//------------------------------//
// That Thing 
// Story: The Call of Cthulestia and Other Strange Tales 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
//------------------------------//

“Well,” said Twilight Sparkle to nopony in particular. “This is new.”
“That’s… certainly one way of putting it,” Rarity agreed.
“Indeed,” said Mayor Mare. “I’m sure you can plainly see why I’ve called you here?”
The five mares gazed up at the immense edifice before them, a towering and blocky shape that seemed to scrape against the clouds. At the top, something glimmered orange in the refracted sunlight. At the bottom, long and clawlike tendrils flexed, curling upward toward the sky.
“Um,” said Applejack. “...Not really?”
The Mayor made an exasperated gesture at the shape. “You’re the Elements of Harmony. That… thing is certainly disharmonious. I want it gone, as soon as possible.”
There was a long silence. “I mean,” said Rainbow. “We can’t actually do much of anything without Fluttershy -- Elements-wise, I mean -- and she told me the other day that she was going out of town.”
Mayor Mare’s face fell. “I don’t suppose she said when she’d be back?”
“Nope.”
“I mean,” Twilight said, scratching her head. “It isn’t as though it’s doing anything especially… disharmonious, I guess.”
“I beg to differ,” the Mayor said sharply. “For one thing, it’s taken up nearly half of the marketplace, and for another, it’s been erected without a permit. That’s not only disharmonious, it’s borderline anarchistic!”
“...Those aren’t synonyms,” Twilight muttered under her breath.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Well, we can’t exactly friendship-blast it without Fluttershy, but I suppose we can see if there are any more mundane measures we can take to remove it.”
Mayor Mare visibly sagged in relief. “Oh, thank you, Princess. I need to return to my office now, but I’ll be back to check on your progress around noon.”
She trotted off, leaving Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow, Pinkie, Rarity, and a few curious townsponies to investigate the apparition.
Twilight coughed into a hoof. “Right. I suppose the first thing we should establish is what this… thing actually is.”
Rainbow Dash tilted her head at her. “You mean it’s not obvious?” she asked, incredulous.
Twilight frowned. “Er, no? At least, I don’t --”
“It’s gotta be some kind of ancient tomb or temple or whatever!” Dash said confidently. “I mean, just look at it! It’s the size of a huge building, and it’s made of, uh, some kind of stone? And it’s all carved up, look, it’s got runes or, or hieroglyphs or whatever.”
Twilight turned that thought over in her head. “Well, all of that appears to be true,” she admitted. “But there are a couple of flaws in that theory.”
“What?” Dash frowned. “Name ‘em!”
“First, I don’t recognize those carvings or this style of architecture from any known historical culture,” Twilight said.
“So it’s from an unknown historical culture! Duh,” Dash said, rolling her eyes.
“Second, if it’s a temple or a building… well, where’s the door?”
Rainbow paused, frowning. She zipped over to inspect between the claws of the thing, then around the other side. She shook her head, then started to fly towards the top of the edifice.
Rarity shook her head. “That mare,” she murmured. “Twilight?”
“Mm?”
“I do doubt Rainbow’s suggestion of this being a temple.”
“As do I,” Twilight agreed.
“However, I did notice something as she was speaking. She suggested that this thing was made of ‘some kind of stone’, and that made me consider more closely the building material.”
“...Is this goin’ somewhere?” Applejack asked.
Rarity arched an eyebrow at her. “Indeed. Riddle me this, darling, what color would you say that building actually is?”
Applejack scoffed. “Aw, c’mon Rares, just ‘cause Ah can’t tell the difference between ‘tan’ an’ ‘ecru’ or whatever --”
“No, just the most basic color you can see,” Rarity said.
“Uh.” Applejack squinted at the edifice. “Ah mean, um. It’s a bit, kinda… Ah guess… yellow-y?”
“But not yellow,” Rarity said. “I believe that this is a color never before seen by ponykind. I must get a sample to try and recreate! I’ll sell hundreds of dresses with something as nouvelle as this. Thousands! Suri Polomare, eat your heart out…”
She hurried forward. Twilight rubbed her chin. “I wonder,” she mused.
“Hey,” said Pinkie. “What’s going on over there?”
Twilight and Applejack turned their attention to where Pinkie pointed. At the side of the thing, Lily was yelling at a group of other ponies. “Repent! The time has come upon us! The obelisk calls upon us all to answer for our misdeeds, and we must follow its command!”
Twilight trotted over quickly. “What’s all this, then?” she asked. “Lily, what -- where did you even get that cloak?”
Lily drew the dark cloak tighter around herself. “I need not explain myself to a nonbeliever!” she hissed. “The obelisk commands only fear!”
“Sure,” Twilight said. “Along with rabbits, leaf rot, sudden noises, the Cutie Mark Crusaders --”
“Well, that last one’s fair,” somepony said from the crowd to whom Lily had been preaching.”
“Okay, bad example,” Twilight said. “But just because we don’t know what this is doesn’t mean we should fear it. We just need to study it and better understand it. That’s the root of science, the root of progress and the key to modern life. Blind fear of the unknown can only ever drag us backwards.”
As though to mark her words, a dolorous chime rang from the structure. Lily screamed and ran off, along with more than a few of her listeners.
Twilight glanced around and saw a figure standing at the side of the thing, watching it vibrate intently. She sighed and trotted closer. “Octavia,” she said by way of greeting. “What did you just do?”
The cellist looked at her in mild surprise. “Oh, Twilight, hello,” she said. “I was just testing a little idea I had about what this thing might be.” 
“Which is…” Twilight prompted.
Octavia held up a tuning fork and struck it against the structure. Another tone sounded, this one a clear half-step lower than the first. Octavia smiled. “An instrument,” she said. “Look at it, so grand and smooth, with all those delicate carvings, and I thought there might be some acoustic reason for it. It seems I was right!”
“Why would anypony build an instrument this big?” Twilight asked.
Octavia considered this. “Perhaps it could serve as something akin to a bell tower,” she said. “It could be a way to broadcast a performance across a space of several square miles.”
“Interesting,” Twilight said, nodding. “You might be onto some --”
“Or,” Octavia said. “Perhaps the intended audience is simply too large to register any softer noise.”
“Never mind,” Twilight said flatly.
“Hey! Twi!”
Twilight found herself suddenly whisked away by a blue blur, then dropped unceremoniously next to Applejack, Pinkie, and Rarity. She hauled herself upright to see Rainbow Dash grinning broadly at her, almost vibrating in place. “So! Uh, update on the temple thing -- you’ll never guess what I found up there!”
Twilight perked up. More data on the higher levels of the object sounded very useful indeed. “Oh?”
“So there were these parallel bar-looking things in a hole that led from one side of the thing to the other, and a rope swing too, and really, this whole thing is kinda like a vertical climbing wall --”
“Okay…” Twilight said.
“So really, I think this is actually some ancient temple version of Equestrian Ninja Warrior, and I’m gonna beat it! Pinkie, time me!”
Pinkie saluted. “Aye aye, Dashie!”
“I --” Twilight began, but Rainbow was already scrabbling up the side of the object.
Applejack sighed. “Equestrian Ninja Warrior. Ah love that mare, but Ah don’t believe she’s got the sense she was born with.”
“I wasn’t going to say it, but yes,” Twilight said.
“Obviously it’s a cultivator,” Applejack continued.
Twilight sighed. “...Explain?”
“Evenly-spaced claws for producing nice parallel rows an’ avoidin’ the crops, lookin’ like they’d cut deep into the earth and rip up all the weeds,” Applejack said. “Nice long handle too, get some good leverage out of that thing.”
“But it’s too big for anypony to use!” Twilight protested.
Applejack shrugged. “A worm’d say the same ‘bout mah rototiller, but that ain’t ever stopped me from usin’ it.”
“And what would these giants you seem to be proposing use it on?” Twilight asked. “It looks almost big enough to plow up the ground in one of your orchards.”
“It does, at that,” Applejack said, studying it thoughtfully. “It most assuredly does…”
“Applejack,” Rarity scolded. “I cannot believe you’re thinking of using my fashion revolution for farmwork!”
“You just like th’ color!” Applejack said. “Or were you gonna make some dresses out of, uh… rock, Ah guess? Did we ever figure out what that thing’s made of?”
“That is the odd thing,” Rarity agreed. “It feels and looks like stone, but it seems to act almost like wood. When I broke a piece off, I could even see the grain of it.” She held out a piece. Indeed, the striation was clear.
Twilight shook her head. “Pinkie,” she said. “I think you’re the only one, aside from me, who hasn’t thrown out an idea for what this might be.”
Pinkie tilted her head, scrutinizing the thing closely. “...Backscratcher,” she said decisively.
“Thank you for your input,” Twilight replied.
“What about you?” Pinkie said. “What do you think it is, Twilight?”
“Well… I don’t like to speculate,” Twilight said.
“Everypony else is,” Pinkie replied. “Come on, it’s fun!”
“Well…” Twilight trailed off. “I think Dash had at least sort of a point about it belonging to some unknown ancient culture. Just looking at it, I can plainly see that it’s quite old, although I’d like to do some carbon dating to see exactly how old. I can see that it’s covered in some kind of writing as well. I think I almost recognize some of the characters, but together they don’t form any language I’m familiar with, and they all belong to entirely different alphabets. I see some ancient Camel hieroglyphs, as well as Zebra-based cuneiform and Minotaur script. That suggests to me that many cultures together worked on this artifact, or at least contributed some writing. Perhaps it’s akin to the Roansetta Stone, a sort of translation tool for multiple languages.”
Pinkie nodded approvingly at her, and Twilight grinned. She continued. “Combined with the size of it, and the acoustic nature, I’m inclined to take seriously Octavia’s comparison to a bell tower -- I suspect it was some kind of central structure in a city somewhere, designed to be a point of focus for the inhabitants. Clearly it was meant to convey important information to all readers, which could have been any creature from any culture. What that information could have been, I can’t know, but the first thing I can think to compare it to would be Hammulerabi’s Code, a collection of the laws of --”
As soon as she spoke the word ‘law’, the earth shook and the thing began to glow with a light that was hard to look at directly. “Behold!” Lily screamed “The end is upon us! All hail the obelisk! All hail!”
Rainbow flew down. “Twilight? What gives? Did somepony else beat me to the top of this thing?”
“The colorsss,” Rarity murmured, her eyes shining and reflecting the indescribable shade of light coming off the object. “Mmmm… I must have it… tie together my summer collection…” Her expression dreamy, she wandered closer to the light.
“I don’t understand,” Twilight said. “What set it off? Rainbow, you were the only one on it that I’m aware of, what were you doing when it… started doing whatever this is?”
“Just climbing the walls,” Rainbow said. “I don’t think I touched anything special… Oh! Wait! Is this some kind of bonus round?”
There came a great howl from where Lily stood, and where some ponies had come to stand behind her. “Look! There is a defiler!” she cried, pointing to where Rarity was attempting to hack another piece off the thing. “Tear her for her insolence!”
“Alright,” Twilight said, her mane lighting up with stars. “This has gone far enough.”
She charged toward where Lily and her followers were moving toward Rarity. “Stand down,” she roared, her words bypassing the ears and going straight through the spine. “Lay not one hoof on her, else face an alicorn’s wrath!”
Some of Lily’s followers quailed, but most stood strong. Lily’s eyes burned with a maddened intensity. “We have no fear of you, Twilight Sparkle! A new age is upon us, a new god! Let the alicorns be washed away by the Age of the Obelisk!”
Applejack stormed up to stand face to face with Lily. “One step closer, and you’ll be spittin’ teeth,” she growled.
Lily flinched. “I mean --” she said.
“And, you an’ yours won’t never get another mug of cider in this town so long as you live.” Applejack’s words were underscored by a dolorous tone as Octavia struck the thing once again.
The mob quickly scattered to the winds.
Twilight’s jaw hung open. “What?” she asked.
Applejack shrugged. “Gotta hit ‘em where it hurts, Twi.”
“I’m pretty sure that was a violation of the Godiva Convention, AJ” Rainbow said, shuddering.
“What is the meaning of this?” Mayor Mare demanded, storming over to where the mares stood. “I asked you to remove this thing, not make it do… this. Why is everything it does so hard to describe? It’s going to make the paperwork for this incident an absolute nightmare! And what was that angry mob here for?”
“They decided this radical obstacle course was some kind of god,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes.
“Dash, this ain’t no obstacle course, it’s clearly a cultivator,” Applejack said.
“A thing that makes cults?” Dash scratched her head. “I mean, I guess that’s what happened with Lily…”
“IT’S BEAUTIFUL!” Rarity wailed. “IT’S BEAUTIFUL AND IMPOSSIBLE AND I WANT LACE IN EXACTLY THIS HUE!”
“It’s a public nuisance is what it is,” Mayor Mare said with a scowl.
“You authority figures just don’t know modern music when you hear it,” Octavia said with a sniff. “Only true artists can see this for what it really is.”
“MY SUMMER COLLECTION!” Rarity screamed.
“Backscratcher!” Pinkie piped in.
“Um,” said a voice from above. Everypony still standing there looked up to see Thunderlane peering down at them. “Sorry if this is a bad time, but, uh, I can see something in the crystal at the top of this thing? I dunno, it looks like it might be important.”
“Show me,” Twilight said, taking to the sky with a flap of her long, phantasmal wings.
She led the way to the top of the thing, Rainbow Dash and Thunderlane trailing in her wake. It was much farther to the top than she expected, and space seemed to bend as she flew, the object stretching like rubber as she flew onwards to the top.
Eventually, the three of them arrived at the top, hovering around the glowing crystal, staring at the symbol that sat in shadow at the center. “See?” Thunderlane said. “What do you think it means?”
Twilight stared at the eight-pointed arrow as it slowly spun in the core. “Dammit, Discord…”





It was some twenty minutes later. Both the object and Twilight had calmed dramatically, and Rarity had been lured from her death grip on the thing by Spike and a tub of cookie dough ice cream. The five available Elements now stood in a circle around a series of strange sigils Twilight had drawn on the ground, Rarity still shoveling ice cream into her mouth. Since Twilight claimed that what they were attempting would require thirteen participants, also in the circle stood Spike, Thunderlane, Mayor Mare, Big Macintosh, Caramel, Zecora, Cheerilee, and Octavia. Everyone besides Twilight looked at least moderately confused and mildly bored.
“Okay,” Twilight said, glancing back and forth a few more times between the Alicron and the summoning circle. “I think that’ll do it. Are all of you ready to begin the incantation?”
“Mm.” Applejack frowned. “Uh, Ah think so. But this dance thing… we gotta do all this on jes’ two legs?”
“I’m afraid it looks that way,” Twilight said. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Rituals like this tend to want to be finished when they’re started. So, you know, if you don’t feel completely in control of your body, uh, don’t worry about it?”
Applejack rubbed her forehead with a hoof. “Sure. Sure. Why in Tartarus would that worry me?”
When the thirteen townsponies had arranged themselves around the circle, Twilight began the chant. “Ay’i omphas-kai ti umph’sh tiralamena, Omph ka’ll’ra t’dish ay’i Discordia, Ay’i p’tah-ka Eris da’i sc’ena --”
And around the circle, the summoners danced, rhythmically moving their forehooves one after the other in perfect, unnatural synchronization -- out, out, flip, flip, up to the withers, up to the withers. The circle began to glow with a sickly, unnatural light that was of no color in a pony’s visible spectrum, and still they moved, unable to stop the dance as their hooves moved behind their heads, first the right, then the left. Then down to their hips, then their plots, as the world began to slide out of focus and Twilight continued the chant, drawing to the close of the first repetition. She threw back her head and howled, “Ay’i, MACARENA!”
Everypony rotated in place ninety degrees to the left as Twilight began to chant the verse again. As she repeated the dread invocation and the ponies danced on, the summoning circle began to expand, the land inside stretching out far beyond what could ever hope to be contained by its perimeter, billions on billions of shrieking squamous things oozing over the intricate designs of the circle as reality shredded itself on the rough cliffs of what was so very far beyond comprehension. The sky turned dark, then pale, then a kaleidoscope of dizzying rainbow hues that seemed to beckon the mind to fall forever toward the center of the universe.
And then there was a pop and a flash of smoke. Discord stood at the center of the circle, blinking in the light. They were wearing a quite stunning emerald evening gown. Tucked under their right arm was Fluttershy, who looked terribly confused. She was also wearing a very nice gown, rich blue and creamy white.
Discord blinked a couple of times, then scowled. “Alright, who’s the wise guy?” they asked, turning in a slow circle. “We were at a concert!”
“A concert?” Twilight repeated, perplexed.
“Oh, yes,” Fluttershy said. “Er. Hello, by the way. Discord got us two tickets to see the Unreality Wind Orchestra perform live. I’m sure we’ll make it back in time for the show, though. The curtain hasn’t gone up yet.”
“It could have done,” Discord grumbled. “So. Make it quick and make it good, or I’ll turn all of you into… I don’t know, something terribly ironic. Or pickles. Or melting clocks. Tickets to the Royal Azathoth Theater aren’t cheap, you know, especially for the non-gibbering section.”
“We found something which bears your mark,” said Twilight. “Care to explain what it is?”
“Ugh. Fine,” Discord grumbled. “Where is it?”
“Well, we’re currently standing in its shadow,” Mayor Mare said drily. “On that note, there are some forms which need to be filled out…”
Discord turned around and stared up at the colossal, indescribable artifact that nearly blotted out the sun with its grandeur. “Oh,” they said. “You found my backscratcher. I’d been wondering where that went.”
Every pair of eyes fell on Pinkie Pie. “See?” she said. “I told you.”
Discord sighed. “I suppose I should thank you for this,” they said reluctantly. “So… yeah. That thing I just said.”
Fluttershy coughed into her hoof.
Discord threw their head back and groaned. “Ffffine. Thank you. Can we go now?”
“Could you move it out of Ponyville first?” Mayor Mare asked.
“It can wait until after the concert,” Discord said dismissively.
“I’ll fill out all the required paperwork on your behalf if you do it now.”
“Deal,” they said immediately, the immense artifact vanishing in a cloud of sparkling mist that felt pink and smelled like thunder. “Is that everything?”
“I do have one more question, actually,” Twilight said. “What exactly was written on that thing?”
Discord paused. “Hm. Good question. It’s been ages since I really looked at it…”
They clicked their talons and a scrolling image of characters appeared before them. They peered at it closely. “According… to all… known… laws… of aviation… oh.”
Discord straightened up. “Er, yes. Great big secrets of the universe, not meant to be read or heard by mortals, I’m sure you understand. That’s all, then? Great, lovely to hear from you all, bye-byeeeee!”
And they disappeared alongside Fluttershy. The only sign they had been there was that the sigils which had been painted on the ground had been transformed into powdered sugar.
“Right,” said Applejack. “Well, now that’s over, Ah’d best be headed home. Ah got plans to draw up for a new cultivator…”
“Why would you want a cult?” Rainbow asked, flying after Applejack.
“Indeed. I have to start thinking about how to recreate this color as a dye...” Rarity said, hungrily eyeing the shards she’d managed to rip from the structure.
One by one, everypony dispersed from the marketplace. When all of them had gone, a mare peered around the corner of one of the market stalls and made her way to where the thing had stood. She climbed up on the wooden crate she had left there earlier. “Behold!” Lily cried. “The terrible indentation of doom! It can portend only evil and destruction!”