Big Dome sat quietly on a bench in the Poneville Cemetery. It was not really his name, that was Norbert. As bad as Big Dome was, as a nickname, he preferred it to Norbert!
He was sitting in one of his favorite shady spots, surrounded, not only by the graves of those who had passed but also by the tombs and mausoleums of prominent pony families.
It was quiet. That helped his concentration. He was working on the infamously difficult problem of Baratted’s Last Code. It dated back to the last days of the ancient Nightmare Wars. It had never been solved. Even Princess Luna, Baratted’s closest friend and confidant, and a mathemagical genius in her own right, swore that she did not know what the code was about or how to solve it.
Pony scholars had wasted an enormous amount of time and effort to deciphering Baratted’s Last Code, all to no avail. Big Dome did not really expect to solve the problem either, but trying was a fine mental exercise.
In his lap was a thick binder book of his notes and previous, failed attempts at a solution.
He turned to the beginning of his binder and his copy of the original text of the code. Written in Old Middle Goat, it said:
I, Baratted the Goat have solved the problem of Life and Death. Presented here is the solution in a code form. The Non Equine Mathemagical proof is elegant and simple but too large to fit on the few pages left to me.”
That was followed by the single short paragraph of coded Mathemagic that had driven scholars quietly berserk ever since.
The passage ended, “Unicorns are coming. I must go to assist in the defense of Our Dark Alicorn and the Fortress of Nightmare.”
Big Dome chuckled at the notion that the proof of such a complex code could be elegantly simple. If it was, why had some scholar or enthusiast like himself already found it? Truly, in over 2000 years somepony would surely have found it, if it was elegantly simple!
Sighing, he was closing his binder when three pages of his older work came loose and fell fluttering to the ground. Each was part of a different failed try at cracking the code.
Big Dome was about to just put them under the covers of the binder so that he could put them back into their proper places later. His eye was caught by a natural transition from the first page to the third! Excitedly, he sat and started a new sheet! He was running short of inspiration and daylight by the time that he had filled in the last bit. Nightmare Night was nearly here!
He paused to light a candle so that he could read over his inspiration in the fading angry red light of the last of sunset! Like several other tries of his, this progression of expressions appeared to actually make sense!
Only one way to be sure. He started to apply the expressions to the infamous Last Code! His pen simply flew across the page as the ancient puzzle became clear before his eyes!
He had to do it! He read it aloud in its original Old Middle Goat! The Mathemagical sentences simply rolled off his tongue with a life of their own!
As he finished, he became aware of other sounds. The rattle of locks and chains falling open and free of old tombs and mausoleums! The creaking of time worn hinges and the rough scraping slide of stone tomb lids sliding free! Old liches, long dead ponies, were arising or stepping forth from vaults and sepulchers!
Big Dome stared in horror at his pages! How could he have been so foolish as to DE-CRYPT the code of Life and Death in a graveyard on Nightmare Night?