“Lieutenant, are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes, Miss Yearling, I am sure.” The Lieutenant replied, glancing at the treasure hunter. “You said these heroes are reasonable, yeah?”
“Most of them, yes. Some of them served houses that were very opposed to Equestrian involvement in their affairs, however.”
“I’m sure we’ll be just fine. You did choose one that will probably help us, right?”
“Yes. That scribe might have been lying to me, though.”
“That’s fine. Nothing worth doing is without risk.”
As the two mares had this conversation, they came to a set of ancient doors made from crystal. Towering over them, the doors bore little decoration. The rest of the archaeologists were busily clearing the chamber of debris and setting up camp.
“Do all of the tomb doors look like this?” The Lieutenant pointed with one of her wings.
Yearling shook her head. “Not all of them. The ones containing the most storied ones, none of which have been found, are supposedly much, much more impressive. This is one of the lesser ones, though it looks like it was defaced at some point. So, the hero should be more impressive than the door would have you believe.”
She gestured with a wing to the odd arrangements of shards the Crystal Ponies among them were treating with reverence. “Those happen to be Crystal Pony bodies, by the way. If I had to guess, they killed each other over who should get the treasure.”
The Lieutenant frowned. “This treasure being the hero inside.”
Walking up to the door, she glanced at Yearling. “All of this for a single pony.”
“A very powerful pony,” Yearling replied easily, walking up to the door as well.
She reached out and touched the door. A loud, low rumble echoed throughout the chamber. “Huh, must have been pre-prepared by those dead Crystal Ponies. Talk about easy.”
The Lieutenant frowned again, and looked at the Royal Guards she brought with her. “Be ready for anything. Who knows what kinds of things the ponies who built this place put in place to defend it.”
She stepped forward, but Yearling put out a hoof, stopping the Royal Guard. “Rainbow Dash,” she stated, “you haven’t told me why you wanted to come along, and bring your unit with you.”
“You have to report to the High Princess after every expedition of yours, yeah?”
“Of course, as part of the contract that I have with her.”
Dash’s eyes narrowed. “Then that is reason enough.”
The lieutenant pushed past the treasure hunter, giving her a cool glance and gesturing for the other Royal Guards to follow her.
Yearling raised an eyebrow, and muttered to herself, “You’re not one to hide things, Rainbow Dash.”
Sighing, she followed the loose formation of Royal Guards.
The Royal Guards, Dash included, hung back, long enough for Yearling to take the lead. “You’ve got the best tomb navigation of us all,” Rainbow Dash said, as Yearling stepped to the front of the group.
******
After fifteen minutes of following the scroll that had been provided by the scribe, the group entered a chamber larger than the entrance chamber.
“Is this the chamber?”
“It appears to be, yes.”
One of the other Royal Guards spoke up, “There’s a lot of history here.”
Dash looked at him. “What do you mean?”
He pointed a hoof and then swept it around, indicating the walls. “The writing on the walls looks like Ancient Crystalline. That would indicate history.”
When Dash opened her mouth to speak, the Guard shook his head and added, “I can’t read it, though. I just know what it looks like.”
“Miss Yearling, can you-?”
“No,” Yearling interrupted, “I can interpret many Equine languages. But not this one. This one is utterly unknown to even me. We’ll learn together.”
“Hmm. Any indication of how we awaken this hero?”
“We should look around. There could be hints laying about.”
Dash raised a hoof and gestured around. “You heard her, search around.”
The Guards and archaeologists began looking around for any clues about the hero. With the hero’s sarcophagus in the middle of the chamber, the thirty ponies had to carefully move around the chamber.
“Find anything?”
“Nope, buncha currency over here though.”
“Put those back! We’re here awaken that hero, not rob them blind!”
“Miss Yearling, you find anything?”
“Maybe, but one of the Crystal Ponies needs to look at it.”
One of the Crystal Ponies walked over to where Yearling was standing. She was looking at a plaque on a pedestal. “Can you read this? I’m afraid that anything older than Modern Crystalline I can’t read.”
The Crystal Pony looked at the plaque and nodded. “It’s Old Crystalline. That would make sense.”
“Make sense?”
“Old Crystalline was the language spoken by the common pony at the time of these heroes. It stands to reason that they would write the instructions in the language that any fool could read.”
Yearling cocked her head and asked, “How do you know all of this?”
A smile appeared on the Crystal Pony’s face. “I can read all of the older Crystalline languages,” he replied, “I’m a linguist by education and, of course, career.”
“So, what does it say?”
“‘When the time comes, that which is primordial is required.’”
“How unnecessarily vague,” Yearling stated.
Dash spoke up, “Anypony got mana crystals containing wild magic?”
The Royal Guard that had identified the writing on the wall replied, pulling one from a pouch on his helmet with his magic, “Yeah. Right here, boss.”
“Good, transfer that magic into the sarcophagus.”
“Yes ma’am!”
Yearling looked at the lieutenant and asked, “How did you-?”
“Know what the plaque means? Dunno. Basic intuition, I guess. Since Crystal Ponies passively absorb background magic in place of solid food to sustain themselves, I figured that wild magic would be what we need.” She looked at the linguist. “Am I correct?”
“Yes. You are. Peculiar…”
The unicorn pressed the mana crystal to the sarcophagus and began the transfer spell. A minute passed.
Yearling asked, “So, when this hero awakens, what do we do?”
Dash looked at the mare, and responded, “You’re the expert, you tell me.”
“I haven’t dealt with heroes of Crystal Pony history. How am I supposed to know?”
The linguist spoke up, “I can handle it if you want, Lieutenant.”
Raising an eyebrow, Dash felt her doubt creep into her voice as she spoke, “Are you sure you can do this?”
“Yes,” came the response, “there is one thing that I can do.”
“What?”
“You’ll see.”
After a few uneasy minutes, the mana crystal went dull. Stepping back, the unicorn looked at it. “It’s completely drained, ma’am.”
Dash nodded. “And now, we wait.”
************
She woke slowly. She could not recall her name. It did not matter, she decided. That would return later, afterwards, once she got on her hooves. Her heart, lungs, and joints woke first.
Slow breaths were the first thing she heard. Her slow breaths. Her joints unlocked, and every joint in her body relaxed. She gave a small sigh, a terribly quiet thing, but one of relief. Her eyes, though, still remained closed. She became aware of the mask on her face, the robes covering her body.
Eventually, her eyes opened. The bottom of her sarcophagus lid met her eyes. She sighed, and put a front hoof against the sarcophagus lid. A single dot glowed where her hoof was when she pulled it away. Lines, straight and sharp, slowly spread from the dot. They spread to cover most of the lid. Then, the lid began dissipating. Once the lid disappeared, she sat up. Azure of House Jacinth, she recalled as she did so, that’s my name.
Gasps reached her ears. Azure looked around. Ponies, thirty of them, stood around the sarcophagus, staring at her with varied expressions: some surprised, others shocked. The ones like her bowed in reverence to her. The ones in pewter armor regarded her with guarded looks. The one wearing pewter armor edged in silver, a pegasus mare, wore a small grin, rose eyes shining with excitement. All the armored ponies were not wearing their helmets, as though they were not expecting a fight.
That was all well and good, Azure thought, as, with her reflexes severely dulled by her long slumber, she was not sure how good she could fight at this moment. One pony, eerily similar to the pegasus in the silver-edged armor, stepped toward her and began speaking in a friendly tone.
Azure made no response, the language was far too strange for her to understand. One of the ponies like her approached her, his coat shimmering in the light of the chamber. He held out a hoof to her in a manner that said, Let me help you.
Taking the offered hoof, she watched the stallion get very close to her. He poked the mask on her face, and she removed the mask. The stallion pressed his forehead against hers, and transferred knowledge from his mind to hers.
Azure stared at him as he stepped back and spoke, in the same language that the pegasus had spoken to her in, “Do you understand this?”
She hesitated for a very brief moment. Then she replied, slowly in that language, “Yes… I can…”
The pegasus in the silver-edged armor’s grin widened.