Chapter 4: Inside the Temple and the Secret Treasure
Cyburst had never the inside of a temple before, let alone one that had a secret treasure inside. He did need proof of this temple. He went to the entrance and pressed on the pressure plate, when suddenly, something whistled by his head and stuck into the wall to his left.
‘Somepony doesn’t want other ponies entering this temple.’ Cyburst thought to himself after he examined the objects that flew over his head.
They were a very sharp, very long, wooden stakes. If he was five inches taller, his head would have been impaled multiple times. He would have died and wouldn’t even know why. Eventually, Cyburst figured out that you only needed to stand on the elevator to make it start to gently move down the long and wide hole. He started to walk backwards out of fear of setting off another trap. As soon as he touched the wall, sand started to fall off in the exact place he touched.
‘How is this building even held together?’
Only after then did he start to hear the unmistakable hum of magic. The humming got louder and louder the farther down he went. After that point, the more he moved, the more traps he would set off. Of course he never would be hit by any because they all aimed for the head of an average sized pony. Once he reached the bottom of the hole, he could see it wasn’t just any old temple. It was held together with a mix between magic and technology. Cyburst didn’t move in fear of setting off another trap, but when he did move, his mind became clear.
On the far wall he could see that there was a timer counting down to, from what he could judge, the end of the day.
‘It all makes sense now, well almost.’
He realized he was standing in the chamber that made the temple, and everything close, disappear until the next summer solstice, but one thing didn’t add up. How could it disappear? Even with 100 ponies, (something this temple doesn’t have) it is incredibly hard to make something as small as one pony to disappear for ten seconds. Keeping that in mind, Cyburst noticed that there was a flow to the whole room. As if drawn by in unseen force, he and his stuffed Ursa Minor went to and fro between the giant machines looking for the source of all the power. Then, he saw it. In a room made up of only sand and a wooden ceiling. It was an Ursa Major, sleeping in front of something on a podium that seemed to emanate a raw power like no other.
‘There must be some way to get that Ursa Major out of there’
Looking around the room, Cyburst noticed the strange markings all over the place. Upon closer inspection to some of these marks, he noticed that they weren’t marks, but they were symbols. Old Equestrian hieroglyphs that only Princess Celestia could read, but there was also a mosaic.
‘Mother of Celestia!’
The mosaic showed ponies killing ponies. Princess Celestia fighting another Alicorn. This Alicorn looked like a dark version of Celestia. On Celestia’s side there were six different ponies, one purple unicorn, one light yellow pegasus, another pegasus with a rainbow mane, one pure white Unicorn, one orange earth pony, and another pink earth pony with a quite ruffled mane. On the sider with the unknown Alicorn there were five ponies and three silhouettes of ponies. Three of the ponies had the same color scheme, one pony had a barrage of electricity surrounding him, and the final pony had a flaming aura around it. Under the mosaic, there was an inscription. It was too far away for Cyburst’s small eyes to read. He had to get closer, but the Ursa Major was blocking the way. He wracked his brain for an answer, but he couldn’t come up with one. He thought so much his brain hurt.
“Grahh! Why can’t I think of anything?!”
Cyburst felt something soft hit his feet. Looking down he saw his stuffed Ursa Minor. He forgot he even had it in his mouth. Once he was done looking at his Ursa Minor, Cyburst looked at the Ursa Major should be. Odd. Cyburst remembered that the Ursa Major was SLEEPING before he yelled and then realized there was something to his left. He looked slowly to his left to find what he thought was there, a big, grumpy, sleepy, over-protective, Ursa Major.
‘Wait? Over-protective! That’s right. Ursa Majors are extremely over-protective of Ursa Minors.’
Cyburst quickly picked up his stuffed Ursa Minor with what little telekinesis he had and threw it towards the right wall. The Ursa Major blindly lunged at the stuffed Ursa Minor and was knocked out from the blow to his head via the wall of sand wall that was almost as hard as concrete. The impact of the Ursa Major made the whole room shake. The magical machines were strong enough to hold the building up though.
Once Cyburst got close enough to touch the secret treasure that lay on the podium, he looked at it with disappointment.
‘Only a spell scroll?’
Now that he was closer, Cyburst looked back at the mosaic. It became clear that this was no massacre. It was a full out war between the two sides. He then read the inscription under the mosaic.
Nine Elements start the war, one Element will end it.
Cyburst was astonished! What were these elements? How could they start a war? In even more terrifying question popped into his head. What was on that scroll? He turned back to see that the scroll actually contained a camouflage spell. That’s how the temple was never found. It wasn’t disappearing, it was just turning invisible. It was still there. Cyburst tried out the spell and found that he could no longer see himself. He was amazed! He disabled the spell because it took a lot of mana to use. And he couldn’t make enough mana regularly to support the spell. Cyburst immediately memorized the spell so that he could use it at a later date to scare some of his friends. He then realized that if he could bring back the scroll, he could teach it to others and they could scare people together! He picked up the scroll and heard the only noise he didn’t want to hear.
“Rrrrrriiiiiiippppp”
Cyburst heart sank when he looked at the scroll. To his dismay, the scroll had left the last part of the spell on the podium. Cyburst got angry at himself for tearing the scroll. Cyburst rage turned into complete and udder horror when he understood that there was another sound he didn’t want to hear
Silence
No machines whirred. The humming of magic had left the air. The only noise was the wooden planks above him getting ready to collapse under the pressure of a ton of sand.
‘Time to go!’
*Cue Ridley theme music from any Metroid game*