Among the few hidden items I'd seen in the chamber, this journal was the only piece of text on display. Whether there'd been more or if Star Swirl simply hadn't bothered to collect any other tomes or scrolls or the like, I didn't know. What I did know for certain was that the journal was clearly out of place when compared to the other objects around me. I hadn't yet removed any of what sat upon these pedestals lest I active some sort of trap or failsafe put into place by the old stallion, but again my curiosity was getting the better of me. Another thaumic scan of the small underground chamber revealed yet another enchantment, one that had been placed upon each pedestal and extended to the inert sigil carved into the platform that sat behind me.
The sigil's purpose was twofold, and what I'd initially mistaken for inactive and harmless sigil-based magic had, in actuality, been part of a seemingly simple yet fiendishly elaborate trap set by Star Swirl. Unlike the powerful glamour placed upon the cabin itself, the finer details of this enchantment escaped me, but what little I could deduce at a glance indicated that the careless removal of any of these treasures would result in the activation of whatever foul trick was attached to the sigil. If I were to hazard a guess as to what that trick may have been, I would surmise that I would be trapped down here, or perhaps the entire chamber would collapse. Without proper research on how the spell worked, I could only make vague assumptions.
Thankfully, and rather surprisingly given who had most likely set the trap, I simply had to apply the same tactic I'd used to dismantle the wards layered atop and around the cabin. The task was all the easier once I magically snuffed out the flames bathing my possible would-be tomb in deep azure light. I expected the flames to be malicious in nature—possibly part of another trap set by Star Swirl—but though another thaumic search revealed the flames were magical, it appeared the spell that had given the fire its cool blue hue had simply been done as an aesthetic choice. One last examination of the enchanted pedestals showed that the spell woven into the pedestals had indeed been broken down and removed entirely.
The ease with which I'd been able to bypass Star Swirl's wards led me to wonder just how prepared the stallion had been for a user of the eldritch arts to invade his home and vault. Had I used the Dark in a way he could have never predicted? An unlikely notion, but possible. If what the stallion was to be believed, he'd been granted knowledge and immortality by the Unbegotten Source. He'd said nothing, however, about obtaining the gift of precognition, and if foresight wasn't the case, then Star Swirl would have had to rely on his own limited insight. Then again, it may very well have been that he was unable to ever find a counter to the method I'd used. It was possible that he'd hidden the amulet I sought elsewhere and sealed off the entrance to his vault for that very reason.
Whatever the case may have been, there was no way of knowing now and there was no need to worry. The chamber could not hold me as I was—not with the rites I knew. I maintained a vivid image of Star Swirl's cabin in my mind, as well as any other number of locations around Equestria, and—unlike a simple teleportation spell which was limited by the distance one could travel without fatally burning their magic away—this was enough. I had no way of entering the vault on my own, but now that I was inside, leaving would pose no issue whatsoever. The amulet was nowhere to be seen and I might have left it at that had it not been for the time-worn journal that had caught my eye. It was why I remained and why I'd taken the effort to dispel the trap.
It didn't seem to relate to my quest at all and yet I reached for it nonetheless, a niggling feeling I couldn't quite place gnawing at the back of my mind when I beheld the cutie mark engraved on the cover. The feeling was not the same as that which had compelled me to seek out the amulet, but rather something more... mundane. It was a natural intuition or a suspicion of sorts—a hunch that I would find something interesting and relevant within the pages of that old journal. With the enchantments no longer a threat, I reached out with my magic to take the journal from the pedestal, but the moment I enveloped what I thought to be a simple written record, my vision went black and the world seemed to lurch violently around me.
I felt my consciousness begin to dull; vague images swam in and out of the darkness and incomprehensible sounds distant and muffled reached my ears. Shock and confusion that had been overwhelming a moment ago melted away as a familiar sensation took hold. I had experienced this sensation before in the moments immediately preceding the entry into a particularly lucid dream. I was unsure of what was happening, how or why, but somewhere beyond the thick haze that had entrapped me was that aforementioned suspicion quickly cementing itself into a certainty. Realizing what was most likely coming next, I let my consciousness fully fade. Sure enough, it wasn't long before the all-encompassing curtain of darkness fell away and my eyes were opened to a different consciousness—my mind and body fully and willingly given over to an existence far older than my own.
Twilight Sparkle was no more, and in her place was a pegasus mare cold, alone, and in pain. Her withered, half-starved frame shivered and shook—whether from fear or that cruel biting cold she no longer knew. Trapped in an iron prison deep beneath the earth, surrounded on all sides by black stone walls and indescribably hideous things that crept among the shadows, the mare could do nothing more than lament her fate. She'd long since given up begging for her life or freedom from this neverending nightmare. She had tried so many times before to end her wretched existence by her own hoof—tried to spare herself from the horrors she knew awaited her within that light-forsaken ritual chamber—but they would not let her.
They had plans for her, dark and twisted plans that required her life intact and her blood unspilt until such a time was necessary. 'This time' they would say, 'with this sacrifice all will be as it should have been before'. Over and over again they would repeat the same thing, over and over again they would praise the Dark Silent One, over and over again they would sacrifice countless ponies to their death god. Young or old, mares or stallions, colts or fillies, it didn't matter to them so long as they could reawaken the Old Night... and yet all their sacrifices thus had been in vain. For all the blood drained from their victims, for all the ponies devoured by those unspeakable, unnamable things lurking in the darkness, for all their eerie chants and zealous sermons and horrifying rituals, there had been no grand reawakening of any god.
All their efforts had so far been in vain, but still, they continued their inequine ways. The mare, doomed as she was to fall victim to the same black fate that had already befallen so many others before her, had all but lost hope, along with a good portion of her sanity. Such was to be expected after the treatment she'd received for so long—how long she was uncertain, for day and night meant nothing within the confines of her underground prison. Time was strange and unreliable enough as it was, but for the mare, it had become a foreign entity. She had no idea of how long it had been since she was captured, stolen away in the night and forced to endure days, months, possibly years of torture, isolation, and darkness.
She'd become numb to the distant screams of fear and agony, the terrified pleas of the other would-be victims, and the unearthly words chanted by her cloaked and hooded captors. The cloying darkness, the torture, the isolation, and those foul creatures, however, had slowly but surely chipped away at her mind, driving her ever closer to a madness from which there would be no recovery. The mare lay curled up in her small dark cell as she ruminated on these things, her once bright amethyst eyes now devoid of any spark of life and her heart now heavy with cold despair and bitter resignation. Lost in her aimless, wordless, fearful mumblings and with her empty gaze fixed upon the far wall of her prison, she was slow to register the tall and imposing figure standing just on the other side of the iron bars behind which she was held captive.
The figure, wrapped in his 'holy' robes and black cowl, had materialized suddenly and silently before the mare like a ghost in the night, his features hidden by the shadows around him. He spoke, and it was his voice that finally caught the mare's attention. Her shivering frame stilled, locked into place by horror so profound as to make her physically ill. He had come to her before with his empty assurances and foul scriptures and twisted prayers spoken in that hideous alien language. She trembled at the sound of his too smooth voice touched with more than a hint of Saddle Arabian descent as she always had, but this time she knew something was different. She could feel it in his voice, hear it in his words.
Has my time finally come, she thought. Will they offer me up to their god as yet another sacrifice given in vain? Am I never to see my precious husband or darling little colt again? All these questions and more ran through her nearly broken mind as the figure call her name, yet she did not have to wonder long, for the figure—the heinous monstrosity of a stallion, spoke his piece and at his words, the mare was left speechless with shock and bewilderment. The stallion, without explanation or preamble, pulled open the door to her cell and stepped inside before telling the mare of a message delivered from the mouth of the Dark Silent One itself, a message meant for the one who bore the six-pointed star—the mare's own cutie mark she realized.
He whispered to the mare of a future where she did not die in this cell nor tied to a cold stone slab surrounded by the chanting Faithful. He hissed to the mare of a different fate, no less grim but far more meaningful. He chuckled darkly as he spoke of his own impending death at the hooves of another—one whom the mare would come to know well. He continued to whisper and hiss and chuckle and as he did so, the mare could only stare at the stallion, eyes wide and disbelieving. Then the words came no more, and as his words faded into the endless black, unfamiliar sounds and images began to take their place. The mare, perhaps in finally succumbing to her madness, saw many things—some she did not, nor could ever understand and some that awed and horrified her in equal measure.
Broken and disjointed images of battle, gruesome and plentiful, filled her mind which in turn filled her ears with the sounds of clashing steel and screams of rage and pain and fear and agony. Such sounds were nothing new to the mare, but the coppery scent of blood that assaulted her nostrils was so strong that it brought the mare to her knees and caused her to be violently ill. Her own final moments flashed before her eyes and it was indeed a fate just as grim as she imagined if not more so... but that was not the end. She too saw visions of a world—a future that existed beyond her death.
An old stallion fled the battle laden halls of a dark temple, his face shrouded in shadow and the dull glint of a strange bronze amulet about his neck, A war fit to put the previous visions of battle to shame spread across the land; ponies of all tribes fell to those that were once their kin like wheat in a field to the farmer's sickle even as a bitter cold the likes of which nopony had ever felt—nor would ever feel again—descended upon the fields of slaughter. Two fillies, one barely older than a newborn, alighted upon the shores of the land that would be known as Equestria after the war in a brilliant flash of light. Both were ponies that bore the wings of a pegasus and the horn of a unicorn and both were alone, injured, and afraid; of what, the mare knew not.
Vision after vision continued to pour into the mare's mind and somewhere in the chaos, she swore she could hear again the stallion's smooth, Saddle Arabian accented voice, though she could no longer tell where his words ended and the visions began. A gasp escaped the mare's lips as she eventually bore witness to the birth of a unicorn filly who shared her likeness in almost every detail. She watched as that filly became a mare. She watched as the mare became a hero. She watched as that hero was then reborn as a member of that strange amalgamation of the three pony tribes. Such images brought an odd sense of hope to the mare trapped in her prison below—a hope that soon turned to further horror as the nearly identical mare in her vision fell from grace, eventually becoming worse than the monsters she fought against.
Then that poor mare, whose body was wracked with terrible shivers and whose mind was shaken by awesome and awful revelations, heard the bells. She heard the mad laughter, she felt the earth quake violently beneath her, she saw the mountains crumble, she saw the sky darken as some great and terrible cosmic entity blotted out the sun high above, she heard the eldritch song it sang as that thing once slumbering eternally now rose from the shattered peaks, and the mare screamed as the rest of her sanity fled. The visions came to an end, but certain sounds and images remained burned in her brain. That mare whose face was so similar to her own and whose flank bore that same six-pointed star, that loathsome, unnatural song, and the stallion's voice as he whispered his final words to the mare.
"Can you hear it, O bearer of the six-pointed star? Can you hear the Harbinger's endless Music of the Spheres?"
And as the world came into focus once more, I could hear it, I—an alicorn mare whose body had been mutated into something grotesque and abominable by higher powers and whose flank did indeed bear a six-pointed star—could hear that foul music ringing in every corner of my mind. The image of my cutie mark had changed from its original magenta hue to a blackened and pulsating reminder of the depths to which I'd fallen and continued even now to fall. To me, at least in the moments following my slow and hazy return to both consciousness and the present, that was of little concern. There was something far more worrying to consider as I opened my eyes and blinked away the blurriness that clouded my vision, but in my daze, I failed to grasp exactly what that was.
I groggily awoke from my reverie, lying supine with my eyes fixed to the slightly rotted ceiling of Star Swirl's cabin. Somewhere nearby I could hear a panicked voice in the distance, more a hiss than a cry, but the voice was drowned out by the music that even now filled my ears with its eerie and uncanny tone. A sudden tremor beneath my hooves was sufficient enough to drive me to full wakefulness and as I rolled over and stumbled to my hooves my bewildered gaze fell upon the entrance to the cabin. The front door had been left open and I could see Chrysalis beyond it, standing just outside with her hideous face upturned towards the sky above. From this distance, I couldn't make out her expression, but the music, now a constant presence in my mind, had died down enough that I could hear her words.
The mad queen seemed to be shouting angry curses at something I could not see where I stood. It was a ridiculous sight to behold, but something about this whole situation sent a dreadful chill down my spine. The tremor had died down quickly enough, but the unease within me only grew as I tried to make sense of what had happened in the vault and how I'd returned to the cabin. My saddlebags sat beside me and I wasted no time in searching them for any kind of clue that may have appeared. Unfortunately, the journal I meant to take with me was nowhere to be found and the amulet was still missing, though now I knew through my latest vision of what the amulet itself would look like once I found it, and I would find it. I grimaced as the walls and ceiling of the cabin creaked and groaned ominously.
Placing my bags atop my back, I quickly made my way out of the cabin and towards Chrysalis, who, upon spotting me, rushed over and placed her twisted hooves on my shoulders. Her face was a terrifying mask of desperation and her voice shook as she spoke to me. She asked me of the amulet's whereabouts to which I responded with a shake of my head and an accusation of my own. She was, after all, the one who'd told me that the amulet had been left behind in Star Swirl's vault. It was clear I had been too quick to trust her word and it had gotten me nowhere. But to this, Chrysalis only shook her head and spoke again, her voice strained.
"The... t-the amulet w-was taken to the vault... by Star Swirl... af... a-after his return... of this I am certain... if... if it is not there... th-then it w-was taken by another... th-the one who waits for you... in th... the Cave... w-we must get that amulet... Twilight... S-Sparkle... the hour is nearly u-upon us... the Harbinger... i-it comes! Y-You must be the one to... t-to awaken the Old Night... i-if you fail... all will be for naught... w-we will perish... with the rest of them... quickly, Twilight... th-the... the Harbinger approaches... already I c-can hear its... its vile song!"
The corrupted queen once again turned her fearful gaze skyward and this time I followed that gaze. What I saw made my blood run cold, for in the sky just barely visible with the naked eye, was a distant shape—a dark but prominent speck really. It was still too far to be accurately identified by a normal pony without the aid of a powerful telescope, but I knew exactly what it was, for I was the one who had brought it here. I had seen it in my dreams more than once, and now those dreams had finally become a reality. As if to drive the point home, the music in my ears began to swell once more and another small tremor followed in its wake, shaking the ground beneath me. amidst the portentous cacophony of the alien music and rumbling earth, I swore I could hear a deep groan resound from beneath the mountain.
I knew then at that moment that Ghroth had set its burning sight on Equestria and the rest of the world, and that our time would soon be at an end. Just as Chrysalis said, I would perish with the rest of the planet without ever having discovered the full truth, without ever seeing what lay at the end of the path I'd chosen, and even as terror flooded my veins, I refused to accept that. If I had to rouse Zushakon from its slumber myself then so be it. It would reawaken and the world would end as I knew it either way. There was still time left, and in that time I vowed then that I would recover the amulet, uncover the Unbegotten Source and its secrets just as Star Swirl did, and if need be, awaken the Dark Silent One.
I would not die in vain with the rest of the world, my sacrifices would not be in vain, and so long as I was able to reach the truth that lay at the end of my path, the Dark Silent One could have its throne. With those thoughts cemented and my convictions set, I fled the rumbling forest for my next destination, wondering all the while just what and who would be waiting for me within the Cave of Harmony and dreading the possible answers that came to mind, for among the many sights I saw through that mare's eyes were the images of two others who had known of the amulet's resting place and I knew at least one, if not both of them would be there to greet me.