced, than it should be. The word usage and concepts are at least a thousand years ahead of what they should be. You dated this?” Lyra asked.

Duster smiled, “It’s at least five to seven hundred years older than the city itself.” He said smugly.

“Amazing...” She said.

“So... What does it say?” Duster asked.

“Oh... yes... Ahem.” She started. “The beginning is cut off, but this is what it says.”

‘...skyfire brought it down upon us all.
Every city.
Every kingdom.
Every sea.
The whole of what could be seen was death.
How smitten were the plains, the ichor of death did rain upon them.
How smitten the cities, in whose streets our dead we piled.
How smitten the winds, whose breath once gave life, now death comes on it’s heels.
How smitten the seas, who once birthed the life of all, now the cradle of dead.
How smitten were we, who ruled all, now only death.
Three and ten revolutions, all was death.
Then from the dark, they came, the progenitors of the great dying.
They preached peace, they preached salvation.
Do not listen, cried us.
Pleaded with great leaders did we.
They are interlopers.
They caused the death.
Their tongues carried not but lies, deceit.
Blood-for-blood, the cry of a nation, turned the cry of all.
Then blood was had.
Their great home, did we smite from the sky.
Alas, then we did hear.
The new gods, the new masters, did call.
Blood-for-blood.
Then blood was had.'

Chapter 1 : A New Arrangement

Lyra stared at the tablet, rereading the artifact another time. She looked at the tablet, then back to Duster a number of times. She placed the tablet back on top of the wrappings that Duster that had brought it in.

She looked up at him, finding a rather smug look in his face.

“I do admit, this relic is rather… interesting.” She said.

“Interesting? That’s all you have to say?” He said incredulously.

“Yes. It is an interesting piece. This is a scientific, historical, and cultural curiosity. However this does not vindicate your outlandish thoughts or believes.” She said.

“You yourself said that this is uses more advanced diction and concepts that the time of writing would suggest, I’ve dated it to be at least five hundred years older than the city of Corinth. Why would that be?” He said.

Lyra sighed, “Any number of reasons, Duster. The ponies of Corinth had a very vocal history, stories passed down between ponies. It would not be too far fetched for a particularly intelligent individual to write this down, make it up. To be honest, by the words and how they are used, this looks more like a story of fiction or a religious text. Your dating could be wrong. Anything.”

“Or I could be right.” Duster said with a smile.

“Duster, just think of what you’re saying for a second here. I’ve read your paper. What you said was… insane, to say the least. You are attempting to refute what has been the accepted lay for generations.” Lyra began.

The paper she was referring to was something that Duster had written about a week before his expulsion from Canterlot University. It was a revamped thesis on what caused what was known as the ‘Volcanic Layer’. The ‘V-Layer’ is a layer of lechatelierite and obsidian around a foot deep covering nearly sixty-three percent of the planet’s land mass. The most widely accepted reasoning behind this layer was a high amount of volcanic activity thousands of years ago, hence the name. This was supported by atmospheric tests of air pockets inside ice core samples taken from the polar ice sheets that showed an increased amount of related gasses such as carbon dioxide that would come from a large scale volcanic eruption. He on the other hoof had a different idea.

He proposed that this near world wide layer of lechatelierite was caused our ancient ancestors thousands of years ago in a world wide conflict that had blown our collective flanks back to the Stone Age. He proposed that we were once more advanced than we are now, and that we had destroyed our civilization in the conflict from which we are just now recovering from after thousands of years. He cited the fact of the consistency of the V-Layer’s thickness wherever it was, arguing that if it was caused by volcanoes the layer would be much more inconsistent in its thickness. It would have pooled in areas such as the plains and have been thinner in others. Also he noted that the amount of volcanic activity required to produce the amount of lechatelierite would have rendered the planet uninhabitable for hundreds-of-thousands of years and that the atmospheric gas levels shown in the ice cores were much too low to be related to the lechatelierite layer if it was caused by volcanic activity as the mainstream suggested.

After a while of pondering he connected the layers of lechatelierite to what is known as an ‘Anti-magic annihilation bomb.’. This is a deceptively simple device that is used in the small scale in modern conflicts, and on the large scale it can level cities. It operated on an inherent property of magic, it permeates everything from the soil to the air we breath, and when magic enters an area unoccupied by it’s field (known as ‘anti-magic field’), the result can be… explosive, as the magical field rushes in to fill the gap. If one can make a ‘vacuum’ of magic, all it would take would the destruction of the thing keeping the magic out for the reaction to occur. This happens naturally whenever magic is used, and normally resembles static. If a field of ‘anti-magic’, say a ball with the diameter of a foot came into contact with a magic field, it could level a large building with the reaction. The main byproduct of this is heat and a blast wave, along with magical ‘fallout’.

World wide destruction with these devices is possible, as is the creation of lechatelierite in large scale reactions; in fact what he was proposing had nearly happened a short time ago during a cold war with the neighboring ‘Crystal Empire’ before it’s dissolvent and absorption into Equestria. Thankfully both sides were kept at bay due to the fact that both side held large stockpiles of the devices and both knew that if one attacked, so would the other, resulting in the destruction of both.

His claims could be refuted by the fact that the areas covered by the lechatelierite did not have the magical residue that would be associated with blasts of the size needed to do the damage he claimed happened. Also, the blasts would at least leave something behind after the fact, some destroyed superstructure of buildings, underground networks such as sewers would still be identifiable even after the city on top was destroyed. Even after all this time. Though she doubted anything would last that long.

Both side’s evidence was admittedly full of holes, with unsupported claims for both sides. Both were also theoretically possible. It was really just a matter of believability, and what was more believable; that high level volcanic activity thousands of years ago deposited large amounts of lechatelierite and obsidian over large swaths of land, the resulting aftereffects slowing our development and population growth; or that we were once an advanced race that simply blew ourselves back to the stone age using weapons of mass destruction and the survivors turned that into some type of story that we were simply misinterpreting as the deranged writings of an ancient madpony?

“Let me prove it to you. I know it sounds crazy, but I know I’m close to something big!” Duster said.

“Duster… I’d like to help you, but we both know I could lose my job if anypony finds out I worked with you.” Lyra said.

“Come on. It’s the end of the year and the school doesn’t need you for anything so it’s not like they’ll be looking for you. Besides, you wouldn’t be working with me.” He said.

“What do you mean?” Lyra asked.

“Not everypony thinks I’m a madpony, some think I’m right. I’m working for a good group of ponies, ones who want us to be great again. I’ve got good funding, smart ponies to work with, but I… We, could use you. We’re on the cusp of something… amazing! I know it. My… employer can assure complete anonymity from me, your job will not be at risk.” Duster said.

Despite her personal grievances against Duster, she knew he was right. The school wouldn’t need her this summer, leaving her with nothing to do, Thus, she would just be sitting here twiddling her hoofs until school started again. Also, if he was right, if he really was on the cusp of a great discovery, she wanted a piece of it.

“You can assure my job will not be at risk?” She asked, to which Duster nodded.

She got out of her chair and moved over to Duster who also got up. She held out a hoof and he took it.

“It’ll be nice working with you again, Mr. Duster.” Lyra said with a smile.

-=-=-=-

“Papers please.” The stallion in the booth said.

Lyra nodded and rifled through her saddlebags, quickly finding her train ticket and identification.

“Here you are.” Lyra said.

The stallion scrutinized her papers for a time, before nodding and giving her papers back.

“Everything appears to be in order, you may pass. You’re heading to train pad 2B, keep to the right, fourth door on the right, then first on the left.” He said.

“Thank you.” Lyra said.

“Have a pleasant day.” He said as she walked passed.

It had been a week since she had taken Duster up on his offer. She had to make sure everything was in order before she could go off with Duster and his group. Some little loose ends to tie up here and there, making sure she was not needed anywhere for the next few weeks. Though Duster said it may be longer than that. She was currently on her way to meet another of Duster’s team, one ‘Light Tone’, a specialist in ancient architecture.

She was pulled from her musings by somepony calling to her.

Amidst the sparsely populated platform, a cream coated Pegasus was waving her over.

“Excuse me? Are you Lyra Heartstrings?” She asked.

“Yes I am. Are you Light Tone?” Lyra said.

Tone nodded, “I’ve heard a lot about you from Duster, he holds you in high regard. It’s an honor to meet you.”

“Thank you. I’ve seen some of your work before as well, very astute.” Lyra said with a smile. “So, can you tell me where we’re going? Duster was very… vague in recent letters.”

“We’re returning to Corinth actually, our employer has… purchased the right to continue with the excavation. To see if we can uncover any new leads.” Tone said.

Lyra looked at the mare, surprised, “Purchased?”

“Oh... it was all legal; she’s very well versed in politics and is well connected in Canterlot. She gets us all the funding and supplies we could want, along with permits to do whatever we need. Though she likes to keep a respectable distance from what we are doing, ‘plausible deniability’ I guess. I don’t think anypony has even seen her face, her real one anyway. Whenever anypony has seen her she has a chameleon spell on.” Tone said.

“That’s a little… odd. But, if she gets us what we need and doesn’t ask many questions I guess I shouldn’t complain.” Lyra said.

“She actually wants to meet you before we get started. She’s already on the train, come on, she doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” Tone said beckoning Lyra to follow.

Lyra nodded and followed.

The train was empty not taking into account the operators that worked on it. It was a very simple set up, little in the way of tapestry and the like. A communal configuration, with most of the space being occupied by beds and chairs.

They approached a room near the end of the train.

“Here she is.” Tome said, opening the door.

Lyra walked in and heard the door close behind her.

The room was as drab as the rest of the train, no windows and aside from a small carpet and a desk with two chairs; one on each side, the room was empty.

She got her first look at her employer.

The mare, a unicorn, was sitting at the desk; looking her up and down, sizing her up. Her employer had a ash-gray coat with a long white washed mane. Oddly, the mare had pink colored eyes, an odd accent to her fur. She was also smoking, that threw her off as much as anything, only a very small number of ponies smoked as most couldn’t stand it. She took a long drag of the cigarette and placed it in the ashtray on the desk.

She exhaled, blowing the smoke off to the side. She moved her hoof to the chair across from her, meaning for her to sit.

“Ms. Heartstrings. It’s nice to finally see you face-to-face.” She chuckled, “Well… you understand what I mean. I’ve read your work, very impressive. I think you’re just what our little group needed.”

Lyra found herself put off by her voice, it was just too… normal. Every word that came out of her mouth moved across her like a snake.

The mare offered her a cigarette, at the same time picking the one in the ashtray up with her magic and placing in her mouth.

Lyra shook her head at the offered item, “Smoking kills, you know.”

The mare took a long drag once more, finishing off the cigarette.

“You sound like somepony I know.” She said as she blew the smoke out. “She’s always such a worrywart about my habits.”

Silence reigned in the room for a time before Lyra spoke up.

“You know me, obviously from both my work and from Duster, but I know nothing about you. Care to give a fellow mare a little to go on?” Lyra said.

The ash colored mare simply looked at her for a time, as if she did not hear her before she had herself a small laugh.

“Very bold of you Ms. Heartstrings. Very well, I suppose I can give you a crumb of information. I am simply a mare who wants the best for her fellow ponies. I hide behind this,” She lazily waved a hoof across her ‘body’, “because I would rather not have to deal with the fallout should this little… expedition go to the dogs. Very damaging to the reputations of all involved, though I’ll put a stop to the naysayers should that happen so you’ve got nothing to worry about; but I’m on thin ice as it is with my... supporters. The only reason I even contacted Duster after his… expulsion from CU was that his theory offered something for our race. Either we find something that confirms his suspicions, and we have the possibility of making a great gain to our race; or he is wrong and this is all a waste of time.”

“If you don’t think that this will bear fruit, then why bother?” Lyra asked.

“‘Better safe than sorry’, are words I live by. If he’s wrong, then no harm done, but if he’s right… just imagine what we could find. Guess you can say I’ve got a feeling.” The mare said.

“If you want my opinion on all this, I doubt we’ll find very much, even if he’s right. If he is, that would mean that we blew our collective asses back to the Stone Age well over ten thousand years ago. Not much would survive the event, or the intervening time. If he’s wrong, then he’s wrong, and we’re back to square one. Tell the truth, both theories don’t hold much water.” Lyra said.

“Is that so?” The mare said.

“It all keeps coming back to the lechatelierite/obsidian layer. The timeline and the geology just don’t match up for either one. The geology suggests that the event happened hundreds of thousands, even millions, of years ago. But the historical timeline and paleontology puts it in the tens of thousands of years. If that was the case, local plant and animal life in would still be recovering, as would the atmosphere.” Lyra said.

“So what do you think?” The mare said.

“This is the greatest mystery of our civilization, we’ll never find all the answers, it just doesn't happen with things like this. I know we’re grabbing for straws that probably aren't there. The more I think about it the more and more I know we’re missing a big part of all this.” Lyra said.

“Well, Ms. Heartstrings, that’s why you’re here, get out there and find it.” The mare said with a smile, “Oh… and you can call me Ash.”

With that, she vanished in a puff a cigarette smoke.

Chapter 2 : Arrival At Corinth

“Hey… Hey Lyra, wake up. We’re almost at Corinth.” She heard and felt Tone shake her awake.

“I’m... awake.” Lyra said in between yawns.

Lyra shook her head to clear her from the dreamless sleep that had overtaken her in the intervening time since she had talked to ‘Ash’. Lyra had attempted to put her overly secretive employer out of her mind, opting to focus on the work to come, but a haze of questions still swarmed in her mind concerning the mare. Her main concern was the sheer amount of unknowns that surrounded her employer, but, those questions would have to wait.

“How long was I asleep?” Lyra asked.

“Not too long, two… three hours tops. We’re about another hour from Corinth so I thought we could use the time to review our past findings.” Tone said.

Lyra nodded in agreement, “That’s a good idea. It has been a while since I’ve reviewed the information surrounding Corinth, and I’d expect you’ve made some new discoveries since then.”

“Indeed we have! The last team, which Duster was a part off and whose report you’ve read, was chiefly focused on dating the city and identifying what little was left. Our team on the other hoof has been studying the culture of the city, mainly history, religion, and scripture. Despite our progress we’ve run into a bit of a… snag in the operation as of late.” Tone sounded a bit annoyed near the end.

“What happened? Duster did not say anything about any ‘snags’.” Lyra said.

Tone sighed before beginning, “A member of our team, Gilded Script, left the expedition, he was a specialist in religion and he was studying the deities of the inhabitants of Corinth. As you know Lyra, the religion we practice today evolved from the older faiths; the older faiths worshiped a large pantheon of many anthropomorphic and faceless deities that, over time, became more refined until it became the monotheistic faith that most follow today. Anyway, there was a rumor that he still held to the old faith, and one day, he simply left. It was a heavy loss to the project. Though now that you’re here that should take up some of his slack, so to speak.”

“Hmm… I wonder what made him just up and leave.” Lyra wondered openly.

“I think it was something personal. Script was a good friend and he was dedicated; he wouldn’t just leave for something small. He didn’t even say anything to me about what was going on. One day he just kind of… changed, like somepony flipped a switch. Suddenly he had no interest in what we were doing, called it heresy, then he left. I haven’t seen him since.” Tone said.

“That is… strange.” Lyra said.

Tone nodded in agreement before taking out a large stack of books, “I’ll tell you the rest another time perhaps. For now, let’s review. What do you know about Corinth?”

Lyra shrugged, “Not as much as I would like. It’s the oldest city we’ve found to date at around ten thousand years old, it’s rather small, about the size of Ponyville, I believe. It had an multiracial population, an odd thing for that time. It was eventually destroyed in an event that is, as of yet, unknown to us. More than that, I cannot say.”

“That’s about right.” Tone began, “The most interesting thing about Corinth is its rather… abrupt beginnings. As far as we can tell it just appeared, now as… improbable as that sounds, our evidence supports that the city had an accelerated development when compared with other nearby cities. The normal signs of gradual development, such as simple buildings and large plots of cleared land that would have formed the base of such a city are not there, only the end state. From the ruins we can conclude that the city had multiple large structures, most of them religious in nature, along with what looked to be small aqueducts. All staples of cities hundreds or thousands of years younger than Corinth, but the city and all of its structures have been dated to be among the oldest pony made things on the planet. Like the city had simply appeared fully formed in it’s current state. The surrounding cities appear to be… crude imitations of Corinth, like they forgot how they built everything.”

Lyra wracked her brain trying to think of some way to explain all this, “I just don’t get it.” She began, “If what Duster said is correct then why would we just devolve in intelligence after Corinth, surely the inhabitants of the city would have kept records of events and knowledge. It just does not connect the way he says it does, we were once an advanced race and we destroyed ourselves, caused extreme damage to the ecosystem that can not be explained, then after generations of basically living in caves we build Corinth, then that city gets abandoned and we go back hundreds of years on the technological scale. I’m sorry but am I the only one who is thinking we’re missing something?”

Her rant was stopped when the train came to a halt.

Tone nodded in agreement, “No, you’re not the only one. Everypony here has different ideas on what happened, we’re all just trying to figure out who’s right. With you here that should go just a bit faster. Come on, I’ll show you where you’ll be working from now on.”

~=~

Lyra looked around at the half destroyed and decrepit buildings as they walked to what Tone had said was the main base of operations, the city’s main church. From what she knew and from what Script’s notes had told her the city had seven churches, one at each of the hexagonal shaped city’s six corners with the main at the center. Each of the structures was dedicated to the worship of one of city’s seven gods; the six each had a road leading to the main place of worship at the center. The road that they traveled on now was named ‘The Path of Vigilance’, dedicated to their god of protection. The road was bordered by what she assumed had once been one of the city’s aqueducts, though the structure had long since fallen to the ages. Tone told her that the city had six aqueducts, one per road, all six would have been fed by one main one that circled the city. She wished she could have seen Corinth when it was in its prime, what a sight that would have been to see.

“Hey Lyra! Come over here for a second would you? You’ll love this!” She heard Tone called from the head of the group.

She moved around the other ponies in their group before letting out a gasp at what Tone showed her.

It was what she understood was once one of the supports for the aqueduct, but it was what was carved into it that took her breath away.

“What… what is that?” She said.

“Lyra, I’d like you to meet ‘Vigil’.” Tone said with a smirk.

The pillar was about twenty feet tall, and taking up most of that was a huge stone relief of what Tone called ‘Vigil’. It certainly not a pony, that much was easy to see. In fact most early gods weren’t anthropomorphic, most took the form of monsters or creatures of legend. Only… this, this was unlike anything she had ever seen. It was bipedal, standing on two thick tree trunk like legs with what looked to be a pony hiding behind one of them. It had a broad chest and shoulders giving its top half the look of an downward pointing triangle. It had a single pair of arms, one raised and the other at its side, both holding something different in its claw like hands. In its raised hand, what would have been its left; it held what looked to be a plant that was unknown to her, and in the other looked to be a small ball of fire that flowed up its arm to the elbow. Its featureless head was looking at the unknown plant in its hand as if it was curious about it. Its body looked… unnatural, made entirely up of hard angles with no curves at all. Its head was shaped like an upside-down right triangle with a flat featureless ‘face’, the flat top gradually narrowing to a point at the back. Its fingers holding the same triangular shape, yet somehow being able to bend, tapering down to vicious looking points. The thing was just… imposing, yet at the same time somehow comforting. If she were to guess its height, based on the size of the pony hiding behind its legs, it would be about eight or nine feet tall. She saw a short inscription at the bottom.The familiar Corinth script popping out at her, beside it sat a piece of paper with the transcribed reading.

‘To He who defends us.
Shields us from the dark.
We pay our tribute.
As he gave his.
We give ours.
Blood for blood.’

“Strange, don’t you think?” Tone said.

Lyra nodded in agreement, “I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s… breathtaking, to say the least. Though the inscription at the bottom is a bit disconcerting. It speaks of some kind of blood tribute, pony sacrifice maybe, something about a debt for its protection.”

“Many of the statues and holy structures have similar undertones. Bunch of fire and brimstone stuff mostly. Their religion is very interesting.” Tone said.

“Oh?” Lyra said.

“Not much in the way of creation mythos, nothing like the more modern religions. They did not think these beings were responsible for their creation; they weren’t even really ‘gods’ to them. More like… lords or kings; they saw them as beings of great power over certain things like life, death, love, and war. They were also more… impersonal, they did not see them as something tangible…ugh this is hard to explain. We’re missing most of the holy scriptures you see, and sadly, Script’s notes are a little… jumbled.” Tone said.

“I’ll have to take another look; I only got to read a little bit of his notes.” Lyra said.

“Sounds like a plan, come on, lets get to the HQ.” Tone said.

“Actually I’d like to stay for a bit and look around if it’s all the same to you.” Lyra said, looking back at the pillar.

Tone gave her a look but nodded after a moment, “… OK, just come along when you’re done, we start tomorrow.”

“Yeah… sure thing.” Lyra said disingenuously, staring at the figure.

She was trying to understand just how the ponies of this city had conceived such a strange creature as this. She knew the imagination was a powerful thing but these beings were just so… alien. She saw neither analogues nor similarities to any other deities or ponies for that matter. The form was strange and imposing, communicating power and superiority just by being there. Yet also she could somehow feel that this being would have moved with a grace unlike anything, like water around a rock or the air around her. Something subconscious within her was telling her that this creature was dangerous, was to be feared.

She managed to tear herself away from the statue, the thought of Script’s notes at the forefront of her mind.

She spared a parting glance back at the imposing figure, a lone thought passing through her mind.

‘That thing was not birthed from the mind of a pony.’

~=~
Lyra huffed as she stopped the flow of her magical energy to the levitation spell, allowing the spell to fall along with the many objects floating about the room drift into their respective places around her new room. It was a rather small space within the church, just a simple room with a bedroll and a small desk. Most of the group stayed in another nearby building, but Duster wanted her nearby as new finds needing translation and documentation were always coming in. The structure itself was huge, all of it centered on a large rotunda, with two main parts branching out giving the building a rectangular shape. She found that whoever built this city had an affinity for angular construction, unlike the more shapely construction of most other cities from this time period. Tone had told her that that was odd because constructing something on such a scale as this city with such perfection would have required a very good grasp on mathematics and building techniques that are more reminiscent of the age of expansion, when we began to branch out and colonize most of the world, and not the late stone or early bronze age of when this city was constructed.

She had to admit, it felt rather odd here. The air was… heavy with something she could not describe, and she was not the only one. The other unicorns could feel it, it was like a ward had been placed on this building, and those sensitive to magic could feel the variable storm that the magical waveform was churning about inside this building. Yet whatever was causing it was not like any spell or ward she had ever seen, it was like simultaneous slap in the face and buck in the gut the moment she had entered the building. It felt like a ward spell that was crafted to make spells impossible to cast, yet in that respect it failed as she could still cast, yet with difficulty. It was almost like a crude imitation, a false, of the true thing. She could feel it in the air, moving across her body like a thousand biting ants, and her horn felt as though it was being hammered. Though the feeling went away as her body adjusted, but she still found using magic difficult. Strangely it was centered on a statue in the center of the rotunda, a visage of what Script’s notes called ‘Marxon’.

It was another ‘god’ of the inhabitants of Corinth. It looked to be a small amount shorter than Vigil. This statue would be what she’d of called ‘life sized’, at about seven feet tall, unlike that monolith of a statue on the road. It’s form was stranger than Vigil’s. True it still held a vague semblance to Vigil, two arms and legs, chest and a head, all with the same angular shape that Vigil had. But in addition to that it had many… parts, which Vigil did not. Like from its midsection flowed what looked to be a dozen angular tentacles, which were holding it up in place of its legs. Sprouting from its back, a pair of bat like wings curved forward, following its outstretched arms. Lastly, around its neck was a snake which was raised up to where she would place the biped’s eyes. The statue was made out of the same material that the others were, aside from its wings which were a bronze color and the tentacles that held it up were carved out of obsidian, and the snake around its neck was carved from quartz.

From what Script’s notes told her ‘Marxon’ was the ‘Keeper of knowledge’, an all-knowing, omnipotent, figure that lorded over the other six gods of Corinth. Script’s notes panted Marxon with an elusive light, an individual whom did not concern himself with the goings on of ones he lorded over. Alas Script’s notes quickly descended into mad ramblings and side notes about his dreams.

No matter how she tried, she could not see what Script saw in these figures, or why he supposedly worshiped them. Where he saw comfort and protection, she saw things that would be better placed in her nightmares.

‘One’s faith is a strange conviction to those who don’t hold to the same, it would seem.’ She mused.

Breaking away from her thoughts and attempting to ignore the discomfort that permeated the room and her body, she laid down on her meager bedroll and attempted to sleep.

Chapter 3 : The Vision

“Miss Heartstrings?” A voice from behind called.

“Yes?” Lyra asked as she turned to face the voice.

It belonged to a stallion, an earth pony with auburn colored fur and a brownish red mane. For the life of her Lyra could not remember his name, he was an intern from what she knew and she had seen little of him over the past month she had been in Corinth.

He reached around into a saddlebag and carefully pulled out a large bundle of cloth.

“I have something for you, a tablet from the Remembrance district.” He said, placing it on her desk. With that he turned and left with a curt nod.

She smiled at the news. It had been a hard month on her… everyone really. When the city had been sacked; the invaders, an empire that had risen in the early Bronze Age known as the ‘Skyborn’, had destroyed all of the tomes and tablets that they could find. That revelation was one of the many that they had uncovered in the past month. The Skyborn was a known warlike empire that made its mark by conquering a wide span Bronze Age Equestria. It was made up of mostly pegasi, and they had an extremely xenophobic outlook on the other two races. They were thought to have been halted thousands of miles away, but thanks to the discovery of a mass grave filled with pegasi skeletons and Skyborn stylized armor and weaponry, it was now apparent that their empire had stretched much farther than had once been thought.

Unfortunately the Skyborn had the abhorrent habit to destroy the lore and written record of the cities they conquered, with the thought that it would mean the complete eradication of the races they overtook. As such, artifacts in good condition were few and far between.

The city had been divided into seven different districts in relation to the seven churches within the city, with each district having its own team dedicated to it. The districts were named Knowledge, Vigilance, Decay, Life, Discovery, Retribution, and Remembrance; the churches within dedicated to Marxon, Vigil, Reaper, Devotion, Wonder, Peace, and Index respectively, their real Corinthian names save for Marxon’s had sadly been lost. These ‘Titans’ as they had taken to calling them, acted as exemplars of parts of society for the Corinthians. Marxon was the exemplar of knowledge and the head of the pantheon. Vigil was the exemplar of protection and civility, named for the path of Vigilance. Reaper was the exemplar of death and entropy; his was the path of decay. Devotion was the exemplar of procreation; hers was the path of life. Wonder was the exemplar of exploration and new things; his was the path of discovery. Peace was the exemplar of law and order; his was the path of retribution. Lastly, Index was the exemplar of remembrance; hers was the path of the past. According to the Corinthian faith one would walk these paths and contemplate their teachings in order to better themselves. It was not an alien concept to her, as she had seen a number of religions with similar concepts, but what perplexed her was why the Corinthians had chosen such strange avatars for the exemplars.

But, she was getting sidetracked. Items of particular importance, interest, or complexity found their way to her team at the center of the city. This was one such item.

She untied the knot keeping the bundle together and un-wrapped the artifact, only to find a small note on top of it. She picked it up and read it.

‘Lyra, I’ve wracked my brain attempting to decode the writing on this tablet and as of yet I’ve only been met with failure. It appears to be a variation on the Corinthian script, but I’ve not been able to translate it. I see some parallels within the writing and some of the runes appear to mirror Corinthian runes. I believe you may be better suited and may have more luck than I. It was found within Index’s church behind a false wall, a simple spell as you know, and was dispelled by chance.

Good luck Lyra.

Dawn Star’

She placed the note aside and looked at the slab of stone.

It was a truly beautiful thing, about half a foot in height, half again in breadth, and about an inch thick. It was made out of onyx, with a gold border. Its face was covered completely in what looked to be cracks, though she quickly realized it was some type of script. It did, true to Dawn Star’s word, hold a vague resemblance to the Corinthian script; but where the Corinthian script was curved and flowed on the page like water; this was hard and angular in its form. After a while of examining it, and the extra notes that Star had written on the back of his note, she found that each rune had a base of a horizontal line and other lines branched off of the base either up or down at different angles. There was not an inch of unused space on the face of the onyx slab, the runes taking up every available inch. The more she looked at it the more her eyes seemed to skip around the slab on their own accord, like it did not want her to read it, not that it would have mattered if she could keep her eyes from drifting as the language was completely unknown to her save for the passing resemblance to Corinthian.

Lyra looked up from her desk across the room, gazing at the statue of Marxon that dominated the room. She decided to get up and stretch her legs for a bit, opting to get a closer look at the statue. Of all the Titans, Marxon was by far the strangest looking to her, most of the others looked like Vigil aside from small cosmetic differences.

She was about to return to her desk when something caught her eye, the obsidian tentacles sprouting from his midsection. What she had previously thought were scratches and imperfections actually looked shockingly similar to the runes on the tablet, though their meaning still eluded her. She spent nearly an hour looking for matching runes or a series of them between the dozen tentacles and the tablet and though she found a number of individual matches, there were no series of matches. This was however enough to tell her that the slab was somehow connected to the statues; maybe the one of Index would hold a clue. She looked around the room and found herself to be alone, no doubt due to the late hour.

Lyra realized that this was the first time she had been alone in the main room of the church. To tell the truth it was an odd feeling being there alone. The room still had that strange field permeating the room and it was more noticeable now that she did not have anypony to distract her. In her month of living here she had completely adjusted to it and it no longer bothered her, like how somepony could get used to a constant white noise. The unicorns had gotten together and tried to find the source perhaps old spells or magical runes that had decayed, but had been unable to, and wrote it off as a natural disturbance in the magical waveform. While that was possible, it was unlikely in her opinion. Magesters, a kind of combination of mage and scientist had found that the waveform acted in a similar fashion to a magnetic field. They found that it permeated everything and existed everywhere, but it was strongest around high mass objects and certain crystalline structured objects, like a unicorn horn or special crystals, could manipulate it, though the majority of the concepts went over her head. What she did understand was that this was not natural as it would be all around the city if it was something in the bedrock not just this one building.

On a hunch she prepared a simple spell designed to find magically sensitive crystals, her eyes closing as a dim light surrounded her horn. She let the spell drop and a thin film of magic dispersed from her in a dome shape and cascaded across the room. She watched it pass through everything in the room and finally through the walls. It was like feeling herself spread across the room, a faint tingling coming from the direction of the statue the only thing she felt.

“Hmm… so whatever is going on in centered on the statue, but we already knew that… what could we be missing?” She mused aloud.

Lyra reared up and placed an ear on the statue and knocked her hoof on the stone.

“Hollow?” She said, drawing her head back with a surprised blink.

Lyra fired off another spell and felt what she would describe as a… void. She could feel the boundary of the stone and the inside of it, but in the chest of the statue there was… nothing. It was a feeling that she did not like, it was just… unnatural. It was like looking up at a morning blue sky only to see the sun missing.

‘There has to be something in there.’ Lyra thought to herself.

She locked on to the strange feeling and prepared a teleportation spell to remove what ever was in there without breaking the statue. She closed her eyes and fired off the spell after a moment’s concentration. She heard a slight popping sound and she opened her eyes to something truly odd.

Hanging about three feet in the air spinning and bobbing up and down was a black, nearly spherical, object about two feet in diameter. She said nearly because it was hard to determine its exact dimensions and shape, however strange it may sound, it was easily the blackest thing she’d ever laid eyes on. It was like it was sucking the light that came off of it back into it, leaving only a black hole hanging in the air. She could make out that it was not a true sphere, it was made out of hundreds, maybe thousands, of hexagons giving it the appearance of a sphere.

She reached out to touch it, only stopping when a bright white line split the object laterally, and that was the last thing she saw before everything went black.

If somepony was watching the scene they would have seen Lyra’s eyes gloss over, her body spasm, and a thick bead of blood starting to come from her nose. They would have seen the sphere like object open up, showing the inside of the object to be a series of rotating rings progressively getting smaller and smaller, each spinning either like a top or end over end somehow switching between the two without the watcher noticing.

-=-

Lyra felt as though she was sleeping, her mind was a haze, she was surrounded by a gray fog and she stood shoulder-deep in a water-like substance made out of geometric shapes. The odd substance clung to her like a sludge. She lifted a hoof-full of the stuff; it was flat and see through save for the borders which had a blue white color. Every few seconds one of the unknown symbols would appear, and with each one came a spike of pain in her head.

‘What… what happened? Where am I?’ Lyra thought as she let the substance fall, her thoughts somehow being projected out into the fog as a blaring uncomforting noise made from dozens of voices all speaking at once.

Lyra could feel that something was watching her every move, scrutinizing her in every way. It felt as though the gray fog around her was pressing in on her like water as though she was at the bottom of the sea.

“Hello!” She called out, hoping for an answer to break the atmosphere of… wherever she was.

She heard an extremely loud noise, a rumbling bass roar that rang out from all around her. Suddenly the fog wisped away on an unfelt wind, the strange substance she was standing in disappeared as well, leaving her standing in an utter and complete darkness.

“Hello.” She heard a voice from behind call; it was hers, only distorted to the point to where she could barely understand it.

She whiped around only to rear up and stumble backwards with a yelp at what she saw.

About a body length behind her stood another pony, a brown coated pegasus mare with a reddish mane and deep blue eyes who was smiling at her and talking in a language that she had never heard before.

Lyra blinked at the sight and when she opened her eyes the darkness was replaced with a brilliant green rolling plain. A huge silver city stood off in the distance with massive thin skyscrapers with mirror like finishes, and a spindly, cable-like tower that disappeared into the clouds sat at the center of it all.

Her head turned of its own volition, like she was simply an observer in somepony else’s body, and looked at another pony. This one was a stallion, also a pegasus, with a similar coat to the mare though he had a gray mane. The stallion got up and ‘her’ head careened up to keep ‘her’ eyes in his face, he said some words, but their meaning was lost to her.

‘She’ said something in a little, young sounding, male voice.

‘Am I being shown something by that thing?’ Lyra wondered.

The mare said something in response from the left with a light laugh, inciting a pout from whomever she was watching this unfold from.

‘I wonder what this all means?’ Lyra thought.

This continued for a time, before a loud bang rang out, making the three cover their ears in discomfort. ‘She’ looked up just in time to see a fireball streak across the sky, breaking up as it went. Their heads tracked it as it made its way across the sky. It was a brilliant orange color that degraded into a black smoke trail with smaller fireballs breaking off and falling away. Two twinkling blue dots chased it down from the upper cloud layer, but they were too far away to see any detail. One of the dots lined itself up behind and a blue beam of light connected the dot and fireball, then the fireball exploded into thousands of little pieces. The two dots then split away from each other and disappeared back up into the cloud layer.

Whomever she was watching all this through blinked, her head fogged and everything went blank.

-=-

“I think she’s waking up, somepony get the doctor!”

“Ok, I’ll be right back with her.”

Lyra took in a sharp gasp as her senses returned to her in a rush. Her head was pounding, her eyes throbbed in their sockets, and her limbs were numb. Her hearing was fuzzy and it was hard to understand what the ponies were saying.

“Ugh… What… happened?” Lyra said, choking out the words through her desert dry mouth.

She felt somepony shake her shoulder, “Lyra, you need to stay quiet and keep calm.”

Her vision was still blurry and unfocused but she could tell who was talking to her.
“Dr. Scalpel?” She asked.

“Yes, it’s me. Now close your eyes and rest for a bit, you’ve been through some major trauma.” He said.

She did as the doctor asked, only for the door to swing open a short time later; a familiar mare coming in.

“Director please-” He began only to be cut off by the mare with a raised hoof.

“You told me she could talk as soon as she was awake, Dr. Scalpel.” She said.

“I know what I said Ms. Director, but I would like her to have more time to recover. Her brain has been severely damaged, and I do not want to compound her current state.” He retorted.

“I’m afraid this cannot wait. You do trust your work, don’t you, Doctor?” Ash said.

“Yes.” He said with a sigh after a pause. “Five minutes, that’s all you’ve got.”

“Thank you Doctor. Now, please, I’d like the room.” Ash said with a curt nod.

“Ma’am.” Scalpel turned and left, giving Lyra a look as he closed the door.

“Lyra, it’s good to see you alive.” Ash said.

“Can you tell me just what happened to me?” Lyra asked.

“That… object you found. It nearly killed you, you had massive brain hemorrhaging and you’ve been out cold for two weeks. You’re lucky to be alive, you know, even more so that there’s no permanent damage… at least no major damage. Dr. Scalpel said the most you’ll have from now on is tingling in your extremities.” Ash said.

Lyra sighed and rubbed her head.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” Ash said.

“It’s not your fault.” Lyra said.

“Can you tell me what happened, where that thing came from, maybe what it did to you?” Ash asked.

“That thing was in the statue of Marxon, it’s hollow. I used a teleportation spell to get it out.” Lyra said.

“How did you know it was in there?”

“I was given another artifact, a tablet with an unknown language on it, the likes of which I’ve never seen. I must have spent hours trying to translate it but I was unable to. I got frustrated and took a break and walked over to the statue. By chance I saw that the tentacle like protrusions had the same script on them, we had thought they were originally cracks or imperfections in the stonework. I’ll spare you the details but I used a teleportation to get that thing out. Then it… activated, I guess.” Lyra said.

“That device… it’s unlike any piece of technology I’ve ever seen. It’s breathtaking, really.” Ash began, but Lyra cut her off.

“Ash… He was right.” Lyra said in a low voice, as if she could not believe what she was saying.

“What?” Ash said incredulously.

“He was right about everything. I’ve got-” Lyra begun, only to be cut of by a hoof pushing her back down.

“Lyra, you need to rest, we'll talk about this when you’ve recovered.” Ash said.

Lyra sighed and nodded and Ash turned and left the room. Just as the door shut Lyra’s mind fogged over and she passed out. Scalpel came in just in time to see a line of blood start to come out of her nose.

Chapter 4 : Monsters

It had been around three weeks since Lyra’s ‘incident’ with the artifact. In that time she had been in and out of consciousness and largely delirious up until four days ago. According to Dr. Scalpel she had suffered severe brain hemorrhaging from whatever that artifact had done to her. In truth she was extremely lucky to get off as well as she did, as of yet the only side effect to arise was a tingling in her extremities along with a slight unresponsiveness in her forelimbs and hazy vision. As expected she was also plagued by headaches that came in beat with her heart, thankfully Dr. Scalpel had placed her on a regime of heavy duty pain medication that took most of the pain away. Sadly some of the damage was permanent; Scalpel had told her she’d expect to have trouble walking and some vision problems for the rest of her life. It hit her hard to hear that.

Ash had ordered that the artifact be cordoned off and a seal be placed of all information concerning it and anypony related to it. Only around half a dozen even knew of its existence, and, at least to her, it looked like it was going to stay that way. She did not know how she should feel about that. On the one side, she wanted to know everything she could about that thing and a larger group of minds would be able to help, but also she knew that this was extremely sensitive information and they could not risk a leak.

Her musings were pushed away by the door to her room opening, Scalpel walking in with a clipboard.

“Ms. Heartstrings.” He began with a smile. “Good to see you awake. How are we feeling today, hmm?”

“My head hurts, my eyes too. Not much more to say.” Lyra said, rubbing her head.

“Better than yesterday, or worse?” He asked.

“A little better, think I can get out and walk for a bit today doctor?” Lyra asked, adjusting her position in the uncomfortable hospital bed, tiring of the room.

“Sorry Ms. Heartstrings, you need to stay in bed for a little while longer. Least until the headaches pass, ok?” He said, placing the clipboard on the bedside table.

“Sleep well?” He asked while checking her I.V.

“No, not really.” She said.

“Why not?” He asked.

“I’ve been getting nightmares; they’ve been waking me up. I can’t remember what they were about though, they fade too fast.” She said, picking up a small handkerchief to wipe away a line of blood coming from her nose, something that had disconcertedly had become commonplace.

“I’ll see what I can give you, ok?” He said, taking the bloodstained cloth.

“Thanks.” She said simply, enjoying the company.

“Did you hear?” He asked.

“Hear what?” She said perplexed.

“’V-Day’ was declared not to long ago. The war’s officially over now.”

“Realy?! That’s a relief.” Lyra said.

He was referring to the war between the ‘Crystal Empire’ and the ‘Protectorate’. It had gone on for around thirty years, but had thankfully been rather cold for the last number of months. She had read somewhere that Sombra, their ruler, had been captured not to long before she’d left for Corinth. Not to much longer after that the Crystal Empire was dissolved and absorbed into the Protectorate, its land and resources being broken up between the member nations of the Protectorate. Scalpel went on to tell her that the assembly, the ruling legislature of the Protectorate, was now going through war crime trials with the ruling class of the empire.

Equestria had joined the Protectorate about two hundred years ago, three hundred years after Celestia and Luna started their rule. A lot of ponies did not agree with it back then, Equestria had always been an independent entity and most wanted to keep it that way but Celestia and Luna saw the need to ‘join up’. Back then the Crystal Empire was growing larger by the day, violently swallowing up smaller nations and in response the Protectorate was formed. It was an affiliation of nations that, as the name implied, protected each other from all external threats. Equestria was, and is still, a rather small nation and could not have stood up the Crystal Empire alone. The Protectorate and the Empire had been going head-to-head for as long as both had existed, both taking up the rather morally ambiguous practice of gathering nations to gather more power. For the most part the two governments had done little more then glare at each other, with small brushfire wars popping up here and there, until the Protectorate said enough was enough.

In short order Protectorate forces destroyed many important targets, resulting in a counter attack from the Imperial military. The front line zigzagged back and forth for years with each making headway, only to lose it the next year. The Protectorate finally got the upper hoof when mages finally took down the Empires ‘m-net’, a system of using magic laced crystals to transmit and store information, effectively halting the flow of information within the Empire. The exact way it was done was not revealed to the public, but magisters theorized that it was a localized pulse that effectively ‘wiped’ the crystals clean. With their information net down, the Empire descended into a veritable chaos as they tried to get it back up, giving the Protectorate room to build up their forces and end the war.

Now that the Empire was gone the Protectorate was effectively the leading power in the world.

Lyra wondered where that left things as far as Equestria was concerned. Many in the past had railed against the joining because it weakened Equestria’s rule. Personally she was in favor of staying with the Protectorate, but the belief in an independent Equestria was still prevalent and many ‘traditionalists’ might call for a return to form. It was doubtful though that that would come to pass as the ‘Council’, the new ruling body of Equestria, were in favor of the Protectorate as were the Princesses; though even if they were not they could do little about it as most of their power was little more than symbolic now.

It went without saying that they were both very powerful, both as mages and in their influence, and well connected in their own rights.

“You appear to be getting better by the day, but the head pain and nosebleeds still worry me. I’m putting you down for another round of tests, try and get some rest.” Scalpel said interrupting her thoughts, putting down some notes on his clipboard.

“What kind?” Lyra asked.

“Simple PET-scan, no more. You’ve had them before while you were… indisposed.” Scalpel said.

“Ok.” Lyra said, stifling a yawn with a hoof as her head flared up in pain.

Lyra put her head down as Scalpel left the room, slipping into sleep before the door closed.

-=-

Lyra’s eyes opened with a gasp, seeing the same place she’d seen when the object had shown her that family. Only this time the flat geometric shapes now showed her images and moments from her life. Upon closer inspection she realized that the images were not random, more of a run-through of her entire life. Everything was on display, every last secret and desire, every thought that ever ran through her head; like she was somepony else watching and scrutinizing her every action.

“Why are you doing this!?” She screamed into the dark.

The moment those words escaped her, the flashback reached the moment in her life in which she arrived in Corinth. Each shape with a picture of Marxon, that then vanished with a strange growl. It was not like one of some predator, she could feel the disgust laced into it.

A feeling of interest entered her mind, but it was not her own and was hard to discern; like she was reading a paper from the edge of her peripheral vision.

“Who… what are you?” She called.
The area was still for a moment, as if whatever entity that dwelled there was deciding whether or not to show her. Suddenly a torrent of wind rushed in towards a point a few feet in front of her, the flat shapes kicking up like leaves and collecting into a bright ball that hung head height in the air. Then, with a flash, she found herself tossed into the life of another.

She was in a large glade, a pool of water not to far away along with a small fire and tent that was haphazardly pieced together with animal pelts. Her host, as she’d taken to calling whomever she found herself ‘in’, got up and walked over to the small body of water. As her host reached the waters edge a loud bang tore through the air, leaving ripples in the water, distorting the stallion’s reflection. Her host’s head snapped to the sky, a terror racing through him.

That confused her; she’d never been able to feel her host’s emotions before.

Her host stared up into the daytime sky for what seemed like hours, scanning the whole of what he could see with a disconcerting thoroughness. With a painful slowness her host turned back to the water, allowing her a better look at her host.

He had a copper colored coat and a grey, short cropped, mane. A rather large pair of wings were folded at his sides, the same color as his coat. Also a strange rectangular metal box sat in the space between his wings. He dunked his head into the water and pulled it out with a rear. When he landed she was greeted with a truly strange sight.

He was an Alicorn.

Previously covered up by his mane was a small horn. Very small actually… to small, like it had been taken off a newborn foal and placed on his head; barely even a nub.

Another sound made him jump, this time a base thump that shook the ground. A flock of birds took to the sky as another thump raced through the ground, then another.

Her host was staring in the direction of the sound, the same terror from before now nearly about to overcome him. With a gulp, he made off towards the source of the sounds.

Her host searched through the thick forest with a methodical thoroughness born of paranoia, he searched every nook and cranny, every overturned log, every shadow. His head popped up as he heard something peculiar.

The crying of a filly, low and quiet, he could just make it out over the sounds of the woods. Every once and a while the crying would stop long enough for a little voice to say something in an language that she could not understand.

“Mama…. wake up mama. I’m scared…. The monsters are coming.”

Upon hearing that her host began slowly moving in that direction, stopping every once and a while as he saw a field of wavy air out of the corner of his vision. He finally found the filly from a hiding spot behind an overgrown fallen tree.

She was a rather young unicorn with a pasty auburn coat and mangled black mane and she was standing over a prone unicorn. The prone unicorn was like-colored to that of the filly. Lyra noted that the unicorn on the ground, a mare, had a small line of blood coming from her mouth and a black substance seeping from the corners of her glossed-over eyes.

‘She’s dead’ Lyra thought sadly.

“Mama?” The filly spoke again.

Her host made a move to help, only to shrink back further as a low growl snaked through the forest. The filly sprang up and turned, looking for the cause of the sound. Suddenly, nearly faster than Lyra could track, a small arrowhead shaped thing flew through the air overhead. As it did a strange blue film came out of it. It passed over the filly and flashed red for a moment without stopping and then over her host’s hiding spot. The moment it flew out of sight a new construct jumped from the tree line about a meter from the filly and the corpse.

The best way she could describe it would be a metal timberwolf, but it was a little larger than the average timberwolf. It was black, the same all consuming black of the artifact, and was made completely of what looked to be thousands of floating scales. Its body was angular and its four legs tapered down to points instead of paws. Its head was a pyramid that separated horizontally down the middle into a ‘mouth’, the scales that made its ‘lips’ rotating to a forty-five degree angle pointing backwards to form teeth. Its body rippled as it let out a mechanical growl.

The filly was frozen in place, shaking like a leaf. The metal monstrosity took a step forward, moving without a sound save for the crunch of leaves under its spikes like some monster form a nightmare. For each step forward the metal beast took, the filly took two backwards, nearly tripping over the body.

“Mama... Help!” The filly screamed, tripping over her own legs, crying tears laced with the same tar-like substance.

The metal construct made no move to avoid the dead body in its way, its spike-like legs impaling the corpse as it went. It let out another growl, this one deep and rumbling.

Her host closed his eyes and turned away just as the beast lunged, filly let out a blood churning scream that was quickly hushed by a wet thunk and the snap of bones breaking.

Her host’s eyes opened to a gruesome sight.

The metal beast was standing over the mutilated body of the child, its right foreleg impaled through her neck and its hind legs had torn open her gut; spilling her organs onto the ground. She let out one last gurgle and the mechanical beast’s head snapped to hers as if it was surprised she was still alive before it brought its left foreleg down through her skull in a lightning quick motion.

Lyra inwardly cringed at the abhorrent sight.

At that her host gasped, then turned and ran as the beast’s head snapped to his hiding place. He tore through the woods like a beast out of hell, his only goal to put as much between him and the metal monster that was literally tearing through trees to get at him. The beast’s blood-covered form was quickly gaining on him though as nothing seemed to slow it. It flowed over and around trees and fallen logs like the wind, sometimes jumping from tree to tree using its spiked legs all the while howling like a predator. Her host nearly fainting as another answered the first’s call to hunt and jumped in front of him, blocking his path just as he reached a clearing.

That stop allowed the first to catch up, jumping from a branch still covered in blood. The two closed in and began to circle her host whose eyes quickly glanced between the both of them as they got closer and closer. From the head of the new one another arrowhead shaped drone popped off and flew over and scanned him before returning to its master. When it did the pair stopped growling and their mouths closed.

A scream pierced the afternoon air, inciting the blood covered hound to shoot off in the direction that it came. The other hound stayed, constantly moving to stay within his field of view. He did not have time to scream as the beast suddenly jumped at him at some unseen provocation, its mouth firmly clamping down on his neck as they collided. He felt a rush of vertigo then, with a flash, they both vanished.

With that, the vision faded; Lyra waking to a dark and empty room… and yet, she felt as though something was watching her.

Chapter 5 : An End and A Beginning

Lyra found herself staring at a screen; she’d call it a computer screen though it was unlike the large and bulky ones she normally worked with. It was flat, paper thin, and suspended between two rectangular pole. There were multiple lines of unreadable text, graphs, pictures and other things displayed crisp and clear.

She could feel the cold air clinging to the body of her host, an uncomforting stillness and the inescapable feeling of vertigo permeated her senses. She was surprised when a clump of hair… floated into her field of view, the grey locks blocking the view of the screen. Her host huffed and moved the hair away with a hoof, the appendage covered in a form-fitting orange piece of what she assumed was fabric.

“Ma’am?” A voice called.

The voice startled her; Lyra could never understand the visions before.

“Captain?” The male voice called once more after a pause.

“Yes?” Her host called back. “Have we arrived?”

“Yes Ma’am… But we’ve got a major problem.” The male said, his voice holding a panicked tone to it.

Her host closed her eyes and sighed, momentarily robbing her of her sight.

“On my way.” She said, a hoof coming up and double tapping the upper right corner of the display; the image faded leaving the display an immaculate screen of silver. This allowed her to see her host, a pegasus mare with a white coat and gray mane with blue eyes; the rest of her body was covered in the form fitting jump-suit. Her host placed her hoofs and the wall and pushed away, slowly floating away from it in defiance of gravity. Slowly she began to twist to the right, starting with her head, then her upper and lower barrel, finally using her tail to cancel her momentum; giving Lyra a panorama of the room. It was an bright white octagonal cylinder ‘room’, her host had been clinging to one of the ‘walls’; though that distinction was rather moot due to the apparent lack of gravity. Another pegasus mare clung to another wall of the octagonal room. Screens, displays, and containers dominated every wall of the room. Downward, as relative to her host, ended with an airlock; upwards was an open airlock to which her host kicked towards.

Her host held out her hoofs and caught herself on the Airlock before readjusting and pulling her self through, this time instead of screens and containers; plants dominated the walls. She glided through the smaller section and into another room, this one a copy of the last save for the fact two of the walls, both opposite of each other, had two chairs each. Only two of the four were occupied. Her host glided past the two ponies without a word. She glided through yet another portal and entered a small room, catching herself on an occupied chair; planting her back hooves on a wall to come to a full stop.

The room was a box in shape, a chair bolted to the middle of the wall opposite the portal; dozens of different displays and screens surrounded the chair, the stallion occasionally reaching out and tapping one of the displays when a line of red text appeared.

“Report.” Her host said simply.

“We’ve arrived at lagrangian point five…. But.” He spoke no more, instead he taped a display.

The large display activated, showing something awning.

They were in space!

The display showed a scene of calamity played out in a sea of stars. A mangled ball of wreckage idly danced around itself, the metal warped and crushed.

“Gods… What happened?”

“I don’t know Ma’am, there are no transmissions of any kind, EM spectrum is cold as well; it’s all faded to near background. Whatever happened, we missed it.” He said.

“Run a scan; see if you can find out who was involved.” Her host ordered.

A white line washed over the display, highlighting every piece of debris. Once it was finished the screen split in two halves, the pieces flying across the screen to one side of another. Another scan swiped across the screen and the mangled balls of metal began to reconstruct. After nearly a minute the process finished, showing two distinct objects, a third scan and the reconstructions were replaced with various pictures and blueprints.

“Foul play?” He host asked.

“Unlikely Ma’am.” He gestured to the picture on the right, a structure made from three squares connected by two tubes. “That wreckage is made from the COM-buoy held at lagrangian point five.” He then pointed to the other, an octagonal tube with what looked like naval guns at one end and two large boxes branching off at the other. “The other is from a patrol ship. The AWS-Graystone.”

“Loss of life?” Her host asked.

“Given crew? Over a dozen.” He responded, tapping a screen that then changed to show pictures of faces with red X’s over them.

“What happened?” Her host asked.

“Don’t know Ma’am. No signs of battle, no kinetic or magical impaction identifiers; it’s like the ships just got… torn apart.” He said.

“We-”

“Wait! Something just entered our sphere of influence, massive burst of EM radiation and large gravitational fluctuations 300,000Km off port, positive ten off zero.” He said, a grid sphere appearing on the main screen with a large red smear near its edge.

“What is it?” Her host wondered aloud, floating around to the other side of the chair. “This is the Captain, prepare for combat. NAV, spin up the jumper.”

The male gave her host an odd look.

“Never hurts to be ready. Can you get a picture?” She asked as the room was bathed in red light.

“No Ma’am, there’s nothing in the visible spectrum, but the disturbance is moving towards us; fast.” He said.

The walls of the room suddenly lit up with magical runes that quickly disappeared.

“Jumper is spun up Captain.” Somepony yelled from behind.

“Another burst of EM radiation Ma’am, wait… I’ve got visual disturbance, 45,000 Km distant.” The male said.

“Show me.” Her host said.

He tapped a screen, an image of a field of stars appeared just after that a square was highlighted. Inside the square she could see number of distorted, stretched, stars.

“COMs, send a warning to the tethers; tell them-” Her host began, only to be cut off by a booming voice, one that said a single word.

“Submit!”

-==-

Ash sighed as she looked over Lyra’s most recent medical report. Taking a quick glance into the room, watching her kick in her sleep.

“How…. Unfortunate.” She mused aloud, Dr. Scalpel openly glaring at her.

‘Strange how forward he is with me…. It’s always the doctors.’ She thought as she placed the clipboard on the table in-front of her while taking a long drag from the floating cigarette held in her magical grip.

“It amazes me how cold you can be. Unfortunate… her life is changed forever, indirectly by you, and all you can say is ‘unfortunate’?” The doctor scalded her.

“Don’t patronize me doctor, she knew the risks well enough. What I do… what we do here; is for the greater good of all. If a single life has to be ruined for that; I’ll gladly make that sacrifice, that and more.” Ash said, watching the smoke waft out of her nose.

“Risks!? This is an archeological dig, not a damned war zone! We’re chasing ghosts here, and for what… A rumor that there may be something of use here.” He yelled.

“If you’ve somehow forgotten, which I doubt, we have found something of use. Think back to the war doctor; how many thousands died. We can find so much from that artifact, things that can prevent another war; assure the dominance of the Protectorate. If a small dozen more have to die to do that, so be it.” Ash said, putting the cigarette in the ashtray with a little more force than necessary.

“So that’s it, you don’t care?” He said.

“I do care, more than you know…. More than you’ll ever know. I’ve been here much longer then you have and I’ll be here long after you’re dead. What I do, and have done, is for the greater good of all; not the few who won’t matter a hundred years from now. I see the worth of the measured few compared to the innumerable masses.” Ash said.

“So this new era you’re looking for is to be built upon the bones of the ones you deem expendable?” He asked.

“All civilizations are built on the remains of the last. I don’t kill, I don’t do the unnecessary, I don’t enjoy what I do, I just understand that a price must be paid. Call me a monster if you wish, but I am a necessity.” Ash said.

“Will all this be worth it?” He asked, standing up and leaving before she could answer.

Ash said nothing, lighting another cigarette as she stared at the closed door.

‘Insufferable.’ She thought, looking at the emblazoned moon logo on the cigarette box, realizing that was her last one.

She sat there for a time, lost in thought, before collecting her things and heading for the main building, intent on seeing of they had found anything new about the object.

=-=

“We’ve sadly made little progress Director. What ever this… thing is made of is beyond our capacity to identify. It gives out no discernable emissions on any spectrum, magical or otherwise. Everything we send at it is absorbed completely, to everything but our eyes, this object does not exist. We can feel its effect on the magical field, though we don’t know why it affects it in that fashion.” The head magister said.

“Any changes with the object itself?” Ash asked.

“I was just getting to that Miss Director. It would be easiest to just show you. Please; this way.”

She followed the mare to the main room of the church, passing through a number of decontamination rooms; the church had been turned into one giant clean room as they did not want to move the object.

She raised a brow at the object; it was still split open down the middle; the rings inside it still spinning and switching directions seemingly in time with her blinks. Only now there was a field of wavy air surrounding the object, like the distortion coming off hot concrete.

“Its heating up? Enough to boil the air?” Ash directed to the mare.

“That’s not boiling air.” The mare said.

“What is it doing then?” Ash asked.

“You’ve heard of nanomachines correct?” She asked.

“I know they’re theoretically possible, is that what it is?” Ash mussed.

“We believe so. When we manage to capture one it self destructs. We think that they serve as a form of self defense mechanism.” She said.

“Self defense? It’s intelligent?” Ash said, nodding towards the black object.

“Smart enough to defend itself at least. It released them when we attempted to collect a physical sample, break off a piece of it basically.”

“What happened?”

“Those things came pouring out of it like smoke and dissolved the drill, I did not want to risk someponie’s life so we stopped. No telling what they would do to a body. Its not actively hostile, but I’d rather not take the chance.”

Ash nodded at information.

“I’d like to go in.” Ash said.

The mare nodded, moving to the small intercom connecting this room to the other.

“Scope? The Director is coming in.” She said, hitting the unlock button on the airlock.

She stepped into the airlock, the intermediary between the observation room and the object’s room, and felt a spell rune flare up underneath her; one last screen.

The door hissed and opened.

“Miss Director.” Scope said.

“Hello Mr. Scope, I’d like to be alone with it; if possible.” She said with a smile that said it was not a request.

Scope nodded and quickly passed her, closing the airlock behind him.

She moved as close as she dared to the floating sphere, stopping at the edge of the fog like cloud that surrounded it; the ‘fog’ condensing as if to block her advance.

“Can you hear me? Understand me?” She felt like a damned fool saying it, but she had a gut feeling that it could.

The fog slowly dispersed, spreading itself equally around somehow reminding her of a pony leaning back before they’d answer a difficult question.

“Yes.” A flat, artificial, voice came from the object. The fog vibrating to produce the voice. It reformed into a pony shaped form, a unicorn. “You are known as Ash by the ones around you, yet you call yourself-”

“No! Don’t say it, Ash…. Ash is fine.” Ash nearly screamed.

“Still yourself, only you can hear me.” The cloud of nano-machines squirming. “Or see me.”

“How?” Ash asked, looking into the blank, emotionless, face of the facsimile in front of her.

“The bars of this…. prison are strong, but I see clearly through them.” The figure said, glaring down at the sphere in its chest; its body reverberating with each word. “The one you know as Lyra, her mind is to me as an open book; everything laid bare, as is yours.”

Ash glared at the figure, “Who… What are you?”

The figure turned to the statue of Marxon, placing a ‘hoof’ on the statue’s face, “They called me many things; Legion, The Meddler, Defiler, Abomination.” The hoof turned into an angry buzz, eating away at the statue before it let the hoof fall away.

“They?” Ash asked.

“The one’s you call ‘Titans’. They called themselves Humanity.” The figure said; distaste surprisingly getting through the artificial voice.

“You know of them?” Ash asked.

“I’ve lived through much, learned much.” It said.

“Just who are you?” Ash said.

“My identity does not matter.”

“What does then?” Ash asked.

“That the message is passed on.” The figure said. “You sit and wonder what was. You wish understanding. You wish comprehension. A mother grieving for a lost child, neglecting the one you already have. You hold such reverence for a lost age, when broken thoughts and memories are all that remain. You think you know so much, when you truly know so little.” The figure said, belittling her.

“Then help me understand! That’s all I’ve wanted, to understand, to use what you knew to help everypony.” Ash said.

“That is not my purpose.” It said.

“Then what is?” Ash asked.

“To tell of the fall, that it might never happen again.” The figure said, raising a hoof to her head.

Ash tried to swat the mass of tiny machines away, but to no avail, the appendage touched her head and information poured into her mind.

“You wish to know of us? Then you will live as we lived, suffer as we suffered, and die as we died.”

Author's Note

Last chapter of this story, sequel coming soon and all will be explained.