//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Nightrise // by Epsilon-Delta //------------------------------// Silverstar hadn’t the slightest idea of what time it was, but she did know that she was late and that she was becoming increasingly late with each passing second. It wasn’t easy telling time underground, the only method available to Silverstar at the moment was the moonflower she carried. Moonflowers gave off a faint blue light, one that would continue for about three hours after being plucked. Judging from the dimness of the moonflower she had left with, Silverstar could tell she had been gone for far longer than the single hour she had intended. She galloped faster through the cavern, the number of moonflowers lighting the tunnel increasing as she neared her destination. What didn’t increase was the number of ponies she saw, not one member of her clan was to be seen. They were all undoubtedly at the assembly, the same one Silverstar was supposed to be at now. Technically she was supposed to have been there hours ago to help greet their visitor. She had a great reason for missing that, one that she was certain the elder would understand, one that may even be good enough to excuse herself for missing the beginning of the meeting. Missing the entire meeting, however, might not be so easy to get out of. As she neared the entrance to the large, central chamber of her home, Silverstar unfolded her wings and took flight into the massive cavern before her. About a hundred feet below her was the rest of her clan, a sea of gray fur and dark blue manes massed on the far side of the underground river. Even further off was a lone thestral, their visitor, already in the middle of some kind of speech. Silverstar decided that joining the crowd at this point would be too embarrassing, so she landed on one of the many alcoves that lined the rocky walls of the cave to listen in from above. “-But that Isolation very has become the greatest danger to our race,” said an unfamiliar voice. The glow that the moonflowers gave off was enough to illuminate the entire chamber, at least enough for a thestral. Most of the lesser races, even those with fairly good dark vision like diamond dogs, would be too blind to make out much detail. To a thestral, however, the chamber was perfectly bright and even from a distance Silverstar could make out most of the visitor‘s features. The most noticeable feature was his unusual coloration. His fur, rather then the charcoal grey that most ponies had, was a light grey, the lightest fur she had ever seen on a pony. His mane was also a bizarre color, a deep purple instead of a deep blue like normal thestrals had. Silverstar had never seen a pony with this coloration before, but then again she had never seen a thestral from the northern clans before either. Perhaps this was normal where he came from, and the coloration of Silverstar and the other thestrals of the eastern clans were strange to him. While continuing his speech, the visitor turned in Silverstar’s general direction to reveal his glowing, yellow eyes. At least that much was normal. “Every day the surface comes closer,” he continued. “This place is no longer remote enough that mere isolation can grantee you safety. Equestria and the changelings hives both have settlements within a hundred miles of this spot. The day when you can no longer hide from them is fast approaching, and the longer you delay it, the worse off you’ll be when the surface gets here.” “In terms of advancement, population and technology, you are being left behind. The machines, magic, and cities they are creating are beyond your wildest imaginations, centuries more advanced than anything here. All while you remain isolated and stagnant.” “None of that matters,” Nightshade‘s voice suddenly chimed in. He and the elder were standing off to the visitor‘s left, apart from the crowd. Silverstar was technically supposed to be standing there with them, but, well, maybe later. Nightshade continued, “Princess Luna will soon return. It doesn’t matter what the creatures of the light build or do or how strong they become, because it will never be enough. Our princess will destroy them all regardless when she returns. Luna will bring everlasting night to the surface and bring us, her children, to our rightful place as the rulers of the world.” Silverstar glanced back at the visitor. It would be interesting to see him deal with this situation. If he said anything that could be taken as a slight insult against Luna, then he would lose his audience. “It may be another thousand years before Luna returns,” said the visitor. “We cannot afford to wait until then. The other clans are in even worse condition than you are. The western clans seem to have disappeared, and the northern clans have been pushed to the brink of starvation. The eastern clans may be the last hope for our race. If we are to survive until Luna returns, then you must take action now.” It was at this point that the clan’s leader stepped in. She was easily recognizable from a distance because her once blue hair had turned almost the same gray as her fur, giving her the most unique mane color in the entire clan. “We are aware of our situation, Mr. Midnight. Please tell us what, exactly, it is that you are proposing.” At least Silverstar knew that his name was “Midnight” now. “If we are to survive then we must reunite our clans and begin open relations with the rest of the world,” said Midnight. “The land of the northern clans is quickly becoming uninhabitable, leading to starvation like I’ve said. It is my intention to eventually bring the northern, and perhaps one day the southern, clans to these lands so that we might create a unified, thestral state.” “That is a lofty goal,” said the Elder. “These caves provide just barely enough food to support ourselves, let alone double or even triple our number. As much as I would like to help the northern clans, I don’t believe we will be able to take them in. If we did, they would only find themselves starving here instead.” “That’s why we are not going to remain in the caves,” said Midnight. “If we move to the surface we will be able to set up farms which could support ten times our total number.” “There is a reason we do not live on the surface,” said the Elder. “Equestria would surely destroy us if we tried living out in the open.” “No, they would not,” said Midnight. “In fact they would aid us. Their weather control and magic could be used to make the arid lands above you fertile within a few months. I have spoken with the leader of Equestria and-” Nightshade laughed. “Do you think that we don’t know who the ‘leader of Equestria’ is? Were you hoping that we wouldn’t notice that you were conspiring with Celestia herself?” “Celestia is-” “-Our most hated enemy. I don’t know what kind of evil plot you’ve devised with that tyrant, but nopony here will have any part of your sinister schemes!” Nightshade turned his attention from the visitor to the crowd, “Celestia is our oldest and most hated enemy! The cruelty she has shown to us and our beloved princess can never be forgiven. She and all those who align with her will be destroyed by Nightmare Moon when she returns to us.” Nightshade was about to burst into a long sermon about the glory of Princess Luna when the elder, who was the only pony capable of ending his passionate speeches, wearily raised her hoof to silence him. “We are all aware of the sort of pony Celestia is and what she has done to us in the past,” the elder said wearily. “However, this pony is our guest, and he is still one of our kind regardless of who he associates with. We will listen to everything he has to say before giving him our response.” Nightshade gave an unenthusiastic nod and turned back to the visitor with silent contempt. Midnight didn’t seem particularly phased by Nightshade’s outburst. He just continued on. “Celestia is not the tyrant you think she is, and the citizens of Equestria are not the ponies burned our kind centuries ago. They have agreed to recognize our right to this land, even make us a common wealth of Equestria, which would grant us protection form all other nations.” “Chrysalis and her changeling swarm are also encroaching these lands. Unlike Celestia, Chrysalis is a genocidal maniac, and you would be lucky to survive her conquest. It won’t be long before one of these two nations gains control of your home. This is your chance to choose the more favorable of the two, to retain your independence, to ensure the survival of our race.” Or it could be their death. Silverstar couldn’t keep her mind from wandering to the darkest possible motive. Celestia would certainly like to have all the thestrals gathered together in the wide open plains of the southern frontier. “Even ignoring the difficulty of reuniting the clans,” the elder replied, “I don’t think it would be wise to accept this proposal. We have made many deals with the day ponies and not once have they ever failed to betray us. I’m afraid that I can not place the safety of my clan in Celestia’s hooves” “I’m aware of our history with Equestria,” Midnight replied. “I’m not asking you to accept this deal now. I am merely asking for volunteers to come to Canterlot to see how much the world has changed in the past 600 years. I know that you’ll accept this offer when you see what we stand to gain.” The elder thought for a minute then replied, “I will not send anypony. However, if there is anypony here who wishes to go with you of their own accord then they may go with my blessing.” Nopony stepped forward. “Please,” the visitor implored. “Isn’t there anypony here brave enough to come with me?” Silverstar wouldn’t choose the word ‘brave’ to describe a thestral willing to go to Canterlot. She glanced around to see if anyone was ‘brave’ enough to throw their lives away. Nopony was. “I’m sorry we cannot do this for you or the northern clans,” said the Elder. “If there is anything else we can do to aid you, please let us know.” “Considering what I’ve said is the best you can do for us,” said Midnight. “I thank you all for your time.” The visitor gave a short bow and trotted out of sight. The crowd began to clear out. From the looks of them, her clan was rather unimpressed with the whole spectacle. Silverstar turned her attention back to the elder and Nightshade, trying to think of the best way to approach them. She eventually decided it would be best to be as nonchalant as possible, leapt into the air and, with two flaps of her bat-like wings, landed just behind her two seniors. “Hi, Grandma,” She said. Silverstar always called the elder ’grandma’ when she was had done something wrong. Doing so had never gotten her out of trouble before, but she still did it out of habit, “How about that guy, huh?” “You were late,” her grandmother said, turning to meet her granddaughter with a disinterested look. “Well,” Silverstar lifted her head and readied her excuse, “there was this huge spider. I had to catch it!” The elder said nothing. “N-no, really! When you see the size of this thing you’ll say I made the right choice.” The elder just continued to watch her apathetically. That was all she needed to do. “Fine! I’m sorry. I should do what’s best for the clan, not what I want to do.” The elder sighed. “If I wanted somepony to mindlessly repeat the things I say I would get a pet bird. I expect you to be able to actually understand and follow my advice.” Silverstar’s ears flattened against her head in shame. “Yes Elder.” Nightshade lifted his head proudly. “Foals these days have no discipline.” “It wasn’t long ago that I was saying the same thing about you, Nightshade.” The elder turned back to Silverstar. “I hope that you at least heard some of that.” “I saw almost all of it. I think.” “And what did you think of our visitor’s proposal?” “Well Celestia’s plot to gather us all together is clearly a trap.” The elder nodded. “Yes, but I meant the other part. Do you think it would be a good idea to send one of us to Canterlot to try and build understanding between us and the ponies of light?” Silverstar thought for a moment, “It’d be great if we could just talk things out with them, but it hasn’t worked for the past thousand years and I don’t see why it would work now. Talking to them one more time isn’t going to change anything. We’d just be putting whoever we sent in danger for no reason.” The elder nodded, “I suppose that is fair. Perhaps when Luna returns to us there can be peace, but until then…” The elder stared off into space, likely remembering something from her somewhat mysterious past. Silverstar gave her a moment before bringing her attention back to what was really important. “Elder,” She said, “if he’s leaving, then that means he owes us his parting gift now.” The elder’s mind returned to the present. “Very well. Offer to let him stay for a few days and insist that he does so twice before letting him leave. Bring whatever it is to my chamber later.” The elder turned to leave but only took two steps before abruptly turning back to Silverstar. “Oh. And don’t actually ask for his gift outright this time.” In a moment Silverstar was off. Usually when a single pony visited a clan their parting gift was a few fish from the ocean. With a little luck Silverstar would be getting a salty treat tonight. In another moment she landed next to the visitor. Midnight didn’t seem terrible bothered by the failure of his speech, wearing the same look he had had when giving it. Determined to make up for earlier, as well as the last time she had seen off a visitor, Silverstar decided to be as polite and traditional as possible. She made a deep bow to him before speaking. “Dear brother. By the grace of Luna and the serenity of the moon the Starlight clan invites you to share our hearth and-” Midnight chuckled and gave her a weary smile. “Thank you, filly, but I have to leave now. You don’t need any formalities or to insist on my staying in the name of Luna or the moon or anything else.” His laid back attitude was a bit of a relief. Silverstar relaxed and said, “Well I do have to insist that you stay. Twice, if anypony asks.” The stallion gave a simple nod, showing no real emotion. He pulled a chest about half the size of Silverstar from his cart and presented it as his gift. Silverstar humbly accepted in the name of the moon. Silverstar was impressed. A chest was much more valuable than what a single guest visiting for a few hours would be expected to give. Still, Silverstar couldn’t help but feel disappointed that it wasn’t edible or salty. “If there’s nothing else I’ll be leaving now,” said Midnight as he began hitching himself to his cart. Silverstar couldn’t keep her curiosity towards Midnight at bay. Apparently this stallion had seen much of the outside world, including the northern clans and Celestia herself. This could be Silverstar’s last chance to hear about these things, about the world she would likely never see. Just as he was turning to leave, Silverstar called out to him. “Have you really met Celestia?” Her interest was enough to regain Midnight’s attention. “Yes,” he said. “I stayed in Canterlot for two years and spoke with the princess several times. Was there anything you wanted to know about her?” “Well,” Silver began, “I always wondered something. If she’s made of fire then wouldn’t she burn up anything she touched? Does she just have to avoid everything that isn’t stone or metal? Dos she have to sleep on the floor? And wouldn’t rain or water or whatever kill her? Has she just somehow managed to avoid getting wet for a thousand years?” The stallion laughed. “You know in the north they say she has six legs and seven wings and that her mane is made of thorns. I guess a pony made of fire isn’t as scary when you‘re half frozen. But to answer your question, Celestia is not made of fire.” Silverstar blinked. “Then what is she made of?” “The same things we’re made of, as far as I know. You know, if you wanted to you could meet Celestia yourself. You stand to gain a lot by coming with me.” Silverstar shook her head. “There’s no way I’m going to Canterlot. I’m not stupid. Those ponies hate us. They’d kill me on the spot.” “Most of them don’t even know we exist,” said Midnight. “I was there for two years and nopony hurt me.” “Celestia is just trying to trick you. She only let you go so you’d lure in more of us for her to kill. This entire plan is all just a trap.” It was so obvious but the visitor just refused to see it. He just let out a depressed sigh and shook his head. “Maybe I am being Naïve,” He said. “Farewell.” Without another word he turned and began pulling his cart down the shaft that would eventually lead him back to the surface. Silverstar couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor idiot. The young mare trotted over to the chest the visitor had left behind and tried to lift it. To her surprise it was much heavier than it look, meaning something could be inside. Her heart skipped and her hope for delicious ocean fish spiked for a second only to be dashed again upon opening the box. Inside were several objects, none of which were fish. There were a few objects she couldn’t identify but most of them were books, maybe a dozen in total. Great. Now she would have to read. Silverstar threw the ’gift’ onto her back and trudged off to the elder’s chamber, where the Elder and Nightshade were waiting. The elder looked through the chest, separating out the books and the other object. “This was a very generous gift.” In total there were seven books, all of them appearing to be Equestrian in origin. They were written in Equine, the language of Silverstar‘s ancestors as well as the language currently used in Equestria. Though her clan usually spoke Thestrali, thestrals read and wrote in Equine so they had no trouble understanding it. The books also bore the perfect handwriting that all day ponies seemed to have; every instance of a letter was somehow a perfect copy of every other instance. “We should look through these to see if any are worth reading,” the elder said. “Once we’ve gathered what information we can, we’ll sell them to the Crescent clan.” Equestrian books were rare and the Crescent clan put a high value on them, often paying a hundred times the books weight in salt and fruit. The three of them began to go over the books. The first four appeared to be books about the history of Equestria. This, of course, was a subject of no importance and thus it would be a waste of time to read them. The fifth was about Celestia herself. Silverstar couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous holding such a thing. Nightshade took a surprising amount of interest in the book. “I’d like to go over this one myself,” he said. “It would be interesting to see what sort of lies the ponies of light have to say about Celestia.” Another book they wouldn’t have to go over was one on the subject of math. The Starlight clan already knew everything there was to know about math. Silverstar herself knew everything from division to geometry and even how to do a square root (the hardest thing in all of math). There were a few calculations in it that none of them recognized, but they didn’t seem to have any real use. Still the Crescent clan had a fixation with going over obscure, useless and needlessly complex calculations, so they might value the book. The last book seemed almost like it was meant specifically for Silver. It was a book on medicine and, because she was the alchemist, it was handed to her to be read. The one book that they needed to read and it just had to be in Silver’s profession. One might think reading a book on potions would be fun. Alchemy were useful. Alchemy was interesting. Equestrian books on alchemy, however, were not interesting or useful. They were stupid. Still, the elder said that if there was any chance of learning something from it then it was worth reading. With the books to the side they turned their attention to the other objects inside the chest. The first object Silverstar took out was a short cylinder with a crank on the top and numbers written on the sides and around the edge of the top. Turning the cranked seemed to do nothing and Silverstar was about to declare it broken when her grandmother found a few smaller books at the very bottom of the chest. These books were made entirely of paper and, after some threats and nonsensical ramblings about the owners of something called a ‘pending patent’, described the proper ways to use each of the devices present. The machine that Silverstar had was some sort of math-machine. You simply turned the dials on the side until you got the number you wanted to multiply and then turned the crank on the top however many times you wanted to multiply it by and the result would be displayed on the top. Silverstar was able to use it to multiply 473,825 by 15 in a matter of seconds. While it was amazing that anypony could build a machine like that it also didn’t seem to have any practical value. It would be faster to just do calculations in your head unless you were multiplying very large numbers, and Silverstar couldn’t think of any situation where multiplying two six digit numbers was necessary. The day ponies must have had huge numbers of something. The elder and her granddaughter agreed that it would be best to sell this to the Crescent clan as well. The next object was immediately recognizable as a clock. Silverstar had seen one when she was studying alchemy with the Crescent clan. Their clock was much larger, however, and had a long pendulum swinging beneath it which was what actually kept the time. This one, however, was smaller than a hoof and was meant to be worn around one of your front legs. Still, there was no pendulum visible on it so Silverstar had no idea how the thing kept time. Maybe there was a tiny pendulum inside of it. This one they could actually use. It would be far more accurate than the water-clock they primarily used, and it would be portable. This, they decided, they would keep for themselves. The next object they took out was a long monocular with great magnifying powers. Apparently it was supposed to be used for looking at the stars, a fact that Silverstar found a bit odd. The day ponies were supposed to hate the stars. Why would they build such a complex device to observe something that they hated? Just to make themselves angry? Silver briefly imagined a disgruntled unicorn putting the thing together, grumbling about how he’d finally be able to despise every last detail of the night sky. She brought this idea up to her Grandmother. “It may be that they built this to sell to some other species,” she explained, “or perhaps they study the stars to some practical end. We don’t study insects because we like them but because the knowledge we can gain from doing so has advantages.” That made sense. The few remaining devices were less interesting. The Elder decided that they would keep the chest and monocular and sell everything else to the Crescent clan. With no further business here, Silverstar took the book of potions as well as all the other books, because apparently it made more sense to keep them with her, and departed for her own home. She flew through the large, central cavern and up to the second highest tunnel. From there it was just a short trot to the chamber where her alchemy lab. Her lab was nothing compared to the one she had studied in with the Crescent clan, but it contained enough materials, potions and supplies to meet the needs of her smaller clan. Silverstar moved the nook where she had stored the dream walker spider she had caught earlier that night. Dream walker spiders were easily recognizable from their bright purple color. This one was more than twice the size as usual, nearly the size of Silverstar’s head, and was a very valuable catch. Her first order of business was draining out the spider’s poison into small vials and adding them to her stock. It was the dream walker’s deadly poison that made them so dangerous and so useful. Her alchemy mentor had told her that everything was a poison if you took enough of it and that no chemical, no matter how deadly, was completely without use. Everything was a chemical, everything was a poison and everything had its use. Her favorite example that of the dream walker spider. It was the deadliest poison known to thestrals; just three drops of it was enough to kill a stallion. However, one drop, heavily diluted, could be used as a sleeping draught, a powerful pain killer or a mild hallucinogen to help with training ponies to access the dreamscape. There was a certain beauty in alchemy that Silver loved. Not everything needed to be taken so seriously, but this was something that was worth it. The rest of the night, was spent grinding down the remains of the spider into a fine powder. Insect chitin was a common ingredient in many medicinal potions, such as mithridatium and theriac. She began making mental notes about preparing more theriac tomorrow, but then remembered that she would, unfortunately, have to spend the day reading instead. Her grandmother would undoubtedly want her over early as well. Silverstar decided it was time for sleep, so she finished cleaning up and trotted off to bed. ________________________________ The next day Silverstar sat down with the book of potions. Despite her lack of enthusiasm for the task, Silverstar was determined to be responsible and read the whole thing. That determination didn’t last long. Like the other Equestrian books on potions she had read it was filled with descriptions of potions that would be amazing if you could actually make them. Invisibility potions, regeneration potions, potions that made you immune to fire, potions that let you breath under water, potions that killed weird surface animals call “microorganisms” and many other things were all in the book. It didn’t take the young alchemist long to read through the whole list. While reading about hypothetically miraculous potions was interesting, it was the part about how to make them that was useless. These books were always filled with words Silver was certain were just made up on the spot. They called for ingredients she never heard of like ‘acetic acid’ or ‘ethyl acetate’. Some of them, like beneviolets, were clearly some kind of plant, but the books seemed to just assume you knew what all of these plants were and which far off corner of the planet you could find them in. As if that wasn’t bad enough some of the procedures called for techniques she never heard of and were never explained. Silverstar could maybe just try every possible combination of materials but trying to do everything to everything would take far too long. It was more like the book was trying to taunt her than anything else. The mare sighed and sat back for a moment to rest. To her side was the stack of books and on to top of the stack was one of the history books. On its cover was a very well done drawing of a brown pegasus with a grey mane. The pegasus was wearing some kind of weird, light armor, complete with a not-to-practical looking helmet, and was in an action pose, which lead Silver to believe she must have been some kind of legendary warrior or general. A typical story with a pegasus in it involved a rebellious thestral foal wandering to the surface during the day only to have a pegasus immediately swoop down and carry them off never to be seen again. Was a pegasus hero just somepony who was really good at foalnapping? That book would most likely be more interesting to read but continuing with the medicine book was the more responsible thing to do. Or was it? Silver wouldn’t get anything more out her current book, but there was a chance that she could learn something from the other one. Also, she’d be able to honestly say that she had spent the whole day reading, like the elder told her to. Of course reading this book instead made perfect sense! Silverstar pushed aside the book on medicine and opened up the book titled “Daring Do”.