It was a nice summer afternoon. Ponies in Ponyville are droning about, going about their daily activities. The skies blue and clear, with the occasional cloud dotted here and there. Just an ordinary day. A nice summer's day. Quite boring, actually. Nothing out of the ordinary was happening.
Twilight Sparkle was eating a delicious daisy sandwich. As she was eating she was reading a nice book. She then had a quick look around the house. It was very quiet today. She was able to think extremely clearly. She did hear the murmurs of the townsponies outside, but little else was heard.
Nopony was visiting the Ponyville Library that day, except for the odd mule, who seem to appear in various places in Ponyville. Nothing was scheduled for this day. No checklists, no errands, no experiments, and no problems, conflicts, nor conundrums to speak of. There was not even any reason to write a letter to Princess Celestia. Today was an entire day off for the usually workaholic pony.
Which meant only one thing...
"RE-SHELVING DAY!" Twilight said at the top of her lungs.
With very little happening on this day, she took the opportunity to re-organize her library home. Spike was at Canterlot on royal business, and her friends all had a busy schedule. Rarity too went to Canterlot, but to obtain materials available only in Canterlot to fulfil a large order of sorts. Applejack was busy bucking apples as usual. Rainbow Dash went to the Wonderbolts show, Fluttershy went to see the Great Butterfly Migration. And Celestia knows where Pinkie Pie went. This meant she had nothing better to do than to clean up her home.
Dutifully, with her magic, she began to take out books en masse, as they floated around neatly in a large circle around Twilight. She began placing the books that were shelved in the wrong shelf and began placing them in the correct places. Little by little, the books began to be placed in the shelves as Twilight sees fit.
Then, there was a large book Twilight came across. It was called Ancient Obscure Human Mythologies, and was found in the shelf labelled "Modern Magical Sciences". That book didn't belong in that section. Twilight attempted to remove that book from the shelf. However, the book seemed to be stuck in the wall. With her magic, she kept tugging at it. This caused her to lose focus on the rest of the books, dropping them altogether.
"Ugh! This book is as stubborn as a mule!" She said to herself. Suddenly she noticed a mule standing next to her.
"Of all the no-good ponies..." the mule muttered, as he walked out into town.
Mules these days...
Twilight shrugged and continued to take the book out. It would be ridiculous to have a book on mythologies in a Sciences section. The book, however, barely budged. It was like the book was nailed into the bookshelf. She then resorted to using brute force, first by attempting to pull it out with hooves (which only had so much grip ability), then by pulling them out with teeth. The book remained steadfast clung onto the shelf, making a slight "clunk" noise in the process. It was stuck onto the bookshelf.
She then tried to see if she can pull the book out from a different side. She took out the book right adjacent to her. Fortunately this book was not stuck to the shelf. Just as Twilight removed the other book, the first book simply toppled over, revealing a set of hinges and gears behind the oddly-placed book. As the book toppled to its side, the book-case made a small "clunk" noise. Twilight noticed that the entire shelf had detached from the walls, revealing a door. It was just like in her "Scoota Doo" novels.
She opened the door to take a look inside. It was a set of very tiny, cramped, staircase. It was very dusty, as though nopony had entered these stairs before in ages. They weren't as old as the ruins of Old Canterlot, but they were certainly old. She now had to choose between entering the basement and continuing the cleanup of her library.
She made her descent down the stairs.
Twilight made the descent down the cramped set of stairs. Twilight had been living in the tree for a few years, but never noticed that there was a basement floor at all. Let alone a basement accessed by a locking mechanism. The basement, fortunately, was not a long way down. However, it was very dusty and dark. Nopony was in here for a long time. Twilight began to concentrate more on her horn, causing a light bright enough to navigate the room to shine from her horn.
To her surprise, it looked like a large printing office. There were large stacks of newspapers, old typewriters, some old notes left hanging on the wall, and a large machine, which appears to be a printing press. She had an entire newspaper printing room in her house and didn't know about it! It looked like the printing room the Ponyville Elementary School had when they had their Foals' Free Press. Twilight recalls the scandalous stories they once had on their newspapers.
Twilight took a look at one of the newspapers. "The Ponyville Voice". Twilight does not recognize this newspaper group at all. It looked was an old newspaper group which apparently disappeared into obscurity, as far as she was able to tell. This office was something of a relic, and it was directly underneath her house. She looked around and looked at some of the paperwork left on a large desk. By the looks of it, the printing room never had any journalistic activities for quite a few years!
Twilight remembered she still had to clean up her shelves. She'd have to go back to the surface now. She'd have to leave this relic of a room. She simply left the room and ascended up the stairs, as the room slowly got engulfed in darkness once more.
After what felt like an eternity of cleanup, she finally finished reshelving the books. All was orderly in the library once again. There was only the odd visitor, but her reshelving routine went mostly uninterrupted, which got the job done faster than expected. Even then, it took a long time. Twilight felt exhausted, but good nonetheless.
After contemplating a while, as she drank a nice cup of tea, she then remembered that she still had a book to read. More specifically, some newspapers. Perhaps she'd get an even better idea of Ponyville history. Even if her interests lie in magic, reading in general was Twilight Sparkle's idea of a good time.
She trotted over to the mechanical bookshelf, and descended down the stairs with a bug lantern. She trotted to a pile of newspapers. She looked through them briefly, until she found the first story The Ponyville Voice had ever written. It seemed like back then it was referred to as "The Pony Voice", implying the newspaper had been around for longer than Ponyville itself.
She began to read the first headline.