The hazy stream of golden light from the Penumbral Edge was blotted out by hundreds upon thousands upon millions of buzzing wings. In the center of the swarm, flying proudly side by side, were two equine figures with insectoid features. Their eyes flickered green, and their hatchlings pulsed a furious emerald to match. Crooked horns burned with vile purpose, and the chitinous swarm flew into every available space of the curve, Chasing all forms of life and clinging to victims with venomous hunger.
Alas, the First Penumbral Invasion.
Two poisoned sisters, Chrysalis and Tchern;
From the Realm of Light they came, hungry and
Ravenous for all that lived, loved, and breathed.
Too selfish to sustain harmony and
Cursed by their own dependence on chaos,
They sought the bright gift of their forebearers.
The flying soldiers of the swarm formed dark shaows in the twilight—shadows that morphed and shifted as the need saw fit. Within centuries, they had captured samples of every species that had bravely eked a meager survival under the chaotic shroud. In deeply-seeded nests, they imprisoned creatures—both sapient and not—and they bound them with misery and seduction.
Over time—as the older nests withered and crumbled—scant members of the imprisoned masses slipped away, unnoticed. They fled and scampered through the darkest niches of the Curve, eventually forming pockets of desperate, impoverished civilization. Hunting and foraging for food, the survivors constantly looked over their shoulders, fearful of the encroaching swarms that might once again blot out the miasmic starlight.
Before they were Keepers of the Flux, they
Were vile Harvesters of the Burning Heart.
From Paradise they brought with them captives:
Scrumptious victims of passion and hatred.
Over the years these translocated souls
Escaped into the darkness to form the
Lost denizens of Twilight: the Dihmers.
Equine, Impish, and Elsewise, these persons
Suffered a new purgatory under
The building storm of war between Keepers
And the Ruby Chorus who already
Had staked a claim on the Sarcophagus.
Silken webs flounced in canyons and crevices from a heated wind. Above the arachnid sentries, a new war was being waged. Metamorphs—utilizing the genes stolen from thousands of smuggled and leeched species—flocked in high numbers, flanking and surrounding giant floating structures of mana-infused crystal.
With steely patience and poise, the translucent monoliths weathered the attack, gathered otherworldly mana, and fired back at the attacking swarms with waves upon waves of crimson fury.
The insectoid sisters—corrupted monarchs—watched from afar, hissing in rage as their children were reduced to brittle ashes... and the ruby clouds remaining were subsequently harnessed into even greater firepower by their aloof foes.
Undaunted, the metamorphic monarchs preyed even harder on the suffering vermin of the darkscape, infusing their blood with a hundred other species and giving birth to greater and more complex atrocities that eventually would launch bigger, bolder, and more menacing attacks on the nemeses floating over the location of the Sarcophagus. Inch by inch, decade by decade, they managed to push the monoliths back—but their crystalline enemies countered with stronger and stronger volleys, until the battle came to a grinding halt at a veritable wasteland centered upon the Armory itself.
The Ruby Chorus countered the Keepers
With Every Attack, but the dual Monarchs
Possessed something that their foes did not have:
A Hive Mind bent on ruthless aggression.
They matched boundless death with unfettered life
Equally miserable and damning
With no regard for the consequences
Of their pursuit of unbridled power.
Control of both halves of the Slice was worth
The unending bloodshed of their children.
And this forced the war into a stalemate
With no victory in sight for both sides.
The Dihmers, helpless, waited for the strife
To incinerate all life on the Curve
Until all that remained was Ruby Song,
But then came a new Symphonic Movement.
Upon the fringes of the dark zigurrat, insectoid and crystalline forces made another charge for each other. Chitin reflected off gloss. Ruby light crossed with emerald.
But then—stretching across the battlefield—came a new shadow, immense and all-engulfing, carried on scaled wings of onyx.
The translucent monoliths stalled in the middle of their flight. Metamorphic swarms perched on ravaged battlements while Tchern and Chrysalis looked on in a brand new apprehension.
The dim heavens above were pierced by a blacker-than-black figure, a majestic silhouette of awesome power and harrowing majesty. Slitted eyes opened, brimming with ethereal light. Three bright crests illuminated in a pale blue row along the length of the creature's skull, and soon her serrated maw opened wide, billowing with obsidian flame.
As her mountainous wings spread wide, nimble figures dove from the stars behind her, sailing straight for both opposing factions with reptilian grace, emboldened by ravenesque fire. One by one, they decimated the first lines of the facing armies, riddling the scarred earth with glass and insect limbs.
Almighty Endrax, First-Born of Gardez
The Divine of Death, Matriarch of Time
Loyal to Everything and Nothing, Queen
Of Equilibrium and all it took
To maintain balance between Harmony
And Chaos—She arrived with her broodlings
And breathed fire on all that dared encroach the
Sarcophagus of Ages, knowing full
Well that to lose the gift within would be
The death of hope for both sides of the Slice.
Endrax knew—as my Children know—that the
Song must persist until the Circles can
Be brought back to the point before Breaking.
And for centuries she succeeded in
Protecting the Harmonic Gift, stalling the
Symphony in wait of a flame, a Spark
That will unite the Song with the Spectrum.
For whether Endrax understood or not,
There was another gift besides that which
Was left by the stellar Benefactors.
Ilrifa's codex, the Austraeoh, comes
To ignite the penultimate Movement.
But before that Dawn, a final Eclipse:
There was yet to be a Lunar phase to
The Penumbral Invasion: the Bloodwings.
The lore only deepens...
We've almost reached the battle we witnessed at the opening of the story. Except this time with context!
Man, ain't I a stinker!
So Rainbow is going to start the second to last movement.
Such a shame Axan didn't survive to learn what happened to her sister.
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
Now comes the climax of this little tale, Nightmare Moon's army, and how it shifted the balance once more.
So we've seen these stories' analogue of The Smooze. I fear there to be some equivalent of Tirek or Grogar, considering the Ruby Chorus is using some serious blood magic, necromancy, or chaotic soul manipulation of a sort. This song gets darker. We've not yet hit the bridge or secondary refrain. The whole song comes together though the song's subject has not.
Ok, so not only do those Ruby Monoliths absorb souls, they power themselves off them. So we're dealing with some kind of manapunk necromancy? Sweet.
Also, battle of four armies coming up. Makes me think Trinary War is a bit of a misnomer.
Aaand we’ve come full circle.
Reading the first chapter right after this one makes it look all even clearer.
All the inhabitants can be thankfull of, to a limit, is that they armies were restricting themselves to melee weapons effectively.
After all, if you are going to drop suns, there shouldnt have been anything left covering the machine world at all. Total Exterminatus.
That, and then the Armory could be excised off the surface then popped out from under Endrax.
Pity Fflynn doesnt know and cant handle the power flow, but Dash can get inside the Armory if she had Starlight to help.
Holy crap, there's so much to digest in these chapters.
I'm assuming the Dihmers are the strange, withdrawn ponies that the Darkreachers came into contact with. Poor things.
God damn bats. Kill the bats, I say! Kill them all!
This is almost word-for-word the plot of Starcraft
It looks like we are nearing the end of this song. There is just so much to take in from these chapters.
8612945
New headline: Blizzard Sues My Little Pony Fanfiction Writer for 500 Trillion Dollars
D. A. M. N. Damn! I'm lovin this lore, IC!
Hold on, the Austraeoh is only the penultimate movement? So what the hell is the final movement going to be?
Lots of tasty wordage, but mostly covering stuff we either already knew or could easily infer. This talk about a codex seems the most potentially interesting and new piece of information. Maybe its just a flowery user manual that actually explains what Dash's tech-support job really entails? You know, some kind of exceedingly key "This is what you're suppose to freakin' do" manual that probably should've logically been given to her at the start of this whole affair instead of at the end, well past the point where it would've been useful. Because when you want to pin the entirety of fixing a multi-layered cosmic world engine on one person you don't want them to understand their job until they've already done most of it.
I wonder what Seraphimus and Wildcard are seeing? Is Dash just covered in a spider rock band? Is she already projectile vomiting while high on music vibes? Also wondering if this is taking way longer for them than it is for Dash. Like she wakes up and its been like days.
Seraphimus Solo Quest Chapter Counter: 34
I got the chills.
Holy Shit, yesss.....
Having a lore-gasm rn...
8613021 The rejoining of circles.
Spiders, not even once.
And this is the story how the greatest beacon of harmony became the cause of the worst war this plane has ever witnessed.
Irony can be such a bitch.
Lots and lots of lovely lore!
I keep picturing Abaddon's expository monologue as one of those text crawls from Star Wars.
I know these spiders love titles, but wow; this goes quite a bit beyond the "Divine of Shadow" we knew about.
The factor that sealed Endrax's fate was probably the lunar rune guns of the Dark Vigil. You need serious firepower to take down that many dragons. Though considering that they probably have run out and/or low on those, I foresee changeling dragonmorphs driving the Vigil to near-extinction in the present day.
8612812>>8613021
I have a feeling the final movement will be an unprecidented time of harmony and awesomeness as the plane floats through space to rejoin Uhrohringr. Who knows how far away it is or how fast the rings can move, so it could take hours to rejoin or it could take (billions of) years.
8612850
Remember the battle in the first chapter? It used to be a Quaternary War, but then one of the armies got wiped out.
8612794
Shame she didn't know the accompanying song
This chapter especially reminds me of the opening of Dark Souls for some reason.
I’m gonna just wait for this all to be explained. I’m totally confused...
Damn that dragon has some titles!
Woo! Exposition arachnids!
Curious that the Night Shard were in posession of the Armory for centuries, if not millennia and still could never access it. Perhaps the danger they pose to the prism is not as acute as one would be lead to believe.
8616409
Alduin, eat your heart out.
Mother of Dragons...oh wait.
Mother bucker, caught up with yet another cliffhanger... 2 intense months and then blueballed... dang.
8613021
Appledashery
8728993
no
8613021
The final movement will be the reunification of the rings, duh.
Austraeoh is only the touch bearer, for s very large machine seeking a spark.
For Sparks Kindle flames, and nothing can hold a candle too the Rings.
As I recall they were both once Alicorns. And wasn’t there a third, a brother?
9088629
Sombra.
Then came Endrax, followed by the Bloodwings. Enddrax having power over death, it makes sense that the Night Shard has been unable to divine Endrax's goal end game. She must have found a way to shield the souls of herself and her brood from their grasp.
11/17/2019
01:23 UTC
When you say Burning Heart....are we talking about the Crystal Heart? Cause there's a lot of references to crystal ponies all of a sudden.