//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 // Story: To Tread Amongst the Living // by RobertPooner //------------------------------// She had lost track of time. Minutes, hours; time had no meaning in the dark recesses of the Canterlot Archives. All around Celestia were tomes upon tomes of ancient knowledge, each one read and discarded by the princess. “Nothing….nothing…ugh!” shouts the princess in frustration. “The worlds knowledge at my hooves and nothing!” she yells as she telekinetically hurls a particularly large tome of “Starswirl the Bearded’s Annotations on The Path of Transcendence” across the room hitting against a bookcase. With a sigh Celestia stands up and stretches, her joints popping from hours of little to no movement. “There has to be something I have missed, something I overlooked. Maybe a little fresh air will help me collect my thoughts.” With a flash of light Celestia teleports herself to the heart of the Canterlot gardens. The first thing she noticed was that the sun was up, it was around ten o’clock. “I must have been down there longer than I thought if Luna had to raise the sun for me.” Almost as if summoned by her name, Princess Luna flew down to Celestias side. “Sister where have you been?” asked Luna. “When you failed to raise the sun this morning I was worried.” “Don’t fret my little sister, I have just been preoccupied with some events that have, or have yet to, transpire.” “Whatever do you mean sister? What is troubling you?” Celestia began to relay the events of the previous day; the meetings with the envoy and Aschere, and the visions that he relayed to her. She also recounted her attempts to decipher the meanings of the visions in the Canterlot Archives. “That is…most troubling sister. You have not yet come to any conclusion on this?” asks Luna. “As of yet no, but the letter from Twilight still has me worried. I am unable to contact her through magical means . I am worried Lulu.” “Fear not sister, I am sure Twilight Sparkle and her friends can handle most anything that may occur. They have proved most capable in the past. “I must get to the bottom of this Luna. I will not fail my subjects again. Not after the debacle with the changelings.” “I will tend to your duties today sister, I can see that this is most troubling to you. “Thank you Lulu.” Says Celestia nuzzling the neck of her younger sister. “Please keep me informed on your progress Cele, I too worry for the safety of our subjects.” With that, Luna disappears in a flash of blue light. “Of course little sister….of course. Princess Celestia continued on her lonely sojourn through the gardens of Canterlot, her mind running in circles unable to come to any semblance of an answer to her ponderings. After several hours, she found herself in the heart of the great Canterlot hedge maze. “There must be something…anything….” Says Celestia thinking aloud to herself. “My my my…what has the vaunted goddess so troubled…” a hypnotic voice resounds inside her head. “I have no time for your games Discord.” Says Celestia as she glares daggers at the statue before her. Standing as tall as she is a statue of what one could only call an abomination. A creature know as a draconequus or as ancient texts refer to him, a chimera. With head of a pony, a pair of mismatched horns; the left from a goat and the right from a deer. His four mismatched legs each coming from a different animal of the realm, his front legs from a lion and an eagle, his hind legs from a goat and lizard. His back was adorned with an equally mismatched pair of wings; one from a pegasus the other from a bat. Even encased in stone as he was, his presence was imposing even for the sun princess. “Now now Celestia, I am merely trying to strike up a little conversation. Being frozen in stone tends to be a bit boring after all.” Replies Discord. “And from what I can tell, little Cele has a problem stewing about in that lock box of a mind of hers. Now what could it be….” “I told you to leave me alone fiend. Your machinations are of no interest to me, not now nor ever.” Answers Celestia defiantly to the draconequus as she trots away. “Hmm perhaps her little ponies are in trouble again, or…could it have to do with the disturbances in magic recently…” says Discord with a grin of satisfaction evident in his disembodied voice. This froze Celestia in her tracks, causing her to turn around and gallop up to the statue with a hate-filled look upon her fate. “Of what would you know of this Discord.” “Oh Celestia, so ancient and yet so naïve. Do you really this that my current predicament cuts me off completely to your little….bleh* harmonious world. Even from here I can feel it, stifling even my magics. No more can I travel about, enticing your little ponies to commit acts of chaos, or even to watch events not of my doings cause your Elements of Harmony to spiral into discord; that little Sombra event was oh so much fun to watch, the look on your nieces face was hilarious.” “Enough Discord, tell me what I want to know or else.” “Or else what Celestia? You’ll banish me to the moon? Asks Discord as he breaks into laughter. “No Celestia, if I choose to help you or not is my choice. But lucky for you, I am in a bad mood today, this disruption is not only effecting me, but this amount of chaos should be my doing and nopony elses!” shouts Discord angrily. At the foot of the statue, a bright green smoke begins to materialize. Through the swirling vortex a large leather bound tome appears. As Celestia lifts the tome with her magic, she makes a startling discovery. This book is bound and wrapped in no ordinary leather, it is pony skin. The face of some poor soul skinned from their body to adorn the cover, the stitching of the bindings made of bone and sinew binding together the etched bone tablets that made ip the pages. “This is the Book of Necrotempus, the book of the dead times. Read it well and quickly Celestia. It holds the answers you seek.” “Why quickly Discord? “Well I want it back, duh.” And with a guttural laugh, Discord returned to the confines of his stone prison. “The Dead Times, I recall hearing this several times in my youth.” Thinks Celestia to herself. “But should I trust Discord?” looking down again at the macabre book. “I guess I have nothing to lose.” After several hours back in the Archives of translation the tome through a combination of spells and her own knowledge, Celestia had gone through much of the flesh-bound tome. From what she could tell, the book was written in the ancient nation of Heliopolis far to the north, closer to the roof of the world than any other known civilization. This tome more specifically is a story of the great necropolises of Steebs, a city that died out one thousand years before the leader Alexmaneder the Great conquerored much of the known world and spread pony kind and culture throughout the continents, three thousand years before her birth and two thousand years before Discord ruled Equestria. The book read… Within the halls of Varna, our great city of the dead, we live and we work since time immemorial. To know death is to know life, just as all life returns to the Ether. The weakness and death of others gives us strength, every foe that falls before us is another soul to the ether. Death is order, death is harmony, death is justice. So says Tvath, sixth daughter of the Creator and shepherd of the dead. From that point, the book delved into summoning rituals, most of which incomprehensible to even Celestia with the aid of her magic aside from the pictures of ponies each article was attributed too. One though caught Celestias eye. The Bio-magical Physiology and Summoning of Flesh Golems A picture is engraved into the bone tablet, one of a bulbous mass of flesh and bone with the barely recognizable head of a pony. Misshaped tentacles and claws grafted upon either side of the monstrosity. In its mouth were rows of razor sharp teeth, like those of a carnivore but much sharper than those of even a manticore. Sprouting from the tentacles were long razor sharp spines dripping a purple bile like substance or so she surmised. Next to the creature stood a pale grey earth pony. To the right of the picture was more intelligible text which Celestia deduces are some sort of instructions on how to summon or create this monstrosity, below that though was a line she could read, “All golem research attributed to head Summoner brother Albus Noctis, see codicil 3707:8 for other work." Almost dropping the book with a gasp, Celestia looked at the note that her student had given her. “It can’t be.” Turning to the books addendum she looked at what she could only explain as a biography of the research accomplishments of various necromancers as well as pictures of them and their cutiemarks. Turning uneasily to the page listed, she drops the book and immediately teleports to the throne room where Princess Luna is finishing up Day Court. “Luna we must get to Ponyville now!” Yells an exasperated Celestia. “What is wrong sister?” asks Luna “There is no time, I will explain on the carriage ride.” And so the two sisters left immediately for Ponyville, with little to no idea what awaited them, or their little ponies. But now, they had a name...