//------------------------------// // 1: Awakening // Story: Remnants, Forgotten. // by AnkhOmega //------------------------------// Awakening Twilight was excited. When she had read the letter Princess Celestia had sent her the night before she could scarcely believe her eyes. She had re-read the document a total of thirteen times, just to make absolutely sure she was reading it correctly, and that she wasn't misunderstanding something. To my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle. As you are no doubt aware, the Royal Institute of Archaeology has been on expedition within the Everfree forest. Earlier this morning I received an urgent communication from the expedition’s leader, Unearthed Wisdom, stating that they were in dire need of assistance with something that they had dug up within the forest itself. As I have been informed they have ran into a bit of a wall attempting to figure out how to open a door. Unearthed Wisdom asked for anypony I could send who might be of assistance with bypassing an ancient and impossibly complex lock. Naturally, I suggested you, my faithful student. He agreed and is expecting you within the next three days. I admit I am curious as to what secrets this door holds, I know you will do well at this task. Eagerly awaiting news, Princess Celestia. Twilight was very excited, not only did she have a chance to test her knowledge of ancient Equestrian civilisations, she got to work with one of the best, if not the best archaeologist this century. She even got to be part of an expedition! In her head she was about to charge into the depths of long lost secrets, ancient magics and hidden revelations about missing tribes of ancient ponies. Princess Celestia was trusting her to go into an unknown territory and figure out what happened to the ones who built the door. The reports she would write, oh the glorious fully detailed reports. Twilight was giddy. She had packed her saddlebags full to the brim with reference guides, survival gear, parchment, ink, quills and long lasting foods. She had made sure Spike would be cared for while she was away (Thank the sun for Fluttershy), and she had made sure that her friends knew she would be away for an undetermined amount of time, as well as making sure that her schedule was clear for the foreseeable future. The next night, at Pinkie's 'Twilight's going away on an expedition party!' she was starting to get a little nervous, the odd doubt creeped into her mind, whether she would even be able to open the door? What if it was sealed for a reason? What if she...failed? Would Celestia be disappointed in her? Would she no longer be her student? Woul- Luckily for Twilight, Pinkie broke this train of thought with a surprise hug and a fresh glass of punch, preventing the doubt-induced breakdown. All of her friends wished her good luck on the trip, and in a few cases demanded that she come back in one piece. Although, Applejack did have a privately made request that “After y'all are done muckin' around in whatever's buried 'neath that forest....could..could ya come up to the farm, ah need to talk somethin' out with ya.” Which was somewhat unusual. Twilight, not quite perceiving the look Applejack was giving her replied with a straight forward, “I'll make sure to head straight there after I get back...and have a shower.” She smiled and gave her friend a small nuzzle, managing to not notice the soft blush creeping into AJ's cheeks, before melting back into the party. Applejack sighed, desperately trying to lower the heat in her face, when Rainbow Dash slunk over, grinning evilly. “You didn't tell her, didya?” she said, grin widening at AJ's response: A blush filled shake of the head. “Alright, that's it. I'm gonna tell her for ya, right here, right now. Hey Twili-Ah!” Applejack cut off the prismatic mare with a hard yank on her tail. “Rainbow, no! Ah'll tell her in mah own time. When the moment's right and not before, y'hear?” “You've been saying that for the past month! C'mon! If you tell her now, we'll all stop bothering you about it, and she'll have something to...look forward to when she gets back, if you catch my drift.” Dash winked coyly, “No. And that's that. Ah'll tell her when she gets back.” “You know, you could probably just write down your feelings for her and give them to her as a letter, dear.” The commotion had drawn the interest of Rarity away from inspecting the bowl of punch for any traces of a particular toothless reptile. “Ah could do what now?” “Write your feelings down, you know how she loves the written word. And it'll give you a chance to find the right words before you chicken out again.” Rarity smirked, “Plus, a letter of love sounds quite romantic if you ask me.” Dash smiled along, “Yeah, actually that doesn't sound half bad. Twi' would probably go better for an eggheaded thing like that.” Applejack considered this, it did make a certain kind of sense. And having the option to look over what she wanted to say before she said it sounded appealing. “Alright, ah'll do that...But, gals? Could you...ya know, help me out a little with it? Ah ain't too good at stuff like this.” she asked, wish a frustrated sigh. “Of course darling! Anything to assist the flow of love! Ooooh, idea! We could get Fluttershy to help, she's always been a bit of a closet romantic.” Rarity's eyes were practically gleaming, the idea of helping set up her friends with each other seemed to please her to no end. Applejack flushed slightly, but agreed. She was finally going to do it. Provided she didn't immediately chicken out of actually giving her the letter. The rest of the party became a blur of noise, shapes and music. ..//.. Twilight woke the next morning a little frazzled, but otherwise energised and ready to go. She cleaned herself up, showering and brushing her mane and coat quickly, before quadruple-checking that she had everything she thought she'd need on the trip. After snagging a quick breakfast of some alfalfa and orange juice she set off with a beaming smile, ready to tackle whatever the forest could throw at her. This elated attitude quickly vacated her, to be replaced with cautious optimism, as she entered and began to traverse through the forest. The dark, oppressive atmosphere of the place seemed to suck most of her joy away, replaced with nervousness and paranoia over the background noises of the forest. A snapped twig in the bushes nearby nearly made her jump out of her coat. Luckily there were no manticores, hydra's, timberwolves or assorted creatures chasing her, as it turned out the noise was caused by a little brown rabbit that had gotten itself stuck. After helping it out with her magic, and receiving a nuzzle to the forehoof in reward, she set back off in the direction of the expedition's camp site. Lady luck was definitely on Twilight's side today, she managed to reach the expedition camp unmolested by all but errant branches. When she got there she was almost immediately greeted by several fully decked out jungle explorers who took her bags and ushered her into the biggest tent in the camp site. Twilight was momentarily disorientated upon entering the tent, mainly due to it's interior being entirely unlike what a tent should be. Her mind scrambled for a few seconds, trying to figure out how a tent had four clearly solid walls, a ceiling and another room off to the side. The room itself had a lush carpet, a large desk, some oddly fitting red and gold patterned wallpaper and the assorted things you'd expect to find in the office of a professional jungle explorer. Unearthed Wisdom was sitting at his desk, being very nearly dwarfed by it's size, and smirking at the dumbfounded look on Twilight's face. He waited, wanted to see if she could figure it out for herself. “...I..how...wait,” Her horn started glowing slightly, “Oh! A pocket dimension held in place by Windshear's tethering... and a self-recycling rain cloud system...is that Oxy Gen's Habitualizer?” “Very impressive Ms. Sparkle. Not many ponies pick up on the habitualizer.” Wisdom smiled, It seemed that for once, someone higher up had sent him somepony competent. “Please, take a seat. Scotch?” the older unicorn offered, idly waving a hoof in the direction of a chair in front of the desk as he levitated a bottle of liquor out of a cabinet. Twilight sat with a smile, “No thank you, I..uh, I’m not allowed to drink any more...” she tapered off, her smile becoming a little nervous. “Oh? Might I ask why?” the older blue stallion asked, raising a bushy eyebrow. “Err...let's just say that I get a little...unhinged, when inebriated...apparently the guards still haven't gotten all of the tapioca out of the throne room.” She hung her head, ears folding down in embarrassment. There were few things she wished she could change in her life. That day was one of them. Apparently the princesses found it quite funny though. Wisdom's eyebrow remained quirked as he smiled pouring himself a glass and putting the bottle away, “You do realise, I am either going to get some dirt on you and try to blackmail that story out of you, or going to try to get you drunk just to see what happens at some point, right?” He said, running a hoof through his frazzled grey mane and taking a sip of his drink. “Aheh, aaanywho, I hear your stuck on a door.” Twilight said, attempting to change the subject. Wisdom's eyes lit up immediately, momentarily filing away that particular mystery for another day. “Ahah, yes! The Door! We've been trying our damnedest to figure out what it's significance is, or what the symbols on it mean, but we've had very little luck so far. All we've really managed to figure out is that it's metal, it's definitely a door, and that it's ancient. And I don't just mean ancient, I mean Ancient. Pre-unification of the tribes at the very least.” Twilight's jaw dropped, that meant it was thousands of years old, at the very least. Maybe even millenniums. The idea of something that old surviving to this day set all her scholarly parts a-tingle. There could be anything in there! Records of a Pre-Equestrian civilisation! She practically squeed at the possibities. “Glad to see you're so eager to start! Tell ya what, since you're here, and apparently quite enthused...why don't we take a quick peek at The Door before getting your tent set up?” Wisdom offered, smirking at the wide-eyed expression of bliss Twilight had adopted. Celestia sure knows how to pick 'em. He thought as he lead the practically bouncing mare out of his 'tent' and down into the dig site. The site itself was a rectangle of sloping space carved into the ground, roughly 6 feet down towards the far end, with stairs leading down to a metallic shape, which crested the tip of the edge of the site. Even from the edge of the site Twilight could tell that the 'door' was very large, as she approached with Wisdom she came to the conclusion that Celestia herself wouldn't even have to duck to get through the door, horn and all. As they approached she could start to make out the detailing on the door itself. It was covered in arcane symbols, some of which she couldn't even recognize. The runework on the door was more intricate that some of the more powerful artifacts she had come across in the past. It seemed to hum with stored power, though she had no idea where it was storing it (there were no visible crystals at all, and the metal itself wasn't glowing or giving off sparks). They sat before it for a moment, Twilight eagerly soaking in every inch of the latticework of runic symbols, Wisdom watching her. He was surprised by the mare's eagerness to examine The Door, some of his own crew refused to go near it, or were rather lackadaisical when they did. He noticed her horn light up, a magenta magic field encompassing the door. Twilight had decided to see what would happen if she just simply tried to push the door open with telekinetic force, and in doing so discovered the cause of the major stump the expedition ran into. The door was absorbing her magic. Straight from the field. She tried increasing and decreasing the amount of magic she flowed into her kinesis, the effect persisted, draining enough to remove all force from the spell immediately. She let her horn dim. "Hmm. Did you see that?" She asked Wisdom. "See what Ms. Sparkle?" He couldn't quite tell what he as supposed to have seen. "Please, just Twilight is fine," she said, pointing at three spots on the door with her hoof, "There, there and there! Those runes flashed when my magic was being absorbed. Those two look like variations of Clover the Clever's absorption rune, but that one..." she pointed to a still faintly glowing rune near the top of the door, "That one I haven't seen before." "I..I'm impressed, not one of my crew managed to catch that... Well, let's go get your tent set up, before you embarrass the RIA any more than strictly necessary today." Wisdom said, slowly managing to pry her attention away from The Door, and ushering her towards her new temporary accommodation. ..//.. Beneath the surface of Equestria, below the wild and untamed Everfree, within walls of steel and stone, It awoke. It felt the touch. An entry command was issued. It queried the network, looking for where, and who. It found nothing. It's queries timed out. Too many things were offline. It tried to issue an alert, a request for maintenance. They timed out. It tried all the channels, all the commands. All it's requests timed out. It remembered the touch. It searched for the door. The door was touched recently, there was enough power stored there for a desperate move. It would breach security, but it may allow the one who touched inside. It was a slim hope. It searched it's options. It was it's only hope. Expending what little energy it had left it shut down the security on the door, and activated Unit-002. It hoped it would be sufficient. It slept, waiting. It had to be enough.