//------------------------------//
// What Came Before 
// Story: The Basement 
// by Greenback 
//------------------------------//

Few remain now who remember the days when Equestria prospered beneath Celestia’s sun, when the future was full of promise and hope, before it was all destroyed. 

During an expedition in Luna Bay, a field of black, rocky thorns was discovered on the seabed. Blinded by their desire for knowledge, the expedition recovered an obelisk from deep within the thorns, and in doing so unknowingly condemned Equestria to ruin, for the thorns of stone were a prison, and the obelisk was the key holding it shut.

The entity within – an eldritch being from an era long before our own – broke free. Millions died as the entity roamed the land, speaking words that none could understand, but that drove all who heard them insane. The Bearers fell, smashing their skulls against the rocks. Even the Royal Sisters succumbed, and in their madness the full might of their magic was unleashed, destroying Canterlot and everything around it in a fifty mile radius. 

In a final, last-ditch effort, the combined might of Eqqus’ armies brought their full might against the being. It was a force over five million strong, the greatest that had ever walked the earth.

It wasn’t enough.

What few survivors remained fled from the cities and took refuge in the most remote places of the world. When the leaves fall from the trees, the snow blankets the ground, and the cold winds from the north sweep across the land, we retreat inside our caves, our shelters, and our hiding places, for that is when the entity awakens and roams the land, retreating only with the coming of spring.

For almost thirty years the entity has walked our world, bringing death and madness in its wake. And now we, the few who remain, are left to fight a hopeless battle against that which we cannot kill.