Expedition

by Race Horse

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Mystery, Horror, Adventure, Alternate Universe, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 10893

Twilight and friends, while exploring ruins deep in the Badlands, discover strange and unsettling things in a hidden ruin lost to time about the history of their nation.

Deep in the Badlands, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy lead an expedition to the ancient, lost city of Petrot, which had survived for decades during the first reign of Discord two and a half thousand years ago. There, they uncover fabulous treasures and ancient knowledge, as well as unsettling hints about the possible history of Equestria and its immortal sovereigns.

*Fair Warning*
The canon for this story ends just before the Canterlot Wedding two-parter.

Published 2018-12-26 19:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-04-09 04:04:59 UTC

1. The Gatekeeper

Sand beat against the rugged khaki tents resting in the dune-filled valley of a towering, shattered mountain range. The jagged, red-banded cliffs about them failed to still the biting wind, which bore upon it yet another sandstorm. Inside the largest tent, a lavender unicorn studied a map spread across a large folding table, trying desperately to ignore the whining of the baby dragon lounging in his basket by the entranceway.

“I still don’t see why we have to run around some stupid desert,” he grumbled, eying the quivering entrance flap with apprehension, “What are we even looking for again?” Twilight sighed and closed her eyes, trying to count backwards in her head from ten. She knew for a fact that this was the seventy-eighth time he had asked that question since they had left Ponyville two weeks ago, and she was tired of answering it after the first. “I told you, Spike. We’re looking for the lost city of Petrot.”

Spike punched his pillow grumpily, mumbling, “But why are we looking for a lost city? And how are we supposed to know where to go, if everypony calls it the ‘lost city’, anyway?” Twilight groaned, and reluctantly abandoned the map to rehash, yet again, the motivation for their trip. “Spike, pay attention this time. I’ve been given a grant by the Royal Academy of Arcane Arts and Sciences to survey the Badlands looking for any cultural artifacts related to the post-Classical era pre-Discordant Roanan Empi….”

“In Equestrian, please,” interrupted Spike, much to Twilight’s frustration. “I organized a trip to look for ancient artifacts for the next three months, and the Academy’s paying for it.” A powerful gust of wind rippled the canvas of the tent, causing Spike to jump. From another tent outside, they heard a muffled shout and the sound of ripping canvas.

Immediately, a point on the rough-sketched map of the camp resting on the table began to burn dark red. Trotting over to the paper, Twilight took note of the tent indicated, and her horn began to glow. Moments later they heard ponies shouting the all-clear. Spike gulped nervously. “Who’s tent was it this time?”

“One of the aerial recon pegasi, Stormshear.” Spike sighed, releasing a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “So,” he began, trying to sound nonchalant, “If this is some big Academy thing, why’d we bring Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash?” Twilight trotted back over to the large, regional map and turned up the lantern. “Fluttershy is here to be our animal expert in case we run into any nasty desert creatures like scorpions and poisonous lizards. Rainbow Dash wanted to come because she thought that ‘it’ll be cool’.”

“And they really let Rainbow Dash come just because of that?” asked the purple dragon skeptically. “Well,” admitted Twilight, her face scrunched up in an embarrassed grin, “I maybe sort of wrote her in as our security chief. Once. In triplicate. On each of five requisition forms. So she might possibly be drawing a paycheck for coming along.

“Why couldn’t we bring Rarity then?” sulked the baby dragon. “She had to fill an order for an important client,” droned Twilight in an exasperated tone of voice, “And before you ask, Applejack had farm work and Pinkie Pie has to work for the Cakes to fill a couple of big wedding orders over the spring.” Her assistant snorted in annoyance, and settled down to sulk some more.

Twilight had just gotten into her cartography when Spike’s voice again broke her concentration. “So how are we gonna find a ‘lost city’ anyway?” he asked, causing Twilight to drop her compass and groan. “That’s why we brought along the Saddle Arabian guides,” she forced through her gritted teeth, “They used to travel through the Badlands, to trade with Equestria to the north. If anypony will know how to help us, they will.” Not picking up on Twilight’s building frustration, or just not caring, Spike opened his mouth to ask yet another question.

A burp came out instead, and a moment later the expected belch of green flame and sparks heralded a letter from the Princess. Startled, Twilight dropped her navigation tools and hurried over to retrieve the scroll. Instead of a letter’s soft fwap, however, she heard the heavy thump of a book hitting the canvas floor. As Spike groaned and massaged his aching stomach, the lavender unicorn levitated the heavy tome towards herself, confusion contorting her features. She returned to her table, flipping the book open to the first page.

The wind outside picked up then, and behind the roar a low, wailing moan began to rise in volume. Spike shivered in his blankets, trying to hide his discomfort. “W…What’s that w…weird noise?” he stammered, as Twilight returned to the musty old tome she had just recieved. “That’s the wind whistling through the valley,” said Twilight distractedly, her horn glowing as pages flipped before her narrowed eyes, “There’s nothing unusual about it.”

Not for the first time, Rainbow Dash found herself trapped in the claustrophobic canvas walls of her tent, trying to coax a shivering yellow pegasus out from under her cot. “Come on, Fluttershy!” she whined, “I’ve gotta nap now! I can’t be stuck in this boring tent all day awake! I’ll go nuts!”

A squeaky, muffled whisper issued from the quivering lump beneath Rainbow’s cot. “W…What about that s…sound? Wh…What if it’s a m…monster?” The storm picked up in intensity, prompting Fluttershy to scoot herself even closer towards the canvas wall. Rainbow groaned and held her head in her hoof. “It’s just the wind! Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to deal with monsters and stuff like that anyway?” she all but shouted, “You’re the animal pony!”

A yellow snout poked out from under the cot. “Yes, but that’s only if we meet any hares or scorpions or lizards or coyotes or buzzards. But what if it’s a coatl? Or dune devils?” She gasped, and her nose disappeared again beneath her makeshift shelter. “Or Windigos!”

Dash stamped her hoof on the rug-covered canvas and snorted. “Seriously, chillax, Fluttershy! It’s just the storm! Come on, get out from under my bed!” When it became apparent that she would not, however, Dash lost her patience. In a flash of prismatic colors, she had lifted the collapsible cot off Fluttershy, deposited it at the opposite end of the tent, and dived into it. Before the shivering pegasus could react to her sudden exposure, Dash was feigning loud, thoroughly unconvincing snores.

Whimpering, Fluttershy retreated to her own bed and hugged her stuffed bunny tightly to her chest. Twilight had advised her not to bring Angel Bunny, because of the extreme temperatures they would be facing in the southern deserts and the danger wild animals would pose to the free-spirited rabbit. It had made sense in her nice, cozy living room, but with the sandstorm picking up around them she couldn’t help feel that her stuffed animal was a poor substitute for her furry friend.

The walls rippled and danced. The bare, undecorated tent around them was filled to the ceiling on one side with bags of various feeds and herbs, antidotes for poisonous insects and snakes, scented potions designed to attract or repel various creatures, and crates of supplies Fluttershy hadn’t asked for but which Twilight had overzealously ordered anyway. Dash’s snores gradually softened, becoming the authentic sounds of deepening sleep.

“Um, excuse me, Rainbow Dash?”

Dash started with a loud snort, blinking and turning around in confusion. “Huwha?” “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” the shy pegasus blustered, “Um, if you’d rather just sleep, I guess I can ask my question later, when you’ve, um, gotten up, unless…” Dash fluttered her wings and sat upright on her cot, her face set in a grumpy frown. “No way, I wanna know what’s up so I can catch some z’s in peace. What’s up?”

“Oh, um,” she began, only to quail under the impatient glare in her friend’s pink eyes, “I was just wondering why you wanted to come with us. That is, if you don’t mind me asking. Not that you helping everypony when we get caught in sandstorms isn’t really nice of you, but, um…” She trialed off. Her friend looked at her incredulously. “What do you mean?” balked the brash blue stunt flier, “For the adventure, duh!”

She suddenly shot out of the bed, zipping around the tent like a terrified firefly. “I can see it now! There we’ll all be, in some lost temple, facing a bunch of crazy traps and monsters and stuff. And right when we get to the awesome treasure room, we’ll get jumped by crazy desert cult ponies! And I’ll be all like, ‘Not today, Ahuizotl!’ and I’ll buck the bad guys in the face while I get the ancient statue at the same time and I’ll be just like Daring Do!”

“But, um, Twilight said it would be very nice and orderly,” said Fluttershy, hidden behind her wings in case of one of her friends (semi-frequent) accidental collisions. “She told me we’d mostly be helping with paperwork. I just, I didn’t think you’d like that, is all.” Her words seemed to sap the energy from the bouncing rainbow blur. She landed on her cot again. “Ugh, don’t remind me,” she said, flopping down onto her back, “Even flying out into the storm is starting to get boring, and that’s the least boring thing about this whole boring trip so far! Everypony’s just going so slow!”

Fluttershy cleared her throat as she emerged from her feathery cocoon. “I’m sorry, but.. um.. Well, I think we’re going as fast as the supply wagons can go,” she said soothingly, “Twilight’s even telling the drivers to go a bit faster than they wanted to at first.” The haunting moan of the wind through the mountains began as they spoke, prompting another shiver from the cowardly pony.

Rainbow rolled jerkily to her side, clearly agitated. “Great. Just great. At least the ruins have got to be cool. Ancient ruins always have cool stuff and hidden treasure and traps and junk, they’ve gotta be way more awesome than this.”

The sandstorm proved to be short-lived, much to everypony’s relieved surprise. Once the tents were stowed and the wagons repacked, they set off again across the burning sands. Twilight kept her map hovering nearby, occasionally calling directions back to the rest of the caravan as they weaved their ponderous way through the gaps in the eroded mountains.

The sun had already been sinking towards the horizon when the storm concluded, and by the time they got genuinely moving, it had begun to turn the sky around it orange. The occasional rainbow contrail marked Twilight’s ‘security chief’ as she circled the carts lazily, throwing in the occasional loop-the-loop or barrel roll to stave off boredom. Twilight knew that further off, at regular intervals around the caravan, teams of recon pegasi were scanning the horizons for signs of pony-made structures.

Twilight was about to call a halt for the night when a recon team came from flying back from ahead of the group. “Third Recon Squad reporting,” called their leader, stopping her ponies the proscribed distance from them. “Passphrase?” challenged Twilight, her horn glowing menacingly. When she heard them reply, “Harmonia Intis,” she dropped her spell and beckoned them over hurriedly.

“We’ve located a single occupied structure at the mouth of a small pass in the mountains,” reported the squad leader, Captain Frostwing, as they landed in front of Twilight, who had signaled the others to begin establishing camp, “We might have missed the pass entirely if it weren’t for the light from that building.”

Twilight stared blankly at the steel-blue pegasus, only dimly aware of Rainbow Dash alighting beside her. “Occupied?” she repeated, “But there isn’t anypony living in the Badlands! At least, I haven’t read about any ponies out here. Are you sure it wasn’t a changeling?” Frostwing shook her head. “He looked like a skinny, older stallion from a distance, and he was poking around a little patch of farm. I don’t think he’d spotted us, so unless he just likes looking like that, I doubt he’s a changeling.”

Curiosity sparked to life within her, and slowly a smile began to form on her face. They were scores of miles from the rocky pass through the Macintosh Hills back to Equestria, and without supplies, nopony could reach this far into the arid, crumbling landscape to build a hut and start farming. This had to be a native, the first ever contacted native pony of the Badlands! Moreover, this could possibly be a chance to ask for directions!

Practically dancing with excitement at the prospect of making diplomatic history, Twilight began hurriedly organizing a party to meet the mysterious stranger. Twenty minutes later, she, Spike, and Frostwing’s squad crested a dune and spied the farm, a low adobe hut with a single glowing window resting at the foot of a massive, banded cliff. The entire scene glowed rust red in the setting sunlight.

As they drew nearer, they could see that the hut was near to a narrow crack in the imposing mountain of rock. Frostwing signaled to her squad to establish a perimeter around the hut, both to avoid scaring the stranger and to protect against the omnipresent threat of changelings. Near enough now to get a good look at the farm’s crops, Twilight winced when she saw the plants, withered and yellow, and the dust-caked water pump standing beside the ragged cloth doorway. Knocking softly upon the wall (and nevertheless drawing a small chunk away with her hoof), the lavender unicorn heard a call and ducked into the shelter.

Immediately her nose was assaulted by an unfamiliar and vaguely unsettling scent, like hot peppers and copper. Squinting through the gloom, she could make out a glowing fireplace and woven rugs made of the coarse desert grass that sprouted occasionally through the cracked terrain. Stirring a large, bubbling pot on the fire was a stooped, weathered old earth pony. A tattered robe hung from his lanky grey-coated frame, and when he turned to face them, a tangled mane and beard of a moldy green color swung briefly before his wide yellow eyes.

“Um,” began Twilight, nervousness smothering her curiosity in the face of the wild-eyed stranger, “Hello?” The emaciated old pony continued to stare at Twilight and her friends, unthreatening but unresponsive. Twilight noticed a large chunk missing from the pony’s snout, and tried not to focus on it. “My name is Twilight Sparkle,” began Twilight again, enunciating each word with care in case the pony before her was simply deaf, “And these are my friends, Spike and Frostwing. We’ve come from Equestria, from the north.”

More silence, more staring. Twilight was glancing nervously between her friends and the native pony, a forced smile stretching her face beneath her increasingly manic eyes. Seconds stretched into minutes. Then, in a sudden, rapid movement, the stranger pulled a long, curved blade of crude metal out of a chopping block near his hoof. They started, but he simply began to chop a few sad little roots into rough chunks on the stone table beside him.

“Well, we’re obviously interrupting your dinner,” chuckled Twilight amiably, backing slowly towards the door and indicating for the others to do the same, “So sorry to bother you. We’ll just let ourselves out then…” But as Twilight backed towards the curtain, she heard his voice rasp out to her in thick, guttural Arabic. The stallion beckoned to them with his free hoof. “I dunno, Twilight,” said Spike from the unicorn’s back, eying the blade warily as the old pony finished his meager roots and set the knife down, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

While the Badlands pony was busy with his cooking, Frostwing left the tent, and a few minutes later returned with Ibn al-Fahoof, the Saddle Arabian guide assigned to her squad. After a few minutes of conversation with the old pony, al-Fahoof motioned them forward. “He says you may ask your questions, but quickly.” Twilight bit back a disappointed sigh. She was hoping for a lengthy interview with the stranger, an exchange of cultures. Perhaps on their way back…

Settling down, Twilight first asked where the old pony had come from. He smiled a broken-toothed smile at them and gestured widely with his hoof, speaking very fast in his thick, guttural language. “Apparently there was a village here,” said al-Fahoof, “He says that there was a deep groundwater well keeping them alive for a very long time. But many years ago, the well began to dry up, and everypony left and headed into the desert.” When asked where they had gone, the old pony shook his head.

“Why didn’t he leave with them?” Twilight asked. Even though she didn’t speak the language, something about the old stallion struck her as off, as though he were hiding something from them. Al-Fahoof frowned when his reply came, and did not respond when Twilight asked what was wrong. After a few minutes of back and forth dialogue with the native, the Arabian turned to the others. “His words are strange. Many are not known to me, others spoken oddly. I think he said, ‘I watch the gate.’” al-Fahoof told them, “But he does not tell me what that means.”

The mention of a gate sent Twilight’s mind reeling. She recalled the book Celestia had sent her that morning; the city was supposed to have had a hidden gate guarded by ponies day and night. But after all these years, was it really possible that it was still manned? “See if he knows about any ruins near here,” she said breathlessly, “Ask if he knows where Petrot is.”

But this was obviously the wrong thing to ask. No sooner had the question been translated than the old pony had leapt to his hooves and begun to gabble loudly at them. The curved knife had reappeared in the stallion’s hoof so quickly Twilight didn’t even see him reach for it; the jagged blade flashed as the enraged pony gesticulated wildly. Al-Fahoof was shouting, trying to calm the wild pony down, while Frostwing took a defensive position ahead of Twilight, signaling them to retreat back through the curtained doorway.

She didn’t see the flash of the blade slicing through the air, but she didn’t need to; Frostwing screamed as the weapon pierced her, and Twilight found herself being squeezed through the crumbling doorway as the whole group fled from the dangerous madpony into the darkness of the nighttime desert.

She saw blurred shadows rapidly approaching their retreating party, and knew that the rest of Frostwing’s soldiers had closed rank around them. Horn glowing, she focused through the din of shouting voices and pounding hooves, her magic counting each member of their party as it came upon them. Then, when sure she had them all, she cast her teleportation spell, sparing one final glance back at the damaged hut and the silhouette of the deranged stallion outlined in the glowing doorway.

They reappeared at the camp, and pandemonium immediately broke out. Barking orders and cradling her sliced wing, Frostwing stumped over to the medical tent and sat by its entrance. Medics and guards came at a gallop, and rushed her into the tent. Moments later, a frantic Fluttershy was examining Twilight for damage, while a prismatic blur zoomed to a hover near them. Twilight motioned for al-Fahoof and the others and indicated the tent, and they followed the medical team inside.

Chaos reigned within the canvas walls as several medics attempted to tend to Frostwing at once. Fluttershy bit her lip, clearly anxious to contribute to the effort herself but reluctant to approach the crowd jostling around the injured pegasus. With a snarl, Frostwing grabbed the nearest and sent the rest away, then snorted and waved Twilight and the Arabian over with a hoof. “What the buck happened, Fahoof?” she growled, twinging occasionally as her medic applied ointment and bandages to her injured wing.

“I could not tell you,” said al-Fahoof, eyes wide with bewilderment, “He mostly spoke in a language I could not understand. I made out the words ‘forest’, ‘darkness’, and ‘drown’ while he shouted, but I do not know why he said that.” Frostwing spat on the canvas floor, eliciting a frown from her attending medic, but Twilight tilted her head thoughtfully.

“What gives?” whined Rainbow Dash, glaring accusingly at Twilight and twitching her wings irritably, “How come I didn’t get to go with you guys on the dangerous adventure? I thought I was the security pony!” Twilight sighed and shook her head, holding up a hoof to stifle the angry retort brewing in Frostwing’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Rainbow, I just got so carried away with the thought of meeting an uncontacted culture I forgot. But we’ve got bigger problems right now.”

She turned to Frostwing, and looked over the injury. The cut didn’t seem debilitating, and when she caught the medic’s gaze he smiled reassuringly at her. “Not to worry, ma’am,” he said, “Nothing too deep, but she’ll be grounded for four or five days while this heals.” Frostwing groaned, and at Twilight’s nod, the medic continued wrapping the wound.

“Right,” Twilight began, drawing everypony’s attention her way. She stiffened at the sudden scrutiny, still unsure in her authority as expedition leader and uncomfortable in the spotlight. “Well, I think we’ll have to go back to the hut as soon as we can tomorrow morning, and I’d like a look at that pass.” As she had expected, there were several noises of protest, though none as loud as Spike’s. He slid off of her back, staring at her with disbelieving eyes. “No way!” he shouted, his voice rather higher pitched than usual, “That crazy old pony’ll cut us all into pieces and put us in his stew!”

Suddenly thankful to have left Pinkie Pie far behind in Equestria, Twilight waved his concerns away. “We’ve got warning now, Spike, and a whole squadron of guardsponies with us. Besides, I think that stallion might know something about Petrot.” Some of the shock in al-Fahoof’s eyes faded at her words. “Why is it you think that, Ms. Twilight?” he asked, “He is only one pony alone in the sands, and he spoke only madness.”

Twilight began to pace around the tent, her downcast eyes glaring in concentration. “It’s something I read in the book Princess Celestia sent me this morning. The book is a rare pre-Discordant history of the Roanan Empire written by a travelling merchant, who in chapter 47 visited Petrot. He mentioned a narrow gatehouse before the hidden city’s entryway, and a family of ponies that had guarded the city gates for generations. It… well, it seems impossible, but it’s such a coincidence that he’d mention a gate, and then that bit about the forest… the city was supposedly hidden within a wild forest rooted in the deep waters of the oasis.”

Once again everypony grew quiet for a moment. Frostwing snorted angrily then, and her pale golden eyes gleamed with determination in the bright glow of the tent’s many lanterns. “Ms. Sparkle, ma’am, I must insist that I accompany you to the confrontation. My guards and I will restrain the prisoner, and you can interrog…”

“Hey, slow down!” shouted Rainbow, zipping up to Frostwing and glaring down at her. “I’m supposed to be the security pony! I decide who goes, you can’t leave me out like that!”

Despite the squawks of protest from the medic tending to her, Frostwing jumped to her hooves. Before the bandages sent flying by Rainbow had settled on the tent floor, Frostwing had crossed the distance between them and was thrusting her muzzle directly into Rainbow’s. “You care to enforce that authority, you feather-brained dropout?”

A sparkling purple shield erupted between the two mares just as they moved to strike one another, sending them and several orderlies to fly into the corners of the tent. Rainbow groaned, pulling herself from a pile of loose bandages and tangled IV poles. Twilight winced when she saw the spreading red stain under Frostwing’s bandages. “Sorry girls, I didn’t mean to hurt anypony. But Frostwing,” she began, and her tone turned less conciliatory, “You did insult Rainbow Dash pretty harshly.”

Dash stuck her tongue out at Frostwing, until Twilight’s annoyed gaze hit her as well. “What gives? I didn’t do anything!” When Twilight continued to glare at her, she fidgeted, and her eyes dropped to the ground. “Rainbow Dash, do you remember the conversation we had last Wednesday? About not interfering with the security team?”

The cyan pegasus scuffed her front hoof on the floor, eyes darting everywhere but Twilight’s. “Well, yeah, but… I mean… That was seriously uncool! And aren’t I the ‘security chief’ or whatever on all your egghead paperwork?”

Twilight rolled her eyes and groaned in exasperation, forcibly reminded of another conversation she had had to rehash earlier. “For the last time, Rainbow, don’t interfere with the guard squads! Captain Frostwing is right, you aren’t trained to coordinate a guard unit, leave those responsibilities to her.” Frostwing’s wings relaxed a bit at the support, and when the shield came down a moment later, neither went for the other’s throat, though they still wore sour expressions as they faced one another.

“I want you two to shake hoofs like adults, please, so that we can continue with planning for our return to the hovel tomorrow morning.” Both looked at Twilight incredulously for a moment. Then, with a resigned sigh, Captain Frostwing stepped forward and offered a hoof. Dash hesitated, but when she caught Twilight’s glower she rolled her eyes and shook Frostwing’s hoof.

“Thank you. Now, Captain, I think that in addition to your squad we should bring…”

As the sun began to sneak over the flat tops of the craggy mountains, a purple librarian, twelve Canterlot guardsponies, one Saddle Arabian guide, and a brash blue pegasus once again crested the dunes before the feet of the towering cliff. The moment Twilight set her gaze on the hut at the edge of the sands, she could tell that something was amiss.

As they grew nearer, the oddness of the scene began to resolve. The parched crops growing before the door of the hut were gone, as was the cloth in the doorway. Half of the ceiling had collapsed. The place seemed to have been abandoned.

When they got to the hut, Twilight and Frostwing entered the structure. Neither fireplace nor rugs were there; the utensils were long gone, and a thick layer of dust coated the shattered and deeply weathered fixtures. The air seemed musty, as though there were moisture in the hut, but all was quite dry to the touch.

Blinking in the harshness of the desert glare after the cool confines of the hut, Twilight squinted around her, and when she spotted Rainbow she made a beeline for her, Frostwing trailing in her wake. “What gives? I thought we were supposed to be fighting some crazy pony!” Scanning the ruined structure, she added, “This place is a dump.”

“Something must have happened,” Twilight groaned, disappointment etched in her face, “He must have left when the roof caved in. His stuff is gone.” Frostwing shuffled uncomfortably. “Ms. Sparkle, did you notice the layer of dust on the fixtures? That place has been unoccupied for at least several years.”

“So… you’re saying it was a ghost pony?” Dash teased, wiggling her forehooves and warbling a spooky sound effect. Spike, who had been just as unnerved by the building’s condition, clung tighter to Twilight’s mane and quivered. “G..Gh...Ghost pony?” “Oh Spike,” sighed Twilight, “There are no such things as ghosts.” Fixing a hard stare on Rainbow Dash and Frostwing, she added, “That dust could have been dropped by the collapse of the roof.”

Unconvinced, Spike nevertheless retrieved his claws from Twilight’s hair. A cloud of dust rose then on the horizon, announcing the timed arrival of the rest of their retinue. As the group began to set up camp about them, Twilight sought out Fluttershy, and they set off for the pass just visible to the west.

The walls of rust red rock threatened to swallow the rising sun as they approached the fissure in the monolith of crumbling stone. This mountain was easily three times as tall as any in the surrounding orogeny, Twilight remarked to herself, silently calculating the height to be perhaps 27,000 feet if the angle made by the peak relative to the peak of the nearest easily estimated mountain…

“Twilight!”

Rainbow’s shout shook the mathematician from her estimations. Upon returning her gaze to the pass, her jaw dropped. They had arrived.

Elaborately worked into the living rock of the fissure, a towering archway rose high above them. Several hundred pillars adorned each leg of the immense gateway, each supporting a beam bedecked with innumerable statues weathered by millennia of perpetual bombardment by the infamous desert sandstorms. Dozens of doorways, arrow slits, crenellates, and murder holes dotted the structure. What appeared to be massive, concreate urns adorned the top of the archway, jutting from what appeared to be the keystone.

The massive bronze gates, miraculously preserved in the harsh climate, were well ajar when they arrived. Twilight glanced between her companions. Fluttershy trembled as she gazed skyward at the looming curve of the archway far above them. Surprisingly, al-Fahoof was also stamping nervously as his eyes darted about the structure. Suddenly determined, he marched up to Twilight’s side. “Miss Sparkle, I do not think we should be here. This place is cursed, it is said in my homeland.”

Twilight actually laughed, some of her own trepidation at the intimidating gatehouse lessened at the absurdity. “Ibn, there are no such thing as curses. That’s all superstitious mumbo jumbo. Trust me,” she said, eyes meeting Rainbows and lips curving into a grin, “I would know.” Al-Fahoof stomped in the sand, snorting suddenly and making everypony tense up. “You are wrong! This place is cursed, I say! The dead own it; only the dead may enter it.”

Twilight cleared her throat, nervous but incensed at the affront to her logic, “That’s ridiculous, al-Fahoof. Even the enchantments here should have faded by now; it’s just a crumbling old ruin. We have to go in.” The Arabian neighed angrily, rearing for a moment in agitation. “I tell you, I will not go in! I did not even believe it was even real, but now I am certain!” Then, with a snort, he fell back to his hooves, turned from them, and trotted back towards camp.

Everypony exchanged bemused expressions. “He’ll calm down,” said Twilight, “He’s just being superstitious.” Then, with an eager glint in her eyes, she turned to the gateway before them, and trotted through, her friends beside her and Frostwing’s ponies close behind.

2. The Rescue

Chapter 2: The Rescue

Their hoofsteps clopped loudly through the dense and dusty shadows. A brilliant orb of white light blossomed silently from Twilight’s horn, followed shortly thereafter by the spitting hiss of torches blazing to life. In the sudden glare, sharp shadows sprang high up the walls and dissected the sandy flagstone road. Dust rose at their hooves as they wandered, wide eyed, between the arms of the gateway.

Gigantic Corinthian columns held up the lofty arch above them, elaborate ivy patterns trailing down from the spiked capitals like living things. From close up, they could distinguish ponies and rams, zebras and minotaurs, griffins and cattle, and a hundred races and nameless, hallucinogenic forms besides, carved in bass relief sculptures upon the friezes and resting in niches set into the walls. Between the bases of the soaring columns, a dozen doors led off from either side, simpler archways each at least the height of five large stallions.

Beyond the archway was only darkness; amplifying her orb, Twilight saw to her dismay that a sizeable tunnel stretched before them, rising slightly and bending sharply beyond her light. Looking to her companions, she nodded towards to doors set into the gate. “We might as well start looking for artifacts here,” she said, “We only have half of our crew, with basecamp still being established.”

“Finally! Last one to find something cool is a moldy feather! One-two-three-go!” crowed Rainbow, and before anyone could blink a prismatic trail hovered where she had just been standing.

“Rainbow Dash! Wait!” shouted Twilight in vain frustration, “Don’t disturb anything! Trace evidence…!” Spike clung tightly to her mane as she galloped after the impatient pegasus’ contrail, still yelling useless admonishments and willing the rainbow not to disappear before she could see which doorway Dash had disappeared down.

This too proved an exercise in futility. She had no sooner approached the archways than the contrail dissipated, giving her only the vaguest clue which of the dozens of tunnels was the correct one. The others arrived behind her, some huffing and puffing, others (mostly the senior guard staff) establishing a forward formation around them.

Cursing under her breath and ignoring Spike’s scandalized gasp, Twilight put a hoof on the shoulder of a frenetic Fluttershy before she could truly begin to panic, and called Captain Frostwing over. “Okay girls, looks like we have to find Rainbow Dash now. We’ll each take one of the tunnels along this wall, and if we reach a dead end, we’ll come back. We need to leave a few unicorns here to relay messages between us and the camp, and I think we should each bring a couple of guards with us in the tunnels.”

Nodding determinedly, Fluttershy and Frostwing walked towards the guards and began to organize them into teams. Twilight couldn’t help but sigh. She loved her friend dearly, but she couldn’t help but think that if Rainbow could only be as efficient and organized as Frostwing was, she could have the authority she wanted. She sighed wearily, and trotted off towards them.

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The smooth stone of the passage floor sloped gently downwards. In the guttering light of the torches, shadows danced like wild spirits upon the rough walls. Every flicker of darkness or loud rattle of chainmail around her sent Fluttershy into a quiet spasm of terror. Though she had expected their presence to reassure her, without her friends, the stern faces of the career soldiers left the quiet filly jumpy and uncertain.

Her imagination was her worst enemy as she made her trembling way through the ruins. After the grandeur of the gateway, this simple, unpolished tunnel felt like the entrance to some creature’s lair or to a deep tomb. She could just picture horrible, gangly beasts lunging from beyond the safety of their torchlight, all fangs and claws and scales. The regular rhythm of the chainmail’s rattling felt like a dinner bell ringing into the gloom. Her ears strained to drown out the clangor, to discern any slight, subtle hint of trouble…

The squad leader suddenly barked a loud order to stop as they rounded a bend, prompting Fluttershy to squeak in fright and dive behind the nearest guard. “Take it easy, ma’am,” he whispered encouragingly, “Squad Cap just called a halt.” Ahead of them, the squad leader strode towards the large, bronze double door that had impeded their progress. His horn glowed mauve as he examined the ancient portal, searching for any traps or offensive enchantments.

The door was surprisingly ornate next to the rough-hewn walls of the passageway it was set in. Across its slightly corroded surface, fantastic beasts of every shape and description were being eternally corralled into cages by fierce looking earth ponies in various forms of ancient barding. Each pony wielded a weapon, mainly whips and spears, but with a fair smattering of clubs and polearms. Behind the animals in the menagerie scene were rows of box shapes, each containing a single earth pony. At the top of the portal scrolled intricate strings of indecipherable glyphs.

After a few minutes of concentrated spellwork by the squad captain, a deafening clunk was heard from the other side of the door. The massive bronze portal slowly swung inward under the captain’s arcane urging, ancient hinges screeching in protest. A soft yellow light painted the disturbed clouds of dust gold, and the smell of fresh desert air flooded into the passageway.

The room within was an open ceilinged gash in the mountain, fashioned into an apparent livestock hold and cargo bay. The decaying remnants of rusted cages dotted the floor, some small enough to carry, others large enough to contain a manticore, and one with a few pitted beams shooting up from the crumbling base to the height of a full grown hydra. Piles of sand littered the cracked stone floor.

The echoes of their hoofsteps followed after them as they set off into the room, Fluttershy blanching at the massive chains still adorning some of the cages and walls. Above them, a tangled web of corroded cables served as the chamber’s only roof. To their left and right the room extended for a few hundred feet, while a few dozen feet beyond the jagged skeletons of the cages the walls bore numerous small side chambers.

With a whistle, the squad captain signaled his ponies to attention. “Alright, colts, I want each of you to set off to each end of the passage and work your way inward, searching each chamber. Myself and Ms. Fluttershy will search the nearby sector and establish a com station. When you meet the opposing team or find the ‘chief’, report back to this relay position. Now get to work.”

They immediately obeyed, leaving Fluttershy and her hard-faced companion to cross the room towards the arched side doors. The shivering filly winced visibly when she noticed the tangled remains of chains and dusty metal clubs dotting the interiors of the cages. The scene on the door returned to her mind, and she felt ill.

The squad captain split from her as they approached the rooms to establish the com point. She entered the portal before her with dreadful apprehension, sure she would find the bones of some poor animal and wicked whips and chains. Instead, she found what looked to be a small bed chamber, complete with stone cubby and collapsed metal bedframe. A simple corroded brass dresser made up the room’s sole piece of standing furniture.

Quickly relaxing a bit upon failing to find awful hacked-up bodies, she examined the room next to that, and beheld a similar scene. In each of the next three rooms, only small piles of petrified, blackened cloth differentiated the chambers. None of the drawers or door in the oxidized furniture would budge. When she entered the next, she noticed one of the drawers was slightly ajar on the splotched red dresser.

The empty drawer refused to move when she tried it, but the movement dislodged something that had been wedged between the dresser and the wall, which fell with a clack to the ground below. Falling to her belly, the petite yellow filly managed to squeeze a few flight feathers into the crack beneath it and flick the thing out.

It seemed to be an animal call of some sort. She picked it up, nearly dropping it when she noticed it was made, not of wood, but of ivory. When she made out the pattern on it, however, she forgot the gruesome material and stared in astonishment.

It was a beautifully carved replica of a phoenix in flight, beak opened wide to admit the sound. Elegant tears of flame peppered the base of it, each inlaid with a small, glittering ruby which sparkled in the midday sunlight streaming in through the doorless archway. The brass mouthpiece was miraculously preserved, no hint of damage or corrosion marring its feathered surface.

The phoenix carving was of a species she had never seen before, subtly sharper and more pronounced in its features than the populations in Equestria today, or of anything she had seen in her books and trips to Canterlot’s Royal Conservatory. She guessed that it must be some extinct variety of phoenix from long ago. Suddenly curious, she raised the birdcall gently to her lips and blew.

The soft trilling song that spilled from the carven beak was unlike anything she had heard before, at once familiar and entrancingly alien. The sound brought comfort to the reclusive pegasus, reminding her of her many bird friends in Ponyville and the safety of home. She blew it again, and felt her heart rate slow to a sedate, steady rhythm. She brought it up to her eyes, smiling happily at the wonderous instrument and watching the glitter of the rubies in the light.

The sharp call of the squad captain broke her reverie, and she shook her head slightly, suddenly a bit lightheaded. Shrugging, she strode from the room, the phoenix call tucked safely into her saddlebag.

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Twilight examined the glyphs upon the elaborately worked bronze door they had come to. The scenes glinting in the white glare of her still-burning light spell showed scholars at work on scrolls and measurements of crops, gems, and other salable goods, identifying the chamber beyond as an administrative office of some sort. It showed no signs of having been opened recently, magically or visually.

The writing upon the door, however, had left Twilight puzzled, and it was this that had halted her party’s progress for the last several minutes. Though she found the strange lettering incomprehensible, she could not shake the feeling that she had seen it before. It looked much like Saddle Arabian, though rougher and more angular. One of her guards cleared his throat and called her name, eliciting no response. Glancing nervously towards Spike, he gently plucked out a quill that had been sticking from the side of her pack.

Twilight gasped and stared all about her as though expecting an attack, stopping a few moments later to scowl at the laughing baby dragon gasping for air on the ground beside her. “Told you that would work,” he wheezed to the nonplussed guardpony, claws clutching his gut in mirth. Pointedly ignoring the rolling reptile’s continuing antics, Twilight focused her magic on the brass doors and pushed them open.

The air that rushed out to greet them was stale and cool. The orb of brilliance Twilight had conjured earlier dashed ahead into the chamber, rising high and flaring to illuminate the entire room. They found themselves in a veritable labyrinth of low stone walls and partially enclosed chambers, each populated by a plain, lightly oxidized brass desk, an assortment of red-spotted cabinets, and moldering piles of carbonized scrolls. Twilight motioned for the guards to fan out and begin the search.

With the complete lack of Rainbow Dash in this chamber, the scrolls inexorably drew her attention. Trotting to the nearest pile of petrified parchment, she carefully levitated the thinnest sheet she could separate between her and the orb of light she had conjured. For the briefest of moments, the familiar stuttering script from the inscriptions on the door could be very faintly seen, but almost the moment she resolved her vision on the lettering the black parchment fell away into dust.

She tried again, cursing at her lack of foresight. Pausing before separating the sheets to cast a conservation spell on the parchment, she levitated it only as high as necessary and brought the orb of light to hover beneath it. Yet her caution was not rewarded. Almost as quickly as the last sheet, this one crumbled into nothingness and drifted to the dusty stone below. Spike shuffled on her back, saying nothing.

She trotted between the low walls of the ancient offices, pausing where she encountered black mounds of rotting scroll to make a few attempts at preserving a fragment for study. “Maybe we should just go back to looking for Dash,” Spike suggested after her thirty-seventh consecutive failed attempt to procure a legible sample.

“We have to wait until the rendezvous time,” she snapped, a little more harshly than she had intended. She sighed, then said in a more even tone, “If Rainbow was found by one of the others, and we were to go wandering off to try to find her, we might waste a lot of time searching for one another in here. We have time to do a bit of archaeology while we wait.”

They soon came across a room whose walls actually reached the tiled ceiling, a simple arched doorway separating it from the surrounding cubicles. Entering what she assumed to be a managerial office, she found a large marble desk, perfectly preserved before a collection of tarnished but operable-looking metal filing cabinets. The floor still bore the tattered remnants of a wide carpet, threadbare and brittle from untold centuries. Several chipped busts adorned niches set between the columns lining the walls, each depicting a different unicorn mare or stallion.

To her dismay, the filing cabinets had been a misleading promise, for the drawers revealed only further moldering mounds of ruined paperwork. She approached the desk, taking note of the scenes etched into its sides, tiny ponies praising the sun and moon before twin obelisks atop a vast mountain. The blatantly mythological nature of the reliefs adorning the desk fascinated her.

The first drawer was filled with hollow-tipped metal quills and assorted coins. She levitated a few out, examining their angular and uneven shapes and the faces embossed on them before dropping each into a bag and sealing it. Spike finished the labels with a flourish of his quill, affixing each to the appropriate sample before packing them in Twilight’s saddlebags.

The second contained nothing of note but a small brass hourglass, fashioned with a chain to be worn as a lanyard. She could see tiny etchings around the arms of the timepiece, which she assumed indicated the elapsed time. The third drawer contained rotten documents and a small, rusted iron blade, presumably a letter opener.

As her magic came over the final drawer, she felt the buzz of an enchantment vibrate in her horn. Hopeful anticipation grew in her when she identified the spell as a preservation field. Sliding the drawer open effortlessly, she found to her delight several cracked brass scroll tubes, which she carefully raised and laid out on the desk. As she lifted the last one from its place, she noticed a slight lip at the bottom of the drawer. She prized the false bottom loose and gasped.

Inside, nearly impervious to the millennia, faded burgundy velvet cradled an ornate, mechanical scroll case, its brass surface gleaming in the light of her spell. The two cylindrical scroll tubes that made up the body of the device were fastened together with a thin clasp. Their surfaces were coated in the same jittery, winding script she had glimpsed briefly in her ill-fated parchment samples, spiraling around the gleaming golden brass like coiling vines.

If she had been impressed with the scroll tube’s artistry, it was nothing compared to her awe as her magic slid the parchment loose from the metal. A vivid, colorful painting dominated the section she had revealed, colors unfaded by the grace of the cleverly enchanted drawer. In it, eight white robed unicorn stallions approached a large, hollow cube bearing an offering of wheat and vegetables. Within the cube swirled a familiar pair of stylized alicorns, one blue, one white. The image was accompanied by a block of tiny, indecipherable Petroti script

Stylistically, the painting was unlike anything she had ever seen before. The features on the faces of what presumably were priests were exquisitely detailed, no two alike in either facial structure or expression, and yet everything had an odd, elongated angularity to it. The smoke pouring from the braziers carried by some of the priest ponies seemed to swirl realistically in the flickering light of her spell. Yet it was the familiar glyph representing the Royal Pony Sisters that had grasped her attention.

She had grown up singing the Equestrian national anthem as a filly, had raised her hoof to the flag like everypony else. But this document had been written centuries before the formation of the first Equestrian principalities under the leadership of the Royal Sisters. It was inconceivable that this symbol could be exactly the same as the one they currently used on their heraldry. Even the colors used for each princess were the same.

And why were they encased in a shell? Could it function as a cartouche, to ennoble their symbol? Could it have represented a holy temple, or some other sacred space? If only she could have read the text below the image! She glared at the illegible ink, willing herself to remember where she had encountered it before.

The longer she looked, the more she began to grow annoyed at her inability to remember. For three months leading up to this expedition, she had studied Saddle Arabic in the hopes that she could translate any documents or inscriptions they encountered. She felt she could almost read some of the words, yet these letters, so similar to that used by the horse tribes of the desert, were nearly self-contained and were in many cases quite foreign to her.

“Twilight! Snap out of it!”

Spike was bellowing at her and tugging on her mane. Beside him, a glowing message spell bobbed patiently in mid-air. She realized it must have been going on for several minutes, because he was breathing shakily, his scaled chest heaving. “Geez, what’s with you today, Twi?” he huffed, prompting her to grin sheepishly. She took the glowing communication spell in her magic, and the bubble of sound burst open.

“Sergeant Morning Star to Twilight Sparkle. We have located Rainbow Dash, and are proceeding to rendezvous point. Have relayed message to other search parties.”

Gently rewinding the magnificent scroll, she seized Spike in her magic and deposited him on her back. Then, levitating the last of the labeled specimens and the two lesser documents into her saddle bags, she set off to gather her security team.

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The stale air of the ruin whistled in her ears as she shot like an arrow down the narrow hallways, setting the crumbing busts of long dead ponies in their niches to trembling. Right, left, center fork, left again; she soon lost herself in the winding maze of masonry. The darkness grew deeper and deeper as she flew, until she was forced to rifle in her bag for one of the emergency light gems Twilight had packed for them all.

It felt so good to finally be getting somewhere, even if she didn’t know where that was. Dozens of side chambers flashed past, but she didn’t slow down to search them. She was sure that whatever awesome treasures this place held would be much further in. Only lame things like books and pottery were likely to be so close to the entrance, and after that endless trek through the Badlands, Rainbow Dash was absolutely fed up with lameness.

As she raced around yet another hairpin bend in the hallway, its floor rising steeply below her, a pair of large bronze doors rose suddenly from the gloom. She backpedaled frantically, wings beating the air in an effort to halt her momentum, but was too late to stop. With a resounding BONG, she rammed face-first into the thick metal, her world exploding into pain and blackness.

She lay there for what seemed like ages, stars exploding in her vision and her head spinning sickeningly. Eventually, her eyes began to focus once more. She groaned, her head pounding furiously. When her world finally stopped whirling, she rose shakily to her hooves, eyeing the double doors in cross-eyed annoyance.

Her annoyance melted away when she noticed the artwork decorating the portal. Scenes of strangely armored ponies locked in mortal combat with enormous monsters, massive armies waging endless war, and towering dragons were etched into the green-tinged bronze, each combatant armed with a staggering array of different weapons. Whips, spears, bows; she even saw a few weapons she didn’t recognize, such as orbs with sunbursts etched in them and odd curved blades strapped to the wings of pegasi and the horns of unicorns.

The awesomeness of the etchings impressed Rainbow. Her impact had pushed one of the doors ajar, as well as leaving a sizeable dent in it. Sure that this chamber held something truly radical and unable to remember how to get back anyway, Dash shoved the heavy metal open with her shoulder, the ancient hinges groaning in protest.

The odor of dust and decay rushed out of the darkness beyond the doorway. The sterile white light of her enchanted gem revealed a low-ceilinged, narrow chamber. Numerous side rooms separated by crumbling iron bars dotted the wall furthest away from her, while a few arched doorways populated the wall to her right. Several brass desks coated in rough patches of reddish rust filled the center of the floor. From the ceiling hung crooked metal bars, a few still sporting threadbare rags that had perhaps been flags or tapestries long ago.

To her consternation, there were no traps or puzzles to be seen as she trotted briskly through doorway. The room she found herself in was apparently the ancient equivalent of a police station. The barred chambers along the far wall proved to be cells in some dilapidated jail, and held nothing more impressive than a few stone benches. The desks were equally barren of anything of note, save for a few scrolls she was sure the eggheads would drool over. ‘This is weak!’ she thought to herself, ‘Such awesome pictures on the door and this is all that’s here?’

Abandoning the main hall, Dash made her way to the empty archways along the right-hoof wall. The first appeared to be an office of some sort; spotted brass filing cabinets coated in thick crusts of corrosion surrounded the jagged remnants of a desk, and their drawers would not budge. The walls in the second chamber were studded with the sharp stumps of ancient pipes; this was clearly the station’s shower room. She would never have believed something so ancient could still stink, but one whiff of the fetid, moldy reek in that place had her retching as she beat a hasty retreat.

The third archway still sported a single bronze door, hanging crooked on its busted hinges, wide open. The etchings on this door were mostly faded with time, though a few weird, spiky glyphs were still visible on the coppery green surface. When she brushed past it and entered the final chamber along the wall, Rainbow’s jaw dropped.

She was in an antiquated armory. A vast array of weaponry still hung from metal pegs on the walls, rotted on brass stands, and rested on crumbling stone tables. Most were in disrepair from countless centuries of neglect, but here and there the light from her gem glinted on the dull handle of a whip or the rusted points of spears and arrowheads. Several shelves had collapsed along one wall, dropping a couple dozen of the sunburst-adorned spheres she had seen in the mural etched into the double doors at the entrance; their thin ceramic shells had smashed upon impact, and black smears of carbon coated the floor and walls near them.

She made her way along the aisle that threaded its way between the mounds of moldering armaments, wide eyes pouring over them, searching for anything salvageable. Here was her treasure trove! ‘I’m totally gonna win at getting artifacts now!’ she gloated internally. Surely Twilight would come back with some snore-fest of a book, and Fluttershy probably wouldn’t find anything, being too scared to go into the ruins to search.

As she neared the end of the armory, a particularly large pile of aged weapons caught her attention. The mountain of metal reached most of the way towards the ceiling, and from the center of the pile the gleam of a blade shone, sheen untarnished by the millennia. With a flap of her wings, Dash was airborne, reaching; yet before she could grasp it between her hooves, she stopped, suddenly thoughtful.

‘This is exactly the sort of place there would be a booby trap if this was a Daring Doo book,’ she mused. Suddenly cautious, she hovered over the mound, eyes raking the nearby walls and ceiling for suspiciously loose stones or seemingly empty holes where spikes might be waiting to shoot out at her. After a few minutes of searching for tripwires and pressure plates, she shrugged, grasped the point of the blade between her hooves, she tugged experimentally.

With a shriek of metal grinding against metal, the entire pile tottered towards her. Panic flared in her chest as she zipped away, and she felt a soft FWOOSH of air ruffling her feathers as though somepony had blown on her wings. When she turned about, the entire pile had collapsed towards the center of the room, some of the broken swords quivering ominously with their points buried in the fresh carpet of shattered metal.

Heart thundering in her chest at the near-miss, she drifted over the debris. At the bottom of the mound, exposed in the slide, rested a long, thick stone chest, banded and hinged in bright brass. She fluttered down and tried the lid. It resisted at first, but with her prodigious wing power she was able to lift the heavy stone and open the container.

Inside, resting atop faded but still plush-looking cushions of deep crimson velour, was a glittering spear. The head was shaped to resemble the fronds of the palm trees typical of the oases common to Saddle Arabia; flanking the sharp central blade was flanked by twin bladed leaves of bronze, curving gracefully inwards at the tips. A sharp spike adorned the end of the grooved bronze shaft, and both the spike and the head were engraved with coiling, arabesque vines.

Rainbow’s hooves trembled as she lifted the weapon from the stone sarcophagus that had preserved it through the ages. It was heavier than she thought it would be; were it not for the thick fur wrapped below the head, the polearm would have slipped down her forelegs and caught her in the leaf-shaped blades. Tightening her grip, she raised it again.

The light from her gem caught the sapphires glinting in the golden bands at the base of the head and the bottom of the shaft. Her racing mind seemed to sharpen and calm as a sudden urge rose within her. Tucking the shaft beneath one wing and supporting the weight of the weapon with her foreleg, she lowered her head and took aim at the nearby pile of shattered sunburst jars.

As she began her awkward charge, a hot, electric feeling shot through her, as bracing as the adrenal rush of her most death-defying aerial stunts. Her speed was hindered by her loping gate, but her remaining wing aided her in building up momentum.

When her spear impacted the ceramic, a jolt shot through her shoulders. The head of the spear disappeared into the potsherds, and the pile exploded into a rain of sharp shards. The crash of her collision sent her flying to her rump. The shaft of her polearm shot from her grasp, and stood quivering from the center of the pile.

A noise from the antechamber brought her bounding back to her hooves. She quickly retrieved her weapon, sparing one thankful glance to ensure no damage had been done from the clumsy attack, and spun to face whatever storybook monster she was sure would be bearing down on her any moment. Her lips split into an eager grin.

When Guard Sergeant Morning Star entered the room, she found her quarry glaring her down, ornate spear lowered for a killing strike. There was no time to call out a greeting or a warning before she charged. Moments before the brash young pegasus ran her through, the experienced career soldier twisted to one side, angling her croupier so that the blades glided harmlessly over her shoulder. Nevertheless, the curved leaf blades managed to slip just under her chamfron, leaving a shallow cut below her left ear.

With her spear knocked aside, Rainbow’s guard was open. Morning Star slammed her hoof into Dash’s face, connecting just above her left eye and sending her sprawling. Shaking her head bemusedly, the sky-blue mare seemed to realize what was going on. Her eyes went wide with horror, and seconds later she was airborne again, babbling excuses and fussing over the blood trickling down Morning Star’s cheek. “I… But… I thought…”

“What the buck was that about?!” shouted the Guard Sergeant, causing the usually contentious pegasus to tremble. “I… I thought that you… that you were a monster!”

The absurdity of the statement stunned her. It was something she would have expected of Fluttershy, but even cocksure, naïve Rainbow Dash should have been more composed than that. “Oh for the love of Luna…” Then, when she saw Dash’s lip trembling slightly, she added more gently, “I know this place is unnerving, Ms. Dash, but please try not to skewer anyone else.”

Her horn sparked to life. The golden glow of her magic blossomed from the tip, forming three glowing bubble that bobbed at her side. She cleared her throat. “Sergeant Morning Star to Twilight Sparkle, Corporal Redhoof, and Captain Frostwing. We have located Rainbow Dash, and are proceeding to rendezvous point. Have relayed message to other search parties.” With another surge of magic, she sent the message spells zooming back down the corridors to their marks.

Glancing at the beautiful spear Rainbow had retrieved from the ground, Morning Star motioned for her to follow, and led the way back to where her squad was scouring the security office behind them.

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Captain Frostwing’s party was the last to emerge from the tunnels into the gathering gloom of late afternoon. The fresh air was rapidly cooling, and beyond the mighty archway stars were beginning to show above the glowing red ember of the setting sun. She found the others at the designated rendezvous point at the mouth of the gateway, and made a beeline for the knot of ponies gathered around Twilight Sparkle and her friends.

Rainbow watched apprehensively as Frostwing noticed Morning Star being bandaged by the medic and stopped for a word with her subordinate. Dash could swear she heard the guard captain’s teeth grinding all the way from where she sat, hunched over her spear a dozen yards away. When Frostwing approached them, her eyes were cold with fury. Nevertheless, she remained respectfully silent when Twilight cleared her throat.

“Well everypony, now that that’s over with,” she began, sparing a quick annoyed scowl Rainbow’s way, “We should make our way back to the main camp. We have approximately twenty-three minutes before the sun officially sets, which should give us plenty of time. Tomorrow, I’d like to relocate the camp to the mouth of this gatehouse, and begin a more thorough investigation of the interior.”

Frostwing opened her saddlebag then, digging out a small, stained journal and hoofing it over to Twilight. “Speaking of our investigations, Ms. Sparkle, I thought you might like to have a look at this. It seems we weren’t the first ponies to discover this place after all.” Twilight read the name sewn into the cover of the book, and began to hyperventilate. “Frostwing! Wh..Where did you get this?”

“In an abandoned camp down one of the side tunnels my squad was assigned to search. I can lead you there tomorrow once we reestablish base camp.” Unable to remain contrite any longer in the face of her curiosity, Dash tilted her head to one side and asked, “Uh, Twi? What’s with the book?”

“This journal… It belonged to Brook Heart, a famous explorer who went missing searching for Petrot about sixty years ago,” Twilight explained breathlessly, still eyeing the tome as rapturously as she had the ornate scroll that was still tucked into her saddlebags, “It seems he found it. But why he would leave his journal behind, I’m not really sure.”

“Um… that’s really interesting, Twilight, but, um… could we maybe get going back to camp, please?” piped up Fluttershy, blue eyes darting about the deepening shadows nervously. “I don’t want to get lost. In the desert. At night.” Smiling reassuringly in her fearful friend’s direction, Twilight nodded, and motioned for them to make their way back.

Even before they reached the camp, they could tell that something was amiss. Half the tents were still packed, or strewn about in a disheveled heap. Several cook fires were being lit, while a few ponies picked up scattered equipment from the nearby dunes. Hurrying up, Twilight and her group were met by a bone white pegasus guard. His face was an impassive, frowning mask as he made his report.

Al-Fahoof, and all of the Saddle Arabians they had brought with them, had left, and had taken half the supplies with them.