51. Runes - Part Two: Library
Scholar Arc
Year 10, Month 4, Day 28
Atlas carefully climbed over a small pile of rubble as he entered into the temple proper. It was immediately recognizable that time hadn’t been any kinder to the inside of the temple, as everything seemed either broken, overgrown or faded. The roof, as well as the walls, were littered with holes, and sunlight poured in, illuminating the interior.
The temple itself actually consisted of a single, great hall. Broken benches made of stone littered the floor, oriented towards the front end of the temple, where something akin to a podium stood. The wall behind it had been, at some point in time, painted with what must have been a beautiful mural, but alas the colors had long since faded, and left behind were only smudges of seemingly random shapes and forms.
The sound of several hooves clacking against stone echoed across the temple as the rest of Atlas' group trickled in. Gasps of amazement could be heard behind him as his companions took their first look around.
"I've never seen anything like this," Doc Brown mentioned. "It's a truly unique style of architecture."
"It’s amazing alright," Amethyst said. "So what do we do now?"
"I'd suggest we split up and search for clues," Atlas replied while still looking around and taking everything in. "Look for anything that looks like writing that's carved into the walls or other surfaces. Maybe even hidden passages or stuff."
"Sound like a plan to me," Crimson said, shrugging. "I'll go check out the roof."
He took off and flew through one of the skylights in the roof, while the rest of the group shrugged off their saddlebags, stacking them against one wall before walking off towards different corners of the room. Doc Brown went to look at the podium, while Amethyst went towards the wall opposite of where they entered, which left Atlas with the area to their right.
He approached a huge gate, most likely the original entrance to the temple and probably much larger than necessary. Contrary to the rest of the temple, the gate's doors were made of wood. By now it was thoroughly rotted, with the left door lying on the ground and the right one hanging from a single hinge.
Atlas tried to wipe away some of the grime from the door on the ground, but as soon as he touched the brittle wood it started to crumble away. Figuring he'd find nothing by examining them in their dilapidated state he decided to venture outside. If he remembered right, there should be stuff written above the doorframe, like which god the temple was built for.
Once outside he scanned the exterior walls. He could definitely make out faded letters above the doors, but they looked like regular writing. Since they didn’t seem like the runes he was looking for, and because he couldn't make out any legible words anyway, he quickly lost interest. After a quick sweep of the pillars around him revealed nothing of significance, he headed back.
After about an hour of searching every nook and cranny of the temple, Brown Diamond found something and called the others over to him.
"Look at this pedestal," he said as he pointed towards the object of his attention, which held aloft a broken bust. "Does anything about this seem peculiar to you?"
For a few moments, they stared at the thing that looked, for all intents and purposes, like all the others spread around the temple. Until Atlas saw it as well.
"The ground next to it," he announced, having found what the good Doctor had noticed.
Their attention drawn, Crimson and Amethyst inspected the floor more closely. Beneath the dirt and dust, scratches in the stone formed a sort of path, leading away from the pedestal's base.
"Do you think it's part of some sort of mechanism?" Amethyst asked, intrigued.
"Guess we're about to find out," Doc Brown said as he powered up his horn.
He pushed the pedestal along the scratches on the floor until an audible click could be heard. The companions looked at each other, curious to see what would happen next.
A soft purple glow seemed to emanate from underneath the pedestal and pulsed twice before disappearing again. Crimson was just about to ask if somepony knew what just happened when a loud rumbling drew their attention towards the podium at the back of the temple. A purple glow could be seen there as well.
The group shared a look before they dashed towards the source of the glow. On the floor next to the podium were lines of purple glowing runes.
They had finally found it. The reason for their being here was finally within reach.
A moment passed. "Soooo... what now?" Crimson asked after a bout of silence.
The runes were definitely beautiful to look at, but there was a significant lack of them doing anything other than glowing.
"Hmm... Well, I can't read any of it," Brown Diamond remarked. "If it's even supposed to say something."
They stared at the glowing letters for a while longer, trying to figure out what they were supposed to do. Atlas was racking his brain, but everything they had researched about runes merely confirmed their existence. None of their books mentioned how to read or use them.
"There seems to be something missing," Amethyst said, pointing at one of the runes.
Indeed, towards the lower half of the text was a missing letter; where it was supposed to be, only a hole was present. That's when Atlas remembered something White Mallow had told him when they first met.
"Of course!" he exclaimed before levitating his saddlebag towards him. He immediately flipped it open, and just like he suspected, he was greeted with a similar purple glow from within. Grinning, he levitated out the necklace he’d received from White Mallow as a gift.
"According to White Mallow, this stone opened a hidden pathway that led them deeper into the temple!" he said while showing them the glowing rune.
"Well, what are you waiting for, kiddo?" Doc Brown asked giddily. "Put it back where it belongs!"
Atlas did as he was told, eager to see what awaited them below. His comrades watched on with great anticipation as he slowly lowered the stone into the opening in the floor. They held their collective breath, excitement clearly visible on each of their faces.
Only for nothing to happen.
"Oh, yeah," Atlas deadpanned, lifting the small item to his face with a smirk. "It can't fit with the wooden chain still attached to it."
The other members of the group groaned with annoyance while Atlas detached the offending piece of wood. This time he didn't create any theatrical suspense and just put it in.
It was a perfect fit, and as soon as the last piece was in place, the runes started to glow brighter. The ground started to shake as the whole text seemed to sink into the ground. After descending a few inches, the plate started to retract backward, revealing a staircase leading down into the darkness.
"Last pony down is a chicken!" Brown Diamond yelled almost immediately before darting into the unknown below, closely followed by his levitating saddlebag.
Atlas, Crimson, and Amethyst shared an incredulous look with each other.
"I'm no chicken," Atlas said matter-of-factly, eyebrow raised, and followed Doc Brown.
"Oh no, he's contagious," Amethyst groaned.
"Just running down there seems a bit dangerous..." said Crimson.
"Yeah, you're right. Let's follow them to make sure they don't hurt themselves."
The pair began their descent as well, as Amethyst lit up his horn to illuminate the dark staircase. After about a minute of walking they could see the now familiar purple glow at the bottom. As they entered a hallway, they found Doc Brown and Atlas inspecting runes that were carved all along both sides.
"Find something interesting?" Amethyst asked as soon as he was within earshot.
"Yeah, it looks like these runes are meant to illuminate," Atlas said. "It's always the same rune throughout the whole hallway."
"Why use runes for that though?" Amethyst asked. "Don't we have magically infused gems for that? As far as I can recall they've been around almost forever."
"It's just a guess right now, but it might have something to do with energy efficiency. If all you had to do was carve the rune, and it powered itself by absorbing ambient mana, you'd technically have a light that never has to be manually recharged," Atlas said.
"Well, I guess that would make sense..." agreed Amethyst.
He walked over to Doc Brown, who was feverishly sketching the rune into a small notebook he'd brought along. It looked like two triangles touching at the tips, almost like a pointy hourglass that lay on its side.
"This is amazing," Doc Brown muttered. "We've barely been here for a few hours and have already seen so much amazing stuff. I wonder what's further in?"
He put away his notebook into his saddlebags and slowly trotted down the hallway, taking in everything he could. The rest of the group followed closely behind him, looking out for anything interesting.
"What if there's something bad down here?" Crimson asked while uncomfortably scanning the walls. "Like traps, or monsters?"
"I'm sure I can deal with any kind of monster that might have made its home down here," Amethyst reassured him. "It's why I'm here, after all."
"We also already scanned for traps," Atlas said. "Well, Doc did; I don't know any spells like that, but I trust him."
"If you say so..." said Crimson, still a bit uncomfortable. He vastly preferred open spaces to narrow hallways.
For a while, the hallway remained unchanged. The runes on both sides were equally spaced from each other; if they were required to be so or if it was simply aesthetic, none of them could tell. Finally, they entered a large rectangular room.
The hourglass runes were present in this room as well: the walls, and in this case even the roof, were covered with them. To their left and right, other hallways led away from the room, while on the opposing wall were two metal doors.
Doc Brown walked up to the right door and tried the handle.
"Locked," he remarked with a tinge of grief.
"Same here," Atlas said from the other door. "Know any lockpicking spells?"
"Can't say I do," Doc Brown said. "What about you, Amethyst?"
"I could try to create a construct that fits the hole," Amethyst answered.
He stepped up to the door where Doc Brown was and examined the handle.
"Uhhh... there doesn't seem to be any kind of keyhole," he said.
"Maybe they’re magically locked," Atlas suggested with a small shrug. "I wouldn't be surprised if there were more key runes like the one we used to get in."
"Can't we just blast it open?" Amethyst asked.
"I'd advise against it," Doc Brown said. "We don't know what's on the other side; we could destroy valuable artifacts or set free something that's meant to be locked up."
"So, we try one of the other hallways then?" Crimson asked. "Should we split up?"
"No," Atlas shook his head gently. "We're in an ancient underground temple, splitting up is almost a guarantee to get one of us killed; don't you read any books?"
"They're just books, Atlas, fiction. This is real life," Crimson shot back, annoyed.
"I have to agree with Atlas, just because they're made up doesn't mean there's nothing to be learned from them. Splitting up is a bad idea, we should stay together." Doc Brown said in a rare moment of responsibility.
"Alright, alright," Crimson relented. "Left or right?"
"Left, of course; only a mad pony would go right in this situation," Doc Brown stated as he purposefully walked towards the left hallway.
"I'm tempted to go right," Amethyst muttered, but they all followed him nonetheless. He seemed to have his mind set, and as far as they knew, left was just as good as right.
The hallway they found themselves in was largely the same as the one they entered through, although this one seemed to curve to the right. It didn't take them long until they arrived at a rotunda. Six paths led away from it, not counting the one they just came from.
"Great, now what?" Crimson asked.
"For starters, we should mark which hallway we just came out of," Amethyst said. He summoned a small construct hammer and chisel, and proceeded to carve an X into the wall next to their entrance. "After that, we just pick one at random I guess."
"Well this one over here has an arrow painted next to it, might as well pick that one," Atlas said while pointing to the second path to their right. "It was probably left by White Mallow's group or some other researchers."
"Most curious," Doc Brown said while alternating between looking at Atlas and the direction Atlas was pointing to.
"What?" Atlas asked, confused.
"There's no arrow where you're pointing," Amethyst and Crimson said simultaneously.
Atlas furrowed his brows and looked back over. There, just next to the entrance to the hallway, was a painted green arrow. Looking at it closer, it even seemed to glow a little.
"Seriously?" Atlas asked. "You can't see the glowing green arrow on that wall over there?"
"You mean this one here?" Doc Brown said, now standing to the left of the hallway indicated by Atlas.
"No, it's actually on the other side," Atlas said, annoyed. "Listen, if you're just fucking with me, it's time to stop. There's no way you can't see this thing, it isn't exactly well hidden. I'd even go so far as to say it stands out."
"Most curious indeed..." Doc Brown said. "Well, I'm following the invisible arrow."
Atlas watched his supposed elder walk into the hallway without a worry in the world, leaving them behind.
"Seriously guys, it's right there," Atlas said, exasperated, his hoof still stuck out in the arrow’s direction.
"You'll have to believe us when we say there's nothing there Atlas," Amethyst said, following after Doc Brown. "But if you say you can see it, I'm willing to believe you."
"Me too. You always were a strange one," Crimson said. He hesitated a moment, then whispered, "Does he know about your situation?".
"I told him the abridged version. He certainly doesn't know about the god part, much less the whole not being able to die deal. I'd like to keep that under wraps as much as possible," Atlas whispered back.
"Alright, your call. But knowing about all that makes seeing invisible arrows almost normal." Crimson chuckled and followed after Amethyst and Doc Brown as well.
Atlas smirked and briskly trotted after his friends to catch up. This time they went downwards for quite a while until they arrived at yet another split in the proverbial road.
"Which way, pathfinder?" Doc Brown asked in a chipper mood.
"Left..." Atlas grumbled, the glowing arrow present here as well.
This time his comrades followed his instructions without any fuss. They took many more turns, Amethyst dutifully marking the way they came from; the arrows ever-present and leading them deeper and deeper into the ruins.
Boredom was starting to set in, since all of the hallways looked the same, when finally, they entered into another large hall. Rows upon rows of bookshelves filled it, while in the center a reading table and chairs could be found. It would appear they had found a library.
"I will never doubt your hallucinations again, dear Atlas," Doc Brown said in awe. "This might be exactly what we were looking for. If even one of these books is about runes, it'll all have been worth it."
Doc Brown approached the nearest bookshelf. A lot of books seemed to be missing; only half of the available space was occupied, as seemed to be the case with most of the other shelves as well. He levitated a random book towards him, only to watch it crumble and fall to the ground before him in pieces.
"These ruins might be older than we thought..." Doc Brown remarked. "Let's spread out and look for any books that don't crumble at first touch.”
The plan was generally agreed on, and after dumping their saddlebags at the reading table in the center, each of them picked a random direction and started searching. It was a slow process. Many of the books were illegible or crumbled like the first one they’d tried. Only a very small number of books were in a good enough condition to be carefully read.
Yet, they didn't find any books about runes. An hour and about fifty books later they still had nothing to show for their hard work. Granted, some of the books were still very interesting, but not what they were looking for.
Atlas lazily walked amongst a section he hadn't been in yet and occasionally levitated a random book over. By now he had gotten pretty good at spotting the ones that would be useless or break up immediately. After reading their titles he immediately discarded them; no point in bringing back books that were about architecture.
He came to the end of his row and was about to enter the next one when something caught his eye: a faint green glow at the very end of the hall, obscured by yet another bookshelf. His interest piqued, he cantered over to it.
The glow seemed to come from behind a bookshelf that rested flat against the wall. Furrowing his brow, he picked the bookshelf up with his levitation and set it down to his right, revealing a hidden door leading into a small room. Now that the obstruction was out of the way, he could clearly see that the whole room was illuminated by green light, rather than the soft purple he had gotten used to by now.
Atlas tentatively entered the small room. There was a single bookshelf inside, and nothing more. He slowly turned around to locate the source of the glow and came face to face with what appeared to be a letter scrawled directly on the wall. Similar to the arrows he had followed, it was painted with the same green paint.
His eyes went wide when he realized it was written with the Latin alphabet instead of the weird symbols ponies used.
Dear Atlas,
You haven't died in a long time, so I wasn't able to contact you. For now, this message will have to suffice. My accomplices and I have taken a great risk upon us to "send" it. Rest assured, you'll be the only one who will be able to read this, it won't show up in the device Zeus uses to monitor you.
It is with great regret that I must inform you, that your prison has been completed. Your soul won't be able to leave it anymore, and I won't be able to pull you out to talk. That being said, I had a backdoor installed which will allow me to enter into your version of the underworld, Tartarus. If you should die, I'll be notified and pop in.
You should also know that some gods are pretty vain. Especially Zeus. Ever since your prison has been completed, he has lost interest in you more and more. Your life is most likely too boring for him. With Zeus having lost interest, his sons and daughters that follow him like sheep have left the device alone as well. Meaning you're not being monitored anymore.
Behind you, you will find a bookshelf filled with almost everything we know about runes. Much of your prison has been created through their use, since they are low maintenance while still being effective. They will ultimately be the key to your freedom, so I implore you to learn as much as you can about them.
Best of Luck,
Hades
Atlas read the message again and again. His situation seemed to have gotten worse since he talked to Hades last. At least he now knew they weren’t watching him all the time anymore.
Slowly, he turned around to face the bookshelf behind him. Now that he looked at it more closely, the books seemed like they were brand new, compared to all the others they had found until now. He scanned their backs and read their titles, noticing that they also used the Latin alphabet, making them useless to everybody else but him.
His eye twitched when he realized that they probably had no way of effectively carrying back this many books.
Atlas stepped outside of the room and lit up his horn, sending a bright green beam towards the ceiling.
"Hey, guys!" he shouted. "I found something!"
He could hear the clatter of wood hitting stone, followed by rapidly approaching hoof-falls. Doc Brown most likely darted out of his reading chair as soon as he heard him. It didn't take long for the stallion to drift around the corner in front of him. He spotted the hole in the wall behind Atlas and sped past him, giggling like a little filly.
Atlas shook his head and smiled when he heard pages being flipped at an incredible rate. Not long after, Amethyst and Crimson arrived as well and filed into the room. He didn't even bother to ask if they could see the message on the wall, now knowing for sure that they couldn't.
"This is amazing!" Doc Brown said. "All of these books are in top condition! And they seem to be written in a language I've never seen before!"
Amethyst levitated one of the books towards him and flipped it open. He looked at the text for a while before his eyes went wide with recognition.
"Atlas? Aren’t these the same letters you were using when you first arrived at the academy?" he asked incredulously.
All eyes fell on Atlas following Amethyst’s statement. He laughed nervously and nodded.
"Does... does that mean you can read these books?" Doc Brown asked, baffled.
"Yeah, I guess so..." Atlas shrugged.
“Tell me… Are they about runes?” Doc Brown asked cautiously, which Atlas simply confirmed with a nod.
Before he could do anything Doc Brown was upon him, crushing him with a bear hug.
"Eureka!" he exclaimed. "This will be our legacy, dear Atlas! An ancient art rediscovered by us! This is the happiest moment of my entire life!"
True to his words, a few stray tears streaked their way down his face. Atlas awkwardly patted him on the back until he let go.
"That's all well and good, but how are we going to take all those books with us?" Atlas asked. "We only have four saddlebags, which are mostly filled already," he reminded them.
"Oh that shouldn't be a problem," Doc Brown said, waving Atlas' concerns away with a hoof. "We can just put them into my saddlebags, they're bigger on the inside."
Atlas' eye twitched. "And you're only telling us now? We could have taken more things with us if we knew that!"
"Ah, but how would we take back, for example, an entire shelf worth of books if my bags were also full?" Doc Brown rebuked, tapping the side of his head with a hoof.
"Ugh, fine," Atlas relented. "No point in arguing. Let's just gather up these books; we can check them out on the way back or in the lab."
Everypony agreed, and Doc Brown went to retrieve his saddlebags. True to his words, they could fit almost all the books in there. Atlas, Crimson, and Amethyst took two books each as well.
"I doubt we'll find anything more about runes here," Atlas said. "This looks like more than we need. Certainly more than we hoped to find."
"Agreed," Doc Brown said as they filed out of the small room. "Let's hurry back, I really want to get to studying these books."
"You can't read them, though," Crimson quipped from the side.
"Bummer, I suppose I'll have Atlas teach me on the way back." Doc Brown answered, slightly less enthusiastic.
"Nothing left to do but head back, I guess," Atlas said.
They made their way back towards the exit, but as they passed another hallway leading out of the library, Crimson stopped.
"Wait, can you guys feel this?" he asked. "There's a soft breeze blowing out of here. You think there might be another exit?"
"Could be," Atlas said. "If it's closer than where we came in, I'm all for it. Took forever to get down here."
"Anything to get back home faster," Doc Brown agreed as well.
They stepped into the hallway, following Crimson since he was the only one who could feel the slight breeze with his wings. Once again, they were faced with several junctions along the way, but this time it was Crimson who was able to accurately guide them through the maze.
Suddenly, the neat hallway gave way to jagged rock. They stepped out onto a ledge that overlooked a huge cave. At this point, the others could feel the breeze as well. To the left of their position, they could see an opening, through which sunlight filtered in. The sound of running water could also be heard from beyond, suggesting a river outside nearby.
"Can... can you guys see what I'm seeing?" Amethyst asked.
"Depends," Doc Brown replied. "Are you referring to the giant pile of gold and gems in the center of the cave? In that case, yes."
There was no denying it: smack-dab in the center of the cave was an enormous pile of treasure. They followed a small path leading them down from the ledge and approached the literal mountain of valuables.
"Just as a side note," Doc Brown said, "I'm not going to throw out any of the books just so we can take this worthless stuff."
"What do you mean, worthless?" Crimson asked unbelievingly. "Even a fraction of this would make all of us rich!"
"I'll have you know that I'm a stallion of science. Knowledge is worth more to me than any amount of money could ever be," Brown Diamond replied.
"Still, it wouldn't hurt to take two or three things with us..." Atlas said, levitating a golden chalice before him. "Only idiots would turn down free money."
"Agreed," Crimson and Amethyst replied.
"Let's just take a few valuable-looking things and then go," Atlas said. "We can't take much more of this stuff either way."
They spread out a little to search for small items that looked as expensive as possible. Amethyst was levitating a platinum bangle with engraved gems to inspect it when the pile before him shifted. He didn't pay it much mind, thinking it was probably caused by him taking the bangle out.
Even so, he was forced to take a closer look when the small shift grew into a veritable landslide of gold. He took a step back to get a better look at what was happening.
When the landslide came to a stop, a huge, closed eye almost as big as a pony was revealed. Amethyst couldn’t help but gawk at the single shuttered eyelid, its scales a hypnotizing royal blue.
"Uhhh... guys?" Amethyst said quietly. "Do you remember how I said I could defeat any monster that we'd find lurking down here? I'd like to retract that statement."
His friends looked at him in confusion, while Amethyst's heart sank to the very bottom of his legs. The eyelid slowly opened to reveal a single golden eye, staring straight at him.
Look at this! That's some fucking awesome FanArt by The Spirits Demise! They're so cute together 
Moving on! A lot of stuff happening in this chapter. Runes! Status Update from Hades! Books! Barrelriders!
Hope you enjoyed it, let's see how they get out of this one... Or will they? 
Once again, thanks to my editor Azriel and my proofreader Kilobytes for a job well done! Further thanks to Temujin and Soren Mercer for helping out as well. This has to be the most heavily edited chapter in the history of my story ^^
Today's chapter was brought to you by this song. Which in turn was brought to you by The Spirits Demise.
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One should be wary when finding a pile of loot in the middle of a cave, something put it there after all.
~Crystalline Electrostatic~
10:26_2/8/2017
in the words of two half breeds.. awh crapbaskets
Here I was thinking they were going to climb the pile to see if there was something valuable on top and have a dragon land on them. Close enough though I suppose.
A doctor in more ways than one, I see.
A little sobering, to know that you've reached the point were yes, you are pretty much completely imprisoned, and your jailers even lost interest in it. I wonder what they would think if they randomly check in and see him progressing in runes? That they didn't clean up enough and left enough traces around in the world for them to work stuff out?
s2.quickmeme.com/img/83/83206ae67da70662c246b9cca0b92d2da77cae199a14e8d23e102739d5192b2e.jpg
pls let atlas die. i really want to see amethyst's and doc's reaction
on a side note.
They are afraid of a duck
Really? You see a massive pile of gems and gold in fantasy land and their first thought isn't "dragon"? Ponies man.
For someone that has just declared being genre savvy, that's an hell of an idiot ball to hold
7932447
I can not blame Atlas though, as he just recieved the "quest complete" text box, it was safe to assume the asventure was over.
From the first chapter:
I think it's pretty clear by now that Atlas didn't exactly "invent" runes. I wonder how that got missed in the history books.
We're gonna need a black arrow...
Wooo! More story! Much wow, very impress. I'm liking this! Keep it up!
7932493 My best guess is that Atlas was the pony most well known for rediscovering the runes, and therefore history attributed him as the inventor of runes.
if one ever finds a huge pile of gold just sitting in a cave, dungeon or other, leave it alone. just leave it alone
7932493 Interesting point but I imagine it's a lot like how Joseph Aspdin gets credit for inventing concrete even though the Romans had concrete over a thousand years ago. Since Atlas rediscovered it he's got credit for inventing it.
Fabulous.
7932579 He is also the only one who can read it.
Ahhhh shite, Atlas's first dragon!
media.giphy.com/media/iqUt87FukobCw/giphy.gif
I see what you did here...
Oh, no. It's a Final Fantasy X sphere puzzle.
I suppose its too much to hope for that the dragon is reasonable? Maybe the giant reptile just gets too cuddly with the snake master or something.
Doc Brown: These saddlebags were hoofcrafted by le moi! It's not that hard.
Atlas: But, but-!
lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Y0pR2XqL-kc/VRgSfklaTeI/AAAAAAAA4Uk/rEJLx_cxN0Y/w800-h800/Bigger-on-the-Inside-l.jpg
7933183 shit, I've been found out...
So, is Atlas gonna get that face-to-face chat with Hades next chapter? And I have a feeling Doc and Amethyst may be getting a demonstration of Atlas's unique skill.
Also been bugging me for awhile. Do you plan to bring events full circle to the prologue? If not in this story then at least a sequel? It's just one of those things that drives me nuts.
YOU FOOLS! YOU'VE AWOKEN BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH FROM HIS MILLENNIA LONG SLUMBER!!!
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7933444 we will be going full
retardcirle. It just takes a loooong time to get there...7933466 I think you spelled Buttercup Cabbagepatch wrong...
Thanks for the update!!
hmmm, I imagine the dragon isn't gunna be to happy............So there gunna end up the best of friends!!!!! XD Man am I smart or what?(sarcasm)
Atlas, I'm disappointed in you. You forgot the cardinal rules of random piles of treasure in fantasy worlds, didn't you? It's never free, and likely has something big, scaly, and mean guarding it.
Dr. Whooves anypony?
why not try Irish or Scottish music for inspiration? it would be very interesting to write and to read
Hope his friendliness with snakes helps with talking to a dragon.
7934010 Dragons are lizards tho ^^
Dagaz as an illumination rune... Makes sense I suppose, depending on how you are implementing the runic systems.
Also, hello smaugh. Atlas, bet you wished you found some special ring at this point.
7934093 well shit...
Well then, I guess I'm just gonna go ahead and ask. Just what is it Atlas is working on in the future that reqiures an antire f
ing mountain to complete? Is it his way out? Has this question been asked before?
Hi Smaug
Okay, so they pay attention to the books that say don't split up. But don't pay attention to the books that say be wary of treasure because it's probably protected. Nice.
7932412
Funny how we all want Atlas to die. Usually It's the opposite.
7934093
A lot of people call dragons flying serpents.
7934366
My assumption was that he gave up on getting out, because he liked Equestria.
7934249 For now, I'm just generally searching for a fitting rune. Later on, I'll create runes of my own.
7934366 The question has been asked and left unanswered before :P That would be huge spoilers after all ^^
7934629 He was most likely stunned by the insane amount of treasure/relaxed since they completed their objective.
7934828
By implementation I more meant in the how they are used rather than what tunes they are. Using the futhark is fine, and I find it neat to be able to see a glimpse of what something does based on the runes and how they are described.
Anyway, it seems to me you're using an interpretation that is similar to the magical system of Eragon, that is each tune can have multiple uses depending on the intentions of the crafter. For instance, dagaz could be used as a light source, or to make security measures, or to transform something etc.
Ohhh enjoying this story! Hopefully they'll be a break soon with a bit more future story scenes like the first.
Atlas, you idiot. That's irreplacable knowledge, even if you think architecture is useless in your eyes. Architects would go insane with want for books like this. Not to mention museums and so forth... Such an ignorant decision, Atlas. I am disappoint.
Well then...
Lesson number 37 of the adventurer's handbook: if you find a massive pile of treasure just sitting in a random cave, always assume it to be a dragon's hoard and just leave as quickly as possible.
7936876 Problem?
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