Chapter 1: The Rediscovery
Fall had taken over Equestria and the ponies were enjoying playing in the leaves
and preparing extra food for winter. The mayor of Ponyville had asked for volunteers
to redecorate an old abandoned house for a unicorn from Fillydelphia was moving to
Ponyville with his family. Twilight seemed very motivated to help, for she heard the
unicorn had a vast knowledge on the history of magic and had hoped that he would
share some of his learnings, or at least let her barrow some books. So she convinced
her other five friends into taking some time to volunteer also. Twilight was determined to
make this colt and his family feel welcome in Ponyville.
So Twilight got up at the crack of dawn and arrived at Sweet Apple Acres to get
Applejack. Applejack was in the orchards trying to finish bucking the Red Delicious
trees.
Applejack yelled to Twilight “Hey Twilight, I’m really busy finishing these trees,
I have about a hundred or so left of them. Why don’t you get the rest of them and I’ll
come in a few hours.”
Twilight said quietly “That’s all right” and walked away frowning. She began to
wonder if the other would be able to come as well. As she arrived at Sugarcube Corner
she heard a boom and then out of nowhere Pinkie popped up just beside her.
Twilight asked Pinkie “How did you just appear right here?”
Pinkie responded “Well, I had working on upgrading my party cannon to launch
me places. I even installed fun parachutes for safe landing. When I felt that you arrived I
used it to land next to you.”
So as the two of them walked to Carousel Boutique, Pinkie shouted “Dashie!!”
and jumped at Rainbow Dash who was snug asleep in a tree.
Rainbow yelled “Pinkie, why did you…, oh yeah that house”
Twilight said “Come on, we don’t have all day” The sun was still very low in
the sky and Ponyville was pretty empty. When the three of them arrived at Carousel
Boutique, they heard a wail and knocked on the door immediately.
Sweetie Belle answered the door “Rarity got a big order and can’t come with you"
“Oh the horror, the horror, nothing looks right” screamed Rarity from upstairs
Sweetie Belle runs off as the three left to go to Fluttershy’s cottage.
They arrived and nothing weird happened there. Fluttershy trusted that her pets
would be okay. The four of them quickly arrived at the house. Nobody was there so the
waited as Pinkie Pie told a random story about her dinner last night. Five minutes later
a few more volunteers came and the redecorating process started. Twilight was picked
to oversee the project and make sure everything gets done.
Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were assigned to exploring the
kitchen and basement. The three of them looked at the kitchen, it smelled very dusty.
Fluttershy sneezed and a layer of dust lifted off of the counter. Fluttershy freaked out
and shrieked in the corner. Pinkie pulled out a dusting pan and swept up some dust
made a little dustman out of it. They eventually washed the whole room down and
repainted it. They decided on a mix of yellow, blue and pink stripes.
So far they had actually had a really good time and weren’t expecting much
worse to happen.
Twilight checked up on them then she said “That looks nice, you girls ready to do
the basement?”
“Is it scary down there...” Fluttershy muttered as she curled up.
Twilight replied “It shouldn’t be, oh yeah and if there is any old books can you
bring them up for me.” She giggled and then went off.
Pinkie Pie lifted her up and told he there is nothing to be afraid of. They moved
on to the basement. Pinkie pronked down the stairs while Rainbow Dash started to look
around while Fluttershy held the lantern. Fluttershy shrieked at the sight of a spider and
then dropped the lantern and caused the latch to close locking them in. It got really
dark all of a sudden and that was followed by an almost deafening scream.
Rainbow Dash yelled “Fluttershy, what did you do this time?”
Rainbow Dash crashed it to the walls several times before finding her way to
the stairs. After feeling around Rainbow knew that they were trapped. Rainbow Dash
started banging on the door screaming “LET US OUT!!!LET US OUT!!!” and they waited
but no answer.
Pinkie Pie blurted “You girls want to play a game in the meantime.”
“What game could we possible play now” RD responded
“You know, what about tic tac toe”
“Play tic tac toe, I can’t see a thing!!”
Pinkie started laughing uncontrollably “You know you are yelling at a wall”
Rainbow erupted with anger “It’s not my fault someone was such a scaredy
cat and got us locked in here” Fluttershy let out another loud shriek ”and now she’s
whimpering, oh Celestia help us”
Rainbow Dash just sat down and said nothing after that. Pinkie inched her way
towards Fluttershy. As Pinkie sat and comforted her friend while Rainbow Dash kept
kicking at the wall. Then as she gave one last power kick and shoved her hoof right
through the wooden boards as a green glow had appeared. It was blinding at first, but
as she looked it more it was actually just the light of dim glowing mushrooms. Rainbow
Dash could see that there was a cave or cavern of some type. Pinkie and Fluttershy
stood next to Rainbow; all of them were silent.
Fluttershy said quietly “Do you want to go in there”
Pinkie tail shivered and she said “I doubt it’s safe”
Rainbow nodded her head “Why wouldn’t we?” and she paused for a minute then
said “Wait, why would you want to go down there, you’re Fluttershy!!”
A loud noise came about as latch opened an Applejack yelled “What’s going on
down here” and Applejack joined the three and stared into the glowing hole in the wall.
Pinkie and Rainbow hugged Applejack and they told the story of what happened.
“So you just found this cave in an ol’ dusty basement, well bless me but Twilight would
love to see this” Applejack shouted and then the loud noise of falling rocks could be
heard and then she whispered “let’s go check in with Twilight.”
They made their way outside and saw Twilight standing next to Mayor Mare and then
she approached them.
Twilight greeted them and then said “You girls ready for lunch, we have daffodil salad,
hay fri---”
Pinkie interjected “Twilight, Twilight, you have to see what we found!!”
“Is it a book shelf” She asked with a grin
“They found themselves a cave cause Rainbow Dash broke the wall and Fluttershy
got ‘em all trapped in the basement”
“A cave?” said Twilight as she looked towards the mayor “Do you know of any cave
system under Ponyville”
The mayor thought for a while “While, when I was a filly my father did used to tell me
stories of the Ponyville Caverns, although he said nopony really knows where they are,
it was one of the factors that led to the growth of this town”
“The Ponyville Caverns, I have a book on that, I’m going to rush home to get that book
while you all set up lunch”
30 minutes later they were all sitting on a picnic blanket as Twilight arrived with the
book. Sweat dripped down her body and she panted “I’m back”. She sat down took a sip
of a drink and started to read.
“The Ponyville Caverns were discovered by entrepreneurs who were looking at
Ponyville as a place that had much more value. At the time, Ponyville’s delicious apples
and apple products were all it was known for. They had very few creatures and three
early pioneers looked for gems endlessly. Eventually they found a mother lode of gems
and the triumvirate returned to the surface and lived the rest of their lives in luxury.
Yet news of this finding reached all over Equestria as a big race to the caverns began.
They became known for having a very few yet large deposits of gems. Unlike the ones
in Canterlot and nearby mountains where you could find a few low value gems, these
ones were much nicer and held extreme value. Ponyville was a great site for visitors,
attracting ponies from around the world. As ponies left everything behind to claim
their riches, the caves started to get more dangerous. Construction and loud noises
caused rocks to fall, trapping and hurting ponies. More and more ponies began to return
injured and with no money. Ponies lost interest quickly began to settle down to live a
humble life or return to their cities. It was decided that they should close down it. They
buried all the entrances and built houses over it. Most ponies tried to forget that they
ever existed, and when ponies were asked about it they would usually say it was just
an over exaggeration of a lucky find. Now out of the dozen or so ponies that came out
wealthy, most of them moved to Canterlot and Ponyville didn’t stay very rich for long.
Ponyville went into a short depression afterwards but eventually the most ponies forgot
and the town got back on their hooves. The caverns are now nothing but empty tunnels
filled with pickaxes that were left behind. Yet pony rumor has it that because of the
impossibility of carting some of the gems back to the surface that there may be tons of
valuables left down there. While that is the end”
“Well how come Granny Smith hasn’t told me this story” yelled Applejack
Twilight responded “It was an embarrassment for Ponyville, since it prevented tourism
and ponies planning to move for a few years afterwards, I doubt it was good for the
Apple family’s orchard must have been low on sales for years afterwards”
They stared at each other for a minute in complete silence
“So do we want to explore it?” Rainbow Dash asked
"NO!!" Fluttershy screamed in a soft voice
“I thought you wanted to go down there earlier.”
“While it just looked like a safer place than the cold dark corner”
“I could believe that valuables were left down there, maybe it might be worth it to
explore.” Twilight said “Pinkie Pie, what is your take on going down there?”
“It sounds like an adventure” Pinkie was hopping up and down
Twilight said “It seems like it would be fun, but if we were to go we would have to
tomorrow and we would have to be very precautious.” She paused then resumed with
“we have enough volunteers that they house will be finished by today plus there is about
another week till that stallion arrives with his family; I guess we can do it if you are all in
but we aren’t going to be mining anything”
Fluttershy said “Maybe I can come, as long as it is safe and we stick together”
“It will be like we’re Daring Do” cheered Rainbow Dash
“Now let’s finish lunch” said Pinkie and they all agreed
The five hung out for the rest of the day and fixed the house up. Twilight went to bed
happily thinking of the adventure that they had planned for tomorrow but couldn’t get
this feeling that something wrong was going to happen. It just didn’t seem right and she
felt that this would be putting some of her friends in danger.
Author's Note
I guess this is my first try at a fanfic. It will be much longer
