Chapter 11
Twilight stared at the crude pencil sketch held out to her. She didn't recognise it, nor could she recall ever having seen it in any of her books. The drawing, apart from showing the shape of the idol, didn't give any details of how large it may be or even what it could be made of.
“I don't think I know this statue,” she confessed, looking back up at Oggie.
“It's not really the entire statue that's important, just this,” he pointed a hoof at the small rectangle held between the serpents. “The figures around it were added later by early members of the Defectors. The stone itself was discovered by the cult's founder almost ninety seven years ago in the Everfree forest.”
“Ooh! We live near the Everfree forest!” Pinkie said enthusiastically.
“So what is it?” Rainbow Dash asked, frowning at the picture.
“It appears to be some kind of jewel, if I'm not mistaken,” Said Rarity, peering past Twilight's shoulder. “It may not be the best piece of art I've seen, but I do know a gem when I see one.”
“Correct,” Oggie nodded. He turned the book back to himself and scanned the open pages briefly. “The Defectors call it 'The Stone of Null'. Discovered in the Everfree forest, where magic does whatever it wants and which some claim was so powerful it even corrupted the younger Princess, the stone was found to completely suppress magic. At least, within a certain radius. When its founder realised his unicorn magic was so drained he couldn't even pick it up, he felt he'd stumbled upon an artifact as unique and powerful as the Elements of Harmony themselves.”
“You mean this thing can block magic? Block it completely?” Twilight asked, partly shocked but partly fascinated.
“It can.” Oggie nodded.
“So what did the guy do with it? I'm guessing he wasn't smart enough to hand it over to Princess Celestia or anything.” Rainbow scoffed.
“Not exactly,” Oggie said. He stopped for a moment as he regarded the group in front of him. Twilight stared back at him, uncertain what his expression was suppose to mean. After thinking something over for a moment, he went on. “Tell me, do any of you know the Creation Myth?”
“Huh?” Rainbow looked up at him. The others looked back and forth between themselves, trying to see if anypony understood what he meant.
“Ya mean the Hearth's Warming story? Sure. I mean every filly knows that one,” Applejack finally said as they turned back to him.
“Oh yes, I rather like that one,” Discord piped up from his spot, his chin in his claw as he stared at the ceiling. “Princess Celestia's little story of 'Be nice to each other or you'll all freeze to death'.”
“That's not what the story's about! I mean... yeah it is, but that's not what it's about!” Rainbow snapped at him angrily.
Ogham cleared his throat, trying to return attention to his story. “No, I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding. I don't mean the story of Equestria's Creation. I mean the story of everything's creation.”
“I don't think so.” Fluttershy asked, eager to stop a fight from starting.
“I think I read something about it in the Canterlot Library when I was a filly, but I don't really remember the details.” Twilight said, frowning to herself.
“Well, the thing is, nopony remembers the details,” Oggie said, crossing his forelegs in front of him as he lay down. “Some fairy tale books have it in among their other myths and legends, but it's not really a popular story for foals. Not that it was ever meant to be for foals in the first place.”
“I don't really remember what happens in it,” Twilight said with a nod. “I grew out of fairy tales quickly, so I only remember the more basic ones.”
Looking over the rest of the faces, Ogham was met with nothing but slight confusion and some anticipation. The only one who didn't seem eager to hear the story was Discord. He was facing away from the group, but Oggie noticed the sideways stare as he kept his expression blank. Oggie cleared his throat again, as if preparing for a public speech, before he went on.
“Ok well, before I go any further I'd better get us all on the same page.”
“What page are you on?” Pinkie looked up from the book. “Are you seeing a different page than me?”
“Hush Pinkie,” Applejack said.
“I'm not sure what it has to do with anything, but if you think it's related, you'd better remind us.” Twilight said as she lay down as well. Around her, the other ponies adjusted their seating, getting comfortable.
“Well then...” Oggie started. He paused before beginning.
“We're not really sure of the exact time period, but this is believed to have happened long before ponies split apart into the three nations. Some books I've read say it happened before ponies even existed, but I've read others that say ponies had to be passing around stories by word of mouth for the story to be remembered at all. Regardless, it happened so long ago that ancient writings talking about it as an already ancient story, is all we have to go on.
The world we live in was protected, and some say even created, by a benevolent Power which cradled and cared for it for eons after it first came into being. Some versions describe this Power as a vast glittering cloud which enveloped the world, forever hanging in the sky above it. Others describe it as a physical being that walked the earth. Whatever it looked like, this Power was where all kindness, warmth and loving energy in the world came from. And while it was there, either in the sky or walking across the country, life in our world was happy, peaceful and full of beauty.
But this shining existence didn't go unnoticed. At some point in time, a Dark force turned its attentions to the world that the Great Power protected. It's not properly explained in any text we've found whether this Darkness came from our world, or maybe somewhere else. Nevertheless, this Darkness moved to destroy our world. There are very dramatic ancient texts describing fire, swirling clouds, the ground breaking like water, and other sensational language that probably isn't very trustworthy, as far as historical accuracy goes anyway.
What is described almost exactly the same in every account though, is the final battle. When it seemed like the darkness would suck all life from our world, the Great Power rose up and faced the threat head-on. The two forces clashed in what is described as a battle that tore apart the sky. Again, the sensational language should probably not be taken too literally.
But during this great fight, the Darkness was threatening to trample over the Great Power to finally destroy our world it protected so closely. Seeing that there was no other way, the Great Power used every particle of itself and lunged at the Dark force. With the entirety of its existence, the Great Power used its own being to cancel out the Darkness and destroy it. But just as it cancelled out the Darkness, so the Darkness cancelled out the Great Power.
As both forces crumbled and died, the story goes that the great power gathered itself up in a brilliant light. It then split apart and the pieces that remained of it fell to the earth. These pieces were then later discovered and named the Elements of Harmony.”
The group Listened intently to the story, Twilight frowning in concentration as she tried to commit every word to memory. Despite them lying in in her saddlebags across her back, the Elements were still a strange power to her and any information that could teach her more about them, even if it was just a fairy tale, could be useful later.
“So I gotta ask, do the elements of Harmony have somethin' to do with this mess?” Applejack asked, her face serious.
“I'm not sure,” Oggie admitted, “At least, I'm not sure if they are part of the puzzle in reality, but there's another part of the story that ties them into all of this.”
“There's more?” Rarity blinked rapidly at him.
“The Creation myth is at least commonly known about to some extent these days, but there's a lesser known continuation to the story. The text explaining it was discovered almost a century ago and at the time, it caused quite a stir in the researcher community.
The text mostly covers the last battle between The Great Power and the Darkness, and the eventual death of both. It also includes the detail about the Great Power breaking into pieces which became the elements of Harmony. However, unlike any of its contemporaries, it goes on to explain another element that broke from the Great Power in that moment. This seventh broken piece was different from the other six as it was not a crystalised shard of The Great power's goodness. Instead, when the Elements of harmony were created, all the shadows of the things they represented; Laughter, Honesty, Loyalty, Kindness, Generosity and Magic, came together to create what the researchers called 'The Seventh Element'.”
“Hey! I know that!” Rainbow Dash, who'd been nodding off, sprung upright at the name, waving a hoof at Oggie. “There's a Daring Do adventure with something like that in it! 'Daring Do and the Seventh Element!' It's the one where Daring is trying to get back a thing called the Seventh Element from an evil unicorn who used to be one of her expeditions' benefactors. The thing was said to have awesome power, and there's even an illustration in the book of all this crazy red lightening and stuff coming from it.”
“I've read that one too,” Twilight nodded. “The Seventh Element contains everything that's the opposite of the Elements of Harmony and is a crystal of pure evil.”
“Yes, the Daring Do books have a tendency to be a little loose with its facts.” Oggie rolled his eyes but kept his warm smile.
“Hey! You can't talk about Daring like that in front of me!” Rainbow quickly went on the defense.
“Well... the ancient text wasn't exactly that clear about it,” Oggie back-pedalled. “All it said was that there was a seventh stone created during the battle, and that it was the shadow side of what the elements represent. That's really all. Some researchers were quick to call it one of the greatest pieces of texts found on the creation story, while others questioned how accurate it was, saying that if such a thing existed, it was probably a piece of the Darkness and not the Great Power. Even others claimed the text was either a giant hoax, or it was a fantasy added on to the original story to make it more interesting. The age of the text seemed to rule out the possibilities of it being a hoax, but there is sadly no way in this life we'd be able to tell if anything in it is a record of a true event, or just an embellishment.”
“Wow. I never thought any of the things Daring Do found were actually real!” Rainbow Dash beamed proudly to herself.
“So, if I'm following correctly, this supposed 'Seventh Element' is what these horrible ponies found in the Everfree forest?” Rarity said, craning her neck to look at the drawing again.
“That, we don't know. But we do know that the pony who found it believed it was. Not soon after it was found, the 'Defectors' group came into being. Although they were a very small sect, they gave up their homes, possessions and ties to Equestria and moved out of its borders. Still close enough to survive through trade, but outside of Celestia's governed lands.”
“So if this weird group have this thing and it can cancel out magic, it's obviously them doing all of this now, right?” Rainbow Dash confirmed, getting to her hooves with a determined expression.
“But how would they make a stone like that affect the whole of Equestria? Especially if they're not even in Equestria.” Twilight said thoughtfully, biting her lip.
“Who cares?! Let's just go there, break down their doors and get that thing away from them!” Rainbow flapped her wings to hover above the group.
“Go to a place with a bunch of scary ponies to take an evil stone? I.. I really don't know.. that seems... really scary...” Fluttershy shrunk where she sat, flattening on the floor.
“Scary or not, it's the only lead we have,” Twilight said as she turned to the rest of them. “If this thing is that powerful, even if it's not the Seventh Element or whatever you wanna call it, there's no way some crazy ponies practicing wild magic should have their hooves on it!”
“Plus, we got the Elements of Harmony,” Applejack added. “So even if this thing is that evil doohickey, there's only one of it and six of us. If we're smart about it, I'm sure we'll figure out a way ta get that group of wackos away from it.”
“We should blast it with our rainbow!” Pinkie bounced in place.
“But what if the Elements of Harmony don't work?” Fluttershy squeaked, sitting up again. “What if this evil element cancels out their magic too? What if we can't find where they're keeping it? What if we get lost just trying to get to them? I've never been outside of Equestria in my whole life! We don't know anything about these ponies, or what they might do to us if they caught us!”
“Calm down Shutterfly,” Discord muttered, sounding bored as he proceeded to pick her up by the tail, dangling her close next to his head. “You don't really believe this little fairy tale about a magical rock that cancels out magic, do you? Personally I think the paradox is rather clever, but before I get my hopes up that it exists, I'd wait for more than just a story written by somepony who had nothing better to do one afternoon but scribble down a fanfiction about some fable nopony cares about.”
“Well, unless you have any better ideas, and knowing your kind of ideas I know you don't-” Twilight growled at him through her teeth.
“The stone does exist.” Oggie interrupted, closing the book.
Everyone's attention turned back to him at this. His expression was serious, looking more like the face that had first greeted them at the door.
“Did you read that in a storybook as well?” Discord grinned toothily at him, dropping Fluttershy.
“Not exactly,” Oggie said as he sat up. Something flashed across his face but Twilight didn't have enough time to identify what the emotion was.
Ogham took a breath. “I've seen it.”