//------------------------------//
// The Forsaken City 
// Story: Equestrian Darkness: Friendship's Requiem 
// by My Little Scribbler 
//------------------------------//


Equestrian Darkness: Friendship’s Requiem
Chapter 6: The Forsaken City


Since no one could move the sun, it hung high in the sky like a spotlight, static as if it was a beacon trying to give Equestria its last bit of light...before the Darkness.
With their saddlebags hastily packed, the six friends flew off in a carriage pulled by pegasi en route to the desert. As they flew, the only two ponies that talked were Pinkie and Rainbow. The rest were quietly contemplating what they would find. No more was this truer than with Twilight who sat at the edge of the window. Rather than enjoying the plush and velvety settings of the royal carriage, she was lost in her own mind.
The inside of the carriage was decorated in orange silk that felt soft and smooth for its passengers and the open windows let in a nice breeze, but there was nothing to provide entertainment, forcing Pinkie and Rainbow to find ways to pass the time.
“I spy with my little eye, something that begins with C,” said Pinkie.
“Is it clouds?” asked Rainbow, disinterested.
“Correct. Okay, how about this one: I spy with my little eye, something that begins with S.”
“Is it the sun?”
“Aw, how did you guess so easily?”
“We’re flying in the air. There isn’t much up here to see.”
As the two talked, Applejack was the first to notice Twilight’s distracted gaze. “Hey Twi, are ya feelin’ okay?” When Twilight did not respond, Applejack gave her a hard nudge with her hoof.
Twilight shook her head as if she was ruefully awaken from a dream. “What is it?”
“You’ve been so quiet since we left,” she said. “Is there somethin’ on yar mind?”
“It’s just that,” Twilight hesitated, reluctant to share, “I’m afraid...You haven’t been reading Dr. Lionheart’s notes like I did. According to Lionheart, ponies who had a brush with the Ancients were driven made or killed.”
“But what did that old quack know?”
“There’s something. I went to City Hall to find more information on her, and I learned that she frequently went on archaeological trips, and...” Twilight paused when she noticed Fluttershy and Rarity listening to her. Twilight’s voice was low. “Never mind.”
Seeing Twilight’s eyes shift nervously, Applejack chose not to press her for answers. 
“I spy with my little eye, something that begins with S.”
“Is it the sun again?”
“No, it’s the sky.”
Rainbow did a facepalm in frustration. “Ugh, this game is boring. Why don’t you find something else? Something more challenging?”
“Okay.” Pinkie sat on the left side of the carriage, but she spontaneously decided to walk passed Applejack and looked out of the window on the right side. “I spy with my little eye, something that begins with H.”
“H? Uh, is it hay?”
“No, it’s a hole. I really big hole.”
“A hole?” Twilight looked over the edge and noticed what appeared to be a large tunnel leading straight into the ground. The tunnel was too straight to be natural and it looked like it had been dug recently.
“What’s such a large hole doin’ here?” asked Applejack, nudging Pinkie aside so she could have a better look.
“I don’t know but there’s something really strange going on here.” Twilight leaned out of the window to speak to the pegasi pulling the carriage. “Could you three take us down?”
The stallion pegasi directed the carriage down to the ground and they landed gracefully next to where the hole was.
Upon closer inspection, the hole was at an angle and went straight down uninterrupted. The newly disturbed walls were fragilely crumbling with every strong breeze that blew down into the darkness.
“Do we have to go down that dirty hole?” asked Rarity, coughing from inhaling the dust in the air.
“It looks like this hole was dug up recently,” said Twilight. “Which means we might have to go down there.”
“But’s what’s strong enough to burrow through dirt as if it was made of chocolate cake?” asked Pinkie, licking her lips at the thought of her own simile.
“Abdullah, I would imagine,” said Twilight.
“Are we really going in there?” asked Fluttershy, shaking.
Mustering as much confidence in her voice as she could, Twilight responded, “Yes, but don’t worry, girls. I’ve got the Elements of Harmony in my saddlebags and we got each other.”
Luckily for Twilight, Rainbow finished her speech. “Yeah, together, Nightmare Moon and Discord couldn’t stop us and neither would some dopey ol’ gods.”
The others let out cheers of agreement except for Fluttershy who remained silent and nervious.
“All right, follow me,” said Twilight, “and stay close.” She conjured a light from the tip of her horn and crept down the tunnel, her friends following close behind.
Slowly, the six ponies made their way down into the unknown. Within the dim light of Twilight’s horn, they could not see where the tunnel ended. All they could see was the crumbling walls around them. No one dared to speak as if afraid that the tunnel would cave in at the slightest utterance. Thanks to the debris on the floor, the ground they walked on was unstable under their hooves, crumbling with each step.
Fluttershy let out a cry of freight as she lost her footing under the give of the loose dirt. Before she could regain her balance, she slid into Rarity.
“Fluttershy, what are...?” Rarity bumped into Rainbow who was bumped into Applejack, creating a domino effect and causing the ponies to slide down the tunnel. They all let out screams of alarm as they slid down to the end of the tunnel, landing with a hard thud and leaving them in a tangled pile of bodies. The fall knocked out Twilight’s light spell, leaving them in the luminescence of the room.
“Ow, my head,” said Rarity as she got onto her hooves. She lifted her gaze and saw two stone eyes staring back. She let out a scream, retreating from the stone pony before her.
As their eyes adjusted, the six friends realized they were inside a dimly lit chamber of some kind. Torches hung on the walls, each one lit by an alien green flame, providing the only light. In the center of it all was a pillar. It was a mass of concrete, but on the outside were bodies of ponies frozen in stone. Their bodies and faces were contorted into horrid poses of agony.
“It looks like they were buried alive,” said Rainbow, hovering over one of the stoned ponies as she examined it.
“How awful,” said Fluttershy, tears welling up in her eyes.
As they made their way around the pillar, they saw the chamber emptied out onto a balcony. Once there, they beheld the ruins of a dead city. With their vantage point high off the ground, they saw buildings and alien structures constructed from crystal blue metals and stones. The underground city stretched on for miles in all directions with each structure built into haphazard shapes and positions as if the whole city was built with no preplanning (and it probably was not). The only light sources within the city were magic torches and other unearthly illuminants. Although they could see no movement below, they could hear what appeared to be the sounds of monstrous feet clattering against the metal walls like ghosts playing tricks.
Only Applejack had the courage to break the silence. “How will we find Abdullah in this city?”
“I guess we have to keep looking,” said Twilight. She walked down the ramp leading to the ground level, her friends following close behind. Upon reaching street level, they found themselves looking out into dark and empty streets. Despite the silence of the place, the ponies could not shake the feeling that they were being watched.
“Okay, so what are we gonna do down here?” asked Rainbow.
“We spread out,” said Twilight. “Rainbow, Fluttershy, I need you two to fly overhead and look for any sign of Abdullah. The rest of us will search the ground level. We’ll meet back here in 30 minutes.”
“Sure, I could do a quick fly around of the place. Come on, Fluttershy.” Rainbow opened her wings and rocketed off the ground.
Fluttershy nervously followed. “Rainbow, don’t leave me behind.”
The rest of the group split up, searching the area for any signs of Abdullah. Although they were tense and expecting an attack from the shadows, the city was quiet and abandoned.
Twilight wondered off deeper into the mysterious streets. Her eyes darted in every which way, hyperaware of every strange sound and sight that crossed her senses. Despite her solitude, the dark shapes around her seemed to twist and move as if alive. As her paranoid imagination took hold of her perceptions, she could have sworn she heard a voice echoing from the walls.
Twilight...
“It’s not real. It’s only my imagination.” She repeated that mantra out loud.
Come to me, Twilight Sparkle.
She clenched her eyes shut, using every bit of her will power to block out the sinister voice.
Come to me...
When she opened her eyes, she found herself standing at the entrance to a flight of stairs, led there by luck (or not). As if hypnotized, she crept down the flight of stars, and once she reached the bottom, her eyes were immediately drawn to a mural. Upon the mural was a large tentaclate creature. Although the picture had to have been made thousands of years prior, the painting looked as good as new, showing every putrid detail of the monster. The monster was a collection of mouths and eyes on a single breathing mass of flesh. As Twilight approached the mural, she recognized the monster as the same one from a painting in the secret room. Terrified, but inexplicably drawn to it, she approached the painting. She was so fixated on the mural, she barely noticed the round metal plate on the ground. As soon as she stepped onto the plate, there was a flash of yellow light, and she teleported away.
Naturally, teleporting was an experience she was used to, but in the past, it was always by her own doing. She let out a startled gasp as she materialized onto another plate situated on top of one of the many gothic towers of the underground city.
Upon reappearing on the plate, she had inadvertently triggered a magical trap that had been left there in a bygone century for a conflict long since over. Bankorok...Redgormor...Xel’lotath.
Before she could react, three green colored runes appeared, and from those runes, a triangular cage of magic formed around her. Twilight’s horn glowed with power, but the field would not let her escape, not even by teleportation. She could only helplessly look out at the city through the green haze of the field.

“Did you guys find anything?” Applejack met her friends at the rendezvous.
“No, this place looks empty,” said Rainbow, hovering off the ground.
“No sign of any monsters,” said Fluttershy with a hint of relief in her voice.
Rarity scoffed out of disgust. “Nothing but a lot of tacky décor.”
Applejack turned toward Pinkie who was fiddling with something in her bag. “Hey Pinkie, watcha got there?”
“I didn’t find Twilight, but I did find this.” Pinkie withdrew from her saddlebag a metal disk of some kind.
Rainbow facepalmed. “Pinkie, we don’t need useless souvenirs.”
“But look at what I can do with it.” Pinkie placed the disk on its side, and spun it with a flick of her wrist. As the ring spun, an electric red light appeared in the hole in the center. The small sphere of light remained suspended and bright until the disk lost momentum and toppled over. Once it did, the light vanished as quickly as it appeared. “Isn’t it cool?”
“As odd as it looks, I don’t think Twilight would want us to carry around something so juvenile,” said Rarity while Pinkie placed the disk back into her saddlebag. “Speaking of which, where is she?”
Applejack fidgeted anxiously. “I lost sight of her. I thought she might have caught up with you guys.”
“Where did you last see her?” asked Fluttershy. 
“It was this way.”
Applejack led them to the place where she last saw Twilight. They split up, searching the area and calling out to her until Applejack noticed faint hoof prints in the dirty stone floor. She followed the tracks to the stairs where Twilight had gone.
“Hey, you guys, I think she’s down here.”
The ponies gathered around Applejack, looking down the dark flight of stairs. Without uttering a single question, they cautiously followed Applejack down the stairs and into an unholy ritual room. The only objects in the room were the magical torches on the walls and the mural of a festering god. The mere sight of the painting sent shivers down the ponies’ collective spines as they felt the demonic presence in the air. Fluttershy in particular averted her eyes, too afraid to look upon the horrid image.
“Twilight, where are you?” called out Rainbow, but received no response.
“W-What if she was kidnapped?” said Fluttershy.
Applejack examined the floor, which was clean and spotless. “Maybe, but I don’t see any other tracks. The only way out aside from the way we came in is that way.” Applejack pointed across the room to a rectangular exit into another hall. “I’m guessin’ Twilight might have gone down there.”
Rarity took another nervous glance at the painting. “Let’s find her so could leave this place.”
Fighting all instincts of preservation, the five of them trudged down the hall. They did not notice the plate under the mural and probably would not have thought much of it if they had. But as they left that chamber, something quietly materialized on top of the plate.
The hall led them to a large chamber of some kind. Although its purpose was not obvious, the room seemed to fan out into three directions, giving the room the rough shape of a bird claw. Each point led to more hallways. Much like the previous chamber, there were few decorations on the walls, but it was the floor that caught their attention. Scattered everywhere like a battled field were pony corpses. At least six of them. The bodies looked freshly skinned, showing off the muscles underneath. 
“Yuck, this is disgusting,” said Applejack, her nose cringing from the smell of the bodies.
“We need to get out of here,” whined Fluttershy.
“No way, we have to find Twilight,” insisted Rainbow, “and Equestria will be doomed if we don’t hurry.” She glided passed the corpses at a leisurely pace, hoping the others would follow her example.
“Rainbow, we shouldn’t...” Fluttershy faltered nervously.
“Relax, they’re dead. They can’t hurt you.” To prove her point, Rainbow shoved her hoof into the skull of one of the corpses. “You see, they’re—“ Rainbow let out a startled cry when she saw the corpse’s equine teeth nearly bite into her hoof. Rainbow’s mouth hung agape, her eyes white with disbelief. All around her, the pony cadavers pulled themselves onto their hooves, hissing with dry breaths.
“Rainbow, get out of there,” cried Fluttershy.
With a childish cry, Rainbow zipped passed the zombies and passed her friends, only to halt upon seeing something else in the dark hall.
The five friends coward with shock and disbelief upon seeing another parade of zombies advancing upon them. These zombies were different, though. They were tinted green and wrapped in bandages like mummies. Each aberration stared at the helpless ponies with green glowing empty eye sockets. Their moans echoed throughout the hall with each labored step, blocking the exit.

With Twilight expending the last of her energy to break  the field, she collapsed to the ground, quietly crying with frustration and dismay. “What are we doing? How are we going to stop creatures even the princesses couldn’t defeat?”
In the cold loneliness of her magical prison, a single voice whispered to her in the darkness. It was faint, but real nonetheless. Twilight...
“Who’s there?”
Come to me.
“Not again.” Twilight shut her eyes, hoping to mentally block out the voice.
Come to me.
“It’s not real. It’s not real.” She stood there, expecting the voice to call to her again, but she was left alone in silence.
When she opened her eyes, she was no longer in the city. She found herself on a platform surrounded by marble walls and statues of ponies. At the opposite end of the platform, she could see a large mangled hand affixed to the floor and holding an object in its palm. Rather than ponder the reality of her situation, she felt herself being inexplicably drawn toward the hand. She walked toward it, staring at the hand with fear and wonderment. As she drew near, she could hear the sounds of screams growing louder with every step. Upon glancing down, she saw the blank faces of nameless ponies in the floor, screaming with terror and fright as if to warn her to stay away. With a creak, the hand opened once Twilight was close enough to claim her prize. Resting on the palm was a leather-bound book. There was no title, but on the cover was the rune of Mantarok.
She reached over and griped the book with her teeth. In an instant, her mind was flooded with images of other ponies and monsters. Flashes of millennia worth of knowledge were uploaded into her mind.
When she dropped the book, she was back in her force field prison as abruptly as an interrupted dream, but with her gift lying at her hooves. From touching the book, she was given all the knowledge of the history of the Ancients as well as knowledge of others who used the book...including Princess Luna. From this knowledge, wonder, fear, and doubt plagued Twilight’s mind as she examined the new knowledge that was in her head. All at once, the gravity of her situation and the future of Equestria became clear because the book showed her the struggle equines had to face to fight the Darkness. It chronicled the stories and pain of all who used the Tome of Eternal Darkness.