It was a clear, sunny morning, and Sugarcube Corner was quiet. Only a few tables were occupied, and a low murmur of jovial conversation permeated the air. Maud Pie sat at a table in the corner, her eyes deadpan, in silence. Compared to the pastel colors of the room and the other ponies around her, her unobtrusive light gray coat and her relaxed state of mind made her hard to notice. She simply observed, content to enjoy the ambiance without contributing to it. A navy blue frock covered most of her body, including her cutie mark of a large, diamond-shaped gray boulder that almost blended in with her coat. Thrown over her back was a hiking backpack, mostly empty save for a bedroll and a silicone saddlebag to store water. Her short-cropped lavender mane was washed clean and lightly combed, as she always left it just before an excursion. Her teal eyes gazed calmly toward the back of the room, where a clattering of pots and pans could be heard alongside someone humming a chipper tune of morning contentment.
A flash of pink flew past the open door to the kitchen, and a moment later Pinkie Pie stepped through, carrying two platters of cupcakes. She bounced across the room to Maud's table, the cupcakes briefly flying off the platters with each bounce, only to land right back where they started.
"Breakfast is served~!" Pinkie exclaimed in a singsong voice. "Check out these beauties! I call them Sister Swap Sweets!"
With a flourish, Pinkie plopped the cupcakes with rumpled, pink frosting in front of Maud, before placing her own platter of gray and somehow... jagged cupcakes in front of herself. Maud almost wished she could try the rock-shaped ones, but a moment's glance at her own Pinkie-themed pastries brought the corners of her lips into a small smile. The smile grew slightly wider when she took a bite, and the explosive flavors of Pinkie's expert baking melted over her tongue.
"Soooooooooo~" Pinkie pushed her face close to her sister. "Care to tell me more about this ~suuuuper seeeecret~ job the Princesses themselves gave you?" She scooted closer, her eyes widening. "Ooh! Ooh! Let me guess... you've been selected by the Equestrian Secret Service to use your rock powers to defeat a rock monster that's been stealing all the rocks in Equestria!" She leaned in even closer. "Or maaaaybe there's a newly discovered Element of Harmony: the Element of Minerals! And the Princesses want you to be its bearer, but you have to pull it out of a massive boulder with your bare hooves!"
Maud didn't flinch as Pinkie's snout bumped into her own. Her deadpan eyes didn't hold any clear emotion towards this invasion of personal space. In a calm tone, Maud replied, "It's not a secret, Pinkie. The Princesses hired me to do a field survey of the geology underlying the Castle of the Two Sisters."
Pinkie pulled back with a sharp, exaggerated gasp. "You're studying rocks in the EVERFREE FOREST!? No. Way! That's like, twenty percent more dangerous than Ghastly Gorge! You remember what happened last time we went there, you almost got eaten by a quarray eel!"
Maud looked down and took another large bite of her cupcake. "Itsh not dansheroush, Pinkie." She gulped down her bite. "I'm working with two other experienced geologists. I won't be out there on my own."
Pinkie leaned in again, face to face in a way that would have been off-putting to anyone but her sister. "Ohhh! Great!" She looked around the room. "So... where are they? Is it Lyra and Bon Bon?" The two mares in question looked around in confusion upon hearing their names, but Pinkie had already turned her hyperactive attention back to her sister.
"No." Maud looked placidly out the window. "We agreed to meet right here, actually. They should be here in just-"
The door to Sugarcube Corner flew open with a bang, and a hush momentarily fell onto the few morning patrons. A light blue pegasus stallion zipped inside, his wings humming, floating in the air just a foot off the floor. His flanks were laden with heavy saddlebags, bulging with digging tools, brushes, bottles labeled '10% HCl', and sheets of loose-leaf grid paper. His ocean-blue mane and tail were slightly disheveled, as if he had just gotten back from a camping trip and run a comb through a few times to look presentable. He bore a cutie mark which appeared to be two large adjacent squares of dirt, one of them grinding up against the other's downward motion. Just behind him, a hulking, dust-brown unicorn plodded into the pastry shop, a massive hiker's backpack strapped to his barrel, seeming to weigh not much more than a feather to him. He had rough stubble along his jaw and a short-cropped ash-gray mane and tail. His cutie mark was a wall of jagged stone with a hint of grass at the very top.
They quickly spotted Maud and Pinkie, and after a brief glance to each other, they trotted up to the corner table. The murmur of conversation resumed as the large unicorn sat himself down on the floor in front of the table, not bothering with a chair. He spoke with a deep, gravelly voice. "Hello! Are you Maud Pie?"
"She sure is!" Pinkie exclaimed, words tumbling out in a cascade before Maud could even open her mouth. "And I'm her sister, Pinkie Pie! Welcome to Ponyville! I'd throw you both a party but Maud says you're all heading out on your secret mission to defeat the rock-stealing rock monster today, and it's not like you're going to live here or anything so I'll just throw you a surprise party once you get back!" She beamed.
The unicorn raised his eyebrows with a grunt. "Rock... monster? Surprise party? Huh, well it's not going to be a surprise now... but anyway, nice to meet you Pinkie. I'm Sheer Cliff, but you can call me Cliff."
The blue pegasus fluttered over and landed in one of the empty seats. "And I'm Slipstrike Fault! Uh, but you can just call me Fault."
"I'm Maud Pie. You can call me Maud." said Maud.
All three of the others gave her a look. Maud stared back at them blankly. Several long moments passed, before Pinkie cleared her throat. "Ahem. Well you two look hungry! Wanna try some of my Sister Swap Sweets?"
The two newcomers looked at each other in confusion before Fault spoke up. "Uhh... nah, we ate before we got here. And we have several weeks worth of rations in Cliff's backpack."
The bulky unicorn grumbled. "Only because you were too much of a wimp to carry any of it."
"Hey!!!" Fault practically squeaked with indignation. "I'm carrying all of the tools we're going to need. We can't risk spilling food all over the runic matrix for the core sampling drill. If any of these runes get scratched, the mana stored up could spill out and cause an explosion! Runic devices need to be treated with extreme caution." He crossed his forelegs haughtily with a huff.
"You can transfer some of the food supplies to my bag." Maud offered, uncinching the top of the container. "I've packed light."
With a nod and an appreciative grunt, Cliff opened his own bag and levitated several dozen pounds worth of dried foodstuffs and water bottles into Maud's, until both were carrying a roughly even load. Maud didn't seem to notice the difference as she stood up. "All right, let's get going. We need to make it to the site by evening."
"Wait! You're leaving already?" Pinkie pouted. "I didn't even get to hear all the juicy details about the secret mission!"
"It's not a secret," Fault rolled his eyes. "The Princesses are planning to renovate their ancient castle to celebrate their reunion, but they need to have an idea of the geological characteristics of the area before they know if it's safe to undergo such an extensive construction and restoration project. Especially in... the Everfree Forest." He shivered visibly, from his hooves all the way to his mane.
Cliff let out a chuckle that sounded more like a landslide Maud had witnessed while she was working towards her Rocktorate. "Relax, kid. That's why they hired the Dream Team! You're the speedy scout who can check ahead for danger, I'm the magical muscle that'll scare away anything that tries to mess with us!"
Maud stared at both of them. An uncomfortably long moment passed before Cliff coughed and spoke up. "Oh, right, and... uhh... Maud is the new graduate. Offering a fresh perspective on a unique situation!"
Maud blinked slowly, then let out an indifferent breath. She turned to Pinkie and wrapped her hooves around her neck. "I love you, Pinkie. I'll be back before you know it."
Pinkie leaned in with a hum and a nuzzle. "Aww, I know you can handle this, Maud. You'll kick some serious rock monster tail! And I'll have some more delicious Sister Swap Sweets for you when you get back!" They held their embrace for a few more moments, before Maud split off to join her new geology team as they trotted out of Sugarcube Corner.
As Pinkie stood by the door waving, Maud felt a warmth spread through her chest as the smallest of smiles curled onto her lips. She trotted alongside her two companions, out of Ponyville and across the expanse of open field towards the Everfree Forest, certain that she would see her sister again soon.
She wouldn't.
The dream team made good progress throughout the morning and into the afternoon. The trail through the forest was overgrown in many areas, thick with lush and thorny flora, but none of them were afraid of a few scrapes. Maud could occasionally hear unseen creatures shuffling through the underbrush, mostly far away within the darkness between the thick trunks, but sometimes rustling just a little closer. She felt the terrain beneath their hooves begin to curve ever so slightly downward, as if the forest wanted to pull them in deeper.
After another hour, the light began to dim. Maud knew it couldn't be evening just yet; they still had several hours before sunset. The trees were growing more closely together, the canopy above choked with leaves, allowing less and less light to penetrate the murky woods. Fault began to fly scouting laps, zipping ahead for a few minutes before zooming behind, then returning to report that the way forward was still clear and they weren't being followed, before scouting ahead once more. As the darkness deepened, they quickened their pace.
In an effort to break a little tension, Cliff broke the silence. "So Maud, I hear you just graduated," he rumbled, giving her a sidelong grin. "Bet that makes ya feel on top of the world!"
Maud looked back coolly. "No. I still feel like I'm walking on the ground." she droned.
Cliff barked a gravelly guffaw. "Ha! I see, so you're a down-to-earth type. I bet that sense of humor served you well through your education. A Rocktorate is a serious achievement! And your very first assignment is a commission from the Princesses themselves?" He let out a long whistle. "That Rocktorate is really pulling a lot of weight then, huh?"
"It's a framed piece of paper. It can't pull anything." Maud intoned, her expression as dull as a river-weathered pebble.
Cliff let out a weaker laugh, which wavered as Maud's deadpan gaze bore into him. For a moment he just stared at her, then coughed uncomfortably. "Ah... huh... all right then." He trotted stiffly, clearing his throat awkwardly and looking anywhere except at Maud. She continued undisturbed, preferring a little silence.
The silence was shortly shattered as Fault zipped up from behind, panting heavily. "I was scouting behind us when I heard a growl from somewhere... I got out of there real quick!" he gasped for breath.
Cliff rolled his eyes. "So you don't even know what might be chasing us, then?"
"Well if I'd stuck around I would have either gotten myself eaten, or led the beast right to us," Fault huffed. "You're lucky I'm fast and cautious! You should be thanking m-"
Fault was abruptly cut off by a loud crunch coming from the direction from which he'd just flow in. With a growl and a crash, two hulking beasts lumbered out of the murk. They were more than twice the size of the geologists, and yet moved with lupine grace, stepping lithely over the scraggly underbrush that would impede any fleeing prey. Instead of rippling muscles, their bodies were made up of thick, twisted branches, chunks of rotting wood, leaves and moss and lichen. A pair of low, guttural growls emanated from snarling jaws filled with sharp hardwood stakes stained dark with dried blood.
Fault's eyes shrank to pinpricks as his voice shriveled into a squeak. His wings locked to his sides as his whole body froze in terror. Next to him, Cliff turned to face the monsters. "Timberwolves," he rumbled. Narrowing his eyes, he twisted his neck back and forth, letting out several loud pops. "The wild hunters of the Everfree."
Maud took a step back, spreading her hooves to shoulder-width, bending her knees ever so slightly, ready to move at a moment's notice. She'd heard of these fearsome beasts from her sister and several caring warnings from townsfolk, but she had to admit they were much more intimidating than even the most paranoid descriptions had portrayed. The timberwolves stared down their prey, emerald eyes glinting with malice in the murk. Their wooden limbs groaned as they began to advance, moving to circle their potential feast, searching for strengths and weaknesses.
Cliff stood tall, letting loose a growl that sounded not unlike his wild foes. "Luckily for us I came prepared. Let's see if they can handle a little battle magic where the sun don't shine!" With gritted teeth, he spread his front hooves into a fighting stance, squaring his shoulders and lighting his horn with an angry amber corona. "Take... this!!!"
With a quiet pop and a flash, Cliff's corona collapsed. He stood there for a moment, his confident grin slowly sliding off his face. The timberwolves looked at each other in confusion, before turning their snarls back toward the small, juicy morsels that had dared to defy them.
"We're so dead! We're so dead! Oh sweet Celestia," Fault whimpered.
Cliff backed away slowly, his eyes wide. "Oh crud, the damn wild Everfree magic is interfering with my flashbang spell! We're gonna have to split, or else our hides are gonna get split! Fault, get into the air and fly back to town for help. Maud, be ready to ru-"
"Get down." Maud ordered, her deadpan eyes slightly narrowed. Her hoof reached into the front pocket of her frock and withdrew a gray, hoof-sized rock. Cliff looked at her in surprise for a brief moment, then quickly ducked his head as Maud threw the rock up into the air, performed an elegant pivot, and caught the falling projectile with a slam from her back hoof. The rock tore through the forest murk, shearing directly through the chest of the first timberwolf, crushing branches into pulp as it tore loose the creature's wooden heart. The stone missile continued through the air and smashed right into the second beast, shredding its thick wooden armor and rupturing its magical core with extreme precision. Both timberwolves lurched, their eyes widening for a moment in shock and pain. As the green light of their wild magic faded away, both bodies collapsed into disorganized piles of inert hardwood.
"...Holy schist!" squeaked Fault, dropping to the ground. "You turned those monsters into firewood!"
Cliff's jaw followed Fault to the ground as he gaped at Maud. "How... how did you do that?!" he asked incredulously.
"Rock farmers are just built different." Maud droned, trotting right up to the twisted detritus. She reached into the pile and pulled out the stone projectile that had felled the two beasts. She cradled it in her forelegs, crooning, "Good job, Boulder. I'm lucky to have you always here to protect me." After tucking her pet rock back into his pocket, she turned and stepped past her stunned companions, barely giving them a glance before continuing along the path at an even canter, completely undisturbed.
Whether due to Maud's intimidating presence or just dumb luck, the Everfree elected not to bother the three travelers with any further disturbances. Within the hour, they stumbled through a thorny thicket to find themselves standing before a large ravine. Beyond the rotting, dilapidated bridge that spanned the chasm was their destination.
The Castle of the Two Sisters was in ruins. Most of it had crumbled into a mass of collapsed stone, overgrown with vines and shrubbery. Two tall parapets were the only structures still intact, jet black and towering above the rubble sandwiched between them. Maud could make out hundreds of hoof-carved bricks, colored with varying hues of gray and blue, cracked with age and wear. Some sections of the walls were still standing, but most had been mangled, reduced to chaotic piles of broken stone. Roots and vines wrapped lovingly around the mess, providing some stability against the wind and rain, but also contributing to the continued breakdown and erosion of the structure. Soft sunset light painted the ruins in contrasting hues of calm orange and dull gray shadow.
Maud's eyes twinkled in the orange glow as she silently regarded the crumbling fortress. The towering parapets grasped at the first dim stars appearing in the sky as the broken stones sat in their piles, heavy with memory. The entire structure exuded a sense of ancient anticipation. Maud felt as if she were standing underneath a massive boulder resting for centuries on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the day when the wind would finally erode just enough material for the ridge to crumble and send the boulder crashing down. The wind whistled through the abandoned windows and gaps in the rubble, flowing past Maud's perked ears, whispering wordlessly of songs unsung and power unreclaimed.
Cliff let out a long whistle. "Now that's something to write home about!" He gave Maud and Fault a sidelong grin. "It's not every day you get to see a structure almost as old as the Princesses themselves. I'm surprised so much of it is still standing!"
"Before you say anything, there's no way I'm sleeping in that thing," Fault asserted, crossing his hooves over his chest. "It looks like it's ready to crumble at a moment's notice, or cast some kind of evil spell. Either way, definitely a deathtrap!"
"Well would you rather camp outside with no cover, just waiting to become a free meal for more timberwolves? Or worse?" Cliff grumbled, then let out a sigh. "Though I suppose you're right. Beautiful as it may be, that castle sure ain't in good condition. Maybe we're better off finding a nearby cave."
Maud spoke up. "I think we should camp in the ravine just below us." she pointed her hoof beneath the rotting bridge. "It's sheltered from bad weather and dangerous creatures. It also gives us an excellent way to get a look deeper into the rock in this area."
Fault and Cliff looked at one another, then at Maud. Fault nodded with agreement as Cliff gave Maud a beaming grin. "Heh, well now, looks like you're one heck of a problem solver!" he rumbled. "I'm glad we've got your perspective to rely on. Let's find an entrance and make camp. Fault, gonna need you to fly some of our gear down there when you can."
The geologists spent the last of the day's fading light setting up camp. They chose a spot about halfway into the ravine, planting their canvas canopy behind a bend where the stone would block them from view from above and offer cover from the ravine's entrance. After years of wilderness excursions, Maud was accustomed to the simple comfort of a sleeping bag laid out over a thin bedroll. With a whole day of walking along with a fight against forest monsters under her belt, she had no trouble drifting off to sleep.
The dream team spent a few days mapping out the area. Fault used his wings to get a bird's eye view of the whole terrain, and drew up a simple field map outlining the different outcrops in the area. Maud and Cliff explored each outcrop diligently, gathering samples and identifying any types of exposed rock. They slowly filled in their survey map with different colors and textures, noting the angle of each outcrop, estimating the age of the rock, and building a history of the earth beneath the castle.
Maud lost herself in the work. This was the exciting adventure she had been looking for! She extended their geologic history into a model in her mind, peering deep into the earth and far into the past. The majority of the stone underneath the castle was comprised of hornfels, a type of metamorphic rock formed at high temperature and low pressure. This stone had once been near to the hot, pressurized magma of the earth's mantle, just close enough to absorb some of its heat but not close enough to fully join the ocean of molten rock. These conditions yielded a somewhat shiny, fine-grained texture. Maud had hours to absorb every detail, the beautiful blue-gray sheen of this particular outcrop, the tiny grains of crystal scattered through the stone, unfoliated, facing every which way in a dance of natural randomness.
The first major discovery was that their ravine hadn't formed naturally. There was no sign of a river in the area that could have carved out a canyon over centuries, and the walls were far too rough and jagged to be the result of erosion. Instead it seemed as if a massive claw had torn right into the earth, gouging out a coarse maw. The geologists stood just outside their camp, looking up at the tear rent all around them.
"This place is unnatural! What kind of tectonic forces could do something like this?" Fault asked nervously, his wings buzzing like a wary hummingbird.
"That's what we're here to discover." said Maud with quiet excitement. "It could be a new form of tectonic activity exclusive to the Everfree."
"We're not here to write a dissertation," Fault complained, crossing his hooves. "We're here to find out if any dangerous tectonic activity could happen in this location, and it seems pretty clear to me that this area is unsafe!"
"But there's no evidence of volcanism or large-scale earthquakes," Cliff grunted in frustration. "Besides, we've barely scratched the surface. We've only surveyed the exposed outcrops so far. We can't throw the towel in before we even get our hooves wet!"
"Just look at this wall!" Fault raised his voice, gesturing to the wall of the ravine next to their campsite. "It's spiderwebbed with cracks. I bet they extend further in, shooting through the entire area, just waiting to collapse into a landslide or a sinkhole!"
"Oh, quit being a wet blanket, Fault," Cliff rumbled loudly. "I bet they're superficial cracks formed by whatever carved out this ravine."
"Let's take a core sample right here to find out." Maud's calm voice cut through the argument.
Cliff nodded sagely. "Right you are, Maud. The only way to know what's behind this wall is to take a look for ourselves. Fault, could you go grab the core sampling drill?"
Fault huffed, but complied. He hummed through the air to their campsite, returning a moment later carrying a large, roughly cylindrical object. The drill was a reflective lime green, with a mouth grip protruding from the back. The front tapered down to a thin metal axle, connected to a long hollow cylinder, easily twice the length of the body of the device. Maud could tell this was the drill bit, with a set of serrated teeth at the tip, designed to gouge through solid stone. The hollow space inside the cylindrical bit would end up filled with rock, ready to be broken off and pulled from the wall like a pencil pulled out of a pencil sharpener. The resulting cylinder of rock was called a core sample, and would let the geologists see a slice of what structures might lie deeper within the walls of the ravine. Maud had always enjoyed the process. It allowed her to check her mental projection of what existed deeper into the earth. There was almost always something surprising to be found in a good core sample.
Fault fiddled with the drill for a few moments, before calling to the others. "Ugh, looks like it's out of juice. Could you charge it up, Cliff?"
Lighting up his telekinesis, Cliff eased the drill out of Fault's grip and brought it closer. He inspected the dull purple symbols inlaid into the curved side, grunting softly and nodding slowly. "Looks like the thaumatic drift is stronger near the heart of the Everfree. It's caused the runes of capacity to drain the mana we stored up back in town. Give me a moment to recharge it."
Maud watched with detached interest as Cliff touched his horn to one of the runes near the base of the drill and began to feed it with the glow of his personal magic reserves. The runic matrix flashed, light dancing across the symbols in sharp, fast patterns, before the entire matrix began to glow a dim lavender. A moment later, Cliff brought his horn away and held the drill up. "Good to go," he grunted. "Just bite down on the activation rune to send all that mana into the drill bit."
Fault bit into the mouth grip. Light pulsed along the runes engraved into the drill. The serrated cylinder extending from the front began to whir as it spun faster and faster. Fault held the drill carefully in his front hooves as he flew several feet up the wall and began to push the tip of the drill bit into the hard stone. Maud looked on in appreciation as the blue-gray hornfels gave way before the rapidly spinning teeth. It took a few minutes to push the bit all the way in to its base, and when Fault again pulled the drill from the wall, a sharp crack echoed through the ravine. He bit down on the activation rune once more, and the drill slid to a stop.
Maud stepped forward, her eyes a little wider as she peered into the hollow end of the drill bit. She reached out and slid a smooth cylinder of gray-blue stone out of the hollow space. Fault and Cliff crowded closer, and the three geologists regarded the sample. The drill had provided them a view of the stone several feet into the wall of the ravine. It was the same hornfels through and through, but there were a few thin bands of quartz crosscutting the sample every few inches.
In her mind, Maud began to build a story. A river had deposited heavy sediments that would eventually be compressed, heated, and metamorphosed into hornfels. But, from time to time the river had carried silica-rich sediments that had been deposited in layers and formed the off-white cracks they could see today. Maud's head tilted in confusion; something about that story felt... off. If that had happened, the quartz banding would all be in the same direction, laid down in horizontal layers by the river. The cracks in this sample were angled all over the place, intersecting and crossing each other in many areas. Another possibility was that water rich in silica had seeped into the ground, depositing quartz and quartzite into pre-existing cracks in the stone. Such a situation would imply the cracks were formed from some other event, such as tectonic compression, or some sort of localized earthquake...
In an instant, the story clicked. Maud could see in her minds eye, that day over a thousand years ago, when two forces of nature had collided just a few hundred feet above where she now stood. "This was the site of Celestia's battle with Nightmare Moon." she broke the silence, her voice tinged with awe. "They must have caused a small earthquake, cracking the very stone beneath their castle. They probably carved out this ravine as well."
"You see, Cliff!?" Fault exclaimed. "I told you so! Look at all of these discontinuities. A battle between alicorns would obviously create some serious compressional forces in the area, probably causing numerous thrust-faults and reverse-faults deep underneath the castle. I'm shocked it's even still standing! There's no chance this run-down ruin is worth reviving."
Cliff groaned with annoyance. "Kid, we took one core sample. Put a little spring in those wings and take a few more cores before you start crying about the sky falling down!"
Maud let out an inaudible sigh as her coworkers fed into each other's fears and frustrations, spinning up yet another loud argument. This wasn't fun at all, nor was it an effective use of her time. She hadn't become a geologist to deal with people, and she decided she would rather enjoy a little more exploration, preferably on her own. She needed some time to process what she had just discovered. They were trotting through the scars of an ancient earth-shattering conflict, which had then been given a thousand years to form unique geological structures and conditions! It was the kind of study opportunity she had spent years working to cultivate. With quiet steps, she turned away from the clamor and began plodding deeper into the ravine.
It was easier to appreciate the natural beauty of their geological site when her ears weren't ringing with shouts. Maud continued her hike, enjoying the blue-gray grain of the surrounding stone. Her eyes followed a folded, cracked layer of quartz meandering along the ravine's left wall. It flowed like a frozen river through the jagged outcrops, slowly descending at a slight angle as she continued her steady journey. In her mind's eye, Maud projected it outward, deeper into the wall like a layer of oreo cream. After several minutes and several dozen hoofsteps, the layer eventually slid below the floor of the ravine. Where the quartz met the floor, Maud envisioned it extending further down into the earth, far beneath the stony ground. To most ponies, these dull walls of stone would be barely noticeable, but to Maud it was like standing on a titanic version of Pinkie's favorite layer cake, with a thick and gooey frosting sandwiched between two massive loaves of hornfels above and below. The corners of her mouth curved just a little upward as her gaze pulled her into a slow, quiet spin, taking in every detail.
Maud continued around a bend, the echoing voices of her arguing companions now muffled by distance and stone. Just past the curve, she spotted the end of the ravine, and noted how abruptly it tapered off into a V-shaped corner. Her eyes fell on a chunk of darkness at the very tip, and widened ever so slightly. Could that be a section of intrusive igneous rock, a jet-black basalt or perhaps a shard of obsidian? She calmly strode toward the sight, her heart fluttering with the thrill of discovery. As she neared the strange patch, she realized it wasn't a rock at all, but an empty space. Behind the corner of the ravine was a cave!
Maud peered inside, but the murky light of the Everfree, attenuated by the sheer walls of the ravine, was unable to penetrate the dark opening. She turned around, raised her voice just a few decibels, and called to her friends. "Fault. Cliff. Get over here. I found something interesting."
The muffled argument ceased, and a moment later Fault came zipping around the bend. "What is it, Maud?"
Maud simply raised a hoof, pointing toward the hole in the ravine wall. Fault flew closer, then backed away with a blanch. "Oh great, just great! First we have faults spiderwebbing through the whole area, and now caves? Gah, I told you this was an unsafe place, Cliff!"
Cliff trotted up to the other two geologists and peered an appraising eye into the aperture, then snorted. "We don't actually know how deep this goes, Fault. It could just be a short, dead end. Nothing to worry about."
"Or, it could be just the tip of a massive cave complex worming its way underneath the entire castle!" Fault exclaimed, raising his hooves and gesturing wildly to the ravine wall. "The whole thing could collapse if too many ponies step-"
"With geology, you can't let your imagination run too wild, kid," Cliff cut him off curtly. "The first rule in this field is, 'You don't know what you don't know'. Without drilling more cores or performing some ground-penetrating scans, we can't say for sure what's down there."
"Cast a hornlight orb into the opening." Maud intoned before Fault could stop sputtering long enough to continue the argument. "We can at least take a look right here."
Cliff grunted, then flared up his horn. A deep brown orb of light sprouted at the tip, then popped off and flew through the crack in the wall. The brightness increased as it flew several meters into the space, casting an eerie glow out onto the three observers. It looked like a baleful eye glaring at them, daring them to gaze back. Maud didn't hesitate to take up the offer, stepping forward and pushing her face up against the socket.
The floors and walls glowed a dull orange in Cliff's hornlight. They seemed to be made of the same plain hornfels as the rest of the ravine, nothing unexpected. There weren't even any strips of quartz to catch the eye. The cave seemed to slope slightly downward the further it went, and despite the ball of hornlight floating a dozen meters in, the circle of light it cast still faded into darkness at the far end. Clearly there was more to explore. Behind, Fault groaned with impatience as she took her sweet time to thoroughly investigate what she saw. She paid him no heed, focusing her attention on the shape of the cave. Near the front, the walls were just as jagged as the walls of the ravine, but further back...
Maud stepped away from the opening and gestured for her friends to take a look. "Do you two think the back of the cave looks... unexpectedly unnatural?"
"Finally, you let us take a turn," Fault pushed his way forward with a pout. He looked through the aperture for a minute or so, before pulling his head back, a look of unease coming over his features. "Yeah... looks like some kind of tunnel. Shaped like an arch, and dug out through the back of the cave."
"Hrrmgh?" Cliff grunted as he stepped up to the opening, taking his turn to explore the sight. He looked on for several minutes, tilting his head back and forth to get a new angle. Maud could see the glow of his hornlight grow dimmer as he presumably pushed the luminous sphere further into the cave.
"Huh!" came a grunt of surprise. Cliff pulled his head away and looked to Maud, eyes wide. "Definitely artificial! There's a completely straight tunnel back there, shaped like an arch just as Fault said. Somepony must've come back here and dug this out after the battle between Celestia and Nightmare Moon."
"Not after." Maud stated. "Before. Look around the hole we've been peeking through. This entire end of the ravine is fully intact hornfels. This tunnel must have been here already when the Princesses carved this ravine during their fight."
Indeed, the stone surrounding the hole blended seamlessly with the cracked ravine walls. Fault narrowed his eyes at the opening in the center, then crossed his front hooves in the air. "What about teleportation? A unicorn can teleport to anywhere they've been or can see, right? So somepony could have found this hole and just blinked themselves right in."
Cliff was already shaking his head. "No dice, kid. Not in the Everfree. Remember my failed flashbang spell? Magic here is fine for simple spells like hornlight, but it's way too unstable to risk something as complex as a teleport, especially into such an enclosed space. Even if somepony were powerful enough to pull it off, the thaumatic drift could easily force them to reappear halfway inside a wall."
Fault shivered as his eyes swept across the whole contiguous rock face. "Then... how did anypony get down there to dig it out? And... why?"
Maud's heart fluttered with excitement. It felt like a small butterfly in her chest, ready to leap out and fly right through that opening into discovery. "It was probably used to keep something important secret." she droned. "We should take a look inside."
Fault did a double take, his eyes bugging out of his head as he processed what he had just heard. "Are you serious Maud!? It could be dangerous! And illegal! Probably dangerously illegal!"
"Hrrrmmm..." Cliff's gravelly voice seemed intrigued. "Certainly not illegal, we were commissioned to perform a survey of this entire area, and if the Princesses wanted something kept secret, they surely would have done something to hide it by now. It's been at least a thousand years, assuming Maud has correctly guessed the time of the structure's origin." He spread his hooves wide to gesture at the full rock face. "I doubt we're going to be able to break through all of this though. Not without some serious drilling tools, maybe even some explosi-"
Maud took three steps forward, raised both her hooves, and drilled them into the rock face, pummeling like a jackhammer as chips of gray hornfels flew behind her in a rocky blizzard. The sharp clacking of hooves on stone mixed with the clatter of gravel rolling along the ground, echoing through the ravine as Maud worked away at the opening. Fault and Cliff gaped at her, at each other, then back at her as the opening grew to the size of a filly, then a small boulder, and finally to the size of a gruff, bulky geologist. Maud set her hooves down onto the now dusty floor of the ravine and looked nonchalantly toward her stunned companions. "There. Now we can all fit inside the cave." her voice droned at the usual low pitch and speed. Without missing a beat, she calmly stepped forward into the newly formed cave entrance.
"Wha... wha... whaa... howthebuckdidshedothat!?" Fault whimpered, holding onto Cliff's shoulders for support.
He just shook his head and began trotting after her, bringing along his hornlight. "Maud Pie is a special kind of pony, lad. Remind me to never piss her off."
"As if anypony could ever piss her off!" Fault squeaked as he flapped after Cliff. "I don't think she even has emotions!"
Maud felt butterflies in her stomach as she stepped languidly along the flat floor of the tunnel, Cliff's sphere of hornlight floating just above her head. The walls were pristinely smooth, as if they had been drilled away by a pony-sized core sampling drill. It was unnerving. As a geologist, most of the rock formations she explored were rugged, natural outcrops. They whispered of eons spent weathered by the wind, carved by erosion, grinded by glaciers. Any smoothness in the natural world of geology was a sort of organic, curved smoothness, like the meandering of a river sanding down the tough rock beneath it into an elegant canyon. This tunnel was something utterly alien to the depths of the earth they now crawled ever deeper into.
It didn't take the three geologists long to find their way to the end of the tunnel. The straight, polished walls suddenly broadened outward on either side and above, curving around to form an elliptical room, protruding further forward than wide. The ceiling was a stretched dome, taller than either of the other two dimensions of the space. The entire thing was completely smooth, save for something close to the shadowed far wall.
"Cliff, please brighten your light and raise it higher." Maud stated, her voice ever so subtly wavering with anticipation. Cliff obeyed, and grunted in awe. Fault's eyes grew to the size of dinner plates, and Maud stepped forward to regard the hulking monolith now clearly visible.
Sprouting from the floor at the far end of the room was a massive red obelisk. Its square base was beveled at a shallow angle, reaching up to twice Maud's height, creating a large trapezoidal face. Above this, the obelisk stretched almost all the way to the ceiling, tapering slowly up until the last few feet, capped with a squat square pyramid. It was made entirely of a stunning burnt-orange sandstone that Maud had never seen in her life. Slightly translucent and reflective, the pillar glowed dully with amber hornlight that scintillated along its surface, sending sparkling reflections onto every part of the curved room.
Maud's eyes twinkled with red shards of reflected light. "This looks like an entirely new type of crystal." she breathed with dulcet tone, barely keeping her excitement from overflowing into her voice. "I can't even tell if it's a rock or a crystal. It looks to have properties of both."
Fault flew toward the obelisk, then touched it gingerly. "It's coarse... like sandstone, but... fully crystalline, through and through," his voice just slightly louder than an awed whisper.
"Look at the front," Cliff murmured. "There's some kind of inscription."
Maud eventually tore her eyes away from the imposing carmine spire to gaze at its base. Indeed, inset into the closest trapezoidal face was a series of detailed carvings. The three geologists converged in front of the obelisk as Cliff dimmed his hornlight and brought it closer.
Two equine figures, elegant and gracefully serpentine, made up the outer edges of a circle. One faced upward, the other downward, such that each seemed to reach out with her front hoof to touch the other's sweeping tail. Each possessed a sharp point protruding from her head and a set of folded wings sprouting from her arched back. A sinuous line divided the circle in two teardrop-shaped halves, one half clearly associated with each alicorn. The teardrop on the right extended into the top part of the circle, containing a depiction of a large, blazing sun. The left teardrop curved underneath, holding a smaller image of a crescent moon. The near-perfect symmetry of the image was broken by the relative size of the celestial bodies. The sun seemed to be swollen well out of proportion, more than twice as large as the moon, and was surrounded by pointed frills and long, arcing rays. The modestly sized moon was quite the opposite, a series of double-lines gouging through it like cracks in shale. In fact, the depiction looked distinctly like the moon had been... shattered.
The geologists examined the inscription in awed stillness for several minutes. Fault was the first to break the silence. "What... do you think it means?" he asked in a low murmur.
"Those are clearly the Princesses, Celestia on the right and Luna on the left," Cliff rumbled. "But something's... off about their respective celestial bodies. That moon..."
"Maybe this was an object of worship." Maud breathed. "By some of the ancient ponies who revered Princess Celestia while shunning Princess Luna. Maybe this is a cultural remnant of the attitudes that lead to the rise of Nightmare Moon."
"If so," Cliff replied, "It's highly unlikely that this was constructed or placed here by either of the Princesses or anyone under their orders. Celestia didn't hate her sister, or think of her sun as superior. And Luna certainly wouldn't have created such a mural uplifting Celestia above herself."
"Well whoever put it here was clearly a supporter of Celestia," Fault pointed out. "The rust-red aesthetic just screams 'power of the sun'."
"We should take a small sample." Maud intoned, with a slight edge of excitement bubbling in her voice.
The other two geologists looked at her with bewilderment. "Uhm... are you sure about that?" Fault asked, incredulous. "This could be a priceless artifact!"
"I concur," Cliff grunted. "The whole point of this is to restore the castle, not destroy the Princess's property."
"Just a small one. Only an inch or two thick." said Maud. "We'll need a sample to know how old this thing is and what type of potentially undiscovered rock it's made from. Besides," she turned to fix her deadpan gaze onto Cliff. "You were the one who postulated it might not have been placed here by the Princesses."
Cliff grunted, then shrugged, and lit his horn. He levitated the core sampling drill out of his saddle harness as Fault fidgeted with discomfort. Maud sat herself carefully to the side of the obelisk, away from the front face containing the inscriptions. She then took the drill from the air with her hooves and positioned it carefully, perpendicular to the weathered, blank face, making sure to line it up by the bottom corner near the back where it couldn't possibly damage any of the delicate carvings. Holding a deep breath, Maud stilled the motion of her hooves. She held the drill with reverence, perfectly relaxed yet utterly still, just barely brushing against the crystal soon to be collected. With a careful lean of her head and a bite on the mouth trigger, a loud whirring noise filled the echoing space. She centered herself, then ever so slowly began to ease the drill into the stone. The whirring became an agonized grinding screech as the drill chewed away at the material. The sound filled the stretched dome top to bottom, echoing even more loudly as Maud added more and more pressure. Her ears folded in concentration as she realized that the obelisk was made of surprisingly tough, dense rock. This was nothing like the hornfels making up the walls of the ravine and cave, which felt hard underhoof but became pliant under the rapidly-rotating teeth of the core sampler. It took a large portion of Maud's considerable strength to force the drill bit even a quarter inch into this deceptively dense red sandstone crystal.
Suddenly her concentration was shattered by a yell from behind her. One of her colleagues was trying to shout something, but the cacophonous scream of the device mere inches from her ears made it impossible to tell what they were saying. With a single frustrated exhale, Maud eased back on the drill, slowly and carefully pulling it from the stone before it had even cut a half inch. Once it came free, she bit down on the activation rune to cut the flow of mana to the rotating drill bit. As it spun to a stop, she whipped her head around and glared blankly at her two companions.
Cliff was staring behind her with wide eyes, slack jawed. Fault was in the air, flapping like a panicked hummingbird as far from the obelisk as he could get in the small expanse of the cave. "Maud! It's GLOWING!" he shrieked.
Maud whipped her head back toward the obelisk. In the center, several feet above her, a deep red glow had begun to emanate from the edges of the structure. A moment later, the entire top section of the monolith seemed to slide inward, compressing into itself to reveal a thin, vertical line of crackling blood-red light. Eyes truly wide for the first time in several months, Maud eased the core sampling drill into her mouth and took a step back. A moment later, the line of light expanded, rotating around itself to form a disk in the air. The edges of the disk were a bright, bloody ring, while the center seemed a more muted shade of rose. For a moment, Maud thought she could see a translucent image in the oval, a strange ocean of milky waves.
"Get the BUCK away from that thing!" Cliff bellowed behind her. Maud heard the flapping of wingbeats and clattering, frantic hoofsteps, and she didn't need to be told twice. She dropped the drill, turning to flee the crackling mass of energy mere feet above her.
She didn't even make it two steps away. The disk went silent for a fraction of a heartbeat before an overwhelmingly loud bass tone thrummed around and through her. One of her friends let out a harsh, panicked yelp, and Maud gasped as her hooves left the floor, her body struck with weightlessness as something sucked her through the air. She felt vertigo, spinning through the cave. For a moment she was one of Pinkie's rubber ducks swirling around the bathtub drain. The world spun, flashing from pitch darkness to blinding light. Maud scrunched her eyes closed against the brightness and the nausea. For a moment, all was still. Then, she felt the pull of gravity take control of her once more, before her breath was stolen by a jarring impact.
Reeling from the last several seconds, Maud swam momentarily through a haze of dizziness, confusion, and overwhelming heat. She coughed, and blinked open her eyes before slamming them shut again. A pure, blinding glare of light pierced her eyelids, painting her whole vision the same red as the magical energy that had just taken her into its grasp. Her breath heaved, and heat permeated her lungs, as if she was breathing air directly from the cake oven in Sugarcube Corner. A small groan escaped her lips as she curled her legs beneath her, pushing aside a coarse, powdery substance.
After a dozen or so panting breaths, Maud cracked her eyes slowly open. The first thing she saw was sand. White sand, sloping upward in front of her. She seemed to have been quite lucky to land in it, as the countless grains had softened the impact of her fall. She now lay, dazed, in a shallow crater, piles of alabaster granules heaped all around. She squinted instinctively, the painful glare preventing her from opening her eyes any further, the heat causing her legs to quiver. She had thought the crackling red magic had been the source of the torrid sensation, but the magic was now gone, while the heat still cloaked her entire body with brutal pressure. In just a few moments, she had already begun to sweat. She could feel tickling drops rolling down her face, barrel, and legs, soaking her mane and salting her eyes. After a few moments to regain some composure, along with some strength in her legs, she slowly stood and surveyed the landscape.
Maud was in a desert. Milky dunes stretched as far as her squinted eyes could make out. A soft wind blew arcs of pale powder from their tops, creating the illusion of an endless, subtly shifting ocean. She panted harder and harder as the heat bore into her, unyielding and merciless. She spun, looking to her left, then behind, all around her. The desert was a bone-bleach plate, blending into the pale blue sky at the horizon. The only landmark she could see whatsoever was the large, turquoise obelisk, about two dozen hoofsteps behind her small landing crater. It stood out starkly against the monotone sands, a three story stalagmite spearing the sky.
A minute of trotting brought her to the base of the obelisk, her hooves shifting underneath her in the treacherous sand. Her frock was beginning to sag on her frame as it sopped up runnels of sweat. Her aching eyes struggled to adjust to the constant brightness from every direction. A mote of panic formed in her chest, fluttering with the strength of a tiny moth's wings, yet scrabbling like a hunted rat with its tail trapped under a heavy stone. Had the red, crackling disk been some kind of portal? If so, where in Equestria had it sent her? Where were her fellow geologists?
And why in Celestia's name was it so utterly, overwhelmingly, chokingly hot?
Almost without thinking, her head began to tilt slowly upward. Her gaze moved past the alabaster horizon, into the muted cerulean of the sky, following the turquoise monolith gesturing straight upward, as if pointing the way. Her head rolled back until she couldn't see the sand anymore. She couldn't see anything anymore.
Maud stared upward, her jaw slack and drenched with sweat, the edge of a bright circle searing her vision and filling her eyes with spots. It took her only a moment to realize that her gaze was focused on the edge of a gargantuan sun.
"Maud? Maud!? Where are you!?" Fault's panicked voiced echoed through the small cavern.
Cliff's eyes were scrunched tightly closed, a mask of concentration on his face as his horn glowed against the surface of the now dormant obelisk. "Kid, please be quiet! She's obviously not here," he grunted in frustration as Fault's fearful echoes bounced around the small, clearly Maud-free space. "Let me try to re-activate this thing!"
"WHAT!?" Fault squealed. "And get us sucked into oblivion too? Are you crazy!?"
"We can't just sit here and do nothing," Cliff rumbled darkly. His horn's corona pulsed, magic flowing around him and probing the glowing red sandstone crystal.
Fault blanched. "Seriously Cliff! Don't do this! The wild Everfree magic might interfere and cause something to explode! Or make this cave crumble! Or get us pulled into another disk of magic and ground into pony pancakes! Or-"
"Fault!" Cliff's voice broke through the miasma of panic. His piercing gaze caught Fault's shrunken pupils and held them steady. "You need to go for help. Fly back to Ponyville as fast as you can, and get in contact with the Princesses. Whatever this artifact is, it's clearly magical and I just don't have the expertise to understand how it works or how to operate it safely."
"But... but-" Fault hyperventilated. "She's just gone! How do we know she's even still ali-"
"Fault!" Cliff shouted with the strength of an echoing rock slide, forcing his panicking companion into momentary silence. "Maud needs our help. She needs you! Get the Princesses as fast as possible! Get going!"
"R-right. Okay. As fast as possible. I can do this." Fault breathed. A moment later, his wings buzzed to life and he streaked out of the cave in an ocean-blue blur.
Cliff let out a long sigh, then turned his attention back to the obelisk. "Wherever you are, Maud, just hold on, okay? We're coming. Just... hold on..."
Maud's breath came in short gasps as she reached the base of the aquamarine obelisk, partly from the heat, and partly from the mote of panic rising in her chest. She collapsed into the sand, catching her breath, her sides heaving as if she were running a marathon. She pressed herself into the side of the structure, hiding in the few hooflengths of shade it offered. It was the only place she could see for miles upon miles that had any protection from the merciless sun.
Taking stock of her situation, Maud slithered one of her hooves into her front pocket, and let out a breath of relief as she felt the comforting presence of Boulder still with her. She was grateful he hadn't fallen out of her pocket when she had spun through the portal. Other than her pet rock, she had very little to work with. She still wore her frock, now sodden with sweat, draped over her frame with suffocating pressure. Its dark navy color absorbed a substantial amount of heat from the sun, but despite her discomfort, she didn't dare take it off. While her gray coat could offer some protection by itself, the sun's piercing rays would still burn her skin quite badly if she was exposed for too long.
Besides that, she still had a small water saddlebag she had been sipping from throughout the expedition. The water bag was lined internally with silicone, forming a watertight seal, and had a thin tube that curved out from the underside and hooked onto the front. It was designed for hikers to turn their heads back and easily grab a sip on the go, which she had been doing ever since she had filled it when she woke that morning. By now, it felt considerably lighter. She eased the water bag off of her flank and opened the rubber nozzle to inspect what she had left. She frowned, a thorn of fear stabbing into her heart as she noted it was less than half full. She didn't have much more than a single glass of water left, and she was already feeling quite thirsty.
Maud stoppered the container and contented herself with a single, small sip. She would have to make it last as long as possible, since she didn't know how long she would have to endure this crushing heat. Despite resting in the shade, her forelegs already felt like they were spitted over hot coals. She glanced down to see the sunlight scorching her fetlocks. With a small gasp, she realized that her area of shade had shrunk to half its size. The sun was nearing its zenith, its light searing directly down on top of the obelisk, evaporating the small patch of relative darkness in which Maud cowered. Soon she would have no shelter, at least until the sun moved on and began to set.
With a grunt of exertion, Maud pushed herself to her hooves. Now was not the time to sit around, allowing the heat to sap her strength and drain her water supply. She needed to act. The turquoise obelisk she rested against was the same shape and size as the one in the cave, so perhaps they were connected somehow. Maybe she could open a portal back home.
Her hooves ground into the stinging sand as she trudged around the perimeter of the monolith. As she rounded the corner of the shaded side, her aching eyes fell on an inscription embedded in the turquoise stone. She quickly scrabbled to the center of the obelisk's base, and squinted her eyes at the bright aquamarine surface. Her breath caught as she surveyed the symbology.
It was the same two elegant alicorns, the same sinuous dividing line, but the celestial bodies were reversed. The moon now rested at the top of the circle, an enlarged crescent with solid lines of power emanating from it. And below, a small, dully carved, simple circle depicted a dim sun.
The massive, blazing sun above seemed to laugh at such an idea, searing her frock, face, and fetlocks as she examined the inscription. It didn't make sense! The moon held aloft above the sun? The only two times that had ever happened in history had been during Nightmare Moon's two incursions. How did that explain these dunes? Or the other obelisk? Or the blinding heat? Anything that was happening?
Maud quickly turned away from the monolith. She needed to figure out what had happened and how to get back, preferably before her insides cooked or she ran out of water. Her bleary eyes fell on a small, tapered object resting in the sand a dozen hoofsteps away. A quiet surge of relief flowed through her as she recognized it as the core sampling drill. It must have been sucked through the portal behind her after she dropped it, and she hadn't noticed it resting on the other side of the obelisk. If it got her here, surely it could get her home.
She stumbled across the short distance to the drill and grabbed it in her mouth, before letting go with a wince. The burgundy mouth grip had only been resting in the sun for a few minutes, and it was already hot enough to give her lips a painful burn. She had to make do with her hooves, nudging the drill across the sand as fast as she could muster, digging a rough furrow behind her as she went.
Maud dragged her lifeline around to the shaded face of the obelisk. She picked it up in shaking hooves, silently grateful that whoever was in charge of the design department at Rock'd Inc. had deigned to paint their product a bright, reflective green that didn't absorb so much heat. She quickly bit into the mouth grip, cringing as her lips felt the heat radiating from the activation rune. The device whirred to life, and she pressed it as hard as she could into the same back corner of the trapezoidal face as she had back in the cave.
The turquoise turned out to be just as dense as the sandstone. It took her several painstaking minutes to push the drill a half inch into the material, not helped by her quivering and heat-exhausted weakness. She had to reset the position several times, letting out a quiet whimper of frustration on the third try, before finally getting traction. She reminded herself that the portal had activated after she had drilled only a half inch into the red sandstone in the cave, so she just had to hold herself steady for a short while.
But as she drilled ever deeper, past half an inch, three quarters, a full inch... nothing happened. Maud clenched her teeth, failing to hold back a groan of panic. Her breath heaved with effort, a bellows forcing the air of an active forge into her lungs. She made a split second decision to abandon this section of stone, and spent several more agonizing minutes shuffling to the opposite side of the obelisk. Maybe this world was... reversed somehow, and she'd be able to activate the monolith from the other end.
She figured out a more effective way to carry the drill, slinging it across her back and tucking the lime green portion through the neck of her sweat-drenched frock. Her entire coat had become matted and sticky, as if she had taken a shower in molasses. Her gasping breaths came quickly in a fruitless attempt to reduce the amount of burning pain in her lungs. After setting herself into position, Maud pulled the drill out of her frock, and spent the next several minutes trying to get the drill bit aligned properly. Her sloppy motions and panicked speed forced her to restart a full seven times. Yet after far too long and far too much strength spent plunging the drill an inch and a half deep into the aquamarine surface, Maud wailed in frustration and terror as she realized this wasn't going to work.
She let the drill fall to the sand. A moment later, her flanks followed it. She sat numbly, trying to process what had happened and what she could do. Where had the red crystal obelisk sent her? How had it formed the strange portal in the air? Why wouldn't the turquoise obelisk send her home, away from this hellish, empty desert? Her mind was swimming with questions, and Maud was too overwhelmed to answer any of them. So she did what she always did when her emotions threatened to spill out of her. She closed her eyes and began to breathe slowly and deliberately. It took considerable effort to direct her attention away from the scorching air, the searing sun, and the fluttering fear in her chest, but after a few minutes she felt more centered and the fog cleared from her mind.
Only one question really mattered. Should she stay here and wait for rescue? Or should she leave and search for help and shelter?
Maud looked out over the vast desert surrounding her. There wasn't a single landmark to be seen. No roads, no buildings, not even an outcrop of rocks greeted her eyes. She was in an utterly empty wasteland, with no clear direction to search. Yet she was growing increasingly certain that waiting for rescue was futile. She could hide in what meager shade the obelisk offered, but the blinding sand would still reflect the sun's rays, while the air would continue to burn her lungs from the inside out. She wouldn't last much longer here than she would trudging through the dunes. Fault and Cliff probably were looking for her, but she doubted they would know anything more than she did about how to activate a magic portal. If they went for help, it would take at least a few days to get any magical experts out to the remote ravine in the middle of the Everfree Forest, and by then she could easily be burned to a sun-bleached husk. As much as she disliked the idea, she knew there was only one course of action.
From the inscription at the front of the obelisk, Maud dragged her front hoof deeply through the sand, cutting a furrow straight outward. She slowly scraped out a large, sloppy arrow pointing directly away from the turquoise face, then stood at its tip, inspecting her handiwork. If rescue did miraculously arrive, hopefully whoever it was would follow the arrow and catch up with her.
She did a final check of her inventory, the core sampling drill tucked into her frock, the water bag cinched around her barrel, and her pet rock securely in her pocket. Maud hesitated for a long moment, her hoof hovering above the sand, waiting to take the first step. She looked back at the aquamarine pillar, and a pang of longing swept through her. For once in her life, Maud didn't want to go on an adventure. Pinkie's smiling face filled her mind's eye, offering her a glass of lemonade and a cupcake. Her laughter flowed past Maud's ears, a fresh and cool, loving breeze. A moment later, the image evaporated in the heat, and Maud sighed. Her hoof pressed into the sand as she set off into the empty desert.
The blinding white sand glared harshly into Maud's shaded eyes, yet cushioned her hooves with surprisingly soft steps. The particles were of a finer grain than any beach she had ever stepped on, not quite as fine as powdery flour, but softer than Pinkie's floor when she spilled a bag of raw sugar in an attempt to craft a new rock candy recipe to share with her sister. The memory turned up the corners of her mouth for a little while, despite the flare of pain that arose from her cracked lips. She longed for another sip of water, but she elected to hold off for just a little bit longer. Her thirst was not yet truly unbearable.
The surface of the desert seemed mostly flat from afar, broken up by small, undulating ruffles of sand here and there, but as Maud dragged herself up the side of a dune, she groaned with frustration at the difficulty. The sandy waves were much taller up close, and she had to ascend many dozens of hooflengths to reach the top of each one, before sinking down into the following small valley. After three dunes, she allowed herself another sip of water, which quickly became a gulp before she could stop herself. She savored the momentary relief that even a lukewarm mouthful offered.
Every dune hid another behind it. Maud trekked over dune after dune, leaving a trail of hoofsteps and sweat in her wake. She felt like she was swimming through a very slow ocean, her head bobbing up and down, up and down. Occasionally, as she crested a sandy ridge, she glanced behind her at the turquoise obelisk shrinking on the horizon. Having previously towered many hooflengths over her, it slowly shrunk to the size of a sewing needle, ready to weave the sand and sky into one connected canvas. Each time she looked, she felt a tiny hope fluttering in her chest like a miniscule moth, a hope that she might see an aquamarine disk floating from afar, a beacon of rescue. Each time the moth fluttered a little bit more weakly, nearing the end of its short span of life.
Maud continued trudging slowly for several hours. As time passed, sweat dripped, eyes burned, and hooves grated, she began to slip more and more into memory. An especially steep dune became the sloped side of Holder's Boulder. She could almost hear her sister Limestone Pie yelling at Pinkie to get down off of the precious egg-shaped centerpiece of the family rock farm. As she slid down past the crest of the dune, she saw herself rolling down the old minecart tracks in the crystal mine below the nearby limestone quarry. Her ears echoed with the timidly amused giggles of her youngest sister Marble Pie. The memories kept her mind away from the scorching sun and scalding sand, her painful thirst, and the slithering serpent of despair slowly constricting around her spine.
She was broken from her reverie by a blazing light shining harshly into her eyes. With a start and a small vocalization, Maud realized that she had been trudging west this whole time, and the sun was now setting in front of her. She turned her head to look behind, searching the horizon for the turquoise needle. Her eyes slid along the barrier between white sand and blue sky, and she couldn't find any trace of the obelisk. With a sigh of resignation, she wrapped her broken, bleeding lips around the nozzle of her water bag and sucked a few sips. An ice cold chill of horror slithered down her spine when her suction was met with pressure, indicating she had drained her reserves dry. Such a chill would have been a pleasant respite from the heat if it hadn't come from the fact that she was already out of water. She quickly let go of the nozzle and licked her lips. Eyes downcast to avoid the sun's blinding rays, Maud picked up the pace.
Every so often, she lifted her eyes to scan the horizon for landmarks. Each attempt was a letdown. The desert was empty, containing nothing except sand, heat, and pain. Each step caused her legs to slip in the sand, grinding painfully against the tiny yet tough grains and slowing her progress. Her hooves felt like they had been ground down to painful nubs. She imagined his must be what it felt like to experience erosion. Years of field work had accustomed her to long hikes and sore hooves, but being forced to walk for hours in a blazing desert was proving to be too much, even for her. Maud moaned quietly in pain, but didn't stop to rest. She kept on trundling up and down, cresting dunes and slogging through valleys, the pain in her hooves and joints an ever-present companion.
A growl startled her. Maud whipped her head around lethargically, searching for the source of the sound. A moment later she heard it again, and realized it was her own stomach. She idly recalled the last meal she ate, a few bites of grass she had grazed from the edge of an outcrop in the Everfree. Somehow the sensation of hunger was impossible to make out amid the torturous, hollow thirst crushing her from the inside out. A raspy sigh left her lips as she dropped her head once more. She could worry about hunger later, once she found a source of water. That was a much more pressing issue at the moment.
Lost in a dazed daydream about swimming in a Ponyville pond, Maud's hoof slipped on an especially steep sand dune. She stumbled in the parched powder, rolling onto her barrel as her sides heaved. She stared listlessly at the vertical horizon for several long minutes. As she breathed in the dry scent of the sand, she remembered through the fog rolling into her mind that white sand was usually made of calcium carbonate, implying that this parched desert used to be an ocean. A slow massacre of dead coral, broken shells, and diatoms, drifting lifelessly to the ocean floor for centuries, had eventually formed the sand that now grated her hooves and filled her vision with spots, reflecting the blinding sun. Eventually her puckered lips parted, and she dragged her swollen tongue across the dead diatoms, hoping in a fleeting part of her mind that some spirit of the ocean could provide relief from her agonizing thirst. Her wish was, of course, in vain. The marine corpses coated the inside of her mouth, sucking out any hint of moisture that was left. In that moment, Maud knew with cold certainty that she would soon share their fate.
Time seemed to pass in a blur. It could have been minutes, or hours, but when Maud again gained lucidity, the sun was in front of her, lowering toward the horizon. A massive red-orange smear, larger than the silhouette of Canterlot from Pinkie's bedroom window, her solar tormentor had begun to set, which offered a hint of relief. Her thirst, which she previously assumed to be at the limit of possibility, had somehow increased threefold. She wanted to wring her mind into a knot, just to enjoy the few drops of moisture that she could squeeze from the fog that overwhelmed her perception. Maud eventually found the strength to roll to her legs, and after a few minutes and a few tries, she managed to get to shaky hooves.
Just one more step. One more step. One more step. Maud repeated her mantra with single-pointed focus, following each mental statement with the actual motion. Her legs moved mechanically, following the simple instructions they were given. From a tiny corner of her mind, she knew she was delirious, but most of the lucidity she had left was dedicated to the simple, yet overwhelming task of taking just one more step. The fire in her joints had faded to a dull, comforting ache, and even her thirst seemed to have floated away into a vague cloud around her. Maud relaxed into a final jhāna of slow steps. The red-spattered dunes passed beneath her like ocean waves, painted by the setting sun.
Something twinged in Maud's consciousness. Something told her to come back to her body, to take control of herself once more, to look up. Too exhausted to raise her head, she lifted her eyes to the horizon.
Maud did a double take, a surge of energy flowing through her as she raised her head to look at a spot on the northwestern horizon. In her bleary exhaustion, she had almost missed a strange cluster of shapes. It looked like a set of pinnacles atop a mountain, just resting there in the sand. From this distance Maud wasn't sure if they were just rocks, or perhaps... buildings! She heaved an excited breath and began to trot towards the towers. If they were buildings, there might be ponies there! Ponies who could offer her water and shelter from the elements. Even if it was just a rocky outcrop, that could at least provide some shelter from these horrendous conditions. Maud suspected she would be inclined to head towards the sight even if it looked like an active volcano. She was absolutely sick of this empty, directionless desert.
After cresting several more tall, bleached dunes, Maud let out a wheeze of joy and relief. She could now more clearly see the cluster of buildings ahead of her. She was approaching a small town, and the hopes of safety and companionship sustained her and sped her pace. The next dozen dunes passed under her like waves at the beach, and before long she was approaching a sandy road leading into town.
The town was made entirely of sandstone, which wasn't terribly surprising, though Maud had no clue where the builders had quarried the necessary material. Strangely, the sandstone was a deep shade of orange, and it wasn't just because of the sunset light. Perhaps the sand was only white at the very surface, yielding more saturated colors of sediment deeper beneath the desert. The buildings were squat and cubic, stacked on top of one another and clustered together in rings. Many were capped with a tall, four-legged archway extending from the top, curving into a shallow covering. Maud guessed these must be something like balconies, but on the roof instead of the side of the buildings. The whole town wasn't more than a few acres; it would probably fit entirely within the Ponyville town center. Framing the road into town was a weathered yet elegant sandstone archway, unmarked and imposing.
As Maud stepped under the archway, her heart sank to her pulverized hooves. The buildings were utterly abandoned, and in a state of advanced decay. The desert wind had sandblasted the structures for years and years, eroding the walls and causing many of them to crumble under their own weight. The short streets were almost completely covered by sand, with chunks of cracked and weathered sandstone peeking through here and there.
Maud felt a wave of despair flow through her. Fighting it down, she reached into her pocket and pulled out Boulder, hefting him into the red-orange gleam of the desert sunset, taking comfort in his familiar weight. "Well, Boulder," she croaked, breaking the silence whether anyone could hear her or not. "I was hoping for other ponies, but we can at least find shelter here."
Her voice rolled softly through the dilapidated village. It joined with the quiet wind whistling through empty windows and gaping archways. Grains of sand blew smoothly across the road, creating a muted, subtle hiss. Maud found her pain and aching thirst recede, replaced by awe as she stepped over the bones of a dead civilization. As she wandered, her mind wondered. Who had lived here, and how long ago had they left? Why did they abandon this place? Where had they gone? There was nothing else on the horizon, no landmark to indicate where the residents of this hamlet might have traveled, or where she should head next.
Her next destination was very quickly chosen as she spotted a dilapidated water well in a clearing between several square sandstone huts. Maud's eyes widened at the sight, and she began to trot, then gallop. She drew up just before the well, her breath coming in gasps, hope filling her with energy. The well had once possessed a broad, angled sandstone roof, but time and erosion had caused it to collapse. It now covered almost the entire opening, leaving only a narrow window into the well. Maud put her eye up to the crack, and let out a strangled whoop as she spotted a shimmer at the bottom of the reservoir. She quickly crouched underneath the sandstone slab blocking her from accessing the life-giving fountain. Using every ounce of her considerable earth pony strength, she heaved.
Nothing happened.
Maud cursed under her breath, pulled the bulky drill from her back and laid it to the ground, then heaved again. Her back strained under the weight of the sandstone, but it didn't budge an inch. After several long seconds of effort, Maud collapsed with a grunt of pain and frustration. She regularly moved boulders three times this size with ease, and she couldn't understand how this relatively squat slab of stone seemed to be superglued to the top of the well. She was weakened from a day-long exhausting sandy slog, but it shouldn't have worn down her strength to that of a filly!
Maud tried everything. She heaved from every angle, pushing the slab from behind, pulling it from the front, standing on it and jumping up and down, even kicking the small crack in an attempt to break the slab in half. As the orange light faded to blood-red and the shadows of the crumbling buildings stroked the shelves of sand, Maud collapsed next to the impenetrable well. Her eyes rested hungrily on the small shimmer at the bottom of the pit. She had never craved anything in her entire life more than that sheen of water. Her lips began to tremble, and she let out several dry, choking sobs. Her eyes had no tears to offer.
Her head thumped to the sand beneath the well, and her gaze dragged along the dull grains until it rested on the fallen drill. Ears pricked and eyes wide, Maud felt a full, honest-to-Celestia smile stretch across her lips. She scrambled under the slab and grappled with the drill, pulling it up onto the well and positioning it against the crack in the sandstone. With a swift bite, the core sampler began to whir. The rotating teeth grinded as Maud pressed the cylindrical drill bit eagerly, desperately into the stone. She knew sandstone was a soft, sedimentary rock, formed from millions of sand grains melded together under heat, pressure, and time. It took no time at all to grind out a short cylinder from the malleable sandstone, and with only a single grunt of effort, Maud cracked the slab in two. As the halves fell away from the top of the well, she barked a wordless, parched cry of victory, disengaging the drill and shedding her water bag. She unlooped the rubber tube that carried the water to her mouth, and used it as a rope to dip the bag into the shallow water below.
The bottom of the bag splashed into about two inches of water.
Maud's victory yell shifted to a strangled cry of frustration. The mostly dry well taunted her with barely a trickle, likely the reason the ponies living here had left. She ground her teeth and began shaking the hose. After a few shakes, she managed to turn the water bag on its side, dipping the nozzle into the shallow water. Her ears pricked at the quiet glug, glug, glug of fluid streaming into the open nozzle. It was a dazzling sound. Maud smirked as she savored it.
The first droplets were the sweetest thing Maud had ever tasted. Her heart soared with elation as she greedily guzzled down the few gulps she had managed to salvage from the failed well. All too soon she again felt pressure within the hose that indicated she had sucked every drop from the water bag. Holding onto the hose, she dipped the bag back into the shallow well. This time, the nozzle couldn't collect more than a trickle. Maud shook it around, then pulled it back up, gritting her teeth.
She stood, surveying the road. A few hoofsteps brought her to a chunk of stone half buried in sand. With a heave, Maud dragged it to the well and dropped it in. It cracked once against the bricks on the way down, then splashed to the bottom, shattering into several large chunks. It was just enough to raise the water level ever so slightly. After pouring down several hooffulls of sand into one side of the shallow pool to boost the water just a bit more, Maud was satisfied, and she again lowered her water bag. This time she was able to fill it about a quarter of the way full. She wished she could fill it higher, but for now this was the best she could do. Any more rubble or sand and the water would turn into a slurry of mud. She hoped more water would leak into the well over time. Maybe not much more, but the water she had already found must have come from somewhere.
She still badly needed water, but the only way she could think to get more was to crawl down the well herself and slurp up whatever was left. She knew she currently didn't have the strength to climb back out afterward.
The sun had stayed red on the horizon for a long while. It was ever so slowly inching down, seeming to take longer than it should. Rays of rosy light stretched through the arches atop the buildings around her, both crumbled and intact. Jagged, yet elegant shadows danced along the surface of the surrounding dunes. By now the temperature had dropped quite considerably, from "sweltering furnace" down to "uncomfortably sweaty." Maud recalled that desert environments with little moisture had trouble holding onto heat, and cooled down rapidly once the sun fully set. She could easily be subjected to temperatures near freezing if conditions were poor enough, and at this point Maud was ready to expect the worst. It was time to find some shelter.
Maud poked her head into one of the more intact buildings. A hunk of sandstone sat in the center of a roughly square room. Sand had piled up in the corners of the coarse floor, lit in one corner by a beam of dim red light emanating from a hole in the ceiling. A series of worn gouges were illuminated leading up to the hole, used by countless hooves to traverse to the upper level of the building. Maud squeezed through the small opening that served as a door and ventured carefully into the cozy space. It was even cooler than the environment outside, though she wouldn't have called it less than warm if she hadn't had a whole day in an oven to compare to. She noted a complete lack of windows, likely to minimize sun exposure and keep the temperature bearable during the day.
The sandstone chunk in the room's center couldn't be a piece of debris, as the walls and ceiling of this domicile were still intact. Maud figured it must have served as a rough, simple table of sorts. As she inspected it in the fading light, she noticed a series of symbols carved into the russet sandstone.
Maud's breath caught. Most of the symbols were unrecognizable, but the second-to-last one, the one that looked like an angular number 8, was unmistakably the activation rune inscribed into the mouth grip of her core sampling drill! The sandstone chunk wasn't just a table. It was a runic device!
With trepidation, Maud lifted a quivering hoof and touched it gently to the activation symbol.
Flashes of purple light danced rapidly across the runes, reflecting eerily onto the walls framing the compact space. A moment later, the final rune in the sequence began to glow a dull orange. Maud hesitantly raised her hoof toward the light, and felt a subtle yet pleasant warmth emanating from it. As the rune glowed more brightly, she realized it must be a heat source. Perhaps the ponies who had once lived here had used this as some kind of runic stovetop. In perhaps the only stroke of luck Maud had experienced all day, she had activated the device just as the desert's temperature indeed began to drop sharply as she'd predicted. After just a few minutes, the night's newfound chill had been chased away by the rune's inviting orange glow.
Maud chose the corner furthest from the door and closest to the heating rune, before curling into a ball on the rough sandstone floor. She barely had time to register the discomfort of resting on such a flat, hard surface before a tidal wave of exhaustion crashed over her. Amid the broken bones of an abandoned town, surrounded by a brutal and confusing desert wasteland, utterly exhausted and overwhelmed, Maud eagerly let herself slip into blissful unconsciousness.
