Twilight surveyed the book with interest. It was old, that much she was sure of. The pages looked weathered and the cover was worn down in places. The cover seemed to be made of leather, and it was bound at either side by two great golden clasps, which were covered in archaic runes and hexes. She suspected that just one of those clasps would be worth at least half the royal treasury. The leather had a faint musty smell to it, belying the fact that the book hadn't been cared for as well as it should have, and inscribed upon it, in a dark red substance that she hoped was ink, were the words: "A Compendium of Artifacts and Phenomena Most Magickal". There was no author's name. Most curious, however, was when she had sent the book to Zecora's to have it checked for magical curses and the like. Zecora had took one look at the cover and almost fainted, she said, in a hushed voice, that the writing on the cover appeared to her in Q'Othdaan, which is apparently the language of the spirits that zebra shamans deal with.
Twilight approached the book, it lay on a lab table in her new palace. The whole room was made of blast-proof crystal, with unsummoning sigils placed around the room in strategic locations. With a clearing of her throat, she scanned the book, her horn emitting a magenta glow. The light glazed over the book once, then yet again, and finally a third time. Each time leaving Twilight looking even more frustrated. The scan revealed absolutely nothing. Nothing! Who makes an item so obviously full of powerful knowledge and then doesn't trap it? The scan had also revealed something else as well, the "ink" on the cover was most definitely blood. But it didn't match the composition of any known animal, sapient or otherwise, on Equestria.
Well, except for… but that couldn’t be possible! The caribou were wiped off the face of the earth over 5,000 years ago! King Janus literally tore stars out of the sky and hurled them at their mainland! (It was stupid of them to think they could beat him really), So how did caribou blood end up on the cover of this book? Unless it was more than 5,000 years old... which might actually be possible going by the amount of preservation wards on it.
Taking a deep breath and failing to contain her excitement, Twilight inched forwards, her hoof hovering over the edge of the cover. This was it. All this time and effort, all this trial and error, it all led up to this one moment. The lavender hoof moved closer to the cover, hovering over it. She grimaced and braced herself, before putting her hoof on the leather and opening the book up. What she saw took her breath away.
Literally.
A massive cloud of dust rose up from the book, causing her to choke and gag. Swallowing hard against her now dry throat, she banished the dust with a simple air flow spell and looked upon the first page. Which was mostly blank. There was only one passage, this time engraved into the book, and made out of gold foil or something similar, it read:
Those who look upon this macabre sight,
Wish to bring back that which should never see light,
Wish to bring back those that would tear the world apart,
Wish to bring back those made from dark arts.
The only one who shall be able to see,
is a vessel of grace and purity.
So answer this riddle, as it be read,
What reasoning do you have in your head?
Twilight swallowed nervously, it was a riddle. Truth be told she had always liked riddles. Then Discord had used them to taunt her, mocking her attempts to even try and solve them, but that was all in the past now, Discord and her were friends now… more like frenemies really.
“Let’s see… the question is clearly the main part of the riddle; so let’s answer that one first.”
She quietly pondered the question before her face lit up. “Of course! A sensory charm as well as a consciousness hex. I know the answer!” She stopped her victory dance and faced the book. Her face etched in determination.
“Knowledge!” She yelled. Her voice rang clear with her victory.
As the echoes faded away, she wondered why that didn’t work. Curious, she tried it again:
“Knowledge!!!” She yelled, her voice full of hope.
A silver light shot out from the page and quickly faded, craning her neck to look at the new passage that filled the page.
Knowledge, that most fickle pursuit,
There’s more to it than what you find in a book,
But the knowledge in this book as you shall find,
Would only help the most evil of minds,
Much knowledge lies within my pages,
Stories of treasures lost to the ages,
So here I have but one question before I depart,
What’s the reasoning that lies in your heart?
Twilight swallowed nervously, It seemed like the book was giving her a second chance, “let’s see… In my heart, in my heart…” She ‘hmm’d’ thoughtfully.
Wait hold on just a moment, a heart was for pumping blood! You could no more have reason in it than you could have reason in a rubber chicken. This riddle was a red herring! With her mind set, Twilight opened the book to it’s contents page.
“Who dares awaken me from my 6.986 years of slumber?” A voice issued forth. The voice was deep, male and incredibly regal.
“Oh Celestia!.” Twilight shrieked, before responding with a more mundane “I do.” Whilst fighting the urge to bow or something.
“Ah yes, the young Twilight Sparkle. I’ve heard a lot about you from the other books.” The voice came forth again, this time much softer. Like how one would treat a friend. “But, I was under the influence you were smart, it appears I was mistaken.”
“What.” Twilight didn’t raise her voice at the end of it, it wasn’t a question.
“Well you see, the book- that is to say me- automatically detects whenever you’re pure of heart. Like the elements of harmony. So… yeah, what you just did was pointless.”
“What happens if it thinks you aren’t pure of heart?” Twilight asked worriedly.
“You die.”
“Lovely.”
“Isn’t it just? Anyway, are you going to read me? My pages haven’t been turned in sooo long.” The voice seemed almost tired now, as if it was bored of such menial conversations.
“What!? Uh, no! I am going to read you! I’m going to read you right now in fact.” She carefully brushed the wafer thin pages open until she found the contents page. There was 300 sections and each of them had around 10 subsections. There was over 3,000,000 pages. Twilight grinned, this was going to be fun.
“If you’re having trouble picking what to read, I could make a recommendation.” The book said, the voice once more becoming regal and deep.
“Hmm, yes! I would like a recommendation, variety is the spice of life and all that.”
The book muttered something that sounded a lot like ‘And yet you still imprisoned Discord’ but that couldn’t be right. Books aren’t mean.
“One recommendation, coming right up!” The book said, as it’s pages flipped back and forth erratically, before finally landing on a page that held an image she didn’t recognise. It looked like a boulder, which had carvings of raindrops on it.
Craning her neck, she leaned closer, straining to make out the text embedded in the page that was so small she felt like she would’ve needed to have been an ant to read it.
Leaning back onto her haunches she admitted defeat: “I can’t read it.”
She somehow felt like the book was rolling it’s eyes. “Put your horn on the eye symbol on the cover, I’ll handle the rest.” Sighing, she did as she was requested, and immediately felt a surge of foreign power enter her horn, she felt unimaginable pain, before falling unconscious.
Just kidding, she didn’t fall unconscious, what actually happened is the book sucked her subconscious into itself, so it could tell her about the item in more detail, therefore making her unconscious. There’s a big difference.
Twilight felt… strange. She could tell she was unconscious, and she could tell she was not in her body. But where was she? All that seemed to be around her was books upon books. Stacks of them. As far as the eye could see.
“Ah, hello miss Sparkle. Don’t panic, you’re perfectly fine and may leave whenever you want.”
Gazing around, the alicorn noticed that she was somehow in a massive bookstore that dwarfed even the crystal empire’s library. Turning her head to the source of the voice, Twilight came face to face with en elderly mare. White hair, spectacles, kind face. With a cutie mark of an open book, with rays of light emanating from it.
Before Twilight could even speak, the mare beat her to it. “First row, bottom shelf.” Twilight gulped, before following the command. There, on the bottom shelf of the first row, was a book entitled: ‘History of The River-Stone’.
Opening it up to the first page, she yelped as she seemed to be sucked into the words dotted around it.