Twin Blades

by Craigulus Twinblade

A discovery most interesting.

Craig got back from his daily fitness routine, wandered into the kitchen, downed all the water from the jug in his fridge, walked upstairs, and sat down at his trusty laptop. First order of business was to go to NHL.com and find out if any interesting trades or signings had developed. Since he is a huge Canadian hockey fan this is no surprise because he had been following hockey for most of his teenaged life. He had been a true hockey fan ever since his beloved Vancouver Canucks went to the Stanley Cup Final, only to watch them lose. It is still one of the saddest moments in his time being a hockey fan. After seeing that little to no offseason developments had occured, he hopped onto Facebook to see if any of his friends were up to anything. Nothing. No notifications, messages, or friend requests and their wasn't any interesting conversations going on. There were a few memes that were there but it was nothing special.

Just as he was about to click the sign out button, his friend had messaged him. "Ian? Hmmmmm...... Haven't heard from him in a bit."

"Hey Craig! I need to come over to your place this Saturday so you can help me with this old map I found on my trip to the interior of British Columbia. It's like an old native tribe made it or something I just found it partially buried in the sand."

Craig found that message odd. The map was strange enough but the thing Craig found most unusual was the question of why Ian kept it just because he wanted his friend to look at it? Craig didn't even know about native lore and history, the only history he knew about was the times of the Roman Empire, the Vikings, Medieval Europe, and the Spanish destruction of the Aztec civilization. He would give this his best shot though, seeing as this may turn out to be the most exciting time he has had all summer. And who knows, maybe this will lead to a little adventure? He wasn't counting on it though. In any case he would just have to wait until this Saturday to figure out what the big fuss is over this map.

---

Saturday had arrived and so had Ian. They went upstairs and examined the map.

"You sure this is authentic Ian?" Craig asked to clear up at least one of his questions about this artifact.

"Yep, had a guy examine it and this has probably been in existence for around 467 years!"

"So this parchment dates back to 1546!?!? Holy crap this is a serious find man!"

"Your mom is a serious find."

"Shut up."

Upon further examination, Craig recognized the area this map was portraying. This was a crudely drawn map of the west coast from Los Angeles to the Interior of B.C! It was probably an explorers map but something is not right about that logic because Europeans never mapped out that much of the west coast until the early 1800's and come to think of it, natives never even mapped out that much of North America let alone the west coast! Something wasn't right about this actually being authentic. Craig was starting to have serious doubt's about this being legitimate. He was about to explain to Ian how he thought it was bull crap until Ian mentioned something that made the puzzle connect.

"On the back of this map is a bunch of old writing coming from a native language. I think the translator said it was the language the Coast Salish used."

Craig's ears perked. He knew that the Coast Salish loved their boats and such but it was kind of odd thinking that a Salish scout would have enough time to map out the entirety of the west coast and to somehow get all the way up to the interior. Whoever that guy was, Craig hoped that the scout did his tribe proud. He always did love to hear about long adventures.

Ian explained that the writings said "The door to the Land of Small Horses lies under the place of Learning on-"

The next few words made Craig's mind explode with excitement and a sense of adventure had ensnared his mind

"THAT'S THE NAME OF THE STREET MY SCHOOL IS ON! Could this mean that there is some sort of underground temple that has been right under my feet the whole time!?!?!?! I have to get to the bottom of this man! Come on Ian! Let's go on an adventure!"

Ian just looked at his friend and said "No thanks."

This answer put Craig in a state of shock. He never thought that his friend would decline something like this! He had to ask why.

"Why?" he said in a soft, but frustrated voice.

"Because it's probably just some mystical and philosophical bullcrap." Ian explained himself

"And even if there was some sort of underground temple or something we would probably have to dig and we don't exactly have machines to do it. We have regular old shovels and that would take weeks, even months!"

"But we could just ask some sort of archaeology tea-"

"Do you know any!?!?!?!"

"..................No."

---

After Ian left, Craig just sat at his desk to examine the map Ian let him keep. He then came to the conclusion that if he wanted an adventure he would have to find it himself. That adventure lies deep below the school that he knew inside and out. Since his parents were on vacation, he knew he didn't need to ask them for a ride to the school. He had to ask his brother for a ride instead. Who knows how that's going to turn out?

Craig asked "Hey me and my friends are going to camp in the school field for fun could you please give me a ride? we're going to be there for a week and we've got everything in terms of supplies so yea".

"Oh please, oh please, oh please, say-

"Yep!"

That went way better than Craig had previously expected. His brother normally doesn't say yes to things like that so quickly without persuasion. Now was the time to grab the tent that he obviously wasn't going to use from the storage and also he had to grab the shovel. He also thought bringing his pocket knife would probably come in handy as well as a flashlight and extra batteries. He also had the thought of his camera cross his mind as he was digging through the old storage closet. Craig had honestly never thought he would take a small adventure such as this. He truly felt like an explorer potentially heading into trouble. Craig could actually come to the conclusion that this is the first time in his life that he ever truly felt like Craigulus Twinblade. He grabbed his second pocket knife so he could just improve on that feeling. He began to think of something though. What if there was actually something dangerous down there? What if it hurt him, or even killed him?

"Oh well" he thought"At least there will be a hole in the ground so they can climb down and find my body for the funeral."

"Dear lord, that sounded morbid." He continued.

He decided he needed to shave his beard. It didn't even look like a good beard because he was always teased by his family that it looked like a neck beard which it certainly was attracted to the neck other than the chin but he wouldn't go so far as to call it a neck beard. He marched into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. His short, freshly cut, dirty blonde hair was something to be desired. Craig tended to think highly of himself because he was quite popular with the kids at school. Every time he wanted attention he would get it by doing something awesome like scoring a few points in a basketball game or being the life of the party at EVERY school dance throughout the year. He also had a girlfriend and honestly that's not a big surprise because of his striking blue eyes. Anyway it was time to shave and go to bed anyway, so I guess tomorrow i'm going to start my journey.

"I wonder what the door to the land of small horses means? Could it be that it means a portal to Equestri-

".....Naaawww it couldn't be."

Craig still seemed to have a small hope about it though. There is endless possibility of what it could really be after all.

---

Craig hopped out of the car at the school the next day and he chose a spot to dig. He knew not to dig straight down because if he did he would probably fall down pretty far once he hit the cave if there was one. He would just have to take his Minecraft strategy, make a stairway down! He began to dig on the slope that led down into the school field. He brought a pair of gloves so he could avoid getting blisters. He hated things like that with a passion. As time went on he grew increasingly tired while digging. Good thing he brought his Ipod though. He plugged it in and began to play his music. The particular song he played has got him through some tougher times in his life and it seemed appropriate to the situation he had gotten himself into. It is also a song used in one of his favorite videogame character's games. Music tended to keep him going because he is just one of those people that just moves to the music no matter how weak or tired he is. Food and water also help of course, and he had plenty of that in his backpack. His mind had been racing. He knew that even if he didn't find anything supernatural, he would have probably found ruins to sell to somebody and he would have been in papers across the country! He could see the headlines now:

"16 year old digs out long lost civilization!"

That was the only thing buzzing in his mind all night. Craig just kept digging long into the night stopping only to rest periodically. The next day he finally broke down a dirt wall in front of him and discovered a long cave going deep into the darkness. He pulled out his flashlight and flicked the on switch to find that it is not your everyday cave. It had a few stone pillars on each side supporting it and there was stone floors for the most part. He couldn't believe his eyes, the ruins actually existed! He decided to go deeper into the ruins because he was curious as a cat about it all. The hall was chilly and you could tell it was ancient because on the pillars there was many little drawings of what appeared to be horses and more oddly, people communicating with them. At this point Craig could not control his excitement about this and the more he thought about it, the more he thought that this just might be a portal to Equestria he was dealing with somewhere in this labyrinth. Although he was trying to let his logical side control him, he just couldn't stop his sense of imagination and adventure as he dashed through the caves. On his Ipod the playlist had looped back to 'Endless Possibilities'.

After going for what seemed like an hour, he found himself looking at a giant stone door with many strange markings and writings of some sort. He could not read it. He was in utter disappointment at the fact that this stone door was blocking his way. How could he continue his adventure when an immovable object was standing right in front of his potential destiny? He was about to turn back when he noticed something in the middle of the door. It was the palm of a hand carved into the stone. He put his hand there out of curiosity in case the door opened that way and just as he did so he instantly blacked out. He could see nothingness for what seemed like five whole minutes! It was almost like he died or something. That's probably it. This was the end of him and he felt a wave of grief and sadness wash over him as he thought of his friends and family learning about his disappearance and later, death. Just as he accepted his fate he heard a voice in the blackness.

"You have finally come to us."

Craig was almost startled at the sudden loud booming voice. It sounded like the voice of a girl echoing through his mind. She sounded beautiful.

"God? You're a woman?"

"I am not this God you speak of. Though many of my subjects treat me as one."

"........What is happening? Why am I blacked out!?!?!"

Craig went into a small panic due to the current happenings. This was something completely opposite of the realm of logic and his mind was not prepared for such a thing. He tried squirming but that did not help seeing as he was in some sort of out of body experience. The lady began to speak once more.

"Listen to my words carefully Craig."

"How on Gods green earth do you know my name!?!?"

"All in good time Craig! Please listen! You are going to need to hear this! Just please listen in silence, for I have a story to tell you."

Craig was still reluctant to hear what this voice had to say due to her refusal to tell him what the heck was going on, but then it struck him. This could be the beginning of something great! Something that nobody else would ever get to experience in their entire lives! Why not listen to what this voice had to say?

"Fine, I shall listen."

"Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria. There was trouble brewing in the town of Ponyville because a bandit camp had been spotted just outside the Everfree forest. These bandits belonged to the Griffon known as Iron Claw. One of the most dangerous bandit lords in Equestria today. If you can defeat them, then I have a little more in store for you. Do you understand?

"...........Yes Princess Luna."

"How do you know my name?!?!?"

"All in good time princess, all in good time"

Craig smiled. He now saw his destiny and it was all within his reach.

"Wait a second.........YOU WANT ME TO ACTUALLY FIGHT AND KILL THESE BANDITS!?!?!?!?!??! I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO FIGHT! IT'S LIKE YOU'RE SENDING ME ON A USELESS SUICIDE MISSION!!!"

He snapped out of his black out and was blinded by the midday sun beating down on him. Soon he found that he was lying beneath the treetops.

"This can not be good."

Author's Note:

Phew! That took a bit too write!

Once again leave a like or favorite if you want or leave some constructive criticism in the comment section below or a straight up compliment.

Craigulus, out

Comments

[Max Caulfield]

I can has twinblades?

[EclipseStar]

I like it, though Craig seems to be a bit cocky.

[spetsnaz pinkie pie]

Next chapter plz

[Blackshadow of Abys]

hhmmmm i'm liking so far