Sunny was the first one through the doors again, stepping into the darkness, lightly tapping the dual LED band around her head to turn them on. Zipp did the same, while Pipp turned on her phone's light just below the camera lens.
"Ooh ooh!" Izzy exclaimed excitedly. "I was hoping there'd be an opportunity to try this out. I've been practicing!"
The lilac unicorn closed her eyes in concentration, and her horn began to glow. There was a short spark of light, then it snaked up her horn to the tip. More motes of light quickly followed, and gathered to a small orb of light. After several moments, Izzy opened her eyes, and smiled ecstatically.
"Yes!" She squeed. "What do you think, huh? You've seen headlights, but now? Hornlight!"
"Far out, Iz." Zipp complimented. The unicorn's illumination spell didn't do much for distant lighting, but it did a great job of brightening up their immediate surroundings as they stepped into the cavernous foyer.
"Yeah, that picture didn't do it justice, Sunny." Zipp commented.
"Me and my friends have just stepped into a long-forgotten ruin from ancient Equestria. What awaits us in these derelict halls? Let's find out together." Pipp narrated, getting slow, panning shots as they made their way down the middle of the foyer towards the stairs.
"Have you ever done a video series like this before, sis? Normally it's make-up how-to's, song performances, and ads for your latest fragrance." Zipp teased.
"Nothing wrong with mixing it up a bit. Who knows, might even expand my audience a bit with this."
Sunny was the first one to get to the stairs, and put the weight of one hoof on the first one, finding it stable and solid.
"This is an awful lot of stone and crystal in one place, for a forest where you don't really find them." Izzy commented as they climbed the stairs.
Sunny knew Izzy was right; crystal outcrops were absolutely everywhere in Bridlewood. But on her walk in here, there wasn't anything close to resembling these crystalline shades of purple and blue.
"This is definitely less of a treehouse and more of a treecastle, am I right?" Zipp quipped as they came to the halfway point of the stairs, where it split to the left and right, to circle the foyer balcony, as well as continue deeper inside with four hallways, one to the east, one to the west, and two to the north.
"Well, Sunny Starscout, as the discoverer of this site, you choose where we go first. Which way?" Pipp asked, turning towards the earth mare, who drew herself away from her surroundings just long enough to give a short smirk at the camera.
"Let's go up the right stairs and then more towards the back; I'm guessing the most important rooms are in the center, and the side halls are bedrooms and the like." Sunny answered, as she climbed the right set of stairs, and immediately turned left into the hall.
The crystal pillars, walls, ceilings, and floors made their light sources considerably more powerful then they'd normally be, as they reflected and spread the beams of light farther. It was just as well; due to the shell of wood that surrounded this place, it was unlikely any natural sunlight would ever reach these halls again.
The hallway she had chosen continued down for another twenty feet, before it met another hall; this one curved slightly, and if the curve was steady, it went in a large circle, likely surrounding a large room in the center. Sunny made another left, followed closely by her new friends as the hall curved to the left. When they came to another smaller set of double doors, she had a feeling they were in the middle of the structure again.
"Hope this one is unlocked?" Izzy asked.
"It may not have anything to do with locks. This place has had gods knows how long to settle, so they might take a strong push to open regardless. But yeah, I'm hoping we don't have to break every door in this place off its hinges. That doesn't seem very respectful." Sunny answered as she approached the doors. There were oxidized metallic door handles on each one, but they seemed stationary, with no turning or latching mechanism at all. After studying the door frame as best as she could in these lighting conditions, she felt that it was probably best to push instead of pull. Carefully getting the tip of her hoof in between the handle and the door, Sunny slowly began to push, trying to apply more force as evenly as she could.
Luckily, this door hadn't endured nearly as much exposure to the outside elements as the front doors had, and after some creaking, the door gave way, rotating on it's rusted hinges, and Sunny luckily kept her balance this time. Back on all four hooves, she gently pushed both doors all the way open, and when her friends saw her eyes widen, they came up peer into the room, and immediately had similar reactions.
The cavernous chamber didn't quite rival the foyer, but it wasn't the size of the room that had grabbed their attention, but the diamond-shaped gemstones scattered all over the room, all the way up to a large stone round table in the middle of the room, surrounded by six chairs.
"Whoa, jackpot!" Zipp said, bending down to pick up one of the gems. Sunny turned and watched her turn the gem over in her hooves, and thought she saw something.
"Wait, wait..." Sunny said, stepping over to the white pegasus who was holding the gem. "Do... Do that again. Turn it slowly."
Zipp did so, and when their lights hit the facets just right, an image appeared in the center, as if it was frozen in the gem. Sunny squinted her eyes, and made out a familiar purple unicorn and a pink earth pony standing in a library among a dozen other ponies, and her eyes widened.
"It's... It's like a crystalized photograph, and those are..." Sunny's sentence trailed off as her eyes widened even more as her attention turned to the table and the surrounding chairs. Taking the utmost care to avoid the gems scattered all over the floor, she made her way to the closest throne, reached up, and brushed the layer of dust away from the top back of it, and her mouth dropped open for a moment as she gazed at the trio of apples that had been immaculately carved into the back. Her head immediately turned to the next closest throne to her left; this one had another smaller chair just to the right of it. She reached up again, gently wiped off the dust from the back of it, and when her eyes saw the ruby six-pointed star, she bit her bottom lip as tears rapidly built up in her eyelids.
"Sunny? You alright, sweetheart?" Pipp asked, shining her phone's light in her direction.
The earth mare turned towards her three friends with a smile as her tears spilled over, running down her cheeks.
"The... The Guardians of Harmony... They were here."