//------------------------------// // Far below, a discovery and a promise were made... // Story: It Sleeps Beneath Foal Mountain // by the7Saviors //------------------------------// The Unbegotten Source... Everything I'd discovered up until now—everything I'd ever known, every secret that had yet to be revealed, much of life as I knew it... all of it seemed to come back to this mysterious font of knowledge, this all-powerful primordial god which shaped the future into what it is now through endless parturition. Just what was it really? From what realm did it emerge to grace this planet with its presence and why? And perhaps most importantly, where was it hidden? All these things I had hoped to learn as Alemayehu and Star Swirl revealed Equestria's true history, and much of what I received instead were answers that only brought about more questions. And so ultimately I turned to Chrysalis for those answers which I'd been denied by Star Swirl. Chrysalis who had become a horrific cackling abomination; an unsightly wretch of a creature maddened and corrupted by the unearthly truths and otherworldly perception she was forced to bear. Upon our escape from the doomed village of Farasi Mweupe, Chrysalis had led me back to the unholy cathedral far below the ancient sandblasted temple hidden deep within the eastern desert of Saddle Arabia. I now knew this place to be the last standing temple belonged to the Hidden Ones, as well as the sight of the final battle between Luce Prima and the twisted cult. It was here in this place hidden and forbidden to all but those chosen by the Dark that she revealed the truths Star Swirl refused to share. Among those truths was the reason behind her hideous transformation and how she'd been granted knowledge that by all rights should have belonged to Star Swirl alone. She'd learned all she knew not directly through the Unbegotten Source as Star Swirl had, but rather indirectly through the Tree of Harmony. In halting stutters and a voice wracked with what I could only describe as a strange agonized jubilation, Chrysalis told me of how she too had been affected by the vision imparted to me by the Tree. Unlike my vision, which I'd come to realize was most likely Zushakon's second awakening, her's was of something altogether different but, according to her account, far more horrifying. She told me of a meeting with an entity whose appearance was the very antithesis of reason and sanity. The sight of that creature alone had been enough to chip away at a mind that in all honesty was already well on its way to a complete collapse. To Chrysalis the unfathomable entity spoke, its words filling every facet of her psyche and viciously tearing away everything the former Queen knew about the concept of 'language'. On the edge of reason and stability and unable to comprehend what she'd seen or heard, Chrysalis fled the Cave of Harmony and the Everfree Forest—the doppelgangers and whatever prior plot she'd concocted using them all but forgotten in the wake of her vision. Where I eventually sought to understand my vision and what it meant, Chrysalis had only ever tried to escape it. Where I saw abstract horrors of all kinds, she only ever dreamed of that nameless being and its impossibly abstruse words. She suffered that vision over and over again, night after night until she forced herself to stop sleeping altogether, much as I had, only her visions weren't confined to her subconscious mind. Her decision to forgo slumber only made things that much worse. In her lack of sleep she began to see things—hideous creatures in every shadow, grotesque shapes oozing and crawling and skittering and bubbling out of every crack in the wall or hole in the ground. Soon after those images began to plague her, the voices came, filling her ears with those same incomprehensible 'words' spoken by the thing in her vision. Had I heard this tale prior to my own experiences I might have dismissed hers as mere visual and auditory hallucinations brought on by severe sleep deprivation, as would anypony else, but I knew better. The sights that awaited her whether asleep or awake and the ruthless burning and itching of the eyes that seemed to be an inevitable affliction eventually drove the Queen to tear those eyes from their sockets. It had been a vain attempt to find relief in darkness, for without her sight, she believed herself free of her waking nightmares along with that torturous itch. Unfortunately, the act only forced her to confront the thing which haunted her every thought; without the light, she could no longer escape its maddening visage or the wretched words it spoke. Subconscious or no, it was there waiting in the Dark and Chrysalis had unwittingly trapped herself within that eternal abyss. With nowhere else to turn, nowhere to hide and no longer able to run, the former Queen of changelings could do nothing but relinquish her sanity. She could never have known then that it was only with a mind so thoroughly and irreparably broken to pieces that she could finally comprehend the creature and its words, and so, without the filter of reason and rationality, the vile utterances that spewed forth from its ghastly maw were clearly and fully understood by the insectoid mare. This unspeakably hideous being—this dweller in darkness, by its own words was a messenger acting upon a greater will, an absolute will that demanded complete obeisance. It knew of me, it knew of my quest to seek the truth and it bade Chrysalis follow me, for I would be the one to show her all that was meant to be Seen once the fated hour was at hoof. It told her of the true past and of future events yet to come, it told her what would inevitably become of me should I continue to act as I had been. All of this knowledge and more had been shared with the broken Queen, and the price that had been paid, what it had cost was her mind, body, and soul. Warped by the very powers she tried to escape, she was no longer a creature that was meant to exist in this world or any other. I had already begun to suspect that I was becoming much the same and yet I pushed on. I had no choice but to persist, and not even my waning equinity would stop me. With this in mind, I brought forth my journal and pressed the abominable mare for more details, taking the time to document both her words as she spoke and an account of prior events. To begin with, much of what Star Swirl and Alemayehu told me had been more or less accurate, however—according to Chrysalis—Star Swirl had indeed twisted his recount of the past in some ways to better fit his own narrative. In one instance for example, if the mad Queen was to be believed, it had been not this mysterious traumatized mare whom Star Swirl had taken in, but rather the old stallion himself who'd pushed for the complete annihilation of the cult of the Hidden Ones. Yes, he'd taken her in, nursed back to health, and cared for the mare, but that had all been part of a greater scheme—a means to an end, or so Chrysalis claimed. In actuality, the mare herself—a pony who's name Star Swirl could not even remember—wanted nothing more to do with the cult. She'd been hurt, she was vulnerable, and the nameless mare wanted nothing more than the affection of somepony who cared. Star Swirl had given her that affection yes, but it was he who whispered words of revenge and hatred into her ear, it was he who convinced the mare to gather ponies to his cause and take up arms against the Hidden Ones. It was my idol, the pony I looked up to the most save for Celestia that fought the hardest during the raids. To hear Chrysalis tell it, the stallion had used his prodigious talent for magic to slaughter the members of the cult with impunity and when it came time for the final battle, Star Swirl had entered the fray, only to pilfer the means by which the Bells of Awakening could be safely summoned before fleeing the battle entirely and leaving that poor mare to die with the rest. Evidently this hadn't been the first nor the last of the heinous deeds Star Swirl had hidden from me, but I refused to hear any more of the stallion. In some ways, the idea that Star Swirl could be that kind of stallion was hard to believe, but in other ways, I wouldn't have been surprised to find that what Chrysalis posited turned out to be the truth. When I thought back to his demeanor upon our first meeting, I could believe that it wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility. Still, it wasn't so much that I couldn't bear to hear more, it was more that his intentions meant nothing to me. It was what came of his intentions that intrigued me, and it seemed Chrysalis was finally coming to the main point she'd been trying to make, specifically regarding the Bells of Awakening. The Book of Iod mentioned the bells and that they alone could rouse the Dark Silent One from its eternal slumber. It was written that those unworthy to lay their hooves or magic upon the bells were driven to insanity if they made any such attempt. Interesting as that was, where the bells came from, how they were made, and who had brought them here were all another mystery that the book hadn't touched upon. That was to say nothing of this 'means' by which they could be moved or summoned without losing one's self to madness in the process. The mad Queen had gone on to explain that it had been none other than the wandering Saddle Arabian prophet Nyar who'd headed the cult of the Hidden Ones. As I suspected, it had been this stallion who'd originally penned both the Nameless Tome and the Book of Iod. He had been the first to worship the Dark Silent One as its prophet, and it was by his hoof that the vile cult came to be—a simple enough conclusion to come to, given what I'd already been told by Alemayehu and Star Swirl. As the leader of the cult of Hidden Ones, Nyar had been there at the final assault initiated by Luce Prima, and according to Chrysalis' account, Star Swirl himself had slain the wandering prophet before stealing a certain amulet hidden within the cloak of the now-dead stallion and making his escape soon after. The amulet in question is what allowed one to move the bells freely without fear of repercussion, and I could only assume Star Swirl had taken the enchanted trinket out of some sense of obligation to keep it out of more dangerous hooves. This, however, did raise a few questions, such as why the stallion had left the bells here and whether or not he'd kept the amulet with him. If he'd been pulled into the abyss along with the amulet, then I had no way of taking it back. A deep sense of frustration nearly overwhelmed me at the thought, even as I wondered why I would need such a thing. I hadn't intended to use the amulet, but now that I knew of it, something compelled me to seek it out—most likely the same dark forces that compelled me to continue this perverse and much-maligned path of self-destruction. Chrysalis, laughing in the face of my vexation, was quick to inform me that the amulet had in fact not been lost. Much like Daring Do and the sealed cellar beneath her cottage, Star Swirl had hidden—amongst other arcane and dangerous artifacts—the amulet beneath the ruins of his forest cabin. At this news, my frustration evaporated, the emotion replaced with immense relief. I turned a thoughtful gaze towards the single bell that had fallen from the tall stone arch high above. In a brief bout of self-reflection, I realized that I might've fallen far enough that I could most likely lay my own hooves upon the bells with little to no consequence. Spurred on by my curiosity and unable to stop myself, I reached out to do just that, only to be stopped by Chrysalis, who warned me against the action. It seemed I hadn't sunken quite deep enough yet despite everything I'd done up until now—an oddly disappointing realization, but I let the matter go, as even if I could touch the bells, I'd only be able to carry or teleport one with my magic at most given the size and mass. No, if I were to move these bells, I'd need the amulet either way. Setting my musings aside for the moment, I began to ask Chrysalis what she knew regarding the Tree of Harmony and its connection to the Unbegotten Source, but she denied me an answer, instead posing a question in its place: "W-Why ask me... when you c... can ask... a-ask the Tree itself?" Dissatisfied with the answer I'd received I replied with the fact that I'd already made an attempt to study the Tree to less than satisfactory results. In response, the mad Queen assured me that my third, or perhaps fourth journey into the Cave of Harmony would bear far greater fruit. She'd said the words with the absolute conviction of somepony who knew the secrets the future held, and to my surprise and slight consternation, I was beginning to believe she really had such foresight. Choosing to heed the corrupted mare's advice, for now, we set our course for the Cave of Harmony deep within the Everfree... but before I set out for our main destination, I chose to make one last stop to the ruins of Star Swirl's cabin. The amulet called to me, and like every other 'voice' that led me to this point, I would not ignore that call. Whether or not I had any intention of using it, I would have that amulet.