The Discord Empire

“Well, here we are. If our trackers are correct, this should be the spot...” There it was. We found those great doors of pig iron again. Thick, heavy, pig iron. How can we not break through this? It should be simple.

“I don’t get it.”

“Huh?”

“well, it’s just that. If you were to build a door out of something, why would it be pig iron?”

“Maybe it’s from the wars of old?”

“Maybe. Or, maybe we have something more.”

“Either way, we have to open these doors. No telling what may lay behind them, it could be what we wanted all along!” I had to admit, it was true. We did need answers or this door would be constantly be digging in our brains. The seed was planted, and we had to let it blossom and find out whether it is a rose or a dandelion. “Okay, where is the key?” her words summoned two stallions carrying a big box. The two stallions raised their hoods and revealed their horns, glowing bright blue they lifted the lid of the container and revealed the sphere.

“A sphere? This door doesn't even have a keyhole!”

“No.... No, they wouldn't make it that easy.” I reached out to the door again. I rubbed my hoof down the iron. Pig iron. “It’s not a physical key. It’s sealed off by magic, and the spell is in that.” I pointed my hoof at the sphere.

“We will try to figure it out sir.” The two unicorns announced. their horns glew and faded from time to time. It took some time, but soon enough the ball started blowing steam. It began to move around and morph, it changed into a more recognizable shape. It became a stallion.

“Wha..... What is it?”

“I knew it. He is a builder. They were machines made by master builders a long time ago, built to protect mines from Diamond Dogs. They were lost many years ago due to multiple issues. Mine shaft collapse, too many Diamond Dogs...”

“So, what you’re saying is that this thing is useless?”

“Well, some people used them to protect things, certain things like tombs and vaults. This thing knows how to open it.” and just on cue, the mecha opened its eyes.

“Oh, hello. Who may you gents be?”

“Hello. My name is Sergeant Scootaloo. Who may I be addressing?”

“My name is Clockmess! I was designed to protect the great secret of master Crowntoe!”

“Crowntoe? Who is that?”

“Why, he is none other than the great leader of the mining confederacy! He was leading the rebellion against the evil Diamond Dog menace! He made sure that if he were to fall, I would place the ultimate weapon in this vault.”

“Really? Well, would you mind opening this vault then Clockmess?”

“Sorry miss Scootaloo, I cannot! My master gave specific instructions to not open it unless a fellow member of the Mining Confederacy were to instruct me to!”

“Well, would it help if I said that the Diamond Dogs are acting worse and are doing it under the control of Discord?”

“I do not know of this Discord, but if the Dogs are fighting once more, I shall open this vault. It seems like you really need it.” He approached the doors and closed his eyes. He opened them back up and they were glowing bright green, and he placed his hoof on the door. A surge of electricity pulsated through the the door creating beautiful dashes and cracks of light gleaming through the entirety of the giant iron barricade. He let his hoof down and the door went dark, next we heard a rumble and the doors slowly let a sliver and opened. When the door was fully opened, we were met with stunning beautiful images and pictures of old workers and mining sites. All the pictures seemed to be done by a remarkable oil painter, and he represented the beauty of the old world in a magnificent way. We found old weapons used to fight of the dogs and mining tools as well.

“Damn, this could supply a small army!”

“That was what master wanted, he always wanted these to be here in case the dogs had attacked again!” Well he certainly did an amazing job making sure we had any weapon we needed. There were long swords, short swords, daggers, arrows with bows, and even a few trap mines.

“Wait, but these were not what we’re looking for. Is there anything else?”

“Well, not to my knowledge. He did keep some secrets from me even!” I know there is more. He placed many supplies here, but a giant impassable door for swords and daggers?

“Uh- sir?” a black pegasus with white spots called.

“What is it?”

“Well, Sergeant, we found a false wall.” a False wall. Just what we need.

“Well tear it down!”

“It’s too sturdy sir, we can’t.”

“Then there is a button. Obviously we need to find some kind of pulley or switch to open it. Scootaloo, you find anything?”

“No pig. Every pony look for some kind of mechanism!” They all saluted and ran off. “Hey, what were you doing in my tent earlier?”

“What? Oh! Me? Well, I was, uh... Trying to find you, we were all looking for you.”

“Well next time, just shout.”

“We did, very loud in fact. Guess you sleep like a log sir.” With that a gave a tiny smirk and she just scorned at me with a playful tint in her eyes.

“Fine, next time you miss your mama, find another pony to sleep with. I can’t tuck you in and tell you bedtime stories every night.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever.” I approached Clockmess after that to see how much he really knows. “So, you really know nothing about this secret compartment?” He frowned and looked a little disappointed.

“No, no matter how much he said he trusted me like a brother, he treated me like an automaton. He held many secrets, some from his brothers and some from me. His brothers of course being the confederacy.”

“Okay, did you ever pick up on anything he said about this?” He froze. I waited thinking it might have been a glitch in his system, but then he finally spoke.

“Yes, sometimes I heard him in here. He brought Rosey in here.”

“Who’s Rosy?”

“That was his partner! Rosebud! He would bring her in here and she would sing.”

“Sing? What did she sing?”

“She sang the oath of the confederacy, a beautiful voice it was! I also heard them talk about the future, they would speak of after their war and how they might start a family. Was a shame that they passed during the war, they could have had a nice family.” Really puts things in retrospect for you. Being in war, you can’t make plans you can’t keep. I want to make this world a place where those kinds of plans can be kept, so no pony will feel pain like that again.

“Okay. If you remember anything else, don’t hesitate to tell me.”

“Yes sir!” Guess he took a liking to me, ‘cause he seemed to follow me around the rest of that day. We could not find any way into that secret compartment in the wall, so we went back to camp, and I took Clockmess with me to work on.

“When I found you, you could barely move without squeaking. Now, you sound, errr.... better?” I oiled his joints so he could move a bit quieter, but I only managed to make it sound like metal scraping against plastic.

“Thank you sir, I hope you can fix me to my previous shape soon enough!” Maybe I can use him in some other ways that aren’t just involving the mines. “So, who all is with you?”

“Well, I don’t quite know. We lose and gain ponies every day, so keeping number is kind of an impossibility.

“Oh, is this truly that hard of a struggle? Must be fighting for something big.”

“Us. We’re fighting for ourselves, our freedom from this crazy sadistic god.” The automaton paused, as he does when in thought.

“Sir, if I may, an evil maniac who controls his subjects through fear is not a god. He is a sad existence.”

“Heh, you have a point there Clockmess. Say, why are you called Clockmess?” A sad expression overcame him.

“I was a normal Automaton. I operated above expectations, and then the mine collapsed. I was in there, and the rubble had almost crushed me to pieces. Then Crowntoe found me and repaired me using old pieces from a grandfather clock.”

“And that’s why you’re called Clockmess?”

“Indeed, I am one of few who had a name. I thank my master for that.” One of few? I guess some ponies just treated them like what they are, machines. That’s how I feel now, mistreated. Every moment I’m alive I can’t help but think that it’s a sad existence. Why would I want to live in a world ruled by one so horrifying?

“I’m gonna go check on the others, you just try not to break anything.”

“Alright sir, good day!” I stepped outside my tent and noticed many ponies sleeping around the fire, one in particular was still wielding his guitar. Scootaloo was sitting by the fire just staring into it, so I figured I better check on her.

“Hey chicken. What’s bugging you so much?” You could tell by the look in her eyes that something was on her mind. She seemed more upset than some of the other ponies.

“Hey, I was just thinking about the vault. What if there is nothing behind that wall? We don’t even know how to open it and if we do we might not even find what we need. I just.... I just don’t know what I would do if it turned up another failure.” She looked deeper into the fire as if looking for an answer, like it had been bathing in those flames from the start and we had yet to even notice it.

“I’m sure it will all turn up okay. Even if there is nothing of use in there, we have all new supplies for the team. This was not a failure.” Like my words just reflected off of her, she just nudged closer to herself and looked deeper into the ember. I was starting to fear she would burn if she did not pull away. “Scootaloo...”

“It’s not the cave.”

“Well, what is it?” She pressed her herself.

“It’s just....” She paused for a while. It felt like centuries before she finally spoke again. “I don’t know what we would do even if we succeed. What happens then? After all this, I feel like it’s all we can do. I... It’s just.” She looked at me this time, her eyes red and watering. “I don’t know anything but this.” She looked at me, looking for an answer now, I guess the fire did not hold it.

“We do whatever we want. Are you really worried over this? Don’t you remember before all of this?” She got confused and looked at the fire.

“Honestly, I don’t. It all feels like a dream, a far off dream. I don’t know how I would live after all of this.” She pondered for a moment and then shook it off. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“No, it’s all right. You’re going through a lot leading a group of rebels. You deserve some down time.” She looked down at her hooves.

“Heh. You think so?” I nodded. “Alright. After we find that artifact, I’m going to take a break. Maybe we can find a empty civilization and take refuge for a bit.”

“That sounds nice.” We sat by the fire until the dawn broke through the clouds.

“Alright, today we have to investigate this vault very thoroughly. Make sure to be on your best wit today!” Every pony cheered and we were off again. This time, we were able to take the whole day looking inside, and found nothing. “I don’t get it. We can’t even pierce through the wall with our highest explosives!”

“Sir, our highest explosives are M-80s.”

“I don’t need your sass right now. We need answers, there has to be some magical component to it! Why can’t you get it open Rubydust?”

“With all do respect, our magic is not powerful enough to just break the lock. We are at a disadvantage sir.”

“Damn it! We got so far, we can’t let this slip through our hooves now, not after all of this!” Scootaloo stormed off out of the vault. I knew I had to catch up to her and try to stop her belligerent rage from showing its face.

“Hey, Scootaloo! Come back here!” I chased her through the cave until she ran into a dark cavern. “Oh Celestia, where is she going?” I kept moving, I think I was running for about forty minutes till I heard a noise.

“Nobody knows the....” What? I think that was... “pain I endure, nobody...” It was.

“Scootaloo?” I saw her sitting near an underground river, singing. “When did you learn to sing like that?” She paused, and she didn't seem alarmed at all too. She just raised her head and looked back at me.

“I practiced. I thought I would get my cutie mark like that once, so I kept practising until...” She stopped. We both knew what she was going to say, but we didn’t want to bring it up. “Anyways, I practised ever since that show so I could try and somehow get that cutiemark. I remember when they made that breakthrough me and the others were so happy, though it was in Hidden Perch.” Hidden Perch was the place we went after Discord started taking over, we built a community that ponies could live in without him disturbing them. He doesn’t mind, he just does what he wants. “We saw it in the papers, ‘Shocking discovery, ponies may have more than one talent!’ it made us almost jump out of our seats and never come back down... I miss them.” She closed her eyes, and then she did something that I have never seen before. She cried. I didn’t know what to do, she never acted this way before! I had to do something, I don’t think I can take anymore of this.

“Uh- hey! Er, Scootaloo, it’s-uh... It’s all gonna be alright!” Yeah, I did a horrible job of it, but hey I tried.

“I’m sorry, it’s just hard to accept all of this! I still have a hard time waking up!”

“S-so that’s why you were still asleep that day?” She was crying harder. “... Scootaloo.” I walked up to her and hugged her.

“What-What are you doing?”

“I’m comforting you, Now stop struggling.” She stopped, and just sat there in contemplation.

“How can I lead all these ponies when I’m such a cry filly?”

“maybe that is why.” She pushed away a bit and gave me a look that shouted confusion. “Well, out of the lot of us you remember what we lost, and you really have a reason to fight. If you didn’t feel this way, you wouldn't have the will to continue.” She understood and smiled. A tear trickled down her cheek and she closed her eyes.

“That’s why you’re my second in command Pig, You can always cheer me up.”

“You’re busy cheering every other pony up all the time, you need the same every once in awhile.” She must have the worst of it.

“You’re right, I have to stop wallowing in self pity and try to lead my team. Thanks for coming after me Ironbrazier.” Just as we were heading out of the chasm, I heard a noise.

“Wait, what was that?” Then, I heard chuckles. These were not funny chuckles like after you tell a joke, these were the chuckles of...

“Diamond Dogs!” We started for the exit but were blocked off by a big dog about seven feet tall and immediately ran for the opposite direction only to be blocked from all sides and slowly closed in on.

“Crap! How are we going to fight without swords?!” I tried to see if I had anything on me to help me fight, and I found that I had nothing, but Scootaloo being herself handed me a rock.

“We are not going down here Pig!” We grasped the rocks firmly in our hooves and aimed. I managed to throw my rock and hit the tall one in the face and ran fast enough to catch the rock again and smash it into the chest of a now crouching dog. Scootaloo wasn't doing too bad, she tossed the rock in the air as a distraction and bucked two unconscious. I pried at a stalactite and broke it off and started batting away the dogs with it, soon Scoots tried the same and got similar results. After a few more hits to the dogs faces, they ran off whimpering. We were huffing exhaustion and were about ready to just pass out, but we had to make it back to our camp. We were wandering through the caves for a while and got a little lost. We searched and searched and we kept finding the same spots and rocks we did before.

“Dammit, we will never get out of here alive at this rate! Where the hell are we?”

“Come on Brazier, don’t count yourself out yet.” We searched a bit longer and eventually decided to take refuge in that dark cave alone for the night.

“Damn, we need to map this place out... Got any paper?” Scootaloo shook her head.

“What, should I be carrying paper with me at all times?”

“Just asking.” We just sat in silence trying to think of stuff to talk about, but what can you talk about when you don’t know your comrades well, you live nowhere and the world is ruled by an evil emperor who denies sanity?

“Ugh, we can’t sit here in silence for this long! We need to do something, find ponies and get out of here.”

“Come on, just bunker down on a rock and sleep for crying out loud.” another hour went by in silence until Scoots broke it with her voice. “Hey, you think we’ll be able to crack that safe soon?” That was a good question, and sadly it was one I could not really answer.

“I... I don’t know. I guess if we keep at it we have to see some sort of result soon.”

“Yeah.” Then things got silent and I finally decided to fall asleep. As day broke, or so we assumed in this dark cavern, Scootaloo woke me up so we could search for our exit again.

“Alright, where did we leave off yesterday?” I stretched out my legs while Scootaloo tried to remember the answer.

“I believe we were over here.” We trekked through a few more caves and things started to look similar as we started finding our way back out. “ I think I can see a light.” We approached the light and found an opening. After that, we found ourselves staring at three massive waterfalls and a big iron box floating over a pedestal with engravings on it. Its pure beauty astounded me, Scootaloo even seemed speechless for once. The floating hexahedron seemed almost untouched by time, it had no scratches or marks on it! The rest of the cave had moss and cracks everywhere, but the cube seemed almost as if it was just crafted. I looked at Scoots and in return she looked at me with big eyes. I knew it and so did she, we had to check this out. As we approached the massive anomaly, it seemed to glow a bright blue and rotate slower. When we finally reached the top of the steps, it had completely stopped rotating now.

“Wha..... What is it?” Scootaloo’s eyes were wide and beautiful.

“I don’t know...” I stared at it, the engravings now telling a story. I found many pictures of miners and Diamond Dogs on it. After staring for a bit longer, I found a tablet with more engravings on it, this time words.

“Long ago, woeful times befell us, for the safety of all we stored you. We shall wake you when the time is right, we know it will be long from now but sleep.” Was this talking about the cube? I looked back and Scootaloo was placing her hoof on it. Where her hoof was, it started to glow a brighter green and blinded me. When I could see again, it had stopped glowing, and was folding in on itself multiple times! As it folded, it got smaller until it was about the size of my hoof.

“What just happened?”

“I don’t know, but I think you somehow activated it. What is it anyways?”

“I think.... I think it’s for that wall.” She might be right, it seemed like a good answer.

“We should go, we can’t keep the troops thinking we got lost, or at least forever.” So we grabbed the cube and stashed it away in our bag. We were searching again but we knew our way this time, somehow. When we got back to the camp, everypony stared and seemed to loosen their shoulders in relief.

“We were worried, we thought you guys were done for.”

“It’s alright Harbinger, we are alright, right Ironbrazier?” I was in a haze, I felt like I knew what to do. “Brazier?” Everything became hazy, I saw the answer, I saw everything. “Hey PIG!” I approached the room and went to the wall. “What is he doing?” I placed my hand on the wall and noticed cracks of light similar to the ones on the door earlier pour down my arm and onto the wall, revealing a crack and suddenly opening. “What the...?” I heard the screams of many ponies accompanied by the roaring of Diamond Dogs. Then, black.