//------------------------------// // Praeteritorium // Story: Overgrowth // by ezra09 //------------------------------// “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt,” Rare Breed said, voice quiet, disbelieving. “But this is far more than I was expecting. The notes said that the encountered subject seemed intelligent, but you’re speaking. You’re really speaking. Lignum Viventem, speaking Equestrian. This is incredible.” “Yes,” the Librarian said, focusing on Rare Breed, “I am speaking Equestrian. Whether it is incredible or not, well, all things are relative. I do not believe we have met.” “Oh, right. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.” “Wonder how many times he’s said that,” Thistleroot muttered under his breath. Scootaloo looked at him and chuckled, then focused once again on the Librarian. Her gaze wandered lower, to the doe at his side. It was hard to tell, but she seemed younger. Not a child, but definitely not an adult. She had the same green gem-like eyes as the other wooden deer creatures Scootaloo had seen, and they were focused on Scootaloo. She gave the doe a small smile, and the doe smiled back before taking a step further behind the Librarian. “My name is Rare Breed. I’m a researcher of exotic fauna from Trottingham. This is my associate, Triplicate. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.” “Yes, you are... friends?” the Librarian asked slowly, looking back at Scootaloo. “Close enough,” she said. “Then it is... good to know you,” the Librarian said. “Have you anything to contribute to Libiris?” “Uh, contribute?” “It is customary for any creature who wishes to access the knowledge stored within these walls to first add to that knowledge, so that the Archive may continue to grow,” the Librarian explained. “It is one of the most basic laws governing the magic of Libiris.” “Do you have any books your willing to part with?” Scootaloo asked. “Or comics,” Thistleroot said. “Oh,” Rare Breed said. “Uh, no. I have some empty notebooks, but that’s all.” He looked to Triplicate, who shook his head. “Then I am afraid you must stay here,” the Librarian said. “Oh,” Rare Breed said, smile faltering. “If we come back later with some books, would you mind answering a few questions?” “Not at all,” the Librarian said. “Wonderful.” The Librarian nodded and gave Rare Breed a slow smile, then turned toward Scootaloo, Thistleroot, and Mimic. “You three, come.” He turned, and then looked down at the doe. “Oui yc famm, meddma uha.” The doe nodded, glancing nervously at the ponies, and when the Librarian began walking, she walked alongside him. “They talk, Triplicate,” Rare Breed whispered as they walked away. “We’re going to be famous.” Scootaloo rolled her eyes and followed. She thought they would step onto the large circular platform beside the stairs, a magical teleporter that would take them to the stacks. The Librarian, however, circled around to the back of the room, toward one of the doors they had been unable to open the first time they’d come to Libiris. He spoke a single word and it swung outward. “Where are we going?” Thistleroot asked. “To see,” the Librarian answered. “Great, we’re doing the wise old cryptic thing,” Thistleroot said. “I will explain,” the Librarian said, “but words do not do it justice.” Beyond the door was a small room and another circular platform. Unlike the teleporter, this one wasn’t flush to the floor. It was raised about six inches and surrounded by a silver band. The Librarian and the doe moved to the center, and the ponies followed. “Could you give us something to go on?” Scootaloo asked. “What exactly are you worried about?” “Intruders,” the Librarian said. “Those who once tried to gain access to Libiris, to gain power from it. We have gained no knowledge about the world since the time the eternal spirits battled for dominance. We do not know who won, or what became of the creatures in these lands as a result. That is what I hope to learn from you. You came once before seeking knowledge of Nocturne. The fact that you returned alive bodes well.” The Librarian cleared his throat and spoke a few words in his own language, and the platform shuddered. The silver ring lifted smoothly from the floor until it was even with Scootaloo’s chest. She had just enough time to think it looked like a safety rail before the platform beneath her fell. Scootaloo gritted her teeth and flared her wings. Mimic did the same while Thistleroot flailed. A moment later they realized that despite the walls of the tunnel flashing past them faster than any normal elevator, there was no sense of motion. “Okay,” Thistleroot said, voice shaking. “Okay, this is fine. We’re good. Man, you have to hand it to these ancient civilizations, though. This is impressive.” “Yeah,” Scootaloo said, looking back at the wall of the tunnel rushing past. They weren’t quite in a free fall, they weren’t accelerating any more, but the platform was still moving fast. Every second they flashed past another room. They’d probably already descended almost a thousand feet in just over ten seconds. “Just how far down are we going?” “Not much further,” the Librarian said. Another few seconds and the tunnel walls fell away to open space. Scootaloo’s stomach lurched and she heard Mimic gasp behind her. The platform came to a stop as suddenly as it started. Scootaloo would have been impressed at how smooth it was, if she weren’t busy trying to comprehend the sight below her. The cavern they had entered was huge. Scootaloo shook her head and tried to think of a better word. Gigantic? Enormous? Colossal. The cavern they had entered was colossal. The ceiling curved away from the tunnel into a semicircle, lit by long bars of soft white light against the sky blue stone. The room at the bottom was easily wide enough to fit half of Ponyville, excluding Sweet Apple Acres. The platform they were standing on was situated between two guide rails that extended from the tunnel above them and curved down the cavern lengthwise. A number of other rails crossed each other all around them. The floor of the cavern was occupied by some kind of dark stone structures. Scootaloo’s first impression of them was of storage sheds she’d seen out at Sweet Apple Acres, but larger. They were each as long end to end as Twilight’s Castle, and probably three stories high. They were symmetrical, identical, and spaced evenly in perfect rows and columns. “It’s impressive, but what is it,” Mimic asked. “This one,” the Librarian answered, “Is filled with Caagan.” “Caagan?” Scootaloo asked, looking from him back to the doe. “Wait, you mean...” She looked back down at the structures, eyes widening. “This is where they sleep. Where they have slept for more than a thousand years,” the Librarian answered. “Just how many are there?” Thistleroot asked. “Each vault you see below houses ten, with the spells required to keep them alive and in stasis indefinitely. We have thirty six awake at the moment, and one thousand nine hundred sixty four still sleeping.” “You said this one,” Mimic said. “Are there more rooms like this?” The Librarian nodded. “There are eight, including this one. Some contain books, art, magic. Others contain plants and seeds. There are some we do not yet know the entire contents of. As I said, we are still waking, still remembering.” “Why?” Thistleroot asked. “Why all of this?” “That is what I wish to show you next, but we will have to move on,” the Librarian said. The platform began moving again with no visible prompting. Within seconds the had crossed to the far wall of the room and had entered a horizontal shaft, following the rails in a curving line. Smaller rooms flashed by every few seconds. Moments later, they found themselves in another chamber. This one was smaller, only two hundred feet across, and circular, but Scootaloo couldn’t make out a ceiling or a floor. The cavern disappeared into a soft white fog after a few hundred feet in either direction. “Just how big is this place?” she asked. “I do not know,” the Librarian answered. “We have yet to find the bottom.” The platform began moving upward, following the guide rails in a lazy spiral. Every fifty feet or so there was a catwalk crossing the cavern. Something took shape in the fog above them. Some kind of machinery. The platform drew even with it after a few seconds. It came to a stop and then shifted forward, docking onto a larger platform at the base of the machine. A bronze control panel sat at the edge, now directly in front of them. It was covered in the same kind of glowing runes Scootaloo had seen on her first trip to Libiris. The machine was made of large, concentric rings, some whole, some missing small sections or even entire halves. Scootaloo was vaguely reminded of a gyroscope toy Pipsqueak had once shown her. The shaft that the machine was housed in had similar rings along the walls, encircling Scootaloo and her friends. The smallest circle at the center had a brass nozzle facing inward, and a light mist was spraying from it, creating a cloud at the center of the contraption. More mist was drifting from the outer rings around their platform. “I have been spending much of my time here, since I discovered it,” the Librarian said. With this apparatus, I have been able to recall more about the events that occurred prior to Libiris’s sealing. This is the praeteritorium.” “This thing is awesome,” Thistleroot said, looking up at the machine, and for a moment, Scootaloo could have sworn she saw a tear at the corner of his eye. “What’s it do?” “A demonstration,” the Librarian said. “As I said before, words do not do it justice.” He stepped forward, and the points of his antlers flickered with green light. The runes on the control panel flashed and changed, displaying some kind of running readout that Scootaloo couldn’t make heads or tails of. The rings making up the center of the machine began to turn, spinning on their axes as the outer rings they were mounted on spun in turn, giving the effect of a broken sphere. At the same time, the outer rings began to turn, spilling mist as the did so until Scootaloo could no longer see the walls of the shaft. The mist at the center of the machine thickened and scattered as it hit the turning rings, drifting above and below them. It met the mist drifting off the outer rings, and before long Scootaloo couldn’t see past the platform they stood on. It was almost like standing in a cloud, but she could still make out her friends perfectly. She could make out the edge of the platform, but nothing beyond, not even the rails holding them. Something shifted in her head, in the way she was perceiving the cloud around them. No longer did it feel like mist, but instead like an endless white void. The machine had vanished, and even the sound it had been making was gone. The platform and those standing on it were the only things that existed any more. The Librarian lowered his head so that his antler’s rested above a circular plate on the control panel. The points sparked with green energy, which rushed to meet in the center and formed a glowing orb of energy half an inch across. The Librarian lifted his head, and the orb remained suspended over the plate. Darkness rushed in, and the white was replaced with a black pitch. Again, Scootaloo could see the other ponies, the Librarian, and the doe, but everything beyond was obscured by darkness. Not everything, Scootaloo realized. There was a shape in the darkness. Something indistinct standing not ten feet in front of them. The fur on the back of her neck stood up as she watched. Something felt off. Somehow, though she couldn’t have possibly explained why, she knew the shape before them was alive. A light appeared on the floor beside the shape, a tiny sliver of gold illuminated a wooden leg and a pony’s face. Scootaloo gasped, and stepped back. Ten feet away, another Scootaloo straightened and uncovered more of the glowing crystal she held in her hooves. The Scootaloo in the darkness held the crystal higher, shining light on the still figure of the Librarian. She chuckled softly and circled around to his face. The Scootaloo on the platform watched, her heart still racing from the sudden shock of seeing herself. A hint of familiarity started to dawn on her. She remembered this. The copy of the Librarian turned to look at the copy of Scootaloo. She flinched, fumbling the shard for just a moment and skittered back. A table took shape in the darkness just as she bumped into it and flattened herself against it. The copy of the Librarian spoke, “Knaadehkc.” “This is a memory,” Scootaloo said. “This machine lets you watch memories.” “No, but you are close,” the Librarian said. “Many different spells could be created to view what is within one’s head. Thoughts of the future and memories of the past, but the mortal mind is imperfect. Memories become skewed, pieces go missing, emotions cast shadows on what we once saw clearly. But the mind is not the only place memories are stored. They are carried within our magic and our beings. They are what shape us.” The images of Scootaloo and the Librarian faded, and the white void returned. “The praeteritorium shows moments in the past as they truly happened, untainted by the mortal mind.” “That’s amazing,” Thistleroot said, stepping forward half a step to get a better look at the control panel. “It is useful,” the Librarian said. “This machine, can it show us anything? Any point in the past?” Mimic asked, looking thoughtful. The Librarian shook his head. “As I said, the memories of the past are a part of our magic. It can view events that its user witnessed, and it can be used to observe the history of magical items, so long as the item is present, but it is not omnipotent. That, and the user must know when and where they wish to observe. Much of my time with the praeteritorium has been used to observe calm days. I have only managed to find several moments in time of particular significance.” “Even with those drawbacks, it’s still more impressive than anything I've ever seen,” Thistleroot said. It was, Scootaloo thought. With a machine like that, maybe she could even see... “Yeah, it’s cool and all,” she said, “but I’m more interested in what you want to show us with it. Whatever makes you think somepony is going to be after... uh, whatever it is you have in here.” The Librarian nodded and the points of his antlers flickered again. This time, a small crystal, about half the size of Scootaloo’s hoof, appeared before him. “The memory I wish to show you is not my own. This crystal is a part of the Archive, a part of Libiris. It is connected to the complex matrix that composes both.” The Librarian moved the crystal to hover over the plate on the control panel, and once again the mist around them began to darken. “I fear the immortals that once fought for control will set their eyes upon us, now that Libiris has been unsealed.” The sky above them became a brilliant blue. Grass spread from the platform in every direction, and trees sprung up further away. Within moments they were in a large clearing at the center of a familiar forest. “I will show you how Libiris came to be sealed.”