Death is Truth

by Ricktin

Chapter 2

Mountains High Cavern Deep

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Reign of the Sun Goddess
Day 26th Month 3rd Year 997 6:28 PM

Large mountains loomed in the distance as great fields of grass stretched on for miles, blowing in the breeze. Celestia’s sun moved down towards the horizon as the sound of cart wheels could be heard rolling down a dirt path. Ricktin Shade and his father Rock Duster were trotting towards their destination, Ricktin pulling the cart, as Rock Duster had started to talk in more detail about the place they were going.

". . . And I believe it is a temple for a cult that may have been disbanded nearly fifteen hundred years ago," Rock Duster said, while he continued to walk down the path, talking enthusiastically. "The cult supposedly used the temple to conduct regular rituals that they hoped would give them increased magical power. It was even suggested to affect Earth Ponies and Pegasi!"

Ricktin nodded as he listened politely to his father while walking beside him. He would occasionally take a look around at the scenery as his father continued to speak. This carried on for some time until the two ponies had passed into some woods at the base of the mountain, and only half the sun remained as a crescent moon rose over the opposite horizon signaling the end of their second day of travel.

Rock Duster looked around. "I don't think we'll be getting any farther today."
He looked at a map and then turned to face up the mountain. "The entrance to the cave should just be a few hours hike up from here."

Ricktin was unbuckling the cart harness as he spoke. “Great, it's not gonna be a steep climb right?" He raised an eyebrow looking to his father for an answer as he finally freed himself.

Rock Duster shook his head. "No, it won't be too bad, we'll be able to criss-cross the mountain all the way up to the site," he said while moving over to the cart. "As long as nothing stops us, we'll get there right on time," he said, and began to rummage through the cart for their camp gear.

Ricktin trotted a short ways away, flopped down on the grass and closed his eyes as he said, "Great, then I'll go ahead and get some shut eye."

Rock Duster looked over at his son, in amusement, before setting down a bag from the cart. "You’re not even going to set up a tent?"

Ricktin rolled over, his tail flicked slightly. "Mmnope," he said as his father got some poles out of the bag.

"All right, but don't blame me when you wake up freezing in the morning," Rock Duster said, and then started to set up his own tent.

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Reign of the Sun Goddess
Day 27th Month 3rd Year 997 8:47 AM

The sun was starting to become visible over the eastern horizon when Ricktin opened his eyes. He pointedly refused to acknowledge that his father had been right, even as he shivered from the drop in temperature and the condensation that had accumulated on his back during the night. He got up, shook himself off and then, still shivering slightly, trotted over to the burnt out campfire that his father had set up last night, and started re-lighting it for breakfast, and warmth.

Rock Duster stirred, his eyelids flickered open as he leaned out of his sleeping bag. He took a short yawn, then slowly stood upright and stepped out of the tent. Seeing his son tending the fire he made his way over to him. "So, how did you sleep last night?" he asked with a grin.

Ricktin shrugged his shoulders. "Pretty easily," he said not making mention of the cold, early morning dew that he had dealt with.

Rock Duster nodded, tapping his chin. "Well that's good, because we've got a long day ahead of us," he said after he replaced his shit eating grin with a calmer smile.

Ricktin showed no reaction as he continued working on making some coffee over the fire, only giving a subtly sarcastic, "Great."

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Reign of the Sun Goddess
Day 27th Month 3rd Year 997 1:47 PM

A few hours later the two were moving up the mountain after having eaten breakfast and packed up the camp. Rock Duster was climbing up a slight rock face while Ricktin was a little behind, having to climb with the cart.

Turning back to look, Rock Duster called to Ricktin, "Come on son, you should be in-front of me not lagging behind like an old man."

Ricktins eye twitched as he continued to pull the cart slowly up the hill. "You know damn well this bucking mountain is the only reason you're ahead," he mumbled before shouting "Hey, maybe this trip’s giving you back your youth."

Rock Duster chuckled as he turned back to the effort of heading up the mountain. "Maybe, but the cave should be just a little farther, you should be able find your way there without me holding your hoof," he shouted as he moved up past some more stone, “See you there," he shouted before he passed by a larger pile of rocks and disappeared from view.

Ricktins eye continued to twitch for a few minutes until he stopped grinding his teeth and tried to calm himself down by humming a tune he'd thought up back home.

Finally making it up to where his father had been shouting, Ricktin took a break as he stared up the mountain, breathing lightly. Squinting against the sun in his eyes, he saw what looked like a small outcropping on the side, which he could only assume was where the cave was located. He could see his father just about to reach the top of it.

After reaching back and readjusting the harness, Ricktin continued up the hill so that he could catch up with his father. As he trotted past the pile of rocks, behind which his father had disappeared, he stopped, taking notice of some oddly defined pieces of rock lying amongst the boulders. As he took a closer look, they seemed to be pieces of some kind of structure, or maybe a statue. Searching through the rocks for a few minutes he found one that seemed to be some kind of animal head.

He raised an eyebrow as he examined the face. Its expression gave the appearance that it was screaming in pain, or perhaps laughing? Ricktin looked back at some of the pieces of the statue that he had come across. None of them seemed like they would match the head. Ricktin shrugged assuming the pieces must have been from several different statues and placed the pieces into the cart thinking his father might be interested in them, but groaned as he realized how much more he had to lug up the mountain. Deciding to focus on the climb ahead, Ricktin pushed everything else out of his mind and moved forward.

Half an hour later, after finally reaching the edge of the out cropping Ricktin pulled the cart the final few feet and collapsed onto the flat rock, letting the wind cool his heated muscles.

Rock Duster turned back from the cave entrance, a note pad near his feet and a pencil in his mouth. He raised an eyebrow curiously. Turning his head back for moment and letting the pencil drop out of his mouth, he placed it and the pad back into the saddle bag and trotted over to Ricktin. "You took a while to get up here, did something happen?"

Ricktin got back to his hooves and removed the harness while addressing his father. "No, nothing happened dad, I just picked up something that you didn't see on the way up."

Rock Duster’s interest piqued; he started looking in the cart and found the statue pieces.

As he examined them, an enthusiastic smile rapidly spread across his face, until it faltered and he gave his son an inquiring look. “You did mark down ‘precisely’ where you found the pieces correct?”

Ricktin paused and rubbed the back of his head as he gave a slight grimace, not looking directly at his father. “I… might have forgotten to do that.”

Rock Duster face-hoofed and sighed. “I guess that doesn’t detriment the research too much, but try to remember that next time, alright?”

Ricktin nodded while Rock Duster continued looking at the statue pieces. “Yeah, ok dad.”

"Well, either you found a large assortment of nature statues, or our cult members were followers of chaos magic."

Ricktin finally got out of the harness, walking over to the edge to feel the breeze looking over the edge at the steep drop. "Isn’t chaos magic an old legend linked with those dragon-quis things?"

Rock Duster shook his head. "Dra-co-ne-quus. Fact,” he enunciated. “And I see you remember the Canterlot exhibit on chimeras."

Ricktin turned around and looked at his father, smiling irritatedly as he replied, "Barely, and only because you dragged me there."

Rock Duster shrugged and said, "Thinking back though, it was good that you went, am I right?"

"I guess so."

Rock Duster continued examining the statue pieces before heading back to the entrance of the cave. "The only draconiquus I can think of to be able to make ponies’ worship their power was Discord," Rock Duster continued as he pulled the pencil and pad out again looking at it, "but he's been gone for so long... there must have been others before and after Discords' reign."

Ricktin trotted over to his father, as he looked between his notes and the top of the cave entrance. There, Ricktin could see a series of ancient symbols that looked like some form of writing. He returned his curious look to his father. "So what does it say?"

Rock Duster looked up from his notes at Ricktin and dropped the pencil onto the pad. "Well it's in Draconian. The knowledge we have of their language is still a bit rough. Relations still being sketchy and the best I can put together is -gift of chaos- and we already have a good reason why that's there," he said looking back up and focusing on the writing.

He then lowers his head, rubbing his muzzle in thought, continuing, "I can't seem to translate the last part though, it seems to be -in- something, but the rest of it is scratched out and I can't translate it." Rock Duster pulled out a slightly beaten tome, opened it and scanned the text as he tried to decipher the cave entrance’s writing.

Ricktin returned his attention to the words and wiped some sweat off his brow as the midday sun warmed the side of the mountain. Looking over them he then looked straight into the entrance giving a sidelong glance at his father, tapping his hoof impatiently. "Well, while you're coming up with ideas on what the last part is, shouldn't we start moving on to exploring the cave?"

Rock Duster took a glance at Ricktin, then back to his notes before he grinned and pulled back his head tossing the pencil in the air and let it land, catching it securely behind his ear. With that, he started moving into the cave, still holding the tome with his magic, a smug smile on his face. "Right, let’s get going shall we?"

Ricktin rolled his eyes and followed. "Show off."

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Reign of the Sun Goddess
Day 27th Month 3rd Year 997 4:02 PM

As Ricktin Shade and Rock Duster moved through the cave, they passed by many more runes and writings strewn across the walls, most of which would have been readable if not for having been worn away. It would have taken too long to figure out which letters were which; there were very few smudged, yet still recognizable words. One easily noticed occurrence, that his father found, was the word -gift-, it seemed to come up frequently in the text that they passed.

The cave having only one passage to follow, the two ponies moved into what appeared to be a large carved out chamber with more writing on the walls and some sort of engraved ritual circle with supporting pillars placed in an octagonal pattern around it. Some of the pillars appeared to have cracked and shattered over time, while the others seemed to be in great condition, and still covered in carvings and ritual markings. The area directly around the circle was surrounded by a dark chasm. While the outer walls of the chamber had plenty of space to stand on, the only way to the ritual circle was a stone walkway leading from the entrance of the chamber.

Rock Duster was hesitant for moment, but shrugged it off and trotted over to some of the writing on the wall using his horn to make notes on his pad as he rubbed his chin. "Interesting. Early Equestrian and Gryphon languages alongside the draconian writings. This definitely appeals to idea that the cultists were here longer than should have been possible..."

As Rock Duster was translating the walls, Ricktin stepped along the stairway to the center to take a look at the pillars. Stepping onto the circle, he stood in front of one of the pillars and examined the carvings along its surface.

The carvings seemed to depict one draconiquus chimera hovering over the three different pony kinds with some wave like lines moving from it down to the ponies. Taking a look at some of the other pillars, there was also a gryphon, and one that looked like a dragon; the other pillars were too shattered to distinguish much of anything. The pillars that were still whole both had the same picture as the first pillar and they were all covered ritualistic symbols just like the walls.

"Hey dad, come here and check out these columns!" Ricktin shouted to his father as he looked to see if he could find anything in the broken pieces on the ground that could tell him, or his father about what was on the other pillars, making sure not to step on any of them.

Rock Duster however didn't hear him as he was still engrossed in translating the walls of the cave. "vers majaktor... ekess wer plythu... zyak batobot astahii... nomag lehhav... persvek wer treskri... majaktor..." Rock Duster muttered as he read and shook his head as he looked at some symbols of the other symbols as he thought about the ones he had just translated.

He then turned to find Ricktin and his expression became concerned as he saw him on the ritual circle and shouted, "Son! Get off of there!”

Ricktin looked stood straight and looked back at his father “What? Why?”

“What you're on is the ritual ground for the goings on in this cave! This place has had chaos magic used, for whatever purpose, so it might still be active!”

Ricktin rolled his eyes "Dad half this thing is destroyed and the other half looks like it's ready to fall apart, besides a few of the pillars! I don't think anything could still be 'active' in this place," He shouted back while he still looked around the platform.

“You still need to get off of there! If enough of that stone is still in good condition it might actually still be able to be used for its intended purpose!”

“And that is?”

Rock Duster had started moving towards the entrance cave. “I’d rather not find out! Come on we still need get set up for the night, then we can try and decipher some more of the draconian writing in the caves hall before it gets too late.”

Ricktin looked around one more time before he started to follow his father. “Alright, I guess we should-” as Ricktin walked down the stone pathway to the entrance, something lightly hit the back of his head. He turned around, in surprise, glancing warily around the cavern.

“Ricktin, we need to get the camp set up. Let’s go.” Rock Duster shouted from the entrance.

Ricktin shook his head and he continued down the stone walkway towards his father. “Yeah, yeah I’m coming.”