The Archives of Equusweyr

by Coranth

5. Archive #5 - Our Prince and the Undead

If there is one thing our Prince cannot abide by, it is the Undead.

You see, our Prince believes that there is an Afterlife for all souls - whether good or bad - and anything that prevents said souls from reaching that Afterlife is anathema; thus he treats the dead with the highest of respect! When we mortal ponies die, for example, he leaves us not in the Earth to rot; he entombs us - with all the possessions we had in life - inside wondrous sarcophagi, within a Pyramid Tomb, close to Equusweyr. Even better, those whom have served Him particularly well - or whom have lived with honour and done much to spread the Magic of Friendship - are entombed deep within Equusweyr itself, in a place he calls "The Hall of the Honoured Dead." The process is thus: when we die, our Prince carefully washes and anoints our bodies with the perfumes or colognes we enjoyed in life; then, after positioning us as if we are merely sleeping, he places about our necks a device called a Stasis Yoke. The yoke sheathes us within a powerful Temporal Stasis Field which completely stills the passage of time; he does this that we might one day live again (and we just might; his medical technology becomes more advanced with every passing year).

The Stasis Yoke does its job so well that - even after thousands of years - our bodies are still as fresh and vibrant as they were the day we passed; we look as if we might wake at any moment! With our bodies in stasis our Prince then places us carefully within our sarcophagi (the inside of which resemble beds more than coffins!); these then are placed inside separate ares within the Pyramid Tomb; these having been done up to resemble a favorite place, or room we enjoyed in life (bedroom, study, den, outdoors, etc) with all our worldly possessions therein. When the Prince first showed me the First of the Pyramid Tombs, I sneered; I believed that it was some grisly, blasphemous thing... but then I saw my beloved Chelsea - a teacher by trade - who'd fallen down a sinkhole...

The 'room' she was in was her study - a place she'd adored in life - complete with all her beloved books, papers, lesson plans within her desk... everything she'd loved in life was here... and so was she! Her sarcophagus was a marvel; a collage of photographs from her life utterly covered the golden metal coffin, and the top end was transparent; I could see her, right there, her eyes closed, at rest. No sign of rot, or decay, or... s-she... she just looked as if she was sleeping! Below the transparent area of the sarcophagus was embedded a PADD - a Personal Access Display Device, and it was keyed to me, that I could view the very story of her life from birth to death in living color. This... it all was too much... I...

Turning to face our Prince, I fell at his hooves and wept but even as I did the teal alicorn hauled me to my feet and embraced me. "I will do the same for you, when your time comes," stated he, softly, "that one day you will live again." Did I believe him? Yes, I did. At his softly spoken words, I wept all the harder. How could he love us so much - that he would do so much for us even when we died? Ah, but I disgress. The Pyramid Tombs are a marvel all their own; thickly armored, guarded by Templars and surrounded by powerful Photon Cannon emplacements; none will ever harm our honored dead. Now... as I stated before, if there is one thing our Prince cannot abide by, it is the Undead. To clarify: he does not hate the Undead themselves; rather he pities them for the souls trapped within the shambling, decayed bodies he believes are in pain or undergoing great personal suffering. To 'kill' an Undead, our Prince believes, is to release the spirit from the body, freeing them from torment.

Thus, our Prince utterly loathes and despises Necromancers who might raise undead servants, cast curses powerful enough to alter the purpose of an undead mind, or affect the dead in other ways. This, then, brings us to the story of the place known as 'Sunny Town.' Our Prince became aware of the place when he was having breakfast with us, his Court, one day in Equusweyr. As he made his way through a bowl of "Cheeri-O's" and read through the "Equestria Daily", a headline caught his eye, roughly three pages in:

Humming thoughtfully, our Prince read the article the headline preceded... and as he did so, a frown creased his muzzle. 'What is this place - this "Sunny Town" - in my domain? And why do I not know of it?' With a gentle tap, tap, tap, of a hoof against the an armrest of his Golden Throne the court was brought to silence. Then, eyes aglow with his latent power, our Prince softly intoned, "Khorvas, ma 'eylan?" Having just finished off a slice of toast (slathered with marmalade, yum!) I raised my head to look at him and promptly answered, "Yes, m'lord?" Raising a hoof, our Prince beckoned me approach him and with haste I complied; when I was with him, by his side he tapped the headline of the article he'd read. "This place - this, 'Sunny Town' - within my domain. What is it?" he asked. As he spoke, all in the Court felt a chill run down our spines. "It... is known as the Village of the Blanks, your Highness" I replied uneasily. Humming thoughtfully, our Prince blinked and then, "A foal has been abducted, apparently by those of this Village" he stated. "They of Greater Equestria are... terrified... of this place; ergo they are doing naught about it. But we are not the Ponies of Celestia. I would rescue this abducted foal if I can; thus, I would know of this 'Village of the Blanks.' Dispatch some of our Archivists to the Library of Twilight Sparkle; see if she possesses any books about it. Should she have nothing, then have them make for Canterlot and the Royal Archives there."

"At once, m'lord," I responded. Then, pausing for a moment, I asked, "What of Princess Celestia?"

"Inform one of the Archivists to ask Twilight to contact her through Spike" the Prince replied. "It would make things easier for all of us if we could acquire Royal Permission to access the Canterlot Archives directly. I am, however, not averse to doing things... 'Splinter Cell' style... if she won't play nice..." At this, we grinned deviously; knowledge was everything to us, and I certainly didn't mind when the Prince chose to do things 'Splinter Cell' style - via a stealthy Pegasus or a quietly placed Observer - but today wasn't to be one of those times. "Gather your best, my friend, and do whatever you must!" our Prince declared. "We mayn't have much time..." And just like that, the game was afoot! The next day I and my Archivists returned with several books and a couple of large scrolls; the books being filled with what the 'general public' knew about Sunny Town and the scrolls being Princess Celestia's knowledge of the place. After thanking us for our work, the Prince sat upon his Golden Throne to read--and with the Weyrmind assisting him he read fast!

What he read, the Weyrmind read, seeing through his eyes and absorbing the knowledge from his mind via the Neural Transceiver within his spine; then so too did we all as the Weyrmind shared the knowledge with us. As the Prince read - as the Weyrmind, too, read and shared with us... our expressions became darker and darker. And so it was that we all learned of "the Blanks"; a Village of blank-flanked Earth Ponies who'd settled in the Everfree. Led by a stallion named Elder Greyhoof, these ponies believed that 'cutie marks' - the marks that appeared upon a pony's flanks due to the Magic of Harmony, when a Pony found his or her Special Talent - were some kind of curse! The blank flanks feared cutie marks, possibly because they were seen as some sort of slave-brand, or perhaps were thought to be binding, somehow; that when you got them, you were "stuck" doing only that talent for life. Sheer superstition and nonsense it may have been... but the ponies of Sunny Town believed it. The sheer power of their belief was enough that when a young filly named Ruby acquired a cutie mark...

Elder Greyhoof led the entire village to murder her and her family in an effort to remove the 'cutie mark curse.' And lo, it was done; the Blanks burned little Ruby and her family alive by setting their cottage aflame. Upon hearing about it, Princess Luna called down upon the Village of the Blanks a terrible curse that their spirits might never find rest: these blank-flanked ponies would forever border the line between life and death. They would become Undead. By the time our Prince finished reading, our expressions were of rage and his own was thunderous! "Yes, they committed a terrible crime, but the price for it was paid long ago," he hissed, eyes ablaze with psychic fire. "This must not be. We will find them. Set them free." By his will, it would be done. Later, as I, my Prince, and a few of our Templars headed down to what he called the 'War Room' of Equusweyr, with a thought to the Weyrmind he dispatched a fleet of Observers to locate the village.

Within the War Room - a place few of us had ever been - as the Observers zoomed throughout the forest, our Prince convened us about a huge holographic screen built into a grand table. A few of us knew the wondrous device as the "ess-em-aye" but barely understood it beyond that. I, however - being close to my Prince and thus privy to many of his mysteries - knew this to be the "Strategic Mission Interface." This marvelous device enabled viewing of his domain in real time; with it he could not only monitor our fair City through the Weyrmind via Observers, but could make use of the Observers' sensor packages in order to create maps, lightly survey and census our population, monitor the power output and usage of the electro-plants and pylons throughout our fair city, forecast the weather of the forest, and more. This day, however, he used the SMI to push old maps of the Everfree - containing the possible size and location of Sunny Town - to the Observer fleet, and then in real-time we watched, in awe, as they zipped away to find it.

"Psi-Com looks good..." our Prince murmured as he made gentle adjustments with a hoof to the view we were seeing through the fleet's cameras. "Strong signal. Lots of ruins in the Everfree of course, but the Observers have the old maps, and they know to look for a settlement roughly the same size of Ponyville, maybe a bit smaller; though of course, it'll be a decayed ruin by now." The Observers found the village in no time at all, but, "That's... not right," our Prince murmured thoughtfully when Sunny Town came into view. As the cloaked Observer fleet flew over the village, what we all saw on the SMI was no crumbling ruin, but a village thriving and prosperous! "What's 'not right', my Prince?" I asked.

As our Prince rapidly manipulated the SMI with his forehooves, pulling maps, geographical data, and timeline comparisons faster then we could follow, he gesture to the view from the fleet and snapped "That! Sunny Town existed hundreds of years ago; it should be a crumbling ruin by now, but it isn't. Instead we have a typical village; north-south entry exit, everything built around a main square. I don't underst... Oh, horseapples..." Abruptly, his tirade ceased, a chill running down his spine as one of the Observers slowly flew through the town square, catching something in its view. "Observer #7: Halt!" he rasped softly. No sooner had he spoken the order then the Weyrmind transmitted it and the little machine ceased movement; then our Prince swallowed thickly and stated, "Swing forty-five deg-left and zoom; what's that in the center of town square? I want to know..."

No sooner had he spoken the words, the Weyrmind transmitted them and the Observer obeyed... and then, for the first time we all beheld The Obelisk. It was a dark blotch upon an otherwise bright and friendly place; tall and ominous, seeming to suck away the light and life around it. As our Prince saw it, he went pale, his teal fur whitening... and then he was racing out of the War Room, into the deepest parts of the Equusweyr Archives with a cry of, "I need to check something out; give me a shout through the Weyrmind if the Observers find the foal!" An hour later, when he returned to the War Room, the rage and despair roiling within him could be felt throughout. "Have we found our foal?" he hissed through his teeth. "We have m'lord," I replied, gesturing to the SMI. "She is, thankfully, nowhere near the village; she's playing in a field outside of it, on the southern side." Upon hearing this, our Prince sagged with relief, some of his mixed rage and fury leaving him as he stated, "That's the best news I've heard all day. So who have we got missing here..." Approaching the SMI he looked at the displayed data.

"A psionic entity? Observer #1: Switch camera to Psi-Vis and reveal, now!" our Prince barked. Immediately the camera feed from Observer #1 was switched to 'psionic vison' - psychic sight - and the spirit with little Diamond Tiara was revealed. "Adun's Blessed Blade..." our Prince murmured, his muzzle dropping open in shock. "That's Ruby; the spirit of the poor filly who was murdered by Greyhoof so long ago..." A sigh escaping him, our Prince shook his head. "She'll be released when we... deal with the village." As he spoke with a thought to the Weyrmind he summoned more Templars into the War Room along with a single, jet black pegasus. Now, in addition to me and our Prince, there were within the War Room nine Templar - three mammoth Earth Ponies, two Sky and one Tree Pegasus, and one Magic, one Dual, and one Weyrtouched Unicorn - each of them a giant among normal ponies and all utterly fearsome examples of our kind! And then... there was the jet-black Pegasus, the only other 'normal' Everfree Pony apart from myself. He was our Splinter Cell... We listened whilst our Prince laid down what he'd learned. Sunny Town. Diamond Tiara. Everything. When all was said and done, the Pegasus - known only as Silencer - growled, "So, what's the OP?"

"For you?" our Prince responded. "Secure Diamond Tiara. Get her back to her family alive."

"Piece of cake," Silencer growled. "What about the Village?"

"That's where we come in," our Prince replied, gesturing to himself and the Templar, whom visibly straightened. "After Diamond Tiara's secure, we - that is, the Templar and I - make our way into Sunny Town, dispatch the undead as we head toward the town square; once we reach it, I will deal with the Primary Objective, which is this..." With a touch of his hoof to the SMI, the teal alicorn brought up a full screen image of the dark obelisk. Then, turning to face us with somber expression, our Prince said, "This, Mares and Gentlecolts, is a Bloodstone Obelisk. I had a look at a book - yes, an old, leather-bound vellum book - in the Restricted Section of the Equusweyr Archives..." And so it was that our Prince told us exactly what a Bloodstone Obelisk was; and no, I will not print his exact words as Bloodstone Obelisks are dark and vile things. Suffice to say, a Bloodstone Obelisk is a power source housing the essence of a demon, bound by the blood of traitors. Once bound within the Obelisk the demon's dark essence can be used to fuel horrific curses able to effect an area the size of a small village - such as Sunny Town - up to an entire continent; area affected depended upon the size of the Obelisk. Needless to say, when he was finished explaining, we all were taken aback; even the normally stone-cold Splinter Cell, Silencer, was rattled! "... And that's how she did it; that's how Luna cursed them all when Greyhoof murdered Ruby. The curse she fueled via the Bloodstone was an 'Evercurse' - specifically the curse of 'ever living,' ergo, she cursed them all unto undeath."

Peering at the bright, cheerful village, filled with happy, blank-flanked ponies going about their business, Silencer growled, "Humph! They don't look undead. In fact, they seem pretty alive to me." At this, our Prince sadly shook his head. "A deceptive illusion. Under the light of a full moon - which just so happens to be tonight - the truth will be revealed." As he finished speaking, one of the Templar - a mighty Earth Pony named Furinax - pawed the floor with a hoof. "Something on your mind?" our Prince asked. Raising his head, Furinax faced our Prince as he responded, "It... it does not make sense! Why would Luna do something like this; doom these Ponies for all eternity? I... I do not understand..." Though he was one of us - and wouldn't hesitate to defend our Prince and his Princedom to the death if need be - he thought very highly of the Alicorn Sisters, especially Princess Luna, and was hurt that they frowned upon our Prince and his work; our technologically advanced city. Immediately, our Prince moved to nuzzle Furinax and hug the huge Earth Pony with a frail wing; a sight that might've looked quite comical if not for the genuine sincerity and understanding our Prince showed. "She would" said he, upon releasing his embrace, "if she were being corrupted by darkness... or was already deep in it..." At this, Furinax closed tear-misted eyes, shaking his head in disbelief. "Nightmare Moon... oh, Luna, you foal of a Mare..." whispered he; but then he raised his head, his expression hardening. "Very well, my Prince," he intoned. "I shall do what must be done." We all would.

"Good," our Prince stated. "We make ready and move before Sundown."

When the shadows started to grow long as Celestia began to set the Sun, our Prince - recalling the Observer fleet with a thought - gathered the Nine Templar and Silencer then took them all into the Grand Bath Chamber of Equusweyr. In this place, modeled upon bath chambers from the ancient Empire of Roan, our Prince carefully bathed each Templar and the pegasus, Silencer, himself. They tell me that having him do so was somewhat embarrassing but they endured it for they knew he loved them all that much, and never had they seen him so serious. Once all were properly bathed and dried, our Prince led his troops unto the Equusweyr Armory wherein he first anointed them with their favored perfumes and colognes before dressing them in their armors - and in Silencer's case his special Stealth Suit with its triple-lens goggles - all the while chanting blessings and wards of protection against Evil and the Undead in the tongue of Khalani, the ancient language of a people far, far away... Finally our Prince placed upon them their helms (and in the case of Silencer, his goggles) - kissing each pony gently upon the bridge of the snout as he did so - and then, all were ready. A city of somber Everfree Ponies watched them leave.

When they arrived at the outskirts of Sunny Town, it was the time of Twilight; soon the true form of the village would be revealed. They got to work. As Silencer swiftly tranquilized Diamond Tiara then lifted her atop his back and bore her away back to Ponyville, our Prince and his Templar stormed the village... and not a moment too soon! The words of our Prince had been correct; no sooner had Princess Luna's moon risen fully into the sky then the illusion of the bright, peaceful village of Sunny Town was dispelled, revealing a decrepit and decayed ruin swarming with undead. Poor souls. Even as the Templar cut them down with forehoof mounted psionic blades and crushed their skulls with heavy hindhoof tramplers - even as our Prince himself unleashed upon them his wrath via blistering bolts of psychic power, and even as their return blows were ineffective against psionic energy shields and psi-steel armor, from rotted throats and decayed mouth came their cries. "Friendship!" the undead cried. "All we want is friendship!" Do not think of what they did as a glorious battle, for there was no glory in it. Do not think of the undead as our enemies for they were not. They all were suffering souls to whom the Templar could give only temporary release, until they'd dealt with the foul Bloodstone Obelisk in the town square.

Once the last of the undead were dispatched, our Prince and his Templar made their way to the center of the town square whereupon they beheld the sight of the foul artifact in all its glory. Unholy was the Bloodstone Obelisk as it shone darkly in the light of Luna's moon, carved runes filled with traitorous blood writhing and dripping upon its surface. "How are we to deal with it, my Lord?" asked Jormungandr, pawing at the ground with a hoof. "You don't, my friend," our Prince stated solemnly. "I know the way to deal with this, and I must do it alone. Deactivate your armor's aural systems and your Neural Transceivers; what I am about to do must not be heard or recorded by the Weyrmind, for if it is, the Everfree Princedom will die." Without hesitation, they did so; our prince had never guided them astray before and they would trust him in this. The last words the Templar heard from him before external sound and Neural Transceiver shut down were, "Guard me well, all of you, and make sure that I am undisturbed." The Templar heeded his words and closed ranks around him, turning outward to protect him should the undead rise again. Our Prince, meanwhile, sat upon his haunches and entered into a state of the deepest meditation, closing his mind unto the outside world. Then, he began to recite the Seven Words of Akkara; a counter of daemonic making, and the only way to undo or unmake things of daemonic origin.

Do not ask me to print the Words here for I will not; to read them would drive you irreversibly insane. Nor will I describe their sounds for to speak them fragmented and incomplete would result in your dying, frothing at the mouth and bleeding from every orifice. Even though the Templar could not hear them, every decayed syllable wrought from our Prince's throat took a terrible toll on them all; when at last the Prince spoke the final syllable of the Seventh Word and spilled his own blood upon the Obelisk, then there was a terrific *CRACK* before Templar and Prince collapsed, the world fading unto darkness... When next they awoke, they tell me it was to the warmth of Celestia's Sun upon our bodies. Opening their eyes, the Templar got to their hooves--and it was then they beheld a most astonishing sight: the Bloodstone Obelisk - and the Village of Sunny Town that had stood around it - was gone! Nothing remained to prove that either had even existed; where it had been there now was a calm, serene field of verdant, wild grasses. Swiftly the Templar reactivated the disabled systems of their armor then turned to face our Prince... and whinnied in fright. The Words the Prince had spoken to undo the Bloodstone Obelisk and lay Sunny Town to rest had enacted upon him a terrible price. Our beloved Prince lay upon his side, his teal coat purple with blood spilt from every pore, and yet more of the substance dripping from every orifice.

Swiftly the Templar broke open their battlefield medical kits and even as Jormungandr's check of him and cry of "He lives!" brought them hope, they worked to stabilize his condition, for without immediate care he would not be long for this world! As they desperately worked upon him, our Prince's eyes opened, flickered with psychic fire; then through a mouthful of blood he whispered, "Bring me... back... Equusweyr. Autodoc." Then he spoke no more. Once the Templar were sure his condition was stable, High Sister Asheara wept silently as she settled him gently atop her winged back, holding him there with a whisper of her own psionic power to ensure he wouldn't move; then we utterly hauled flank back to our fair City. Rocketing past concerned citizenry who had come to greet us upon our return, we near-bashed through the Gate of Dawn as we made our way into Equusweyr and stormed into the Clinic. Immediately, the horrified physicians therein took him from us into their capable hooves and put him into the Autodoc; from there they would monitor him as the Weyr itself worked on him, assisting the Nexus whenever and wherever needed. We hoped and preyed to the Weyrmind that it would be enough.