Thorns of Stone

Expedition Record: Day 5

7:12 AM

Despite working all night, Flawless Star and his team could not find anything wrong with the submarine. Numerous tests have been run and run again, and all the systems work fine. There’s no logical reason why the warning light came on, but it doesn’t matter; we’re going down again. We’re launching in ten minutes.

9:30 PM

By the gods… I can’t believe it.

We recovered an artifact.

When we reached the irregularity in the field of thorns, we hovered above it and used our most powerful radar to scan what was beneath; it was difficult for the radar to penetrate, but the image that came back revealed that about ten feet below the cluster was a small, hollow space, with a rectangular object standing upright in the seafloor.

With the object identified, Flawless sent the drone out to try and reach the object, a task that was much easier said than done: the thorns were interlocked so tightly that there was seemingly no way through. For almost an hour Flawless maneuvered the drone around the thorns in search of a gap, a hole, anything. until he finally managed to find the smallest of gaps. I didn’t think the drone was going to fit, but I didn’t tell him that; it was worth risking our drone if we could retrieve something, and, Flawless managed to get the drone through, retrieve the object, and squeeze both through and back to the submarine. We shot up back to the surface, got onto the boat, and took the object to the onboard lab to begin our analysis.

The object we have retrieved is a cuboid about three feet in height and five inches in diameter. It’s composition is unknown, but appears to be similar to obsidian rock (like the thorns, our attempts to chip off a piece are frustratingly futile). Despite its size, the object is surprisingly light, weighing five pounds at most, but what is most extraordinary about this object is it’s sides: carved into them are a series of pictograms depicting... beings that I have never seen in any other illustrations or drawings from throughout Equus’ history. The figures are not equine, serpentine, birdlike, or even aquatic, nor are they bipedal or quadrupeds. They are unlike anything I have ever seen before! But it’s not just the pictograms that fascinate me: there are symbols carved into the cuboid’s side as well, ones that I haven’t seen before in any language or ancient tongue!

Right now, we are speeding back towards the mainland while my peers on the yacht remain to continue studying the field of thorns. Once we arrive at [REDACTED], we will take the cuboid to Canterlot for further analysis and study. Perhaps Princess Twilight Sparkle will be able to use her alicorn magic to help us get an idea of how old it may be, and the Canterlot archives might posses something that can help us decipher the symbols. And while we may find some answers, I almost don’t want there to be any; at the risk of sounding presumptuous, we may be in possession of an object created by a species that has been lost to time!

Words cannot describe my excitement at this magnificent discovery: To hold something that may be billions of years old… It is the greatest moment of my career, and possibly my life! There are so many more tests to do, scans to be taken, and other procedures that must be carried out, but at this moment I just want to gaze upon this beautiful object and never look away. This is the sort of find that most explorers and historians dream of – myself included – but never find. But fate has decided to bless me, and given me a gift that will be studied, admired, and pondered over by all of Equus for decades, perhaps centuries to come! I could ask for no greater gift than to know that my place has been written into the history books as the pony who found the most extraordinary artifact in history!

No matter what happens in the days, weeks, and months to come, at this moment in time I am the happiest pony alive!