//------------------------------//
// First Flame 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

Maple and Starlight stepped out into a tall, six-sided room matching the table room above in dimension, standing on a narrow pink bridge halfway up the shaft. Above, sparkling runes and transfers of energy decorated the ceiling, like constellations with their lines drawn out. To the sides, tiny crenellations acted as meager railings to the bridge, everything coated in the chalky pink substance that concealed the crystal structure beneath. Below them, the walls abruptly cut away, an infinite cavern expanding in all directions beneath, black and purple and blue and stars swirling ethereally beneath in a vivid representation of the night sky that only the clearest surface nights could come close to matching. Maple gulped, quaking. "Is this... the bottom of the world?"

"Call me insane," Gerardo offered, "but I'm highly tempted to fly down there and check."

"Woah..." Howe gaped. "By my own wings of chaos, it's like the world ends and the sky continues! Never had I guessed the world would be double-sided!"

Starlight was more interested in what was ahead of them.

Snaking down from the center of the ceiling, directly beneath where the table would be, was a winding, gnarled column of crystal, broader than a house and tinged with a rainbow hue. All along it, branches broke off, snarling into the walls like the limbs of an impossibly ancient tree. In fact... was that what it was? The thing looked far more organic than any crystalline structure she had seen before. It was a crystal tree.

The base of the tree snaked off into the starry curtain below, until it faded from sight far more quickly than she would have expected from an infinite abyss. The bridge they were on crossed to the tree, eventually meeting it at an opening that would allow equines to walk inside. And the reason it held her captive? It was the source of the feeling she had felt throughout the castle. She thought she could even see it, a burning ball of energy shining within the core and calling out to her. But she held fast to Maple's back, and didn't go.

"The sky continues?" Valey chuckled, walking past Howe. "Nah. This isn't some other side to the world. That would be crazy. It's a wall made of some kind of magic. Looking infinite is an illusion. It's actually super close. See the tree? It grows out of the wall. You can see where it ends; that's how close it actually is." She winked at Gerardo. "And you can go flying around down there if you want. It's pretty fun. But, busted wing, remember?" She shrugged apologetically. "I won't be able to save you."

"Save me?" Gerardo frowned. "Is the area hostile?"

Valey stared over the edge of the bridge. "If you touch the magic layer," she said, "you fall asleep. All you gotta do to wake up is stop touching it, which means someone has to pull you off. But they'd just fall asleep too, so you need someone it has a different effect on, like yours truly."

"A different effect?" Maple glanced at her in concern. "What does it do to you? And why? Because you're a batpony?"

"Yeah, probably." Valey shrugged. "And touching it turns me on really hard."

Maple gave her a flat expression. "Really."

Valey returned a cocky grin. "Maybe, but do you want to watch and find out?" She looked away. "I'd rather not, though, because that means flying more than I have to, and like I said, I wanna stay off my wing as much as possible. Anyway, I just need to grab the thing I stashed here, but that'll mean ditching you all for about a minute. Think you can stay out of trouble until I'm back?"

"Assuredly," Gerardo assured, holding a talon to his breast. Maple nodded alongside him. Howe and Neon Nova were busy ogling the place.

"Wait," Starlight said, unable to tear her eyes away from the tree. "What's that?"

Valey glanced between her and it. "What as in what does it do? Beats me. According to Fire, it's something called a Tree of Harmony. Now sit tight, and I'll be right back!"

She charged down the bridge, coiled her legs, and sprang off the side, landing deftly on one of the lower branches. Keeping her momentum, she leapt again, gaining height while swiftly crossing around and out of sight behind the trunk.

Howe and Neon Nova turned to each other and whistled. "So let me get this straightened out, here," Neon said, gesturing with a forehoof. "We've gone so far below the surface of the world that we've found a buried castle right above some mystical magic layer connected to stuff about harmony? Am I gettin' the proper read on this situation?"

Howe tapped his forehooves together, an eager grin spreading across his lavender face. "I know, right!? It's just like in Father's stories! Truly, we are the scions of legend!"

"...Excuse me?" Maple glanced at them, raising an eyebrow. "You two knew about this place?"

"In the same sense that one knows the legends about the Mare in the Moon," Howe imperiously said, wrapping a wing around himself. "Now, being here in the flesh, on the other hoof, is something else!" His eyes glittered. "And I can say with certainty another thing that is no legend..."

He pointed across the bridge to the tunnel leading inside the crystalline tree. To the sides of the entrance, empty and abandoned, sat two well-used wooden crates.

"Well, biological brother-of-mine?" Howe smirked at Neon Nova. "Care to reclaim the other half of our inheritance and clear this city with a perfect record? Because my unfathomable intellect is telling me our reward lies directly inside that tree!"

Maple frowned, stepping between them and the door. "Are you sure that's a good idea? We have no idea how this place works, or what anything does! If you mess with something, we could..."

"Ruin the yaks' plans?" Howe asked with a cocky grin. "We've already established that they're up to no good! Steal a little here, mess with a little there... it's the bad guys who stand to lose, right?"

Reluctantly, Gerardo shrugged. "Indeed. Whatever the yaks have planned is undoubtedly nefarious, so while the fallout from taking back my cargo here may be unpredictable, it would still work out in our favor, would it not?"

Maple raised a hoof... and lowered it. "Yeah. I guess you're right."

"Should they have it either?" Starlight asked, coming to Maple's defense. "Howe dropped you and we don't really know if either of them are trustworthy!"

"That was an accident!" Howe implored. "I assure you, I did not intend for that to happen! You felt the vile atmosphere of that strength-sapping place, did you not!?"

"I have a compromise," Gerardo offered, patting his pockets. "Perhaps I'll take the orb, seeing as it was originally my cargo, and shall decide what to do with it once we're in a slightly more airy situation, hmm? Perhaps one without the threat of district destruction hanging over our heads?"

"Hey, I can agree to that," Neon Nova replied, Howe bobbing his head alongside him.

Gerardo straightened up, smoothing his uniform. "Very well," he announced. "Into that tree!"





Starlight grumbled as they walked through the entrance. Apparently, nobody considered Valey's request of staying out of trouble to include not going inside the tree. Whether that was part of the intent or not, she didn't care. She was too busy being filled with apprehension.

Faceted crystal loomed close around her as she rode through the narrow entrance tunnel, the hairs on her coat standing on end from the force of the tree's ambient magic. She was inside the core, the very source, energy moving past and through and all around her that caressed her horn and soothed her mind and whispered that everything would be all right. If she was alone, she might have believed it. As it was, she resisted, and stayed terrified.

The short tunnel widened into a cavity; the very heart of the tree. It was lit as brightly as day, with another tree growing up from the floor of the great one. The smaller tree's branches were crafted and molded into the shape of a brazier, as if the Tree of Harmony had grown it for expressly that purpose, and safely burning within was a sparkling pink flame.

The flame should have looked happy. And then Starlight saw what had been done to it.

All around it, clamped onto the branches that formed the brazier and held the fire to its pedestal, were the mechanical parts she had seen when she and Maple opened one of the crates to dig through for the windigo heart. They leaned toward the flame with cranes and booms and prongs, holding polished pieces of moon glass Starlight had initially taken to be mirrors up close to the flame. If they were reflecting, they were reflecting it in on itself. But instead...

Maple swallowed. "It looks like they're melting..."

The fire blazed angrily, slightly too big for its brazier, licking and lashing at the pieces of monochrome black that were held up to it. Starlight watched in fear and fascination as the metal supports appeared perfectly unscathed, yet the moon glass drooped, twisting into slag and sliding from its supports before the onslaught. As she stared, one piece gave entirely, converting all at once into black liquid and then gray steam with a whisper that sounded almost like a tiny voice. The faint outline of a glyph hovered in the air where the glass had disappeared... a fake cutie mark, freed from its prison. Her eyes widened as it sat there... then slowly drifted into the walls of the tree, gaining momentum as it left the fire and floated upwards. The fire relaxed its assault on the now-empty support, turning to the others.

"What is...?" Gerardo swallowed loudly, the pink flame somehow not making a sound.

"Look," Howe whispered, pointing into the core of the bonfire. A glowing, gold-flaked orb sat, the icy gemstone at its center burning like a pink sun. "Our windigo heart!"

Neon Nova made to lift his shades, before realizing he didn't have any.

"What's this all..." Maple cut off, watching the fire. "What's this all doing?"

"The righteous powers of harmony..." Howe extended a dramatic forelimb toward the pyre, his muzzle casting a shadow between his eyes. "They have been forced into a conflict with the unholy and disharmonic forces of moon glass and a windigo heart! The presence of the obsidian fans the flames as the fire seeks to destroy it, enhancing the intensity of the blaze as the windigo heart sits within, absorbing energy to fill the infinite void inside! Truly, only the most dastardly villain would think to taunt such a holy power so, all in the name of strengthening it so they might bottle its sacred fury and unleash it at its strongest against their foes! The vileness makes my wings tremble..."

"You think that's the point of this?" Maple asked, turning to him with wide eyes. "That they're trying to..." She blinked. "Sorry, I thought I got what you said, but now that I'm trying to rephrase it..."

"I believe I understood," Gerardo said, staring at the heart at the center of the blaze. "Our feathered pegasus friend means to say that the windigo heart and obsidian, being disharmonic in nature, react adversely to the power of the flame, and it to them. The heart, for instance, appears to be absorbing the harmonic energies, perhaps in an attempt to reach some neutral state. The obsidian, meanwhile, is rendered to nothing by exposure to the flame, and as such the flame is burning brighter to attempt to destroy them. A catalyst, in this case, as the goal appears to be a supercharged windigo heart. I would not be surprised if that item turns out to be usable as some type of harmonic battery."

"Correct!" Howe exclaimed. "Which means the obvious course of action to foil our opponents is to steal it and escape cackling into the night!"

Maple gulped. "Harmony. A different type of energy than mana, produced naturally by cutie marks. We know someone who would be able to use a harmonic battery, don't we...?"

Starlight didn't care. She saw the fire battling the moon glass, recalled the time she had gotten White Chocolate's piece stuck on her, felt the longing that had pervaded her throughout the castle and the descent, and realized beyond a shadow of a doubt: this place was good, and someone had tried to break it. She needed to get those artifacts away from the fire.

Something clicked in the fuzzy, invisible aura surrounding her horn. Instead of holding her tight, the place's magic had reacted to her intent and started helping her. It was like a giant hoof moving alongside hers, guiding her, and she had a feeling that once she lit her horn, it would be able to cast the strongest spells of her life until she left that castle.

Whud!

Valey suddenly appeared between them and the flame, a decorated golden pendant with a black gemstone clasped around her neck and her wings spread defensively. "Woah, woah, woah. Hold up, bone brains." She glared from Howe to Neon Nova and back again. "I told you guys to stay out of trouble. Are you sure messing with this place is the best idea?"

Gerardo jumped to the brothers' defense. "First off," he presented, "we're quite sure that the yaks are up to no good, so any act of sabotage against them is itself inherently useful. Second, this entire setup someone appears to have built here looks quite... creepy."

Valey gave him a raised eyebrow. "I look creepy too, and you don't hold that against me."

"Is there anything important you know?" Maple asked, Starlight waiting atop her back to see what Valey would say. "About what this is, or what it does, or anything like that?"

Hesitantly, Valey glanced to the modified brazier. "Well, I'll grant you that it does look creepy. This is the first time I've seen the setup too. I also know that it was the cute unicorn I got locked up with who set this up, and from talking to her on the way here, she's clueless. She definitely thinks she's a good guy, and has no idea that Herman's a jerk or that Ironridge is trouble."

Maple frowned. Gerardo clicked his beak. Starlight stared in determination at the fire.

"I know there are a whole bunch of bozos running around," Valey admitted, "but I'd stake my sweet tooth on her not being one of them. Sheltered and naive, maybe, but not the kind of pony who would knowingly walk in and set up a doomsday device. She thought whatever she was doing down here was really good and really important." She blinked. "And she's also the pony who can apparently melt a tunnel through a huge landslide and then walk through it without kicking the bucket. Messing with someone like that makes my flank tingle just by thinking about it."

"If she's that sheltered, she could easily be being tricked," Gerardo pointed out.

Valey glanced back at the brazier. "Huh. Yeah, I suppose she could."

"Valey," Maple quickly interrupted. "We think this is trying to store harmonic energy in the windigo heart. You don't think, with Shinespark...?"

"That she's behind this? No way." Valey shook her head. "Remember, I've gotten a pretty solid infiltration on her operation. I know all of her secrets. Every. Last. One. It's how I do stuff like get Braen to back off with a single safe word, and keep the peace so long as she'd rather her secrets be kept than start a war with Skyfreeze. Neither her nor any of her friends even know this place exists. Although..." She grinned down at the orb. "While we're talking about defacing this thing, if we assume it's up to no good and you're right about it being a battery, I bet it's exactly what we need to get her little project working. You know... just in case we need another escape route from this city."

"Aha!" Howe pumped a hoof. "Well, then, what are we waiting for?"

Shrugging, Valey reached into the bonfire and pulled out the orb, wincing at the contact. "That's... agh! Ow. Okay, someone else can carry this." She dropped it at her hooves, and it rolled across the floor to Gerardo, pink energy burning along the gold flakes between the edge and the glowing core. A faint mist rose from the surface.

"Y-You just..." Howe's eyes widened, pointing between her and the flame, too shocked to stop Gerardo from pocketing the harmonic battery.

"Reached in there?" Valey shrugged. "Yeah, usually it feels pretty good, but I think it's kind of angry today. Might have to do with all this other weird stuff. Should we get rid of that, too?"

Starlight didn't have to be asked twice. Her horn lit with a blade of light, the corona extending beyond the length of her stubby horn as if she was a fully-grown adult, or more. Shimmering, it flashed, overlain with pink atop her usual teal, and a storm of telekinesis rent the metal supports from the crystal tree brazier, tearing them to the floor melting moon glass and all. Slowly, ever so slowly, she watched as the bonfire died back to a soft, welcoming blaze, and let her horn go out.

Despite the massive expenditure of energy, her horn didn't hurt at all. The tree's magic had done all of the work for her.

"Yeow!" Neon Nova gaped at her. "How'd you do that? I can't even light my horn in this place!"

"I don't know." Starlight shrugged. She really didn't... but knew that if she left it that way, it would always bother her, so she gave her best guess. "The tree was helping me. I guess it was because I wanted to do what it wanted."

"Sapient trees..." Gerardo shivered. "Well, we have what we came for, I presume?"

Valey nodded, tapping her new pendant. "Yep! Got it right here. Next stop, bailing on Ironridge. Unless you guys talk me fast into going to the Water District, which I think is a really bad idea."

Starlight was still staring at the reduced flame. Kindly, it beckoned, wanting to enwrap her... and she had just seen Valey stick her forelimb into the center of the blaze without injury. "That fire is safe to touch?"

"Eh, yeah, for me." Valey shrugged. "I think it's a little similar to the barrier down below us, so maybe not for everyone. Then again, Birdo's fine and he just grabbed that orb, so who knows?"

...Starlight had better things to do than indulging her own whims with mysterious, harmonic fire, no matter how much it seemed like she should touch it too. Sighing, she slumped on Maple's back, giving the scattered, destroyed support mechanism one last glance and not protesting as they exited the tree.





"So," Gerardo said as they crossed the bridge back to the staircase to the table room. "A gigantic underground tree, made of crystal and powered by a scientific force nobody has been able to unlock, connected to a layer of subterranean magic that serves a purpose I can't fathom, all contained within a castle that is also buried far beneath the earth. Have I managed to wrap my head around this entire secret, or is there yet more I never expected to know the world contains buried within these halls?"

"The castle's made of crystal," Starlight dryly offered, still glancing back regretfully at the tree chamber. Leaving felt so wrong... but if Valey could walk away, so could she. "Conjured crystal."

"Ah. Of course." Gerardo scratched at his brow, headcrest flopping. "You'd think as a professional adventurer more than ten years on the road, I would have seen it all..."

As he pondered, Maple matched Valey's pace. "What did you bring us down here for? That necklace?" She glanced over the golden artifact, Starlight leaning over her shoulder. "Wait..." Her eyes narrowed, focusing on the black gemstone set in the forefront of the thing. "Is that moon glass?"

"Yeah. It is." Valey touched it with her good wing, polishing the surface lightly. "This pendant is a Sosan prototype they made a long time ago, trying to find a way to let a pony 'safely' use moon glass without actually getting the fake mark stuck in their body. You probably know what for. I stole it when they wound up integrating the design into that other thing... you know..." She shot a surreptitious glance at the stallion brothers, keeping her voice lower. "And they didn't need this one any more. It's kinda wimpy because it turns out marks will reject you if your body isn't attuned to them and there's anywhere else for them to go, or something, so this is basically useless. But it makes a good holder for the thing I really care about, which is this." Again, she touched the dark stone set into it.

"I thought you hated moon glass," Starlight said with a frown, watching closely from Maple's back. "What are you doing wearing it?"

"Well..." Valey's ears folded, her beret tilting slightly. "This is part of why I hate it."

"Oh." Maple didn't press.

Eventually, Valey tried to break the silence. "So, yeah, the only thing the pendant really does is let me keep this on me without it being dangerous to anyone. Of course, if someone came along who somehow was attuned to a mark inside a piece of moon glass, they'd be able to use it... but what are the odds of that happening? I mean, I know I already have a mark." She shrugged. "I suppose you could also try to find someone whose body can attune itself to any mark, but that's not how normal ponies work."

Starlight shuddered. She couldn't remember how much Valey knew about where she was from, or how she reacted differently enough to harmonic magic that some ponies thought she could provide scientific insight or the keys to unlimited energy, but she desperately hoped those words weren't meant to imply something about her.