Eternal Darkness: Pinkie’s Requiem
Page 1: When the sky falls
My head felt like it was going to split open. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. My mane still hung limply around my face, and next to me was the Tome of Eternal Darkness, a grim reminder of yesterday’s events. My dad died, I found a weird book in an alternate dimension, and fought a big monster thing. It was scary to me just how little I apparently knew, about dad, and about everything. Whatever these… things were, in the memory, or vision, or whatever it was, Ulyaoth told Zealous to ‘prepare for his coming’ or something like that. My hoof hovered over the cover to the Tome, causing a shiver down my spine. Part of me screamed, “take it to Celestia, or Twilight, they’ll help!” But another one, one that was more important than anything else, quickly silenced those thoughts.
“The thing that killed my Dad must’ve wanted this; this is related to his killer.”
That monster from yesterday must’ve been what killed Dad, and it must’ve been tearing the house apart for this Tome. A terrifying assumption, and a sad one as well, that my father was murdered for some book.
I hoisted myself off of the floor, my limbs crying out against the stress. Once on my hooves again, I grasped the book in my mouth. I stumbled down the stairs, dropping the book at their base while I flipped my kitchen table back to a standing position. I started to sift through the remains of my kitchen, hoping in vain to find something edible, so I wouldn’t have to go into town, leaving the house, and the Tome, behind. My thoughts drifted to the flesh-bound book lying in front of the stairs. The coarseness of the flesh, the stench coming off the book, the strangeness of the world where the book was located, my eyes locked on the Tome, my tongue tingling with the sensation of the bony spine in my mouth as I brought it down the stairs.
A knock on the door snapped me out of my remembrance. The knocking was quickly accompanied by a gruff male voice calling “Pinkamena.” I rushed over to the book, and pulled it into a little hiding hole under the stairs. I galloped over to the front door and swung it open, only to have a unicorn guard staring me in the face. “Miss Pinkamena?”
“Yes, yes that’s me, hello.” I said with as much cheer as I could muster.
“I was just wondering if you could use some breakfast, considering how beat up your kitchen was and all.” The guard used his magic to levitate a small cake box in front of me. “I know that you’re a little upset because we couldn’t do anything to help your father, but that doesn’t mean we have to be enemies,” he said as he clicked his teeth together.
I was confused at first, until I realized that I had been gritting my teeth without realizing it. “I don’t consider us enemies,” I said, “I just want to find out what happened to my dad, and since I can’t get any help from the guard…”
“Actually that was something we forgot to talk about yesterday,” the guard interjected, “this is technically an active case of the Celestial Guard,” he puffed out his chest proudly, causing me to notice that he hadn’t come here in his armor.
“And this being an active case means?” I asked impatiently. Partly I wanted to continue investigating the Tome, and because the cake that the guard had brought smelled damn good.
“If you find anything related to the case, anything that might implicate who wanted your father dead, you give it to me and I’ll bring it to Canterlot to be analyzed.” I could feel my chest tightening, and I could almost feel the cold sweat forming on my brow.
“Well,” I started, “it’s sad then that I haven’t found anything.”
“No offense,” the unicorn continued, “but I don’t really expect you to find anything that we didn’t.” He nervously shuffled around in his armor, “I was told to tell you that, but we did search the premises pretty well, we didn’t half-ass this.”
“I get it, come inside, I could use something sweet and chocolaty for breakfast right about now.”
Once the stallion and I had sat ourselves down at my kitchen table, and set the table with any unbroken china that I could find lying around, we both grew quite silent. I began ravenously devouring the cake laid in front of me, occasionally flitting my eyes upwards at my guest, making sure his eyes didn’t wander.
“So,” the stallion began, “what do you think?”
“About what?” I asked, I looked back down at the cake presented to me, “oh right, yeah it’s really good.”
The stallion smiled, “I’m sure that you could’ve done better, I visited Sugarcube Corner once, it makes the cooking at Canterlot Castle seem amateurish.”
I blushed a little at the compliment, “thanks. Crap, I just realized that I hadn’t asked your name yet!”
The guard chuckled a bit, “it’s quite alright miss, and my name is Life Guard,” he said as he reached out his hoof to shake. I returned the gesture and went back to devouring the sugary treat before me. The guard began to delicately eat the cake laid out before him. Using his magic to slowly skewer each small bite of cake and put it into his mouth, unlike me he also bothered to chew. After a few bites he stopped and just looked at me.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“Umm, well...” he stammered, “I was wondering if Incantessa Octavia Pie was your sister?”
I looked up from my delicious delicacy at the blushing unicorn before me. Barely able to contain his fan boyish glee. “I’m sorry to burst your bubble,” I began, “but she’s getting married.” His blushing nervousness was replaced by a downcast frown. “She’s been keeping it on the hush-hush, but she’s getting married to some mare named Fiddlesticks, or something.” I just went back to my cake, best if I let him down fast; maybe he’ll leave so I can investigate the Tome some more.
“Oh...” Life muttered, “I-I always just assumed that, she...”
“Was just some lonely mare, looking to be swept off of her hooves.” I responded dryly, “trust me you ain’t the only one, I think even she thought that for a little while.”
“Are the two of them happy together?” the white-coated unicorn asked.
“Oh, yeah, they get all lovey-dovey whenever they’re in town, it’s crazy.” Applejack would have reprimanded me for lying, but I think it was necessary. Truth is I hadn’t had a lot of interaction with Inkie since she and went our separate ways. Heck, I hadn’t even recognized her at the Gala. Wasn’t to say that everything that I said was a lie though. I did know that Octavia, premier cellist of Canterlot Court was courting a farmhand named Fiddlesticks, and that they intended to marry. I also hadn’t seen Blinkie in years either; but I needed to get that guard out of my house, before he spotted the Tome.
Life Guard and I finished our meal in silence. Once finished he stood up to leave, “I thank you for the morning company miss Pie.” He bowed and began to leave, before turning to me, “if you want I can come back with some more food tomorrow, or the day after.”
“Thanks,” I responded, “but why are you being so nice?”
“A colt can’t be nice to a mare that just lost her dad?” he joked. “But seriously, Celestia was very impressed with your dedication, despite how they may have acted none of the guards wanted to be out here.” A pause followed his words, “Not that there’s anything wrong with here!” he quickly added.
“I’m not upset, but why are you here then, did you get the short straw?” I joked.
“I requested the position,” he stated frankly. “Like I said, I went to Sugarcube Corner and thought that you were a really good baker, so I wanted to help. Also, I wanted to ask after your sister.”
“Yes,” I responded “but now that you know…”
“It would be rather callous of me to stop helping you, in the few ways that I can, just because I found out that your sister is taken,” a flicker of sadness dotted his face, “like I said, I’ll return tomorrow, and the day after, I’ll return here with at least a breakfast of some kind as long as you need, before you can accept what the guards have, we’ll probably never know what took Rocky Road’s life, and I’m truly sorry for that.”
With that the pale-white unicorn began walking off into the distance, undoubtedly towards a guard carriage of some kind. “Hey,” I called after him, “call me Pinkie Pie, all my friends do.” He turned and nodded before continuing back to the guard carriage. Once he was gone I dashed to the small compartment under the stairs, and retrieved the Tome of Eternal Darkness.
I rushed upstairs with the Tome, and ducked into my father’s study. I placed the Tome onto dad’s desk, stopping to take a look at the hidden door behind the desk. The plush-red door stood ominously as another sharp reminder of the previous day. I wandered through the doorway once again, scanning the room for anything of interest. My eyes fell on a small crumpled piece of paper lying underneath the former resting place of the sword. I smacked myself for missing something so obvious.
Examining the page more carefully I noticed it was made of dried skin. It crumpled at the slightest touch, almost as if it was resisting being moved. Tentatively, I pick it up in my hoof, gently, as the page feels as though a stiff breeze would shatter it. My eyes dart between the page and the Tome, a thought wormed its way into my head. I placed the page in the body of the Tome. The page seemed to twist and bend its peeled skin, curling around the spine of the Tome. A bright flash accompanied the rejoining, and I fell unconscious again.
26 P.D. (Post-Discord era)
A chitin-coated creature shambled through the entrance to the ancient temple, located far within the borders of the Everfree. He is a simple changeling, a small, unimportant drone, without even a name to call his own. He is simply referred to as Drone #5065. But even a changeling was aware of the rumors of the Everfree forest, and what lay within it. The Everfree forest was considered a place of chaos. The Everfree was where the normal rules of the newly formed republic of Equestria didn’t matter.
The clouds, which now bent to the will of ponies, still moved along their own paths. The creatures of the forest, once loving creatures that would not even consider devouring a pony, now raged across the forest, consuming any poor creature that came within walking distance of them. So why was #5065 wandering through this horrid place? Why was he going alone into a terrible place such as the Everfree? Love. The love for a mare that his kind often fed on, but he was receiving through none of the deception his kind normally had to engage in.
Her name was Raspberry. That was the name of the mare that he loved, and it was at her request that he found himself wandering through this dreadful place. Raspberry was apparently working for the Princess of Equestria, Celestia, who had sensed a great amount of magical energy coming from the Everfree forest. The trade-off was simple, #5065 goes into a temple that Raspberry had located and retrieves an artifact, and Raspberry would agree to marry him. Drone #5065 smiled, rare for his species, and entered into the temple, head held high.
The air in the temple was musty; it felt like sawdust clouding his lungs. The stones that made up the floor and walls were cracked with age. They felt as though a swift kick would reduce them to dust. Columns sprang up from the floor, holding the golden ceiling aloft. The plainness of the floors and walls clashed with the elegance and extravagance of the columns and ceiling. The stone pillars were coated in paints, depicting ponies praying to a mysterious light shining down from the sky. The ceiling above was made of solid gold, the small slivers of light from the outside that peered through reflected off of the surface, and shown down on the pedestal that lay at the other end of the room, across from #5065.
The pedestal was also made of a solid gold, and took the form of two clawed hands, wrapped around one another, holding a large book aloft. #5065 cautiously took his first step deeper into the temple, his breathing shallow, and his eyes focused on the pedestal and the book. The walk across the temple floor to the pedestal felt like a lifetime, but finally #5065 reached his goal. In front of him stood the pedestal, and on it a book bound in flesh and bone. The changeling reached for his prize, but as he reached his hoof towards the book a blue barrier sparked into being, protecting the book. The changeling prodded the barrier with his hoof a few times, watching as the colored shield spread out from his touch, and seemed to invisibly cover the area around the book.
Undeterred, the drone examined the surrounding area. On either side of the temple, were large doors decorated with brightly colored murals. To the left was a door depicting a male and female pony in the midst of coitus. Their bodies merged, and sitting upright with an apple tree concealing their private parts. The door on the right showed the same female giving birth to a child. The foal, dripping in blood, is shown in the arms of the father, holding it above his head for all to see.
#5065 moved towards the door that showed conception. He pressed his hooves against the smooth rock, which gave way with little effort. The rocks pushed aside revealing the room beyond. Dull fire emanated from torches in the corners of the room, as well as a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. At the edge of the room was another large mural, colored much darker than the murals on the doors. This one depicted a small group of ponies running from what looked like Discord. A bright yellow light shot out from the monster’s hand, engulfing the ponies in the painting. The ponies in the mural seemed… strange. Their forms were ragged and malnourished, and the light seemed to cover their genitals. The rest of the room was barren, except a strange mechanism under the mural, and a large slab, elevated about five feet off of the ground.
The changeling drone cautiously walked into the room. #5065 was drawn to the mural. The blackened color of Discord’s visage was striking and large, while the ponies were made to look so weak. He examined the mechanism located under the mural. There were three hoof-sized indents located far below the ponies, the yellow light, and Discord. Above the indents was text, written in ancient pony, which thankfully #5065 could read.
A summer of simplicity, a simple life that came to a head
A winter of darkness, chaos engulfed us
An autumn of scraps, a peoples half-dead, waiting for the end
A spring of abundance, the people rejoiced, for they were happy.
Those who worship the sun are fools,
Blinded by its rays, they cannot see the ground.
Those who worship the dark are monsters,
Turned to barbarism at the request of a mad god.
But those who worship life are given it in return,
They who are famished will be given food,
They who are barren will be made fertile.
Not the fools who worship the sun,
Not the darkness the covers the land,
But those who are at their lowest shall be made new.
Those who were last, will be made first, and the darkness and his evil will bow
To Us.
Drone #5065 looked upon the mural with caution and interest. The indentations were meant as a test, a test he would need to pass. He read and reread the passage again and again, attempting to piece together the solution. Finally, he cautiously pressed his hoof into the indentation below the group of malnourished ponies. Despite the miniscule pressure applied, the indented stone quickly slammed back, further into its slot. He then repeated the process for the switch under Discord, and under the yellow ray of light. As the last switch slammed its way into the slot the torches in the corners of the room went out, leaving only the light directly above the slab in the center.
“Uhnn,” a slight moan echoed through the room. #5065 swung his head around, trying to find the source of the sound. “Uhnn, ugh,” more sounds echoed, the voice sounded as though it was in pain. “Ahhh,” a scream pierced the room; the changeling pressed his hooves tightly against his head to block the sound, to no avail. The screaming continued for several more agonizing seconds, ending with sickening squelch sound. Drone #5065 removed his hooves from his ears and examined the room, his eyes locked on the slab, and his stomach turned.
The slab was covered in blood. The blood was pooling along the flat end of the slab, and continued to ooze from an unknown source. Suddenly blood began dripping from the air as well, with small droplets forming a few feet away from the slab. The invisible source of the drips began to move away from the slab and towards the mural. Blood continued to materialize from the air, #5065 shuffled away from the blood. Now pony voices echoed through the chamber, “Hear us, bless this new life, that she may make new life of her own!” #5065 continued searching for the source of the voices, but he was all alone in the room, despite the fact that it was as if the speaker were right next to him. “Let her rise against the Dark God, let her reject the Yellow God in service of the Corpse God!” the invisible voice screamed. Now blood began to pool along the ground in front of the mural, and the blood coming from the slab had stopped. “Now we shall give her mother as a sacrifice to the almighty, Mantorok, the corpse God!” this was followed a loud thwack, the sound of metal slamming into rock. #5065 examined the curved point of the slab, and saw it indent ever so slightly, as though an axe had slammed against it, and blood now ran from the curved point all along the ground. Sickened beyond belief, the changeling drone ran for the exit, slamming into the door, before opening it and tumbling through.
When the drone regained his balance he found himself in a strange room, different to the entrance where he had found the artifact. This room was much smaller, more of a hallway than a room. All along the hallway were columns, but only the ones to either side of Drone #5065 had anything on them. The one to his right was a bust of a griffon, and too his right was a pony. Across the way was a statue depicting a large pony-esque creature, but with large tentacles popping out of it’s back, and some of these tentacles were holding a book.
The changeling’s eyes darted around the room, searching for a way out. Behind him the door had disappeared, and there appeared to be no windows. The changeling pressed his hooves against the statue of the griffon, finding no indentations. After checking the other statue his eyes were drawn to the book at the end of the room. The book seemed to pull him closer, the monster statue’s eyes, a searing blood red, almost called to him. Before he knew it his hoof touched the spine of the book, engulfing him in a white light, and seemingly teleporting him back to the temple entrance.
#5065 woke up to the realization that he was no longer alone in the temple. Huddled around the artifact was a group of ponies dressed in rags, many of them were Unicorns or Pegasi. In fact the only one that wasn’t was a Raspberry red earth pony, which just so happened to be Raspberry, #5065’s ladylove. The crowd of ponies murmured among themselves when the Changeling appeared, pointing to the strange book that now lay in front of #5065. Raspberry simply smiled and quickly trotted over to the changeling drone’s side.
“I told all of you that it wasn’t impossible!” she shouted, “Mantorok has chosen another to be his vassal, this is a sign, a glorious sign.” Raspberry leaned down and kissed #5065 on the cheek, causing a blush from the drone. “Tonight we shall celebrate, Mantorok will surely hear our prayers now!” The crowd agreed and began to funnel in foods and alcohol from outside the temple into its center. “Thank you so much!” Raspberry said to #5065 again with a kiss, “you’ve done so much, tonight we will be wed, in the manner traditional of my people.”
The changeling drone’s face lit up and he gave an affectionate nuzzle to his bride-to-be, but, allowing his curiosity to get the better of him, he pointed to the artifact in the center of the room.
“Oh, that thing?” Raspberry responded, “It’s an artifact that is meant to commune with a God, a God named Xel’lo’toth.” She paused and put her hoof to her chin in thought. “I suppose that you could say that we guard it, many years before I was born our people found a real God, named Mantorok.” Raspberry motioned to the bright light at the top of the columns, “He saved us from certain death, asking only for our help in protecting this treasure,” she motioned to the artifact, still encased in a strange magical shield. She tapped #5065 on the shoulder, “now come on, we need to get ready for the wedding!”
Preparation for the wedding only took about an hour. And soon enough Drone #5065 was standing in front of artifact, with Raspberry at his side and a throng of ponies in front of them, gorging themselves on various sugary treats. A male unicorn walked up to the two of them and levitated twin hoof clasps over to them.
“Today we celebrate a glorious union, this union under Mantorok, which means more children who can serve the great Corpse God,” the unicorn shouted.
Noticing #5065’s confused look Raspberry assured him, “all of us are considered children of Mantorok, don’t worry, it doesn’t mean anything serious.”
“We pray for this union, that Mantorok will see fit to bless them with a child.” The unicorn and the crowd cheered, before Raspberry kissed #5065, seemingly ending the ceremony. On the one hoof the changeling was under the impression that wedding ceremonies were supposed to be longer than that, but he was mesmerized by the sweet and seductive kiss from Raspberry. She pressed her lips against his and pushed her tongue into his mouth. She continued to take the lead, wrapping her tongue in long arcs around his. The drone decided to take some initiative, slowly sliding his tongue along the bottom of hers, meeting again at the tip.
After those glorious few seconds were over the unicorn who had led the ceremony put a hoof on Raspberry’s shoulder, and locked eyes with her. She nodded, and started towards the room that #5065 had visited before, a long smile across her face. The changeling stared lustfully after his new bride, which the unicorn noticed. “Now is the really fun part, go after her,” he said. #5065 coughed and tried to look innocent but the unicorn simply laughed it off. “The ceremony isn’t over yet, you have to consummate your new love before you’re officially married.” The crowd began to file towards the other door that #5065 didn’t go inside. “Now we all go and pray that your love will bear fruit, take a little time to psyche yourself up though, if you need it.” He patted the drone on the back and left for the door with everypony else, closing it behind him.
Drone #5065 was frozen in place. He looked at what he could see of his reflection in the artifact. He started to wonder if he should take the form of a generic stallion, to make it less awkward the first time. Then again wouldn’t that defeat the purpose? She had married Him after all. But then again, he was just a changeling, he had never heard of a changeling conceiving with a pony in their natural form. Drones did possess genitals but he had always assumed that they were meant to get the drone used to the idea of having them. Worried thoughts spun through the changeling’s mind; he pushed his hoof towards the artifact, causing the barrier to reappear. He tried to get a better look at himself in the barrier, which shattered under his touch, causing his hoof to touch the artifact. It glowed a sickly green and shot the changeling backwards into a nearby flesh-bound Tome.
Drone #5065 awoke on the mysterious slab in the consummation room from earlier. Lying next to him was the sleeping body of Raspberry, his love. His eyes darted around the room, but saw none of the horrors that had plagued it earlier. He warily stepped off of the slab, his hind legs wobbly, but was able to stand upright.
“Bad dreams?” called Raspberry, causing the changeling to swerve around to face her. He shook his head, his wife smiled seductively, “good ones then?” again he shook his head no. Drones didn’t have dreams, dreams were individual after all. #5065 knew that his wife wouldn’t understand his woes, as ponies were fearful and confused by anything that wasn’t them. Not that he could blame them, after the destruction wrought by Discord, the last of his kind, he could understand a touch of xenophobia. He looked around the room for anything that would help him change the topic, his eyes settled on the mural that contained the puzzle he solved earlier.
“Our history,” Raspberry responded to his wordless question, “how we came to be in this position.” She hoisted herself off of the slab, she pressed her hoof against the image of Discord. “Once, before Discord, Pegasi and Unicorns were more powerful than anything else in this world.” #5065 looked confusedly at her head and back, “I’m an earth pony, but my mother and father were unicorns, powerful ones too, Unicorn’s of the royal bloodline, rendered obsolete by the dual arrivals of the Princesses and Discord.” Her hoof slides along the yellow ray of light that led from Discord to the ponies. “When the Princesses gathered the Pegasi and Unicorns together to fight Discord they were worshipped, they were to become the rulers of Equestria. But some disagreed with them and went to fight Discord on their own, to earn back their kingdoms and the right to rule.” #5065 put his hoof on his wife’s shoulder, and gave her a soft nuzzle.
“They lost,” Raspberry stated, “but they lost more than their kingdoms.” She tapped her hoof at the ponies, “through magic that none of them even knew existed, Discord, what we call the Yellow God, cursed them, us, with infertility for the rest of time, that we, and our old ways of thinking, would slowly die.” Raspberry and #5065’s eyes fell on the poem below, “once he was defeated we asked Celestia and Luna for help, but they claimed they could not fix us, so we left, we believed that no hope was left for us.” Raspberry’s frown turned to a smile, as she returned the nuzzle of her new husband, “Mantorok saved us, through praying to him, and building this temple and altar, we were able to temporarily restore our fertility. That is why that slab and this room exist, they are the only ways that we’ve found to birth our children.” But the changeling was focused on something else, namely the mural. He remembered the poem, and the mural, and the slab, but one thing he remembered wasn’t there anymore.
The indentations below the mural were gone.
#5065 tapped his hooves against the stone, searching for the indents. “What is it?” his wife asked. He made a motion to indicate that he thought that there were supposed to be buttons there, but Raspberry shook her head. “No, this isn’t some sort of machine, it’s just a mural depicting our history, so that we never forget what drove us to this, and our children will always know what we went through for them.” The changeling drone looked worryingly at his new wife, who nervously looked away, “you’re worried about having a kid?” #5065 nodded, “because you’re worried about me?” he nodded again, “well, yes, a lot of ponies from my clan do die in childbirth, I’d say probably 90%, but you’re the vassal of Mantorok, you bear the Tome, I’m sure that he’ll protect me...” #5065 shook his head, he pointed out towards the direction of his hive, a few miles out in the direction of the castle of the Royal Pony sisters, where they had hidden during the fight with Discord. “You want us to leave?” he nodded furiously, “I can’t just leave my people like that, I can’t...” Raspberry stopped herself, “you did that for me though,” she looked into his eyes, he stared back, begging her to go with him. “Alright, If you think it’ll be safer to have the baby somewhere else, then I suppose I owe it to you to try.”
A blasting noise from outside the room caused the two to jump, the Unicorn priest from before burst into the room, out of breath. “Both of you must run, the temple is being attacked, not sure who.” Another blast erupted from outside, the three ran out into the lobby, where many of the Unicorns of the clan were attempting to use force fields to hold the door to the outside shut.
#5065 tapped Raspberry on the shoulder, and pointed again in the direction of the hive. “You want me to run that way? Why, what’s deeper in the...” she stopped and thought a moment, “The changeling hive you come from, they’d never think to look for me there!” He nodded, and used his magic to etch his number into the wall; he tapped his hoof against it. “#5065, if I tell them that then they’ll know that you sent me here?” he nodded, “Okay good, then we can just teleport outside and make a break for it.”
“Hold on!” the brown Unicorn priest cried, “we can’t leave without the artifact piece, lord Mantorok wanted us to protect it, and the Tome!” The door began to shudder with each successive blast against it, with many Unicorns fainting from overuse of magic. Raspberry ran for the artifact, with #5065 in pursuit. He tried to form words to tell her not to touch the artifact, but to no avail. Raspberry grabbed the artifact in hoof and, engulfed in a green glow she disappeared. #5065 screamed out, but the Unicorn priest grabbed him and shoved the Tome into his hooves. “You must run, Mantorok can surely take you to wherever the artifact sent her, go through the other door and keep going until you reach the sanctum.” #5065 ran to the door depicting birth and sprinted through, as he started to close the door behind him, he heard the doors burst open.
“You!” cried a raspy voice, “where is the artifact?” The pony who was speaking walked just into #5065’s line of sight. He wore golden armor, worn down from age to a rusty tint, his fur had clearly long since fallen off, and his skin was a dark blue. Where his eyes should’ve been were two yellow irises, surrounded by blackness. His teeth were rotted and filled with holes, visible due to his lack of a proper mouth or lips. Despite being an earth pony, he appeared to have magic, as a claw had erupted from his shadow and was choking the priest.
“You... cannot... win,” the priest mumbled with as much breath as he could manage. “It... Is no longer... here.”
The rotting pony’s shadow claw readjusted its grasp so it now grasped the priest’s head, before snapping it backwards. “Search the area, I want the artifact found.” The changeling ran deeper into the building, running past door after door, trying to evade the horrors that were all to close to catching up to him. He ran through room after room, searching for a way out, or at least some way that he could fight back. The changeling kept running until he barreled through a door into a wide-open room.
The room was huge, with seemingly no way out other than the way he came in. In the four corners of the room were large columns that bore the strange symbol on the Tome. The columns were made of limestone with gold etched along the top. And in the center was a large indent and within it laid a giant monster.
The large purple creature filled the entire crevice, and was made of eyeballs and tentacles. In its center was a large hole surrounded by teeth. #5065 started to back away from the creature, his eyes darting around the room, desperately looking for another way out.
“tHe ArtIfaCt?” echoed a voice. The changeling backed closer to the door he came in, sweat forming on his brow. “wHeRe?” The drone pointed towards the direction of the hive; the eyes of the monster in front of #5065 locked on him, following his hoof. “HmM…” #5065 frantically pointed behind him, stopping when the purple beast in front of him let out a shrill wail.
“So this is where you were hiding,” a familiar raspy voice called from behind #5065. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Mantorok.” The rotting pony from out in the lobby walked up behind them, flanked on all sides by zombies.
“zEaLOuS,” uttered Mantorok.
“And it appears you have found somepony else to use the Tome, trying to stop me are we?” Zealous questioned.
“YoU aRe A MoNsTEr, You CanNoT WiN LicH,” Mantorok screeched.
“We shall see,” Zealous said, “Antorbak Magormor Ulyaoth!” A bolt of energy flew from him and blasted #5065. The changeling landed on top of Mantorok, as the beast’s tentacles began to wrap around him, and drag him to the center. A loud screech erupted from the giant monster, and a flash of light destroyed the zombies accompanying Zealous, and blasted Zealous out of the room.
“SLeeP NoW, KnOW ThAT YouR WIFe SHaLl SurVivE.” Those words from Mantorok put a smile on #5065’s face. Even as he was dragged into Mantorok’s mouth and wordlessly devoured.
I woke up, armed with more knowledge than I started with. Firstly I know knew that the pages of the Tome were important, and that for some reason these specific pages, and memories, were important. But the biggest question that I was left with, was why this Zealous was so powerful now. I slowly wandered back into my fathers study, and started shifting through the books on his desk. I figured that if dad knew about the Tome and about all of this stuff with Zealous, and wanted me to find the book, then he would leave me some kind of clue as to how to beat him.
Among the books that were scattered around the desk was one opened to a section on pony mythology, namely an entry that read Lich. I read and reread the entry several times, the fact that it was written in ancient pony didn’t help matters. But using what I could decipher from my time as the changeling drone I understood enough. Enough that when I went to sleep at night the book’s passage rang through my head.
Lich: A Lich is a creature of immense power, summoned from death to serve a master. The Lich is gifted much of the power that its master has, and is ageless, able to live as its master intends. The only way to completely kill a Lich, is to attack it with a being of equal strength.
“Great,” I thought, “now I just need a God.”