//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: Hourglass // by DuskPhoenix //------------------------------// Twilight walked quickly down the spiraling stairs of the Everfree castle, a myriad of magical sensors and devices floating after her. Shortly behind, Spike lugged a box almost as big as he was, huffing and puffing all the way. Eventually, he groaned. "Why do you... even need... all this... gah... stuff?" Spike wheezed. "Well, the magic artifact I wanted to study is a bit too big to bring to my lab, so I'm just bringing the lab here!" Twilight explained, her voice laced with barely-concealed excitement. They finally got to the bottom of the stairs and Spike flopped to the ground. Twilight looked back at him and giggled. "It's just around the corner, Spike, I know you can do it!" She ruffled his head spikes playfully. "I'm sure a strong dragon like yourself can make it just a bit farther." Spike looked determined at that. Standing up with shaking legs, he gripped the box and heaved with all his might. It didn't even budge. Spike tried again, but it still didn't move. Twilight watched this for a moment, then just picked Spike up and put him on her back. "Thanks for bringing it this far, big guy." Twilight said, picking up Spike's box in her magical aura. Spike gave a weak thumbs-up, groaning. As they continued down the hallway at the base of the stairs, Spike looked around. "What even is this thing you're gonna study?" He asked, looking over some paintings across the walls. "It's some kind of statue." Twilight said. "It was kept pretty far down, but it doesn't have anything around it that seems like it was meant to keep anypony out. There's all sorts of interesting paintings and carvings in the room with it that I want to study as well." Spike raised an eyebrow. "Why are you bringing equipment to measure magic then?" Twilight considered that for a moment. "Well, I just want to be careful. It seems like every time we find something here it's got some crazy enchantment on it. I want to make sure there isn't anything dangerous." Spike nodded. "Like that book that made Rarity turn everything all fancy?" Twilight chuckled awkwardly. "Uh, yeah. Like that." She shuddered. "That took forever to fix..." A few moments later, the hall opened up into a wide, high-ceilinged room. Pillars made of alternating dark and light stone lined the side of the room, and paintings and sculptures in various stages of wear decorated the spaces between. At the end of the room stood a statue of an earth pony rearing onto its back hooves, its expression unnervingly blank. Spike looked up at it as Twilight walked closer, and its eyes seemed to follow him. "Man, that is one creepy statue," Spike remarked, looking away from its gaze. Twilight nodded. "There's an inscription on the base of the statue, but it's in some language I don't quite recognize." She walked up to the placard at the statue's base, looking over it. A few books levitated out of the boxes and floated before her, their pages turning rapidly. "It shouldn't take long for me to find out what it is though." Spike nodded, wandering around the room as his gaze also wandered around the walls. Murals stretched across every surface, most of them having nearly faded away. The only still preserved mural lay at the end of the room across the far wall, and Spike whistled in appreciation as his gaze fell upon it. Creatures of all sorts filled the bottom of the mural; dragons and griffins, ponies and minotaurs, zebras and bison, and even some creatures Spike didn't quite recognize. Every creature was gazing towards the center of the wall where Celestia and Luna were depicted on two thrones, the Elements of Harmony at their hooves. Spike frowned in thought as he glanced over the room again and then back to the mural. It seemed like this piece depicted the ending of the story the room had once held, but he couldn't make out enough of the other murals to guess what it was trying to show. Spike scratched his head in thought, calling back over his shoulder. "Hey, you don't happen to have any, like, mural recovering spells, do you?" Spike asked. He waited a moment, then turned to look at Twilight. Twilight had her attention glued to a book, her mouth moving silently as her eyes flicked between the placard and the tome. Spike sighed, walking back over to Twilight and looking over her shoulder. "You find out what language this is yet?" Spike asked, half expecting to get silence as an answer again. He looked a bit surprised when Twilight nodded. "It's an ancient dialect of Dracon, one that died out over a thousand years ago." Twilight said, closing her book with a satisfied smirk. "But I think I've got it!" She levitated a scrap of paper over to Spike, who looked it over carefully. "May the Guardians watch over us until the end of Creation." Spike read, raising an eyebrow at Twilight. "Why was this written in the dragon language?" Twilight pursed her lips in thought, her gaze falling to the mural Spike had looked at earlier. "It seems like this hall is a memorial of some kind." Twilight began slowly. "The paintings seem pony made, but the craftsmanship on the statue's plinth seems closer to ancient griffin works." Twilight eyed the support pillars and the floor, her brow furrowing. "These pillars look like minotaur craftsmanship though. And this floor," Twilight tapped the smooth, speckled tiles with a hoof, "this is Saddle Arabian marble." "So this hall was built for Celestia and Luna by a bunch of different races?" Spike pondered that. "Do you think this could've been from when the Princesses banished Discord?" Twilight hummed in thought. "That would make sense. Discord's chaos affected the entire world. I can imagine that the pony races weren't the only ones thankful that the world wasn't going crazy anymore." Twilight turned back to the statue. "But why is the statue an earth pony if it was dedicated to Celestia and Luna?" Twilight and Spike looked back up at the statue in thought, staring into its cold gaze. Spike looked away after a moment, shivering and choosing to stare at the plinth instead. He paused and leaned down to inspect at the ground around the statue. "Hey Twilight," Spike said, "there's scuff marks on the tile here. It's like-" Twilight's eyes lit up as she glanced down to see what Spike was pointing out. "It's like the statue's been moved before!" Twilight said excitedly. "What if it's guarding a secret passage?" Spike scratched his head. "Well how are we supposed to move this thing? It's huge." Twilight stared up at the statue, her horn starting to glow. A low, slow beeping started up from a few of the boxes as the sensors picked up Twilight's magic, and a magenta glow surrounded the statue. Twilight's face scrunched in concentration, her brow furrowing as sweat formed across it. The statue shifted slightly with a low scraping noise, and Spike pumped a fist in the air. "You got it Twilight!" Spike cheered, and the beeping grew faster as Twilight poured more magic into her attempt. Slowly, carefully, the statue slid across the floor. The edge of a hole came into view as the statue slid, yawning further until it revealed a narrow pit that fell straight down into darkness. Twilight relaxed, dispelling her magic and walking to the edge of the hole, her confused thoughts coming faster and faster. She peered down into it, but the only thing she could see was pure, inky blackness. "Uhh, Twilight?" Twilight was too deep in thought. Why was there a statue over this pit? What was this pit for? What did the other murals show? Her thoughts raced, and she frowned in annoyance as a sound broke through them. "Spike, can you stop that beeping? It's making it hard to think." Twilight said absently. Maybe this was some sort of passageway centuries ago? No, the walls were too smooth for climbing and too narrow to fly easily. Maybe- Twilight's thoughts screeched to a halt, her blood suddenly running cold. She looked over her shoulder at the boxes of magical sensors. They were still beeping. "Uh, please tell me you're doing some invisible magic thing and those sensors aren't just beeping on their own." Spike nervously said. Before Twilight could answer the beeping increased in speed, getting louder and louder as it did. A deep and sudden jolt send dust falling from the ceiling in clouds. Twilight scooped Spike up on her back and bolted away from the hole and the statue, the screeching of the sensors filling the hall until Twilight couldn't hear what Spike was yelling right next to her ear. The entire space shook, the air and stone reverberating with a constant low thrum that rose above the cacophony. Twilight's teeth chattered as the thrum vibrated through her bones, and she resisted the urge to cough as it passed through the air in her lungs. She forced herself onwards as light of all colors bloomed behind her, the door just within her reach. All of a sudden, it stopped. Pure quiet fell over the room. Twilight almost tripped in the sudden stillness, her own hoovesteps now sounding like cannon blasts. She rounded the doorframe, skidding to a halt just outside of the hall and pressing herself against a wall and Spike into her forelegs. Both of them breathed heavily and strained their ears to listen for anything breaking the silence. A hollow, sharp clank rang from the hall, causing Twilight and Spike to flinch. They stood tensely for a moment, but no other sounds came from the hall. Twilight looked down at Spike trembling in her arms and then out into entryway of the eerily silent hall. She held her breath and peered around the edge of the door. The statue had been completely broken apart. Scorch marks radiated out from the hole like a five pointed star, and a large gap had been punched through the ceiling and two floors after that, letting a circle of sunlight shine down. Something in that circle glimmered, reflecting the light and making her squint. It seemed like a strange glass artifact now lay on the ground in front of the ruined statue. When nothing moved, Twilight motioned for Spike to stay back as she crept into the hall. All of her machinery was ruined, she noticed with a frown. Whatever had scorched the ground from inside the pit had burst outwards in every direction and destroyed anything around it. She faltered at the sight of all of the books she had brought lying in a smoldering pile, gritting her teeth in barely restrained frustration. She slowed as she approached the pit, the glass heap at the foot of the crumbled statue coming into clearer view. She squinted her eyes at it. It had to just be the way the sun was glittering off of it, but the glass almost looked like... The pile stirred. Twilight backpedaled as fast as she could, putting a few meters between her and the glass. The pile moved, parts of it shifting and uncurling with unnatural clinks and clanks. Finally, it gave a short, synthetic sounding groan, standing on four legs. "A pony?" Twilight breathed. As much as she couldn't believe it, her eyes told her it was true. An earth pony stood before her, entirely made from hollow glass. Its eyes opened slowly, and two glowing white irises glittered into being. A shimmering, gas-like substance flowed out from it like a short mane and tail, trailing off into the air around it. It took a deep, harsh breath, its eyes fixing on Twilight with a cold stare. "Twilight Sparkle," The glass pony rasped in a voice as hollow as its body, "you have begun the end."