Down beneath the soil of the earth, where dirt and stone buried eons worth of geological secrets, where lost treasures and secrets of the past are forever lost lies a cavern unlike any other. One that had been carved out by generations lost to time. A home for creatures of the dark.
To outsiders that dwell on the surface, they are simply known as Changelings. A mysterious race of insectoids resembling equines. Creatures that only feast on love and would kidnap any creature that is unfortunate to come across one.
It is never known how long the Changeling race has been around in its existence. Some guessed that they have been around for centuries, a millennium or even further.
But to anyone reading this. If any were still alive, there is a different story painted. Far from the truth that others have made us out to be.
My name is Vespid, Shield Captain of her majesty’s guard. To anyone that reads this I would most likely already be dead along with the rest of my kind, but I am writing this with the vain hope that someone out there might live to read this even if it's unlikely.
Whatever the case is, I have magically preserved this message as a time capsule of sorts for anyone to find this. Maybe someone else had already thought of the same idea as I do and have written their own accounts. Nevertheless I will tell you mine even if you feel skeptical.
For my entire life since I was a nymph, there was only one thing that we had to be taught of, before we even learned to write, as soon as we were aware of the world around us.
We were taught that every love we collect was precious. Not just to feed our people, for we already have enough. No, the love we collect was meant to serve a sacred purpose that we have performed for eons. Long before ponykind founded Equestria.
We had been told from a young age to save up every love collect so that we may keep the great old one at bay.
As I write this, there is a set of stairs not far from me. I am not sure if these stairs would still be standing long after I’m gone but those stairs are one of the last available entrances that we still have that connects the upper hive to the underhive.
What is the underhive? The underhive is an old ancient place, that was built far down below where the current hive now lies. It is a place where our ancient history is laid to rest.
Once, long before my time, this city was said to be great and majestic. Its glorious buildings would tower up high, even reaching up to the cavern ceiling like stalagmites. Its roads would have once been bustling with activities and our great monuments and murals would have shown the world that we were the greatest.
In its prime it had been a proud jewel of accomplishment for our people. Now it was a husk. A ghost city nearly devoid of life, with only small pockets of venturers to explore and uncover what little secrets the ancient city still had.
It remains nothing but an echo of the past.
We were once great.
However, our realm did not fall like all other civilizations and empires should. No, our fall was due to a terrible reckoning.
I wish I had known the truth, but no one in the hive knows. All we have are theories and long broken murals that have fallen into disrepair.
The only thing we know that is closest to the truth is a tale that has been passed down to us for generations. It is the tale of a great beast that arose with the darkening of the world.
Its size, power and true appearance has been lost to time, but the creature was said to be long, serpent like and cosmic. With its mighty power it tore apart our old world, tearing apart continents and reshaping the lands into a new.
At our most vulnerable, when the world was doomed, it was said that a great deity arose to challenge the serpent.
Nothing is known about this saviour, how long the fight was, nor how the savior succeeded in defeating the serpent. The only thing clear was that the creature could not be killed, only imprisoned.
Thus, a great artifact was made. A construct to contain it, that would serve as the beginning of a new great age for our people and the world.
Beaten, but not killed, the creature was banished to the deepest parts of the underworld in a great chasm. The artifact created would serve as a device that binds the serpent within, confined by a large shield over the great chasm to ensure it never breaks free.
Before disappearing from the mortal world, this saviour made one last act of grace by decreeing that it was our sacred duty to ensure that the artifact remained active.
The savior taught us how the device worked, that it needed the love of others in order to maintain the barrier that imprisons it.
Should the artifact fail, we were taught the secrets to make another.
For a long time, there was peace and prosperity. Yet nothing lasts forever.
For you see, Ponykind has long thought that they were the creators of the Crystal Heart. They were wrong, the irony was that we made it as a replacement before that knowledge was lost and the heart stolen in a sack upon our great city.
From the loss that we had suffered we grew wary of the outside world and shut ourselves in to ensure that our sacred duty to keep the artifact secure continues.
The past affects the future, and thus its impacts have come to haunt us for our failures. Like all things made, it wears and tears through the passage of time, the relic bestowed upon us could not last forever.
The artifact’s gradual deterioration caused the magic within it to deplete quicker than we could maintain it.
The first signs that it was failing happened one day when we witnessed the barrier flickering and for a moment there was a bright light that emanated out of the ground.
No one saw what was below that fissure other than a blurred silhouette of something long like that of an eel.
We changelings are capable of sensing the emotions of other creatures, that would seem like a blessing yet it was a curse when we felt the unbridled fury of the beast that dwells below. Completely awakened.
What happened next was indescribable to me, I don’t know what it was, only that I felt like a foreign force had attempted to seize control of my mind with promises of things I know can never be given to me.
Somehow, I managed to resist its power but some of my fellow guards had been unfortunate. Driven by madness they turned on us with their blades drawn.
I feared we might have been defeated in that fight if our queen had not been there at that moment to fight back and temporarily restore the artifact back to normal.
Seeing no other choice, her majesty gathered us, her advisors, for a meeting that day.
Desperate to keep its power alive, our queen attempted to find a solution to the problem. She tried everything she could think of from ordering us to uncover the lost knowledge required to restore the artifact, to delving in the arts of black magic that could assist us.
Nothing worked, except for one solution.
For a long time our kind had gathered the love required for it through passive means. Thus, our queen saw fit to change that and ordered the hive to take drastic measures.
Our queen knew this would not go down well, but in her desperation she saw no other choice.
Once, we used to collect love through pacifistic means but by our queen’s command our infiltrators had little choice but to kidnap those we deemed useful to our cause.
Make no mistake, this was not something that we had been asked for or even wanted, we had little choice. It was our only chance at survival and to delay the inevitable.
Actions have consequences and it was not long before news of the disappearances spread across the surface.
Realising her mistake, she knew it was only a matter of time before our kind was caught responsible and so she went further, she resorted to war.
We could have tried harder to dissuade our queen, maybe even attempt to remove her when all efforts failed. I should have done something about it when I was her Shield Captain, having the loudest voice in her inner circle. Yet I did nothing and remained loyal.
When we invaded Canterlot that day with the element of surprise we thought we had it, that victory could be ours. Yet no plan ever survives first contact, we underestimated our opponents and lost our only chance.
Rest as they say is history.
As I write towards the end of this message of mine I can already hear the caverns rumbling and the shouts of evacuation being made, the serpent would soon be free once the shield fades.
My queen is preparing her last attempt to save us by collapsing the caverns in the Underhive to buy some more time for the evacuation.
I will be joining her once I find a place for this message and only hope that it survives to give a clue as to what happened here.