Rainbow Dash stifled a yawn. There had been a moment where, as creepy as this village was, she thought that she and her friends might discover something amazing within the strange, gravity-defying buildings. Perhaps some villain with powers to rival Discord would be hiding among the chaos, or maybe even some kind of unique, long-lost treasure.
But no, all they had found was a dusty, old book. And all Rainbow could do was be bored out of her mind while her friend Twilight spent what would no doubt be hours pouring through its tattered pages in some vain effort to discover—what were they trying to discover, anyway? They'd traveled all the way out here because Twilight had heard reports of odd things occurring in the area. They'd found the odd things. It was time to find a way to fix them, and she doubted the answers were going to be found in a musty old book.
"I think I may have found a clue as to the source of this village's... disturbance," Twilight said, looking up from the book.
Of course, Rainbow thought, rolling her eyes. She should have known better than to doubt the combined might of Twilight and reading. She flew over to where Twilight and the others were.
"Listen to this," Twilight said once everypony was settled. She then started reading aloud.
"Day 42,
I think we're getting close. Sunny stopped me in my tracks earlier and gestured toward something just off the path to our right. Turned out to be a flower. It was hovering, roots and all, inches above the ground!
There can be no other explanation. We must be within proximity of its power."
Rainbow blinked. "Sooo... what's that supposed to mean?"
"I'm not entirely sure," Twilight admitted. She idly scratched her chin with a hoof. "From the passages I've read, it looks as if the author and his wife were on some kind of expedition. If my guess is correct, they were also looking for a source of strange phenomena. Possibly the same source that we've come to investigate!"
"Wait just a minute," Applejack said from beside Rainbow. "So you're sayin' this here town's been all topsy-turvy like for what... years? Decades, even?"
"Well if that's true you'd think somepony would have noticed by now," Rarity chipped in.
Twilight nodded. "Rarity's right. Whoever wrote this journal did it many years ago. While this village may have been abandoned since then, I find it hard to believe that in all this time nopony would have noticed that half of it has been floating! Perhaps the ponies in the journal found what was causing the disruptions and managed to make it stop, only for it to begin again all these years later."
Rainbow indicated the journal. "Well, what else does it say?"
Twilight bent back over the book and flipped through the pages. Rainbow watched as Twilight's eyes moved back and forth over the text, and for a moment she secretly wished that she had found the book and was reading about whatever adventures the explorer ponies in the journal had gone on. A minute later, though, Twilight's eyes had widened.
"Um... Twilight?" Rainbow asked. She raised an eyebrow. "You alright?"
Twilight looked up at Rainbow, her face pale.
"No," she whispered. "This isn't good at all. And if I'm right about what's causing all of this, then all of Equestria might be in great danger!"
The slime just remained where it was, unmoving. Flim frowned, picked up his supplies, and moved several paces to the north. He set them down, combined some components, and a moment later another slime had been created.
The new slime began to glow soon after its creation.
"So the anomaly has an effect here," Flim muttered. "But it has no effect over here," he said, trotting back to the original slime.
Flam walked over and casually destroyed the glowing slime before things could get more out of hoof, and Flim did the same to the unaffected one. They looked at one another, and both shook their heads. They had been testing slimes all day in an attempt to trace the source of whatever it was that was causing them to become more aggressive. It was likely that whatever was doing that was also what had the timber wolves and other magical creatures of the forests all riled up. Unfortunately, there seemed to be 'hot spots' all over the place, and in no particular pattern, which made tracing the source almost impossible. Almost.
"Isn't that old village that was abandoned years ago in this direction?" Flim gestured a hoof to the northeast. "No more than a few day's trot, I do believe. And wouldn't it be curious if we were to find stronger and more frequent anomalies in that region, oh brother of mine?"
"Indeed it is, and indeed it would, brother!" Flam agreed. "Shall we test this theory?"
"We shall!" Flim said.
As the brothers gathered their supplies and moved further into the forest, they were unaware of the many shadows that followed.
"The entro-what now?" Applejack asked.
Twilight sighed and shook her head. "The Entropy Prism. A magical artifact with the power of essokinesis." She stood up from reading the journal and began to pace around the room. "This is bad. Really, really bad! But that has to be what the ponies in the journal were after. It all makes sense! A large, multi-faceted ruby held within a golden setting surrounded by six small spheres. That's what the pony from the journal described, and that description fits exactly with the Prism!"
"Oh, that does sound bad," Fluttershy said, cringing slightly.
"Uh... I believe you when you say this is bad and all," Rainbow Dash said. "But what exactly does it do? What's esso-whatever?"
"Essokinesis!" Twilight repeated, as if it were obvious. "Reality-warping. Think your own, portable Discord!"
"Now that does sound awful," Applejack said. "But why in the hay would anypony want to go and make something like that?"
"Why else?" Twilight said. "To defeat Discord himself. The Prism was created over a thousand years ago in an effort to assist the royal sisters in their battle with him. Unfortunately, chaos magic isn't so easily contained. Activating the Prism could get it to alter reality, but only very slowly and unpredictably, making it useless in a direct confrontation. The unicorns of the time decided that it could at least be used to help clean up the messes created by Discord, but even that plan backfired. Activating the Prism would cause chaos magic to slowly disperse in an area, and a unicorn with a strong enough will could control it to an extent... but only very briefly. Worse yet, if the Prism was activated for too long, it would permanently alter anypony who deactivated it. Their appearance, their personality, even their hopes and dreams would all be changed. As such, it was determined to be too risky to use, and too dangerous to destroy. It disappeared from all records soon after its creation, and was assumed to have been lost forever."
"Holy exposition, Twilight!" Pinkie exclaimed. "Do you think the ponies in the journal found it and deactivated it?"
Twilight returned to the journal and sat down. "There's only a few pages left to read. Let's find out."
"Flim and Flam! I knew you two had something to do with all of this!"
The brothers stopped what they were doing and looked up in unison. They both immediately recognized the speaker's voice, and as such both immediately recognized the enormous amount of trouble that had just stumbled upon them. Flim made an attempt to step in front of and hide the several slimes he and his brother had just created. Judging from the looks that Shining Armor and his Royal Guard followers were giving, they had been caught red-hooved. Again!
"Ah, Shining Armor. As you can see, this is..." Flim blinked, looked around, then shrugged. "You know what, it's exactly what it looks like. But not for the reason that you're thinking!"
"Our cause is a noble one!" Flam chipped in helpfully.
Shining Armor took a step forward and glared at the brothers. "You discovered a way to create these slimes that can steal things from innocent ponies, then decided to open up an adventurer's guild to collect contracts to go take care of the very problems that you yourselves had created! You manipulated your clients, you manipulated the guild members. You even managed to manipulate me into thinking you two had finally found a legitimate way to earn a profit while offering the Royal Guard assistance on smaller matters!"
"But when Lyra—" Flim began.
"And Lyra!" Shining spat with anger. "She put her trust in you when she was down on her luck, and this is how you repay her?" As Shining Armor paced back and forth, his guards each took a step back. They knew better than to interfere when the captain was this angry.
Flim and Flam looked at each other, their ears laid back with shame.
"It may have started that way," Flim admitted. "But we've changed. Something went wrong somewhere, and the slimes and other magical creatures of the forest have become more aggressive. Surely you've seen it yourself. My brother and I have been trying to determine the source of this newfound aggression, and we believe we may have—"
"Enough!" Shining Armor shouted. His guards each stood a little taller at his outburst. "I won't hear it," he said.
"But—"
"I won't hear it! It's all just another lie built around a half-truth. It's all you ever do, and I'm done listening. It's over." Shining closed his eyes and put a hoof to his forehead. "I hate to do this to my sister's friend, but you've left me no choice. I'm disbanding the Adventurer's Guild. Effective immediately."
"Day 57,
The notes from the guide at Adventure Life seem to match exactly with what Sunny found in the chest in the attic of that strange, floating house. This has got to be it! According to the notes, deactivating the so-called Entropy Prism is easy. You just place your hoof on it and think of normalcy. Simple!
We've discussed it, and we're just going to deactivate it together. We've done everything together up to this point, so why stop now? It'll be kind of cute that way. Anyway, it will be great to have completed this adventure. The reward that Adventure Life is offering will more than make up for the funds we borrowed from the Canterlot Royal Bank to pay for supplies, and will help give our young one a more comfortable life. In fact, if all goes well, our little one is reading this right now. Hello! We love you! Now you know how we ended up so well off! It was so hard, leaving you for all this time. But you've proven to be nothing if not resourceful. We knew you'd be fine.
We'll deactivate the Prism tonight, then finally head back home. See you soon,
Sunny and Tempo Heartstrings."
Twilight closed the journal. "That's it, then," she said. "That confirms what we're up against. Somehow the Entropy Prism has been activated, and is slowly spreading chaos magic, altering anything it touches for an extended period of time. If we don't find and somehow deactivate the Prism, all life in Equestria will become something else entirely."
"But uh, didn't ya say that trying to deactivate this here doohickey would change whoever did it?" Applejack asked.
"It will," Twilight said. "Unless..." She turned to Rainbow Dash. "Rainbow, you're the fastest one here. I need you to fly to Ponyville. Find Discord. He may know a way to safely deactivate the Prism. We'll stay here and do what we can to keep anycreature from stumbling across this place and becoming altered themselves."
"I'm on it," Rainbow said.
"And hurry! The longer the Prism remains active, the faster its effects spread!"
Rainbow was already in the air and flying at speed towards Ponyville. Things seemed pretty bad, but there was something else she'd heard that she didn't like.
"Heartstrings...?" Rainbow murmured as she sped through the air.