//------------------------------// // Condemned Treasure of the Two Sisters // Story: Jewel Of Nightmares // by Darksonickiller //------------------------------// Chapter 1 Condemned Treasure of the Two Sisters Deep within the depths of the Castle of the Two Sisters a blinding flash of light burst through the darkness, shattering the calm quiet state of being that once filled the once endless sea of black. As the light slowly dimmed and died allowing the darkness to slowly consume the room, a single cluster of violet jewels decorated in various runes sitting alone in an empty room. The runes upon the jewels burned into a dying light as the faint sounds of hoof steps could be heard. “Are you sure whatever it is, is even down here?” Starlight whispered to keep her voice from echoing off the walls. “Well we’ve been picking up large bursts of magical energies for the past few months coming from here. So it's safe to say that it still is.” Twilight replied as she looked down at an ever changing map, “Or at least this map we made says it is, or was down here. Whatever it is has gone dark again, and the map can’t pick it up anymore.” “How many rooms are down here?” Looking at the map Twilight sighed as she watched it tracking her and Starlight, “Well I only saw one large room last time, but now all I can see on here is us walking down this staircase.” “We should have taken a chance to give the map a lingering time limit on the larger source.” Starlight sighed as she kept pace next to her mentor. “You know we couldn’t.” Twilight replied as she used a spell to light up the path before them, “We took a risk on these current enchantments,” She groaned trying not to tear the map apart in frustration from losing their target, “If you remember the countless times we tried just to make this one map.” “Yes I recall, and that just means we now know how much magic to use per enchantment. Allowing us to lower the overall amount per enchantment, while increasing the number of enchantments we apply.” Starlight faintly giggles as Twilight shot a glare towards her. “We tried that remember, parchment is one of the few kinds of writeable items that can be enchanted. And it can’t handle much beyond what we’ve got.” Twilight reminded Starlight as her lumination spell slowly began to flood their path, the magical energies it gave off gave their map something to follow. As the lower levels slowly began to appear on the map, Twilight and Starlight carefully moved onward. Keeping their ears and eyes open for the odd creature or critter that could have made their way down to the area. Reaching the end of the walkway they came to a long, shallow, and winding descending ramp which caused Twilight to groan in frustration. “Shame we don’t know where we are going, otherwise we could have teleported.” Starlight chimed in causing Twilight to faintly growl in response as they continued to walk. “Well we could make the ground slick enough to slide down there, but the map doesn’t show how far we have to travel downward. So we could miss the room...” Twilight began to ponder as she thought about their options, “unless the room is at the end of this.” “Maybe one of us makes the ground under us slick, and the other be prepared to slow or stop us should we get near?” Watching how Twilight smiled to the idea, Starlight faintly blushed as she rubbed the back of her head, “So who’s doing what?” “Well if you know the spell, then you make the ground slick and I’ll slow us down as we get closer. Since I’ve got the map.” As they came to an agreement, Twilight and Starlight stared at the large near empty room that now greeted them. “Or just walk about fifty yards in a spiral?” Starlight questioned as she looked back at the path behind them, “Seems kind of pointless to have it like that doesn’t it?” “This castle was built with countless tricks and slides,” Twilight responded as she examined the room, “we would have to talk to Celestia and Luna about why it was done like that.” As they looked around the illuminated room they saw nothing but bare walls, they even lacked any kind of possible carved designs. It only made the two of them wonder why this room was even made, or even why they had been drawn to its location. “Twilight, look.” Starlight whispered pointing towards the far end of the room. Gazing upon the cluster sitting on the floor, “That can’t be what we’ve been detecting can it?” Twilight doubted as the two of them walked over and began looking it over, taking what notes they could about the jewels. “I’ve seen something like this before.” Starlight perked up in astonishment, drawing Twilight’s attention, “Ya, in that book Luna lent us on stones and gems that can be used for aiding and assisting with relaxing into a deeper sleep.” Thinking for a moment Twilight’s eyes widened as her mind made the connection, “It does…” She said with a faint tone of hesitation, “But it doesn’t look quite like some of the others in the book.” With a closer examination both mares began to notice more and more distinguishing features, ones that kept the very jewel before them oddly different from what they saw. “Is there a chance Luna missed one?” Starlight asked while Twilight began taking measurements of its overall size. “I wouldn’t expect her to, unless this…” Letting out a faint groan Twilight sighed as she rubbed her head, “no it couldn’t be new. Neither Luna or Celestia had been in her for a thousand years before the return of Nightmare Moon, and they haven’t been here since we defeated Nightmare Moon and saved Luna.” Rubbing her chin Twilight pondered a bit before nodding with a dissatisfied hum, ‘Maybe Luna forgot she had this?’ Twilight asked herself in a whisper believing that couldn’t be the case. As they took down the last of the measurements, Starlight gently ran her hoof over a small piece of the jewel. With a sudden realization Starlight let out a faint gasp, “Twilight!” She called out as she rubbed the jewel back and forth, “Rub it like this.” Following her student’s action Twilight’s eyes faintly narrowed, “You feel it as well don’t you?” “Yes…” She hesitantly responded trying to make out what she felt, “Did you bring any paper and some coal with you?” Twilight asked only to watch as Starlight faintly frowned as she shook her head. Doing what they could to examine the jewel, Twilight and Starlight began pouring over what few notes they had brought with them. Each bit of text was over the handling and caring of dream stones, but among all of it they searched for the use of magic around them. In the end the only warning they had was to ensure never allowing the jewel to crack or break, as the magic contained within them would be released in a violent and catastrophic event. “Okay Starlight, like we agreed.” Twilight motioned as Starlight vanished in a flash of light, “Now to give her just a moment…” She groaned while channeling what magic she needed into her horn. Popping up in the open floor of Twilight’s library, Starlight took a few steps back and took a wide stance to brace herself. Looking up Starlight watched as the jewel appeared in the air above her head, catching it with her magic Starlight began to groan as she lowered the jewel as slowly as possible. Within a few short moments Twilight popped in and began assisting Starlight. Once the jewel was safely lowered onto the floor the two mares collapsed where they stood, panting from exhaustion they began to laugh at their haphazard plan. “It’s kind of funny isn’t it?” Starlight asked as she slowly began to stand up. Taking Starlight’s helping hoof up Twilight sighed, “What do you mean?” “Well if we made even the smallest mistake, like having its weight slightly off. I could have either dropped it after it came in, or slammed it into the ceiling.” As she explained, Starlight soon remembered how bad of an idea it was to bring up things like this to Twilight after the fact. “Or teleported it into the middle of town, or through a wall, or right behind Applejack as she bucks a tree!” Twilight exclaimed as she began shaking Starlight, “We could have destroyed Ponyville!” “Ya, but you didn’t.” A calm faintly gruff voice spoke in a faintly annoyed tone. “That’s not the point Spike!” Twilight groaned as she let go of Starlight and walked over towards him, “We should have taken a little longer to plan this out, taken multiple trips to ensure we didn’t make any mistakes.” “You could have also asked Big Mac to bring it here in one of the Apple Family waggons or carts, if you’re that worried you would have made that much of a mistake with magic?” Spike asked with a deadpan like stare as Twilight began to blush from embarrassment. Rubbing the back of her head Twilight nervously giggled, “You do have a good point there.” Returning her focus to the jewel Twilight began pouring over her notes, “Okay so what we’ve managed to take note of is this, we can activate these dream stones, but only if we use enough magic and have attuned the energies of our magic to make the stones vibrate the right way. Shall we get started?” Looking over the jewel Starlight groaned as she tried to make heads or tails of the runes, “I don’t know Twilight, I think we need to look up these runes first and see what they do.” As Twilight came over to look at the runes Starlight continued to explain, “If we don’t understand a single one of them, then there’s no telling what could happen. At the best we could hope nothing happened.” “And at the worst the possibilities are endless.” Twilight groaned in faint disappointment as she rubbed one of the runes etched into the jewel, “Alright, let's go find the book of runic spells.” Twilight sighed in disappointment knowing that their chance to research the jewel had to be pushed back, that weeks of planning leading up to this one moment was being brought to a halt because of one variable. Leaving the room Starlight and Spike nervously smiled as they followed Twilight, hearing her rant and rave over the one little hiccup in their project. Once the room was empty and silent a single rune began to shine on the jewel. Slowly the books began to levitate off where they stood, the floor began to shake and rattle as a second rune slowly began to glow. As the runes began to burn to life with magical energies Rainbow Dash came bursting through an open window, “Hey Twilight I just got the new Daring Do book!” Looking around Rainbow saw the room was empty, “Twilight?” She called out ignoring the jewel sitting in the middle of the room, “You here egghead?” Landing on the floor Rainbow began to huff and puff as the room began to feel heavier in more ways than one. As Rainbow’s breathing became more forced and weighted, she looked around the room only to see several books floating in the air. “What the…” She panted as she turned around finally noticing the jewel, “Where did they get that?” Slowly the room grew darker than a cloud filled night as the runes shined brightly, Rainbow could feel a cold chill slowly creeping up her spine as a violet vortex began to spiral before her eyes. Rainbow tried to call out for Twilight and Starlight only to find her voice was could not be heard. As the vortex grew in size before her eyes Rainbow turned to run only to feel herself being pulled in towards it, she cried out for her friends as loud as she could while digging her hooves into the floor. Outside of the room Twilight and Starlight were returning while having a light conversation, as they neared the door they found their voices became lighter and lighter with each step they took. And even the pressure on their bodies growing while objects began to float around them, with a single glance at each other they gave as much effort as they could muster and ran towards the door. As they burst through the door they were greeted by the swirling vortex only for it to vanish a second later. “What was that?” Starlight asked as the effects of the vortex faded from the area around the jewel. “I don’t know.” Twilight said in a worried tone as she looked around the messy room, only for her to focus on a single saddle bag laying in the room, “But I think Rainbow Dash just learned a little more than we did.” Turning around Starlight’s eyes narrowed in shock as she saw the bag, “If she was in the room when that thing opened,” She began to state as her voice trembled in worrisome fear, “we don’t know where she could have gone.”