The Equestrian Reconquista: Connection

The Secret Library Of The Vatican

July 12th 2025
The Italian soldiers of the Federation walked into the Vatican. After month long persuasion the catholic church finally gave in and let authorities take control of it.
It brought outrage among many Catholics in the world. But that was something they had to go through.
And although the Vatican is now a part of Rome it would still remain quite independent.
But what was the reason behind it? Cultural minister Patricè and Minister of Education Nimea mentioned the hidden archives of the Vatican and said that "many information which would change our future and form our knowledge significantly is contained in the Vatican archives, but kept secret by the catholic church."
A nationwide referendum was made and the people voted with a majority of 73% for the occupation of the Vatican with all it's secrets.
Resistance was next to nothing due to the fact that the majority of the Swiss guard changed sides and the sympathy for the EC coming from the pope.
Now the Italian military stood everywhere, keeping an eye out for any threats that could threaten the visit of European Home Secretary Robert Paleu and Italian Governor Alessandro Serafini.
The ministers of education, culture and the defence forces Nimea, Patricè and Hartmann as well as President Andropow are already inside the famous Peter's Basilica, waiting for Serafini and Paleu.
The Basilica was the place where the Vatican state should sign the contract which will change the fate if the small country forever.
"Home Secretary Paleu?" Asked a soldier of high rank with a thick Italian accent.
"Yes what gives, soldier?" Answered the older, Swiss man a bit concerned.
"I wouldn't recommend going in there alone. My colleagues just arrested a young man with pipe bombs twenty minutes ago."
Serafini nodded and started speaking Italian. >>"Bring 4 men with you and go in there. It's not an order, but a plead."<<
"Sí Padrone di Serafini." He saluted and took off.
The Italian governor turned to Paleu who couldn't speak nor understand Italian.
"I said to him that he should check the library first in case there will be an assassination attempt."
He nodded understandingly and they walked across the big St. Peter's Square with a caravan of hundred bodyguards, police forces and reporters.
The flashes of the cameras were almost blinding but nothing could straddle them.
It was an unwritten tradition to always walk on foot to the place where a treaty was signed with another country.
They entered the St. Peter's Basilica after a couple of time, getting saluted by Swiss guards.
Inside were the European Ministers and Vatican President Giuseppe Bertello sitting on the table.
The two sat down on the table and poured them a glass of lemonade.
President Andropow was a relatively young, slim and handsome Russian man, capable of speaking 8 languages fluently: Russian, English, French, German, Italian, Ukrainian, Polish and Swedish. A very charismatic guy, who was just perfect for representing a country and opening up ceremonies.
Cultural Minister Jean Patricè was the oldest of them all with the age 72. He fought in the 3rd world war and got badly injured at his left leg. So he returned to France, studied art and African cultures and helped establishing the European State.
Educational Minister Nimea was the most outstanding out of all ministers. The finish, middle aged man always kept a smile and told jokes at conferences, but beneath lays a very professional guy. He worked as a professor in Turku for a while before he became minister.
The last minister on the table was military minister Paul Hartmann. An older, cranky stereotypical German guy, who fought in the 3rd world war alongside with Patricè. He got captured but managed to escape, leaving him at his grumpy state. Just perfect for the job.
President Andropow stood up and raised a folder of demands.
"Now that we are all together, we can finally begin!"
Treaties and contracts were signed.
The Vatican would be now officially a part of the Ancient city Rome. The Swiss guard would be now a special division in a Swiss military company. And most importantly: All access of Vatican archives is now given to scientists and a special amount of visitors.
And all of it without a single violent move, although Bertello kept a bitter face through the whole process, he signed the contract.
It took two hours until everyone shook hands and left the Basilica.
Minister Nimea took his phone out and dialled the number of his secretary. "I want an international research team to come here ASAP and finally lift the secrets of the archive

Eight days have passed since the peaceful "occupation". Dozens of historians, archaeologists and linguists were spread across the huge underground library.
Tobias Warner was one of them.
A fairly young researcher in the fields of history from Heidelberg, Germany
As an actual support for his professor, Erwin Georg Erlmann, he was allowed to come along with him. An opportunity many other students of his age of 27 could only dream of.

"We still found nothing except for some very old printings of the bible and various other books covering religion..."<< said the professor in a disappointed tone and took his glasses off.
He was a shorter, older man with little but no hair.
"Tobias."<< Tobias looked up from his staple of books.
"Please be a dear and check the catacombs for anything interesting. There must be at least something interesting in there."<<
”Ja.”<<Tobias nodded and took off, greeting some other scientists he had just briefly met on the way.
He actually didn't want to go into the deeper folds of the Vatican library. It was scary to say the least.
But this couldn't stop him from impressing his professor.
He went after the guards with a brief salute and went down the old, rocky stairs.
Some colleagues who went down before him and put up some lamps to illuminate the dark vicinity.
It was incredibly dusty and narrow in the so called "catacombs". They named it because "it was a grave for forgotten books and scrolls."
But the fucking place was empty. Probably raided by some invaders hundreds of years ago. He hated to admit it but he felt a shiver down his spine and more uneasy the deeper he gets.
"Wait wasn't this.." The corridor he got himself in looked exactly like the other two he walked past before.
He shrugged it off and continued walking while watching out for books on the empty shelves to the left and right of him.
And again. The same lamp and the same shelf.
Now he was nervous.
"Fuck." He muttered.
"Maybe I should really get help here..."
He decided to lean on the wall right beside the shelf.
"Okay I need to rethink this....why the fuck has no one still put some signs on the floor or something?!"
He leaned deeper into the stonewall and bumped the underside of his fist in it making an unstable sound as a result. But suddenly a loud rumbling sound emitted from the wall behind him.
"Wait.." He moved his back away from the wall and eyed the loose rock closely.
He did it again.
*rumble*
It was loose. A loose piece of rock on a stonewall but still connected to something in the wall.
"Maybe I have played to much Skyrim....but when I pull on it...."
He did as his gamer instincts told him and pulled on it.
Suddenly a piece of the stonewall jumped out and almost landed on his feet.
"Whoa." He simply said while digesting his shock. The big rock easily weighed 40 kilos. and shattered to 4 large pieces when it connected to the ground
But the shock was mostly not because of the rock, but of the book that was right in front of him. He blew the dust away, making him cough.
He carefully took the book in his hands and read the header.
The letters were blurred out and were mostly identifiable, still he managed to make out some letters on it

*PORTAS AD TERRAM BREVIAM EQUUM.*

"The gate to the earth of short horses." He muttered under his breath and sat down on the floor carefully opening the old book. He had studied Latin long enough to decipher it.
To his surprise the ink wasn‘t blurred out at all. Everything was easily readable if you understood latin.

*DCC Anno Domini*

He decided to open the first page.
“Probably written 700 A.D.....shit that'd be old.“ Thought Tobias and started skimming the texts in the really well preserved book.
He opened the next pages and saw a really precise illustration of what looked like a unicorn. The same with a pegasus and normal pony dozens of pages later.
“That looks like straight from a cartoon for little children, but realistic at the same time….such detailed drawings are highly unusual next non existent around that time.“
He didn‘t bother reading fully through the texts below it. It takes time to translate full latin sentences correctly.
The last pages were something that stroked him as very odd.
There were full detailed descriptions of a portal, even a drawing of a guy opening a portal, and how to open it. It seems as if you need a special stone plate.

”And? Found something of interest, Tobias?“<< Tobias jumped at the voice of his professor behind him. “Where the fuck did he come from!”
“Uh Yes, actually, a book, probably a fable or fairytale from 700 A.D“<< He came over to him and eyed the book closer, taking his glasses off.
He skimmed the texts for a while and eyed the pictures in it.
“Well, it isn‘t our lucky day today, is it? But nonetheless can you write an essay about this….interesting piece of literature?“ <<
„Well….fuck you too.“ He thought bitterly.
”I would really like to do that.“<< He lied and forced a smile.
“Very well then, home you go and don‘t let me wait to much. Straight ahead and then turn left twice.“ << He winked and turned his back against Tobias.

21st. July. 2025 Heidelberg, Germany

Tobias slumped in his chair and stared at his ceiling and dozed off.
“Maybe he just wanted to get rid of me….“ He thought and felt uneasy. „Something about his smile when he sent me away was not right. I guess he just wants to torture me with my paper about that book.“
He shook the negative thoughts away and walked across his one-room single-apartment in the centre of Heidelberg he could actually afford quite well with his salary.
He turned his TV on and with it his PS4 he'd found for a really cheap price.
“Better I clear my mind first before I start working.“ He thought, took a beer out of his fridge and put a cigarette in his mouth.
Tobias let himself fall on the couch like a heavy sack of potatoes and proceeded with lightning his cigarette and taking a swig out of his beer.
The taste of burnt tobacco mixed with the German elixir of life when he took his controller and started a game.
“And they say I can‘t multi-task.“ He laughed to himself and proceeded with his evening.
Time passed and Tobias was nothing more than a slight drunk young man laying on his couch between an empty pack of cigarettes and 5 empty bottles of beer.
He woke up after 4 hours of sleep with a groan.
“It‘s really getting out of hand with my alcohol consumption….I should really stop or else it will end like when I was in my teens...“
He rubbed his aching head and stared at his table, the game still on.
“I‘m such a fucking idiot...I have work to do!“ He realised what he had just said and rubbed his forehead.
He quickly put a mint candy in his mouth, put his jacket on and watched himself in the mirror. He had short, but not too short light brown hair and a 3-days beard, blue eyes and an all in all slender, but not thin form. He was neither tall, but not incredibly small with 1.7m.
He quickly combed through his hair and went out.
He always preferred going on foot over taking the bus, bicycle or even by car. He liked to “feel“ his surroundings. And providing his position, he wasn't bound to any schedules.
The cool night breeze cleared his head from the still lasting effect of the alcohol and wasn‘t in the slightest unwelcoming for him.
He walked past the night-life of Heidelberg, where drunk people were yelling random stuff through the night. Large blinking signs of bars and nightclubs illuminated the dark street with next to no cars.
There weren‘t many cars in Heidelberg driving in the direction of the Altstadt, even at daylight.
After a while he finally reached his destination: the Karl-Ruprechts Universität Heidelberg and it‘s faculty for philosophy and history.
He entered the building, greeted some housekeepers, late night students and professors and went to the office where his book would be waiting.
It laid in a showcase with security glass. He read his label below the book, took out his keys and proceeded with taking it out really carefully with his security gloves on, like a surgeon would do with a dangerously sharp object inside a carcass.
He put it on his table and sat down. After putting his bottle of water, which he bought at a vending machine before, on the table and choosing selected ambient works by Aphex Twin on his phone, he started working.
The sun began to set above the German city and slowly crept through the shutters of the window making contact with Tobias‘ skin, quickly spreading the warmth across his neck.
“Huh?“ He muttered as he looked up from his book.
“What time is it? 6:45! I‘ve been working for almost 7 hours!“ He rubbed his eyes. “Right...working.”
He looked at his work in front of him. He wrote countless notes and translations on the first half of the book, even speculating on the kind of wood that was used for the paper. He read through his work:

The Unicorn

He or she is one with the heretic powers [=Magic] and is even able to lift heavy objects without touching it [telekinesis?]. Just as the other 2 races we could teach them Latin rather quickly.

Mares are averagely [0.9m – 1.1m] of height and stallions [1.1m – 1.3m]. It has a slightly more petite and thinner form than their winged counterparts or earthlings [3rd pony race]

It‘s horn is about [20cm] of length and is the reason why it bonds with the demonic forces.

As we went deeper into the society of Equus Unicornis, we discovered that there was hatred especially towards the earthers [3rd pony race]

The text was followed by a detailed illustration of a unicorn

“They actually look really cute...“ H thought to himself and imagined petting one of those imaginary creatures.

The Pegasus

The lightest, but also the fastest of the 3 races. It can fly faster than any human can walk and a lion can chase it‘s prey. It reaches the velocity of a falcon.

As we discovered, they were able to touch clouds with bare hooves manipulate them how they wish. We thought them to form bigger clouds so it could rain on dried fields and cure the one‘s dying of thirst.

Equus Coelis is able to withstand harsh climate, but is also the lightest built of them all. Females reach a height of about 0.8m - 1m and stallions don‘t get higher than 1.20m.

Most of them can be found at their city we named respectively caelotoposlis [=city of the clouds]

Again there was a detailed illustration of mare and stallion alike.

The Earthling

The lack of a horn and wings is made up with their immense strength that could even bring trees to fall down. They have a strong connection to the ground and after giving them the seeds for onion, cabbage and carrots, as well as a variety of fruits like apples, grapes and even oranges, they were able to grow it massively and in short time, better than any human farmer we had ever seen.

Equus Terraris is the biggest of them all. Females reach a height up to 1.2m and stallions to 1.4m. The largest of them even reached a height of almost 1.6m, the up to date largest ever discovered miniature horse.

A picture followed of two Earthlings.

“I shall call them earth horses.“

The Alihorn

A very rare kind of miniature horse, that got almost as big as an average human. They unite all races together in their body and have the strongest connection to the demonic powers.

The only known of them was the one that we declared king of the 3 races. King Helios and his wife Aphrodite.

“It more and more doesn‘t sound like a guide to a fantasy novel, but more like ….travel diary.“
He went to the first page of the book and searched for the name of the author.

Written again by Bishop Alfonso III.

A script of Martinius Antiochus

„Right I forgot...no last names back then. But the script existed before, judging by the name the original traveller was a Roman-Greek. By the name ‚Antiochus“ maybe even a successor of Seleucid king Antiochus III. Who lived around 250 to 190 B.C...“

He sorted his notes and thoughts about the races and put them aside until he went to another staple of notes and translations.

„I have to read this one again.“ He thought and put the first paper in front of him.

The journey to the planet of small horses

“Yup just like a traveller’s diary.“

When we set foot on the world of horse we called ‘Equustria‘, we suspected that just like in the Greek manuscripts a range Griffins and Minotaurs will wait for and greet us as gods. We were even more surprised when we found out we landed on the shore of what looked like a civilisation of small looking, cute little horses.

The shore could be compared with the ones you can find in Britannia, but the forests looked deep enough like the ones in Germania.

They were afraid at first, but managed to gain their trust after a few hours of talking, petting and giving presents.

One day they invited us to their capital city we called ‚Canteria‘. But on our way to the capital we discovered that god unleashed his punishment among these innocent looking horses.

A large famine and disease spread across the entire population. Beggars and prostitutes were on the streets when they weren‘t hiding from us.

Seeing a mother cradling her starved filly wasn‘t a rare thing to watch and frown upon.

By the name of our emperor Gaius Octavius Augustus. The expected innocence was ripped away and replaced with a deep reality like in some human cities.

„Okay that would set the time of the original story from 31 B.C to 14 A.D.“ He thought and continued reading.

When asked what happened, our guide explained to us in pony-tongue that 10 years ago, the tribes united in order to survive a very harsh winter, but the years didn‘t get any better. Their strange kind of wheat that the horses mostly ate dry or as a soup hasn‘t grown in over 5 years.

They solely lived of nuts and even, which was highly unusual for herbivores, meat of the rats that would sometimes come to feed of the starved.

In winter the population starved and in summer they starved and died of thirst.

We were two out of 24 who went with them on the marsh to the capital. The impressive castle seemed to be the only thing that was in order.

We entered the building and greeted the council, which was made of 3 horses, male and female alike.

They gave us presents of food and shiny ornaments, but declined, due to the fact that their people could need it more. We after all had brought enough food with us.

We communicated via drawings and explained how we had come here with the portal and where we were from.

We were 7 soldiers escorting 7 scholars with 7 seamen to the island of Thassos. To search for rumoured Greek artefacts. A storm brought us to this land.

We said that they should come with us so we could help them out with their food problem.

The text ended here
“It seems as if they were written in retrospective.“ He noted it in his head and examined the book again. Most of them were illustrations of plants, landscapes and cities, drawn with ink that shouldn‘t exist at that time.

The most interesting part of it was the portal.

Write the message on a separate papyrus and then lay it on the book. In order to send a message say the last words of the sun.

Use the runes of Thassos to make a gate.

Below it was a detailed picture and description on how to make a gate out of the rune.
He went over to the last sites of the book and noticed a small note on the lower right of it.

“Book I of II“

“There really is more..“ He muttered to himself and thought through the whole situation.

“Guessing by the fact that it was hid in a stonewall under the Vatican it would be a really important piece of literature. No one would ever hide a simple fable or fairy tale that much. Maybe it got locked up because….“

He shook his head at his own thought.

“No this can‘t be possible….But it would make sense. The legends of the pegasus, unicorn, griffon, basically the whole Greek mythology. Everything could be based on this world.“ He looked at the cover again.

“Or this book was based of Greek mythology…..“ He read through the last 3 sentences again.

“Write the message on a separate papyrus and then lay it on the book. In order to send a message say the last words of the sun.“ He read aloud.

“This just seemed way to real….it‘s scary.“ He closed the book carefully and pulled his earplugs out. The quiet sounds of reality hit him again.

“The last words of the sun...“ He repeated again.

“I translated it out of „solaris“, the genitiv of „sol“, the sun. In greek: „Helios“ which means the sun. What if they mean by the last words of the sun, the last words of Helios? King Helios or the greek sun god?“

He stared at the book. No this wasn‘t a simple fantasy book, it was much more and a lot more cryptic. Either the author was a very good troll, or they really really mean it.

“I need to find the other books.“ He muttered to himself stood up, taking the book with him and carefully placing it under his jacket.

Back home he sat down on his pc and started googling the title of the book. He found next to no matches, except for a link to the gallery of the famous Monastery of St. Gall.
They provided a Database with every single book or scroll in it. After almost an hour long search he finally found what he was maybe looking for.

“The Chronicles of the Planet of Small Horses: text written in Latin; fantasy; written at around 1140 A.D.“

“It's not book two, but still.“ Said Tobias and grabbed his phone.

”Maybe some kind of spin-off.”<<

It could have been anything, but he got this strange feeling in his gut...it was calling him
He dialled the number of his professor and mentor.

>>Yes?<<

>>Good morning professor. I made an interesting discovery. It seems that there‘s many more behind that book, but I need to find the 3 other parts of it and found out that I would probably find one in the Kloster St. Gallen in Switzerland. Could you maybe arrange a meeting with me and whoever is in charge there?<<

His professor sounded excited.

Very good! Your expenses will be paid by the university. Have a good stay in Switzerland and good luck!<<

“That was quick...” Thought Tobias, said goodbye and hung up. Not wanting to wait any further, he bought the next train ticket to St. Gall.