//------------------------------// // Volume Three: Ancient Exploration // Story: Travelers or Nomads? // by bigmacbush //------------------------------// ------- Chapter Eleven: The Condition ------- Just another day at home, that was until we had gotten a visit from the Princesses themselves to give me the answer to my request, before that I keeled before Princess Luna "It is an honor Lady Luna." They had come to the conclusion that I was allowed to go on the expedition to the areas that have been known and blocked off. Though they had one condition "No one was to get hurt over the time of the expedition and no one is to get hurt from anything found and re-made from the expedition." Knowing full well of the condition, I agreed, and got multiple things ready, namely the armor, weapons, and extra baggage space for the possible blueprints found from the wreckage known as "ancient Equestria." The four of us planned to go next week after some preparations and some questions answered from the Princesses about some of the things we would most likely find while out there. According to Princess Celestia there are a lot of remnants of tools, objects, and mechanisms that belonged to Old Equestria and even remnants that existed even before the founding of Equestria, the times of wars and endless death that used to haunt the land, homes of creatures unknown to pony kind destroyed and only the remains lay still in the empty fields. Regardless of everything we had heard we were ready for many dangers that may lurk there, "Even now we are unsure of what may be there, living and surviving in the desolate wastes that was our homeland." said Celestia, "Also if you find anything interesting you have to be sure to report back to us to see if it is worth the re purposing and manufacturing of certain tools and electronics." said Luna, "That I will, my lady." I responded back with certainty. With the time of departure being two days from now, we brainstormed about plans for potential combat, and had some solid plans, then we went over the cargo since carrying too much stuff will reduce the amount of loot we could bring back, since the things there have been around for potentially a thousand years they must be worth a lot. Now that the time has come we set off to the expedition site, marked by both Princess Celestia and Luna, we set out, excited for the things we may find out there and the possibilities that will no doubt come from the tools found. ------- Chapter Twelve: The Discovery ------- The abandoned site we given directions to was quite the sight to see, standing tall, filled with plant life, seemed beautiful, sadly among the plant life were puddles of blood droplets, dried and left behind by who-knows-what, yet despite all we saw we pushed forward towards the building and was forced to break through the big, bulky doors that was the entrance. After urging everyone to move over to the sides, I said "Stay low, stay hidden, we don't know what could be here after all this time of being in a state of decay." We laid low for a few minutes, expecting something to show up and something did, at the time we did not know what it was yet it was later revealed to be something called a Sentinel, a machine made to wander and locate possible threats to the land of Old Equestria, fascinated I studied it on site but stayed out of its sight. Later after the Sentinel left we went ahead and moved on through this for some reason abandoned site, myself hoping I would find a blueprint for the sentinel to take advantage of the technology that was left here, sneaking around as to avoid combat at every chance that presented itself to us, we had prepared for the worst before coming here but we did not expect to find something like this, whilst sneaking we managed to get to the second floor of this building and had only found out the first floor was the least fortified of this area, upon surveying we later found out that the security was only going to get more worse for us along the way. When we checked out the lower floors we had found out the place was already looted, sadly we had also found a couple of bodies which we also had to loot, the second floor on the other hoof was a bit more clean, seems like looters never bothered to come up here, as we were hiding from the Sentinels I remembered that the bodies from downstairs had weapons next to them, perhaps they attacked the Sentinels, curious I trotted in front of the Sentinel weapon still sheathed, when the Sentinel saw me it played a message for this situation "Lay down your arms if you wish to stay alive." I complied and dropped my things slowly but still keeping my armor on, in turn it took my weapons and played a different message "Your things will be returned upon your departure, please enjoy your visit to Castle Equestria." This was both absolutely amazing, yet oddly terrifying, after the others followed suit and relinquished their equipment, we wandered through the building and was at some point reached the Engineering Department, where a machine that was not a Sentinel said "Welcome back, Mr. Sparklers, you are needed in the bio mechanical lab." In which Maple asked "Does your father work here?" The only response I had was "I honestly don't know." Now that I had the time to ponder it, I have not seen my parents in some time, maybe I should head over to my hometown of Neighborton to check if they are there or not, and if not, maybe a visit to see how it's changed over the years in my absence, hopefully it's expanded a bit, well hope for the best I guess. Back to the matter at hoof however, the machine led us over to the bio mechanical lab, where from the looks of it my father has been working on a machine that seemed remarkably close to current-day pony-kind, sadly though it looks rather..... simple in design, perhaps I should take it with me to ask my father about it, when I run into him at least. As I was about to pick up the blueprints, I was stopped by a Sentinel, the message that played said "Sir, what is it you are doing with your work?" I replied, sounding as much like my father as possible "I am taking these home to work on and inspect on the designs for future contemplation." After saying this, the Sentinel replied with "Very well sir, please take your time, you have no time limit for this project after all." No time limit? Well for something like this it made sense, based only on design and concept, this would take forever to complete, well for my father at least, he was never really a serious kind of stallion, this seemed like a far too serious subject to expect him to do, even on his own time. We gathered some more blueprints to go over in the future, assuming any of them would be worth the time at the moment, then we explored around for a bit longer being greeted as "Mr. Sparklers" not that it bothered me, but then I thought about it "Mr. Sparklers?" That's me, not my father, it would've been "Mr. Voltswitch" if it was him, yet it wasn't. Was this all expected of me to find? Well maybe so, but I won't find out until I see my parents again, so we quickly finished up our visit and left, After we got our things back and had a Sentinel send us off saying "Thank you for coming to work today, please come again soon Mr. Sparklers, we will be waiting for your finished projects in the future." Immediately after leaving we got to our wagon and went on a return trip back to Ponyville, it took longer to get home than it took to get to Old Equestria, mainly due to my wandering mind overthinking and slowing us down, oh well we got home, that's what matters right now. ------- Chapter Thirteen: The Return Trip ------- Well, it's been a few days and we're not home yet, we've gotten to Old Equestria in less time than this. On the way back we went over ideas about why the things happened that they did, we never did come up with one other than my parents were waiting for me to come of age and discover the blueprints and plans that were there, literally waiting for me to find, become fascinated, and decide to work on in my own time. A week later and we're still not back yet, it's a little irritating knowing that our house was still really far away, but I digress, this time has been useful in me figuring this stuff out, though the progress is quite slow since I have in no way have seen this sort of technology, at least not in this manner or construct, needless to say I was fascinated by everything this sort of technology had to offer, the uses, the practicality, and the potential of the idea in the right hooves, sadly they were not my own, but property of Equestria, not for my personal uses, unless I chose not to report this, which would break my honor. After two long weeks we had gotten home, and the first thought everyone had was to take a long-deserved bath, again Crazy Bread did not want to go in immediately, he chose to go in later, myself included, I had to see the boys and put the things I need in my room and most of the other stuff in the basement for storage, the boys were excited to say the least they practically pounced on me for the sake of a hug, I guess the research would just have to wait until later because I won't lie, I sorta missed the boys while we were out there, finding and looking for stuff to take back to the house. After a while of putting the things away I figured I should talk to the boys for a while and ask them about the things that have happened since we were gone, nothing noteworthy happened while we were gone, well except that apparently there was some sort of problem that befell Princess Luna, luckily it was dream-related and was solved relatively quickly by Twilight and her friends, had something to do with a being that Luna created called the Tantabus, luckily it was solved with no known causalities. Remembering the Princesses, I went ahead and started writing my letter to inform them of all the things we gathered over at the Old Castle Equestria, and I mean everything, including the things we found that looked like it was left for me, hopefully they will have an explanation for me as to why my parents left it there, more so how long were they there for? After sending the letter I went back to my office, A.K.A. my room, and started getting to work on the bio mechanical plans, although I couldn't focus on my work I was too distracted by everything else to keep my mind on my work, maybe I'll get to it tomorrow. ------- Chapter Fourteen: The Relaxation ------- Roughly four days of relaxing after our return, I now decide to get to work, that was until I was disturbed by Smiley wanting some tomes to go over to try to learn new spells to use on our usual expeditions, so I told him to check the library and in the bookshelves in the basement, while exclusively telling him NOT to look in the forbidden lock box full of dangerous spells and items, luckily for my own sanity he did not look in there, later he thanked me for telling him where the tomes and started getting to work on them, hoping to learn what he can, which sadly is not a lot concerning his magic inefficiency. Maple wanted something to do later into the day, I merely gave her the suggestion that she should go try to make some friends around town, she hasn't really done that in her time here in Ponyville, she doesn't really have that much friends, or any at all as far as I know, but then again I only talk to her on the occasion, or whenever she felt like talking to me, I'm sure most of the other stallions will be glad she's trying to open up to the towns-ponies. She's been with us a while but I noticed that her mane still looks similar to when she first got her, maybe I'll take her to Rarity's to get something done about it, she could be cuter if her mane wasn't so disheveled. Meanwhile Crazy Bread wanted some time off, which I allowed since we have been really busy recently, there are apparently some books he wants to get caught up on and some ponies he wants to see, I forgot he had some friends in some of the nearby towns, he seems busy even when we're not on our expeditions, quite the busypony if you ask me, always has something to do, sometimes I wonder what he does on his own spare time, though I dare not ask that would violate what we have as individual trust, I don't pry into his life, and in turn he respects what I do in my spare time, then again I'm pretty open about what I do so it doesn't really matter. While all this was going I went ahead and figured that the work could be worried about later instead of now, besides what if I can't finish these projects? Or what if some of the blueprints were to be abolished? With that in mind I decide to take a break and wait for the Princesses to send me a letter of confirmation or for them to visit to go over the blueprints and plans to see if any of them were worth bringing back, along with my guidance of course, and some of my notes on improvement since these appear to be very old, or ancient in other words. Since they looked so old, I thought about new designs to improve on the original model for efficiency and energy-consumption. This relaxation period has been well worth it, while everyone was taking the time off I spent this time looking over notes I had taken off the blueprints from the Old Castle and went over just how to make the objects in question more better than the original. Sadly the versions I made designs for were too demanding to be mass-produced, unlike our stoves and lights, maybe in time this could change with allowed access to some of the old mines that were abandoned for safety reasons, perhaps if these projects were allowed I could do a survey with Maple to check if they're safe and have the resources necessary to make my plans come to fruition. ------- Chapter Fifteen: The Review ------- I sent the letter roughly a week ago, personally I was expecting a response a lot more faster than this, though I can't blame them, the letter was of moderate size and they must have a lot of royal duties to take care of since they have to take time off just to come here to see the plans and that could take a good while to go over since it's me that found it. The very next day the Princesses sent a letter, I was outside when I read and what was written was "Look up" Then I said "Look up?" knowing they were above me. Immediately I looked up and saw nothing, then I said "Where in Tartaru-" "We're here." said suddenly, then I looked down and saw the Princesses in front of me. "Really, Princesses? We're going this low today?" "Forgive me, this was Luna's idea, she spent all day yesterday coming up with this plan." that would explain why it took longer to do this. "Is that true Lady Luna?" I said with an unamused tone. "Yes, though I took no pleasure with this, I hope you will forgive me." she said with a sad and dejected tone. "Well as long as you feel sorry about it, then I guess it's fine. Come in if you wish to discuss the plans and blueprints." I said, feeling bad for Lady Luna. After giving a quick tour around the house and showing them Timby and Squiggles and at the end of the tour we went over to my room and went to my workbench to show them the original designs and then my brand new redesigns, this was this moment I was waiting for. After looking at the designs and materials needed to make this a reality they said, "These designs are remarkable Tech, when did you design these?" asked Celestia with amazement, as if these were brand new. "Just last night." I replied with a confident attitude. "Last night? These are absolutely astonishing for a mere night's work." said Luna with a strong sense of amazement. "And these weren't the only ones I found, I found some "Entertainment Machines" along the blueprints, they look pretty final, but could no doubt be enjoyable with some redesigns, since they don't seem usable by modern standards" I said hoping they would be approved. "Entertainment Machines you say? I have never heard of that, where did you look to find those?" She said with uncertainty, while questioning the legitimacy of my claims. "I found them over in the quarantined area of the site, I went over to check in the middle of the night while everyone else was sleeping, there appears to be no radiation or signs of immediate danger, so I was under the presumption that it would be fine if I checked the area for anything salvageable." I said sounding cocky about my risk-taking endeavor to find those blueprints. "Would it be possible for me to..... go over these designs?" asked Lady Luna, sounding shy and unsure of her question. "Very well Lady Luna, allow me to get them, they're somewhere around here." I said while essentually scavenging my workbench. After finding the blueprints in question I bring it up and say "Here they are, they don't look very usable to ponykind, but I could try to redesign it to be usable while maintaining the original look." Princess Celestia went over and was not sure of herself but said "We would much rather see a prototype to see if it can be enjoyable." "Very well Princess, I'll see what I can do, hopefully I could learn the way it operated based on these designs alone, but if not, I will look for the manual at the site where I found the blueprints for it." "Sir Sparklers, if you can make a prototype for all of these within a month, we will come back to see if any of these are worth bringing to modern day Equestria with the hope of bringing forth new insight on the technological front, I wish you the best of luck and will hope for the best in the meantime." said Princess Celestia, with a strong sense of power behind her voice. Meanwhile Luna, standing meekly inquired "Sister would it perchance be alright for me to..... stay here and ensure the progress of these projects?" while holding one of the blueprints of an Entertainment Machine still unnamed at the time. "I am sorry Sister, but we both know we have royal duties to attend to back at Canterlot, come we have much to go over at the Castle." she said with force, almost demanding even. After that they both left the house to go back to Canterlot with the expectation that I will have the prototypes done within a month. In the quiet alone I said out loud "One month huh? Not a lot of time for these. But I do like a good challenge!" I said with vigor and excitement as I got right to work on of the prototypes on my work bench after putting most of the blueprints away. Some time after the assignment I was surprised by something I would never have though would happen, but that can part of the story could wait for another time, not today.