//------------------------------//
// The Tenets of Eternity 
// Story: The Immortal Dream 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

Faye picked her way through the darkness, the stairs descending at a punishingly steep angle, carved from glossy black stone that seemed to devour the light. At its edges, it grew starkly white, creating a grayscale color-negative effect, like someone had drawn a staircase on black paper using a white pencil. But even though the lines showed her where to put her hooves, the pony in front of her was barely a shadow, her companions' glowing unicorn horns like ghostly lanterns in the distance.

Eventually, they widened out into a proper room. Twilight and her friends stood in a semicircle, with Seigetsu and Nanzanaya off to the side, leaving Corsica and Faye to bring up the rear. Everyone's faces and bodies were shadowed despite the glowing horns, as if someone had draped a thin blanket over the lights, even though the white facets were still perfectly visible and evenly lit from floor to walls to ceiling. The only distinct feature aside from black and white was the pools of ether on the uneven floor, shallow puddles of night sky lingering at the room's edges.

"I can't tell whether this is beautiful or... or..." Rarity fumbled for words. "What do you even call something like this?"

"Ominous?" Applejack suggested.

"In a cool way," Rainbow said warily, constantly checking her blind spots. "But definitely ominous."

Twilight bit her lip.

Faye's eyes traced a tiny flow of ether making its way to a puddle from a crack in the wall. The only way forward seemed to be a narrow door, still made of the same black stone, but nobody was in a hurry to open it.

"Awkward, right?" Corsica whispered in Faye's ear.

"Eh?" Faye turned and glanced at her.

Corsica nodded over at Twilight. "We came here to get the experts' help fixing your spooky flame. And now it feels like I'm a bystander while they get their world rocked."

"I suppose I should be apologizing for that," Twilight said, straightening up and stepping over. "If I had known any of this was here, I would have explored it myself long ago, and not made complete strangers have to sit through and watch all that while we're the ones supposed to be helping you."

"Why didn't you know this was here?" Faye asked, old annoyances from the way Snowport handled information still simmering in the back of her brain. "Aren't you supposed to be one of the most powerful ponies in Equestria? It's not like the other princesses didn't know about this, if they built a castle on top of it. Why didn't they tell you?"

"I don't know." Twilight shook her head. "But that's my problem to figure out. You've done enough already, making the journey here from Ironridge, and everywhere else you're from. I didn't mean to make you sit around and spectate things that will probably never be relevant to you, ever."

"Well, don't go and jinx it," Applejack warned.

Twilight gave her a look that said what are the odds, and then caught herself and winced.

"Here's a thought, though," Rainbow cut in. "How sure are we everything we've heard and seen down here - especially the stuff only you three can see..." She gestured at Twilight, Starlight and Faye. "Is accurate? According to Starlight, Flames of Harmony live in these crystal trees down near the bottom, and we haven't seen anything like that here. All we've seen is a bunch of golems and what was probably a second draconequus. Does that really scream 'wouldn't tell a lie' to you?"

Twilight looked stuck.

"I didn't hear about something like this from any of the other flames I've talked to," Starlight said, subdued. "But they didn't talk about the other palaces much in general, aside from the two that were specifically broken. And nothing Convergence said conflicts with what I know, either. So maybe it's real. Maybe it isn't. Our only options are forward and back, so it's not a complex choice."

"Well, I was thinking we save the postmortem for when we're safely back on the surface, mission accomplished-" Twilight started.

"Except we've just been given a trial by a draconequus," Rainbow interrupted. "And literally everyone remembers what happened last time we were given a trial by a draconequus."

"I don't," Nanzanaya offered.

"Same." Corsica shrugged.

Starlight nodded. "For what it's worth, I only got the abbreviated version..."

Rainbow sighed. "Okay, story time. You all know Discord, right? Other draconequus, pretty sure he was hanging around after the Crystalling for a bit?"

Faye and Seigetsu nodded. Corsica and Nanzanaya shrugged.

"So basically..." Rainbow waved a hoof. "He used to be evil, before he changed sides and became merely an unhelpful jerk instead of the enemy of all ponykind. How that happened is another story, but the important bit is, he showed up one day a few years ago, stole all our Elements, and made us go through this magic hedge maze to try and get them back. Two things about this maze: it split us up, broke us down, hit us where we were weak, and was generally an experience we agreed never to talk about again. Second, the Elements were never there in the first place, it was all a trick and we were wasting our time. You see any lessons in there that could potentially apply to our current scenario?"

"That we're going into a trial proposed by a draconequus in search of a harmonic place of power?" Fluttershy shivered. "I suppose you do have a point."

"Yeah, that." Rainbow did a flip. "But also, there's like a two-hundred-percent chance that any emotional baggage we haven't unpacked yet is gonna get rubbed in our faces really bad."

Twilight's brow furrowed. "If you're suggesting I stay behind just because Convergence gave me a lot to think about-"

"Don't worry about me, I'm snazzy," Rainbow said, putting a hoof over her heart. "But, uh. Hypothetically, assuming this place is going to try to split us up anyway, how bad of an idea would it be for someone who doesn't have a personal stake in everything that just happened to go on ahead and test the waters? Just in case."

"Are you volunteering?" Seigetsu asked. "I have rigorously trained my mind against emotional manipulation, but such training has served to open my eyes to just how many weaknesses one creature can have. If you are implying that this trial might seek to stop us mentally rather than physically, I believe there is no such thing as someone whose mind is completely impenetrable."

Faye swallowed. Was this a time to step forward? Her mind was so impenetrable, she could remember things reality itself had been twisted to shut out. Then again, she was so unstable, she made up different versions of herself and tried to become them to avoid being her anymore...

Resistant to the magical, vulnerable to the mundane. She decided to keep her mouth shut.

"You could send me," Corsica volunteered. "I'm pretty used to soldiering on even when I don't feel like it. Think of it like immunity through repeat exposure."

Twilight stomped a hoof. "We're not picking among us for the most durable sacrifices! I get what you're saying, and why you're concerned, but harmony is about sticking together and supporting each other, and we're not passing any sort of draconequus trial without that. If any of you want to go back..." She looked to Corsica, Seigetsu, Nanzanaya, and Faye. "You never signed up for this, so I'd more than understand. But this is what we do. We will not fail just because we've been shaken."

"Nope." Nanzanaya shook her head. "This is the most interesting thing that's happened to me in forever. I wouldn't turn back even if my house was on fire."

"Then I am obligated to remain as well," Seigetsu said, folding her hands behind her back.

Corsica glanced at Faye. "I'm with her."

"...I'm in." Faye wasn't going to be the only one to chicken out. Not after a speech like that. "What's through the door?"

Twilight stepped toward it. "Let's find out."

The door retracted smoothly into the ceiling, sliding up of its own accord. The next room was much like the first, only with more ether: over half the floor was nothing but stars, glowing streams dribbling down from the ceiling and splashing on rocks or landing in the puddles.

Protruding from the puddles were black vines, spiked with white thorns.

All of the Elements grimaced. "Great," Applejack griped. "These things again."

"These are the vines you had trouble with before, I'm guessing?" Corsica asked.

Twilight nodded, looking sourly at the plants. "From what we learned back then, they've always been here, but the weakening harmony in this area allowed them to start growing up to the surface again. Even though that's been fixed, I suppose it makes sense that they're still here, this far down... Try not to get too close. This might be a physical trial, after all."

The room widened further. In the middle, hanging from a chunky stalactite, was an elaborate astrolabe, set up over a wide pool of ether with a thin, winding bridge of rock stretching out to it, too narrow for safe footing.

"Wait," Twilight said, holding out a wing. "Let the fliers go check this out."

She and Rainbow swooped over to it, Fluttershy choosing to remain with the group. "Looks slick," Rainbow said, hovering around it. "What's this thing for?"

"Making star charts," Twilight explained. "But it's upside-down... and facing a sky that's below us instead of above. I wonder..."

Her lavender telekinesis enveloped it, pressing the machine into operation. "There are constellations in here," she said, clinging to the machine's side and peering through the sighting scope. "Actual constellations, with connections drawn out between the stars. Is this... text?"

Everyone back on the shore listened, and Rainbow shrugged, hovering back and leaving Twilight to her work.

"I recognize this," Twilight said after a moment. "I think. This is... something adjacent to an ancient zebra dialect. I might be able to translate it, but first I'd have to transcribe it. The lines only show up through the sighting scope on this astrolabe, and trying to read a common language through this thing would be hard enough as it is. Does anyone have writing materials?"

Nanzanaya perked up. "An ancient zebra dialect, you say?"

Twilight looked up. "Not a modern one, certainly. Is there any chance you were a language historian back at your home?"

"Would 'acolyte of a minority religious sect' be close enough?" Nanzanaya winked. "Come on, let me try! I know at least a few long-dead zebra languages."

"Be my guest," Twilight said. "Should I, um, levitate you over to this, or-"

Nanzanaya skipped across the winding stone bridge, barely acknowledging the precarious footing. She stood on two legs to reach the astrolabe, looked into it, and was silent.

"...Well?" Twilight asked as the silence stretched on.

"Just making sure I've got it all," Nanzanaya said. "See, I told you I'd be useful to have along. Anyway, those stars say 'Those who would glimpse the beginning, know that time moves only forward.' Mean anything to you?"

For a moment, everyone was quiet. "Seems straightforward enough to me," Applejack said.

"Well, it's presumably addressed to anyone who comes down here," Twilight said. "Which would mean that the point of coming here is to see 'the beginning'. Which probably means the beginning refers to Convergence's seat of power, which makes sense because Convergence said it was the first flame to be created. That much is obvious. But why 'time moves only forward'? First off, it doesn't. I've time traveled on multiple occasions. Starlight can back me up on this. But either way, what does time have to do with anything?"

"Perhaps it's a warning not to get too nostalgic for bygone days?" Rarity offered.

"I was thinking more like it's a No Trespassing sign," Applejack pointed out. "If ponies were as divided in those days as Convergence made it sound, some likely wouldn't be happy with the new state of affairs and would try tampering with the world in an attempt to go back to what they had before."

"At least they were polite enough to leave a warning," Pinkie said.

"Well, we're not seeking to change the past, or bring it back," Twilight said. "The only-"

She was interrupted by a groaning sound from one wall, as a tangle of vines began to slither and retract into the ether. Newly visible behind them was another door.

A moment after the vines stopped moving, several black rocks rose up and broke the puddle's surface, creating a bridge to the door.

"I think that might have been a code phrase!" Pinkie stage-whispered.

"I... don't see any other ways forward," Twilight said, glancing around. "Shall we?"

No objections were raised, and the group proceeded.

Next came a long, descending corridor, its slanted floor trickling with numerous streams of ether as more rivulets leaked in from the ceiling. By now it was impossible for Faye to avoid the stuff; it splashed on her coat and ran against her boots, evaporating quickly and not leaving any lingering wetness.

It felt... not that different from simply being close to it. The ether had a masking effect, a purity that drowned out the underground city's other forces pressing against her mind, replacing them with a singular steadfastness and determination. Faye could see how this would be addictive to some ponies, especially ones who never learned other coping mechanisms for the chaos in their lives. But to her, more than anything, it felt reminiscent of the peace and freedom from distractions she used to find down in the Icereach chapel, where she spent so many hours of her life.

Maybe because that chapel was also so close to the ether. As many times as she had heard warnings about what would happen if you fell in the river - and certainly, that would be more intense than just being splashed a little - she had never connected the ether itself to the way she felt when she was down there.

As the tunnel sloped down, its white-lined facets became less chunky and more regular, until the angles of the rock began carving out circular runes on the walls, shaped like white pinwheels or snowflakes. Thorned vines ducked in and out of the walls at irregular intervals, slithering along the floor like lazily-arranged cables, occasionally pulsating along their length as though they were hoses carrying globs of something.

The further they went, the greater the contrast between black and white became. Getting doused in ether had the side effect of conferring a faint, astral luminescence on everyone, making them easier to see, but it was almost as if the rocks were no longer there at all, and Faye was walking through a void with only disembodied white lines as her guide, rivers of stars tracing their way through the blackness.

This feeling quintupled when the wall runes started moving.

She couldn't question it. It didn't even feel real. But the white lines, especially the ones not connected to any others, seemed to be swimming, or else bobbing gently in place. Some were even spinning. A stream of ether poured down from above, striking the white spokes of one rune and spinning it like a waterwheel.

"So, uh," Rainbow said, breaking the silence. "The world is a disk, right? With actual edges that usually no one goes near because things just stop working right if you get too close? Has anyone ever tried getting past that to see what the underside of the world actually looks like? Because this is trippy. And it's making me wonder if you can get to the zone of things not working right by going too far down, too."

"Not that I'm aware of," Twilight said. "Though the Princesses would have to know. They've been to the moon, after all, and you'd be able to see the other side of the world from there during the terrestrial day. So why wouldn't they have tried to go there?"

"Rockets also exist," Starlight pointed out. "Unless those simply stop working when you try to fly them over the edge."

"But everyone who makes those is only interested in using them for weapons," Corsica countered. "Not in exploring new places."

"Still?" Starlight sighed. "It's been almost twenty years..."

Corsica raised an eyebrow. "Did I not tell you what Icereach is used for these days?"

Twilight cleared her throat from up front. "Look. It's widening out again."

Finally, the tunnel stopped descending, opening out into a space that was somehow cavernous and claustrophobic at the same time. It was a simple box, made of almost no white lines, with puddles of ether on the floor and walls and ceiling. Ether flowed through the air in winding currents without respect for gravity, moving lazily from puddle to puddle. And out of the puddles grew yet more vines, these ones thicker than a stallion's barrel and ending in fanged buds of blue and purple flowers, their maws devouring yet more vines.

In fact, almost every vine in the room was an ouroboros, its own root springing from between its flower's fangs. Thorny circles of all shapes and sizes, they were linked together into massive chains, shackling the roof to the floor, the walls to the walls, pulsating and slowly spinning and indiscriminately binding the room, yet leaving a clear path forward to the end.

Faye's heart hammered as the far wall came into sight. It was a massive door.

The door was ancient and sublimely mechanical, forged from hundreds of thousands of perfectly-interlocking metal parts, inlaid with channels of starry ether. The metal was every bit as black as the stones, and as she held up her bracelet for comparison, she knew there was only one kind of metal it could be.

A sharp breath from Seigetsu confirmed her suspicions.

Twilight eyed up the door from a healthy distance. "Those ether channels... They're more ancient text. Twelve places on the door, each looks like one word..."

"Need a hoof?" Nanzanaya peered up at them, stepping closer.

"Before you spend too much time on that, might want to look behind you," Rainbow added.

Everyone spun around. On the wall, above the exit, was written more ancient scrawl, this time formed with the plain white lines that made up the stone's edges.

Twilight stepped closer, frowning. "It says..." She paused, thinking, then took a breath. "Our perfect world has ascended. Its immutable foundation, free from folly: Three Laws of Evolution to guide our path. Six Elements of Harmony to temper our minds. Twelve Tenets of Eternity to shackle our past. We shall look upon that past no longer."

"Uhhh," Rainbow Dash said.

Starlight looked visibly baffled. "Twelve Tenets of Eternity? Presumably these Laws of Evolution are Yakyakistan's societal virtues - hope, love and knowledge - but twelve? I've never heard of anything in this world's cosmology that comes in a set of twelve."

"Think it has anything to do with the twelve words on that door?" Nanzanaya asked, walking back to the metal door.

"To shackle our past..." Twilight mused. "Well, they could do that in a literal sense if the words on the door happened to function as seals..."

"I've got them," Nanzanaya said. "From the top, it looks like we've got..."

Her face slowly fell.

"Don't actually know them?" Applejack guessed.

"Oh, I know the script," Nanzanaya said. "It's just that every single one of these is a proper noun, most of which I've never heard of before."

"Aldenfold," Twilight said. "Eylista. Indus."

Everyone turned to look at her.

"Optarsaga. Umhuxanjarn. Ymistjorna," Twilight continued, fumbling slightly to pronounce them. "Yriterfingy. Unnrus-kaeljos. Oeztrfroedi. Iklofna. Elskabera. Aflaefold. That's what we've got."

Rainbow Dash whistled.

"Well, at least you know what some of those mean, right?" Corsica said. "Like the Aldenfold is the mountain range dividing north from south."

Twilight nodded. "And Eylista refers to the Immortal Dream, the virtue of hope."

The ether forming the second word on the door pulsed, changing from a peaceful starscape to an apocalyptic, fiery red, exactly like the sky Faye had seen when the two gods did battle.

Everyone jumped back. "Whatever you just did, undo it!" Applejack shouted.

Nothing else happened.

Twilight stepped closer again. "Is this... simply a knowledge check? Correctly identifying what each word means will open its lock, and if we get all twelve, the door will open?"

"Could be," Rainbow said. "Just, that color doesn't exactly scream good vibes, you know?"

"Neither did our talk with Convergence," Rarity pointed out. "Theoretically, though, let's say that Indus is the world before ours, the one that city up above is modeled on."

The door didn't change.

"...No," Starlight said. "That wasn't the word's original meaning. We heard it up there, from the golems. Indus was the name of an inquirarch. The Steward of the Afterlife, he was called."

Again, the door pulsed, and the third word turned from purple to fiery orange.

"That must mean Aldenfold had a meaning before the mountains came to exist," Twilight said. "Which makes sense, because this door obviously predates those. But does anyone have any idea what?"

Starlight shook her head.

For her part, Faye wracked her memories. She knew quite a few of these: Unnrus-kaeljos, the light spirit. Umhuxanjarn, the name Terutomo had put to her bracelet, and the type of metal used in the construction of changeling queen crowns. Some of the others gave her deja vu as well, but she couldn't put words to which ones, or from where.

But did she want to help open this door?

Saving the Flame of Kindness was supposed to be paramount. But Convergence indicated that even with the aid of its place of power, they would need another flame to make this work, which they didn't have. And the longer she looked at this place, with its heavy chains forged from self-devouring vines, the more she wondered if there could be a really good reason this door was sealed.

She stole a glance at Seigetsu, who would obviously know what Umhuxanjarn meant as well. The dragon was characteristically stoic, and didn't seem inclined to participate.

"Well, here's something we could try," Rainbow suggested. "We know Eylista refers to one of Yakyakistan's societal virtues, right? Odds are, the other two are on here as well. So we could just pick and try combinations at random until we learn what the words for the other two are."

"Good idea," Twilight said. "Discounting the ones we know probably mean something else... Optarsaga refers to the Yakyakistani societal virtue of knowledge."

The door didn't change.

Twilight continued, cycling through every word except the first three. At last, she tried Aldenfold, but still nothing happened.

"No dice?" Rainbow frowned.

Starlight shook her head. "More likely, you're using the wrong name. Eylista isn't just called the virtue of hope, it's called the Immortal Dream. The others likely have proper translated names as well."

"Which are...?" Rainbow raised an expectant eyebrow.

"I think love is called the Lovebringer," Starlight said. "But knowledge, I have no idea."

Faye bit her lip. That one was called the Noble History. Princess Luna had specifically told her as much on the train ride, knowing that she was coming down here... Had Luna been intentionally furnishing her with information? There was no other explanation. But whether Luna actually wanted her to open the door, or just to know enough to figure out how the puzzle worked, was an open question.

"Elskabera refers to the Lovebringer, the Yakyakistani Societal Virtue of Love," Twilight said, cycling once again through every option. Suddenly, the door responded, the second-to-last word joining the other two in a fiery glow.

"Looks like you were onto something," Applejack said, patting Rainbow on the shoulder.

As Nanzanaya and the Elements milled around by the door, Corsica stepped up close to Faye. "You keeping quiet about the one the dragons told us for a reason?" she breathed.

Seigetsu glanced at them.

"Can you really not think of any reasons to leave a door like this unopened?" Faye murmured back, loud enough that others could hear if they were paying attention.

Seigetsu nodded in slow approval.

"I can," Fluttershy said, taking a step closer.

"Fluttershy?" Twilight glanced over at her, and the ponies closest to the door all looked up.

"It's just..." Fluttershy took a breath. "Ever since we went into this deeper part, the flame has felt like it's nervous. Not like it's afraid, but like it's not as eager to go on as it used to be. I can't feel it pointing me in a direction anymore. And especially now that we've come to this door. What if the point of the trial isn't to open this door, but to turn away without opening it?"

"We might have to do that anyway," Twilight said. "Unless someone here is holding out a very lot on us - in which case I'd presume they have good reason to do so - there's no way we're going to get all of these. We're at three out of twelve and have exhausted most of our ideas."

Pinkie nodded back at Faye, Corsica and Seigetsu. "Any of you silent types know any reeeally good reasons not to help us open this creepy old door? Beyond that a draconequus indirectly implied that we should do it? And the written warnings? And the way it looks?"

"Just a..." Faye searched for words. "Feeling. After all, this place must have been sealed for a reason, right?"

"Your princesses used to have a castle here, right?" Corsica asked. "On the surface above this place? If they didn't want it sealed, they wouldn't have left it this way."

"Or they've never been past this point themselves," Fluttershy suggested.

Twilight tilted her head at Fluttershy. "Then why would they give this plan their blessing? I'm sure the world is full of evil sealed doors that need to be kept shut at any cost, and this one certainly looks the part, but they wouldn't have let us down here without an unambiguous warning if we would inherently doom Equestria by pursuing our objective. Also, Convergence may have been part chaos, but it was still an Element of Harmony. And it embraced chaos in order to safeguard this world. I just can't see any of those signs pointing to there being something malevolent sealed behind this door."

"Okay," Rainbow said. "But here's an idea. What if whatever's behind this door isn't a thing, but a place?"

Twilight's eyes widened a little as she caught onto Rainbow Dash's meaning, but several others looked confused.

"Think about it," Rainbow said. "What did the warnings you read say? Stuff about not trying to go back to the past? What place were all of these ancient ponies from, and what place do we all know about but have no idea where in the universe it could be?"

"A place too big to easily hide, since it was an entire world," Twilight said. "That's still reachable, but only gets discovered once every few thousand years, if that. And a place we know both Celestia and Luna have been."

Rainbow pounded one hoof against another. "Indus."

"Well..." Applejack looked at the door with a newfound respect. "That change any of your thinking about whether we try to open this thing? I've only gotten the short version of what we know about it, but didn't the Princesses find things there that were better off forgotten? Like that Aegis?"

Twilight nodded. "Supposedly, the methods used to create the first alicorns came from Indus in the first place. Along with Aegis, yes."

"Still, the other side of the world..." Rainbow hovered in place, staring at the door. "What do you suppose it's like down there? Probably completely uninhabitable, if the ponies had to leave. Do you suppose gravity is reversed, and you can just see the other half of the sky, and literally walk around on the other side? Or is our world just another layer on top of theirs, and you can go further down still? I'll bet you those griffon explorers in Starlight's story that found the place two thousand years ago were trying to see how close to the edge of the world they could actually get, and found a way across."

"Probably the former, if you're right about the griffons," Starlight said. "Which you might be. The Griffon Empire borders the edge of the world. Also, Garsheeva was supposedly created through methods brought back by the Indus expedition, and she always frowned on her subjects trying to go too close to the edge."

"For their own good, I'd hope," Rarity added. "But this does make for a convincing ulterior motive."

Applejack tapped a hoof. "This still leaves us with the million-bit question of whether we even want to open this door."

"...Starlight?" Twilight glanced at her friends. "Fluttershy?"

"I don't know what we'd do if we didn't," Fluttershy answered. "I know I said the flame felt hesitant, but what are our other options?"

Starlight grimaced. "Nothing good. Out of eight others, three are broken, two more are in the north, one is at the bottom of the sea, one is in the middle of the dragons' war zone, and one I can't go anywhere near for personal reasons. That said, a lot of the troubles I've faced in life ultimately tie back to Indus. Actually going there is the surest way to get it back on the worst track."

Twilight turned to Seigetsu. "Are you familiar with there being a crystal palace in your peoples' lands? And if so, knowing our mission, would you help us get there?"

Seigetsu frowned. "I am familiar with it. But although I recognize the severity of your mission, I'm afraid that's not possible. Your target is the very focal point of our war. Even were the Convocation to allow it - such an ask would require completely unanimous approval - merely reaching it would put you in dire jeopardy."

Corsica blinked. "Wait, do you mean the dragons' crystal palace literally is Saint Tadashi's tomb?"

Seigetsu nodded. "You have the right of it."

"Alright," Rainbow cut in. "How about the underwater one, then? The Honesty one? Starlight, you've been there before. It took a submarine, but with Celestia on our side we should have no problem getting the resources for a return trip. Right?"

"It might be worth looking into." Starlight shook her head. "I suppose it's our best bet. I just... I hoped we'd be able to take care of this without leaving Ponyville."

"Dunno if I'm missing something," Corsica said. "But what about the one you've got personal history with? If that's the biggest thing wrong with going there, and you also don't want to leave this town, why not just stay here and let everyone else handle it?"

Starlight sighed. "It's complicated. If we have to discuss it, could we go back to the surface first? We should decide once and for all if we're going to leave well enough alone here."

Twilight gave the door a longing look. "Well, now that we know what's down here... Someday, I need to see it. It's my Element, so it's my responsibility, if nothing else. But how can you not be curious to see the remains of a long-dead civilization?"

"Even if we wanted to do it now, we're kinda stumped on the rest of these words," Rainbow said. "We know Aldenfold doesn't mean the mountains. We know one of these is probably the virtue of knowledge, whatever its real name is. And the rest is just gibberish."

As the others voiced their agreement, Faye remembered her conversation with Princess Luna on the train. When she asked about Unnrus-kaeljos, Luna had told her to seek answers here, instead... If the light spirit's name was one of the twelve keys to this door, the Tenets of Eternity, that explained why this place was relevant. But it also told her nothing useful at all.

To learn that, she would probably have to go deeper. But as it was, she knew little enough about the light spirit that she wasn't even confident the door would accept her answer, even though she knew its name. It seemed these mysteries would have to wait indefinitely once again.

The group started turning to leave, and her gaze found Nanzanaya. The zebra had been enthusiastic in helping to decipher writing and theorycrafting with the group trying to open the door, but she hadn't supplied a single answer of her own. What were the odds that she, like Faye, had been keeping her own answers quiet, trying to learn what she could from the rest of the group without sharing her own keys?

Probably very high.

Faye remembered her pact with Seigetsu: play along with Nanzanaya and try to learn what she could of the zebra's intentions and motives, anything that went beyond her professed interest in getting Equestria's military aid. What were the odds Nanzanaya was currently suspecting the same thing of her, that she had held her own tongue about the tenets she knew?

Probably also high.

How did she get herself into situations like this? Faye sighed, looking over her shoulder as she walked away. The three glowing words on the door lost their fire as the party retreated, returning back to normal ether.





When the final pony emerged from the staircase into Convergence's chapel, the crystals that made up the building shimmered, and the table that covered the staircase regrew, leaving no indication that it had ever not been present. Convergence itself was waiting, once again wearing its giant, hooded robe.

"You did not reach your goal," the empty hood said. "What will you do next?"

"Go home," Twilight told it. "And then think about our next move. Down there... That door led to Indus, didn't it? The previous world."

"That is something you must discover for yourself," Convergence rasped. "If you wish to return to the world above, I can alter this city to ease your path. But, before you go, there is one more thing I would tell you, about the nature of our Element and a way in which it differs from the others."

Twilight's ears perked.

"Your Elements are attuned to you through your cutie marks," Convergence said, its hood following all of Twilight's friends. "These marks were given to you because my siblings and I desired champions in this tumultuous age. But my power can also be given through another mechanism. It is hereditary."

Twilight's eyes widened. "You mean if I ever have kids, they'll be able to use my Element too?"

"Most likely," Convergence said. "There are some particulars. Not every descendant will have the power of their ancestor. And the trait has no dormant state, so once it is lost from a bloodline, it will remain that way. However, you are not the first champion to whom I have bestowed my power. Mine is the power to rebind what is broken, and you will see much on your journey to determine how you will use it. I give you this warning only so that you will not be surprised when you meet others who can wield it as well."

"...Right," Twilight said. "Let's go figure out what to make of that back at home."