You begin to wheeze as a cloud of dust fills your nostrils. You swat at the air with your free hand, clutching the pair of books that you just removed from the long-neglected shelf in the other. The covers are pretty much completely illegible, having long worn off after thousands of years. The room is musty and generally unpleasant to be in. You turn around and start making your way towards a table a ways away from you.
You are currently in the Castle of the Two Sisters, an old dilapidated castle that was occupied by... well, the royal sisters. Many, many moons ago, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna built and lived in this very castle in the Everfree Forest. This changed after Luna's transformation into Nightmare Moon and her subsequent banishment to the moon. According to Tia, she couldn't stand to live in a castle that constantly reminded her of her greatest regret, so she moved into the Canterlot Castle. Of course, Luna has since returned and Tia is in a much better mental state (at least in part thanks to you), but with Canterlot firmly established as Equestria's capital, it makes little sense to move back here. However, this castle still holds untold amounts of Equestrian history, so you and your friends decided to repair it. Or, at the very least, make it structurally sound. The castle is already riddled with traps and secret passages, so making it feel a bit more "lived in" should do wonders for future endeavors here.
Most of your friends are working in the main hall. You, on the other hand, were asked to scout the nearby rooms and corridors and report anything suspicious to Twilight. You found this small study, containing a couple of small bookshelves, some desks, some chairs, and little else. You imagine it would likely be pretty cozy all things considered, at least without all of the dust. And you obviously aren't the only one who thinks so, as on the other side of the room, your dear young dragon friend Spike is invested in an issue of his favorite comic book series, the Power Ponies. He occasionally mumbles to himself and periodically asks if you need a hand (hoof? claw?), but otherwise the two of you aren't talking much. You don't want to interrupt his reading, and you have currently tasked yourself with checking out the books throughout the room. If there is one thing pop culture back in your original home taught you, it's that books in long-forgotten locations like this usually contain a lot of incredible information. Or curses. Thankfully you aren't oblivious enough to open up any evil-looking books that you stumble upon.
These books in particular caught your attention, as the castle does have a fully-stocked library elsewhere. The existence of this study makes you think that the contents of these books might be especially worthwhile, so you figured that a quick search through them would either confirm your suspicions that this room holds great secrets, or prove that it's completely harmless and ready to be cleaned. It's a win-win, albeit a bit of a boring one.
So far you have yet to find anything particularly interesting. Granted, you don't really understand a lot of the contents of these books (you still haven't mastered the art of Old Ponish), but as far as you can tell, there aren't any world-shattering revelations or devious spells to be found yet. Oh, well. You can't expect ALL of your endeavors in magical talking pony land to be fantastical.
...Ah. Speak of the devil.
Upon removing another couple of books, you notice something a bit off about the bookshelf. In the space behind where the books once sat, there appears to be some kind of inlet. You aren't about to stick your hand into a mysterious dark hole behind a bookshelf in an abandoned castle full of traps unprepared, so you cast a minor illumination spell and glance inside. Within the stone wall is what seems to be a metal box of some kind. That... definitely qualifies as suspicious. Though, lately, Twilight has been teaching you how to become more in-tune with magic, and you're starting to get better at recognizing when something has magical properties. As far as your less-than-professional eyes can tell, this box isn't magical whatsoever. You figure it should be safe to at least remove the box.
The box is much heavier than you imagined. It's about the size of a gallon of milk, and though you can tell it's definitely made of metal, you're having a hard time identifying what kind. You place the box on top of a nearby stool and wipe at the beads of sweat beginning to form on your brow. You turn around to see if Spike is paying attention. He seems to be looking at the pages of his comic with a confused look on his face, and you decide once more to not interrupt him. Your attention back on the box, you notice a lock holding the top in place. A quick poke at it causes the box to open. Hundreds of years of rust does that, you suppose. Glancing inside the now-open box, you aren't quite sure what to think. Resting in a velvet interior is some kind of glass object, about the size of a football, glowing a dull blue color. Very slowly and with all the care that you can muster, you very cautiously remove the item and place it on the nearby table. While the box may not have set off any red flags, this thing DEFINITELY does. As far as you can tell, it's some kind of hourglass. The hourglass appears to be... well, glass. The sand, however, is what catches your attention. The blue glow is definitely coming from whatever substance is resting within the hourglass, and there isn't a doubt in your mind that it's magical.
You aren't a fool. A mysterious, magical hourglass hidden away in an abandoned castle? This thing probably stops time or something when inverted. Leaving it alone is absolutely your best option right now, and fetching Twilight doesn't seem like a bad idea either. Unfortunately for you, your thoughts on the object kept your attention from the scene unfolding behind you. As you decided to make your way to the door, you finally took notice of the yelling that had been coming from right behind you. The comic book that Spike was reading was resting on the podium in the center of the room, and it was glowing. On top of that, it just so happened to be sucking your friends into its pages. Suddenly realizing that your friends are in danger, you attempted to reach out and grab the mares, but you were just a moment too late. A popping noise is heard as you watch them fall into the comic, the pages slamming shut immediately after. You find yourself in shock.
What just happened?
Bad turns to worse as your attention is once more forcibly pulled in a different direction. A strange feeling wells up within your chest. A feeling of dread. It feels... familiar, somehow. Suddenly, a flash of bright white light floods the room, forcing you to shut your eyes for a moment. When you open them, you notice the table shaking violently. Of course, this also causes the objects on top of the table to shake in turn, and a certain hourglass just so happens to teeter over the edge. You don't even have a moment to react before it hits the floor, conveniently in an inverted position. That can't be good.
As soon as the hourglass hits the floor, the ground in its vicinity is filled with runes. A circle of green glowing runes seemed to dance around the hourglass before suddenly shooting a line of equally green runes across the floor to your feet, encircling you as well. You attempt to leap out of the way, hoping to avoid whatever is about to happen. You dive towards the entrance of the room, but rather than hitting the hard floor, you hit... nothing.
You're falling. All around you, a bright green expanse of magic extends in all directions. You attempt to look upwards at where you just came from, but you're falling extremely fast, and the forces at play make it difficult to turn your head. You fall for five seconds... ten seconds... fifteen seconds...
Suddenly, the magic surrounding you gives way to sunshine. Below you lies a beautiful expanse of blue. That's definitely a body of water. In front of you, there seems to be a landmass, harboring verdant green fields and rolling hills. Along the coast lies some kind of settlement, built around the sandy beach that meets the water. It would be an extraordinary view if it weren't for the fact that you were rapidly falling to what could be your imminent demise.
You attempt to use Twilight's breathing technique to calm yourself down. It... is very hard to breathe right now. Okay, just try to think. How do you stop yourself from smacking against the water at terminal velocity? For a normal human, it would be pretty hard without some kind of parachute, but you have magic! What spells can get you out of this?
Well, let's see. You aren't skilled enough to levitate yet. You still haven't been able to replicate those mysterious wings that appeared when you helped save Ponyville from the Everfree Forest. You COULD use the extremely simple spell to warp to the teleportation circle outside of Tia's room, but unfortunately momentum carries when you teleport. You would likely be little more than a fine paste on the ground if you tried THAT idea. And... that's about it.
Now might be a wonderful time to panic.
With how high up you are, you estimate that you'll hit the water in about a minute. Seeing as how you don't know a levitation spell and the third option results in your immediate death, you figure option two is about all you can try. You just have to conjure up a pair of wings in less than a minute. Easy, right?
You close your eyes and try to remember that day in Ponyville. The vine ball was coming towards you. You attempted to catch it before it could destroy the town. You prepared your body. You thought of yourself, of your friends, of Tia. You caught the ball using a spell you still don't recognize. You pushed to the rhythm of your heartbeat for what felt like days.
Okay. It's now or never.
Your thoughts begin to wander. Are you going to be okay? Are your friends going to be okay? What will happen if you don't get out of this? Your friends... well, they can probably get themselves out of any mess that is thrown at them. What about Tia? She's an extremely capable mare, but lately you've become her emotional anchor. And frankly, she has become yours as well. What you would give to have her around right now...
You begin to feel it. A familiar feeling of strength permeates through your body. You begin to feel magic coursing through you. You try to shut out the sound of the wind rushing past you... There it is. The beating of your heart, possibly amplified by the magic filling your being (and certainly sped up by your fear of slamming into the water), becomes audible. You begin to focus on it. Push. Push. Push. Push.
A familiar force makes itself known on your back, doing everything it can to push against gravity. You have no idea how well it is working. You refuse to open your eyes. Right now, all you can do is focus and continue pushing. Is the air flying past you getting weaker, or are you just optimistic? You couldn't get this to work previously, after all, even if you did try to replicate the same method.
Even without vision, your instincts tell you that impact is coming. You remember hearing on some survival show that you want to hit the water straight up and down, like a diver. So, you do your best to clutch your arms and legs together and allow your feet to hit the water first with whatever force you still carry. You continue to push until finally, you briefly feel a splash.
Everything goes dark.