Naturally, the first thing Applejack did to prepare for the trip was head over to Sweetie Belle’s home and make sure the filly had permission to go on a dangerous adventure. Much to her surprise, and disappointment, Sweetie’s mother had answered by saying, “Whatever she wants to do is fine.” The thing that bothered AJ the most was that she’d said it as if it wasn’t even possible for Sweetie Belle to come up with a dangerous idea and hadn’t really listened to the question.
Regardless the reason, Applejack found herself stuck with two fillies on the team. And of them she only really had confidence in Scootaloo thanks to life forcing the orphan to grow up far too quickly.
“Y’all ready?” the farm pony asked as Twilight joined them near ‘the old gate.’
‘The old gate’ was what ponies called a gate on the northwest ridge of the valley at the edge of that plateau part of town. It led to an old mine, and more importantly it also led to the only lift that went down to the valley floor.
By now Twilight and Applejack both wore saddlebags. In addition to her pith helmet and archeologist shirt, Twilight’s bags held books and food. AJ’s bags held rope and apples. Sweetie Belle wore only her crusader cape, while Scootaloo wore her cape along with the goggles that were the only reason she was coming on this trip. Rainbow Dash brought only herself.
“What?” the Wonderbolt asked in response to the look she got from Applejack.
“Not bringing any supplies for this trip?”
Dash blinked. “Why? I could fly back here in like two minutes. In fact, if we haven’t found what we’re looking for by sundown I plan on flying the kids back here so they won’t have to camp in that forest.”
“Good point,” Applejack conceded. “And a good plan,” she added as she opened the gate and ushered everypony through.
As they headed down the path, it got narrower as it neared the final bend to the abandoned mine and lift. And when they made their way around that last bend, Applejack’s eyes grew wide in surprise as she beheld the small yellow figure already waiting on the lift.
“Apple Bloom! Ah thought Ah told Big Mac to lock you in your room until it was time to go to school!”
“Oh, he did,” Bloom answered her older sister. “Pity he didn’t think to lock his window, though.”
“Lock his window? Wait! You crawled across the roof from your window to his! Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”
“Ya say that like Ah ain’t ever taken a tumble before. Besides, if Ah dangled myself over the edge and let myself fall, it’d only be like ten feet!”
“That’s still far enough to hurt yourself!”
“Well, Ah didn’t fall! Ah’m fine, and Ah’m here! So too bad! Ah’m following, whether you like it or not!”
AJ grumbled something about ‘Granny being right,’ before she more clearly said, “Fine, just stay close so Ah can protect ya if something attacks us down there.”
Within the forest itself, the usefulness of Scootaloo’s goggles quickly became apparent. Allowing her to see magic allowed her to keep everypony clear of many dangers, both known and unknown. Be it the unassuming blue flowers with the powerful magic aura. Or magic creatures like a manticore that she was able to steer the team around thanks to being able to see its magic through the trees.
Of course that only worked when there weren’t too many magic plants around to obscure her view as much as they did physically for everypony.
One time, as they were making their way through a patch of wild zap apple trees, a pack of timber wolves managed to sneak up on them. Or rather, sneak up on Scootaloo, as it was Applejack who alerted the team to the sounds of something stalking them. When the timber wolves pounced, Twilight placed a shield around herself and the fillies, while Applejack and Rainbow Dash fought. As soon as the wolves’ wooden forms were shattered the group ran for it, putting as much distance between themselves and the timber wolves as possible before the fallen wolves pulled themselves back together.
It took a few tries but eventually they managed to lose the timber wolves on their tails.
Eventually, they came to the area that Granny Smith had pointed out, where the top of the stone pillar seemed lined up with the center of the arch and the edge of the mesa Sweet Apple Acres was on. Searching the area they came across a large outcropping with a cave opening where one could still see the arch, pillar, and mesa from the entrance.
They didn’t have to go far into the cave before they started finding parts that had been carved or filled in to make a smooth pathway. A few hundred yards down the path and the cave opened up into a large room. Although nowhere near as large as the cavern that the Staff of True Light had been found in, this one was big enough that a one-story building might fit in this chamber.
Along the sides of the chamber were rectangular pools that created a pathway between them. Along the sides of the pathway were statues of earth ponies kneeling, facing the back of the chamber. At the back of the chamber were stairs that went up a little way and ended with a doorway with an ornately carved frame.
Passing through the open doorway, they found a chamber twice as large as the previous one and four times as deep. Along the sides of this grand hall were more doorways, but between the doorways were murals. Many of the murals seemed to have a green earth pony mare as their focus.
“Wow! So this the Temple of the Earth!” Apple Bloom said in awe as she took in the sight of the chamber.
“It’s certainly an ancient earth pony shrine,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Whether it’s the Temple of the Earth or not has yet to be seen.” Firing off several sparks of magic that lingered and glowed brightly where they landed, she added, “None of these doorways are marked, and the murals don’t seem to indicate which of these paths might lead to a labyrinth either.”
One by one, they started searching the side doorways. The ones they searched all seemed to lead to a small room, each with a lone statue of a different ancient earth pony hero.
“What about this one?” Scootaloo asked of the doorway halfway down the right side of the grand hall, that everypony else had just ignored as they walked passed.
Looking up to the mural above the doorway, Twilight said, “It looks like the story the Earth Mother fighting a volcano demon. What of it?”
“I meant the doorway.”
“What doorway?” Applejack asked.
With that Scootaloo pushed her goggles up onto her forehead. “Oh!” she exclaimed, pulling her head back in surprise. Sliding her goggle back in front of her eyes, she stepped forward and put her hoof into the doorway and said, “This doorway.”
Everypony else gasped at the sight of the orange filly’s outstretched leg disappearing into the wall. Then Twilight lit her horn with magic, bathing that part of the wall in purple light. Her horn got brighter and brighter until it resembled a sparkler stick at a fireworks festival. Then a portion of the wall that matched the shape of the other doorways in the grand hall began to waver.
“Oh wow,” Twilight gasped as she brought the light show to an end. “That is one well hidden illusion spell. I didn’t even notice the magic there until you pointed it out.” Following Scootaloo into the hidden hall, she added, “This is certainly promising.”
The secret passage led to a stairway that went down a short distance.
At the bottom Applejack shot out her hoof, barring the path of the others.
“What’s wrong?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Y’all smell that?” the farm pony asked in return.
“Incense,” Twilight confirmed. “Freshly burned incense. We’re not alone.”
With that the three fillies scampered to the back of the group, letting the adults take the lead. Twilight put a little more magic into her horn, adding a forward spotlight to the simple glow she’d been using before.
They didn’t have to go far before they came across a cloaked figure, sitting between two bowls with the embers of the incense still glowing.
“Who are you!” Rainbow Dash demanded.
The stranger answered back in rhyme, “Zecora is my name, I will go no further down this hall and I advise you do the same!”
“Why? Is something dangerous down this hall?” Twilight asked in an inquisitive tone.
“We came here as three, now there is only me.
“The walls of the maze shift without end, the paths thus always bend. The way never known, I escaped through luck alone.”
As if on cue, a wall a few dozen feet down the hall shifted, changing the straight hall into a T-section.
All but the zebra mare looked to Scootaloo. The pegasus filly only nodded and said, “Just stay close to me.”
Zecora made no move to stop them, but once they’d passed her, she said, “If you insist on going into the maze, might I trouble you to bring peace to my days? If you find the place of my friends’ doom, could you bring their bones that I might lay them in a proper tomb?”
“Are you sure you know the way?” Sweetie Belle whispered once they were far enough that she didn’t think the zebra could hear her.
“I’m guessing none of you see the glowing green path on the floor, right?” Scootaloo responded.
The others shook their heads.
“Then yeah, I know the way,” she finished with a grin and a slight tap on her goggles.
* * * * * * *
As they traveled through the maze the walls would shift every few minutes. And when they did, so too did the path of light Scootaloo was following. Sometimes the change was minor, like turn left up ahead instead of right. Other times the path turned Scootaloo around completely, making her backtrack to a pathway that didn’t exist when they’d passed by before.
In a few tense moments when the maze shifted, Twilight Sparkle was forced to cast teleportation spells to pull ponies who’d dodged a moving wall in a different direction than Scootaloo back to the filly’s side. But thanks to the unicorn’s efforts the team was kept together.
After about an hour of wandering the maze they emerged into a large rotunda. In the center of the room was a circular set of stairs that made a small raised platform. Atop that platform were four earth pony statues gathered around a small pedestal.
The statues were all crafted in the form of armored ponies having the look of warriors of the distant past. Each was armed with a spear and facing outward as if standing guard over the pedestal in the middle.
Floating just above the pedestal was a small stone about the size of a filly’s hoof and glowing with a soft green light.
“Is that the Tranquility Stone?” Rainbow Dash asked, starting to hover toward it.
“Wait!” Scootaloo called out, halting the elder pegasus. “There’s all kinds of magic in those statues!” the filly explained.
Twilight’s horn started to glow.
“I can confirm that. It looks like animation spells, so it’s a safe bet that they’ll wake up if we go near them.” Turning her gaze to the filly with the magic goggles, Twilight asked, “Scootaloo, since you can see magic with those goggles, can you see anything else the statues' magic is tied to? Something that might serve to disable them?”
The orange filly shook her head. “Nothing stands out to me. But I’m not a unicorn, maybe you should take a look,” she said, taking the goggles off and offering them to Twilight.
The purple unicorn put the goggles on and instantly her eyes grew wide in amazement. After looking about the room for a moment she returned her focus to the statues. “Ah, so it’s that kind of animate guardian spell.” Then, as she removed the goggles and returned them to Scootaloo, she said, “If we approach slowly, the guardians will awaken and ask us a riddle. If we answer properly they will let us take the Tranquility Stone. They’ll only fight us if we try to take it by force.”
“So what’s the riddle?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“I don’t know. None of my research mentioned any guardians at the heart of the labyrinth. But there’s an easy way to find out!”
With that Twilight walked up the steps.
As soon as she reached the top, the ground rumbled slightly and the two statues closest to her crossed their spears, baring her path.
The one to her right turned its head to look her in the eyes and said, “I have countless beginnings. I end all the time. Yet, I am eternal. What am I?”
Twilight sat down and raised a hoof to her chin. After a moment she looked to her companions.
Rainbow Dash just shrugged. “Don’t look at me. Riddles aren’t my thing.”
Applejack gave a similar response, although, the three fillies huddled together and started whispering amongst themselves.
Twilight gave a low groan because she’d already calculated four concepts that could meet all three conditions of the riddle. But that only left the question what type of pony set the riddle, and thus which one did they choose as the answer?
“Life!”
The sound drew everypony else’s eyes to the youth who’d spoken.
“An individual life starts and ends all the time,” Apple Bloom explained. “But like ya always say, sis! As a whole, life always finds a way. It always goes on, no matter what.”
As she spoke, the young earth pony walked up the steps. When she got right in front of the statues, they returned their spears to their sides, letting the filly through.
Twilight nodded. “Temple of the Earth, of course earth ponies would have chosen ‘life’ as the answer,” she whispered to herself as she watched Apple Bloom approach the pedestal.
The yellow filly had to balance on her hind legs and stretch out as much as possible to reach up to where the Tranquility Stone was floating. When she pulled the stone from its place, the guardians returned to being inanimate statues and the ground rumbled.
Looking to the entrance of the room, the team found that the reason for the rumbling was because the walls of the labyrinth were sinking into the floor, leaving the former maze as a now wide open room with only the rotunda room in the middle.
With the walls gone, finding the bones of the zebra’s friends on the way out proved to be a simple task. And with evening fast approaching Zecora offered to let the ponies stay the night at her nearby hut. The offer was declined however, in favor of having Rainbow Dash fly and carry the fillies back to town in mere minutes. Then Twilight made signal lights with her magic so the ace pegasus could fly back two more times to bring the remaining adults of the expedition back one at a time.
Back in Ponyville, the natives returned to their homes, yet only Twilight Sparkle retreated to an inn. Rainbow Dash asked to campout in Scootaloo’s hanger again and she allowed it.