//------------------------------//
// Artifacts 
// Story: The Basement 
// by D5ky 
//------------------------------//

"So, I just hold it in my hoof like this," Twilight said, "and it will charge?"

Pinkie smiled, "Yep!  Then it becomes a super convenient artifact!"

It was late into the afternoon, and they were back in front of the Death Hole.  Pinkie was teaching Twilight about "artifacts."  Basically, just like they could absorb energy from the Basement, any objects they would carry during the descent became full of it.  Then, instead of needing to go down the Death Hole, they could use this object as a sort of gateway between the two realities.  And just like them, when the artifact ran out of energy, it would need recharging.

"But Pinkie," Twilight frowned, "there's something I don't get.  If you had two artifacts, wouldn't the one you're not using get recharged when you use the other one?"

Pinkie smiled.  "Nope."

"That's it?  Just nope?" Twilight asked.

Pinkie continued, as though there had been no pause, "Because the artifacts work differently from the Death Hole."

"Well, would you care to explain?" Twilight asked, slightly impatient.  Spending an entire day with Pinkie Pie could be a huge test of patience, and Twilight was just about at her limit.

"Well, you know how the Death Hole fixes up your mortal injuries after you fall down it?  That's because when you go down the Death Hole, it shoots you up with a huuuuuge blast of dark energy that fixes up your impossible injuries!"

"All right," Twilight said, "but what does that have to do with artifacts?"

"When artifacts go with you down the death hole, the same thing happens; they get shot full of dark energy.  But they don't absorb energy constantly like we do.  The only way for them to get charged is by going down the Death Hole.  Another artifact isn't strong enough to do it."

"So you still have to go down the Death Hole sometimes?" Twilight asked, her hopefulness at a loophole fading as the reality of the situation returned.

"Yep," Pinkie replied, "unless you know some smarty-pants-alicorn-princess way to get that much dark energy at once."

Pinkie kept calling it dark energy, but something kept nagging at Twilight in the back of her mind.  She was actually unconvinced the Basement had anything to do with dark energy.  She knew what dark energy felt like - several of the villains she had faced in her time had been filled with it.  Without dark energy, it would be impossible to do any dark spells.  But that meant that it was always distinguishable.

And Twilight had never sensed even a tiny bit of it from Pinkie, and especially not from Cheese Sandwich.  Dark energy produces a lot of fear, and while the Basement was freaky, it wasn't dark-energy-freaky...

It was a whole ton freakier than dark-energy-freaky.

But if it wasn't dark energy... what was it?  And why couldn't she sense it in Pinkie?

"Hello?  Earth to Twilight!  You there? Ponyville calling Princess Twilight Sparkle!"

With a slight start, Twilight retreated out of her thoughts, remembering that she was still in the middle of a conversation with Pinkie Pie.

"Sorry," she apologized, "I guess I zoned out for a second there."

"Where did you go?" Pinkie asked excitedly.

Twilight giggled, "I was right here the whole time, Pinkie."

"But your brain wasn't right here the whole time!" Pinkie exclaimed, eyes widening as she tapped a hoof against one of her temples.  "What were you thinking about?"

Improvising swiftly, Twilight replied, "I was just wondering... how did you find out Cheese Sandwich had been to the Basement?"

Pinkie smiled mischievously, "Ooh, your brain wanders and you're thinking about him?"  She suddenly popped up right beside Twilight, nudging her with her front leg, "I think somepony has a crush!"

Twilight replied with a sly smile, "Oh, Pinkie.  I'm not the one with a crush on him."

Pinkie's expression didn't change, though her eyes became slightly unfocused as she continued, "It was when he left Ponyville, and he gave me Boneless.  I noticed he was almost filled with dark energy.  He was an artifact!"

"Like, an artifact artifact?" Twilight said, mouth falling open slightly.

"Yes indeedy!  He was my main artifact until he turned into a key for Hasbro's-Toy-Advertisement-in-a-Box."

"Wait, a key for what?"

"Oh, never mind," Pinkie replied.  "Anyway, I think it was Cheesy's test to see if I was just as messed up as he was!"

"Cheesy?" Twilight suppressed a giggling fit, with difficulty.  "Is that what you call him now?"

"It's what he likes me to call him, yeah," Pinkie said.  Her eyes remained slightly starry, while Twilight silently died of an attack of the giggles.

"But why are we still talking about Cheesy," Pinkie said, shaking her head slightly and popping her bubbly smile back onto her face, "when you have an artifact to charge up?"

Twilight was, after all, still holding a golden 100,000-bit coin in her hoof.  She had selected it as her first artifact before they had returned to the Death Hole, and now they were going to charge it with... 'dark' energy.

"Hmmm..." Pinkie frowned, walking circles around Twilight while staring at the small coin that was worth more than all of Ponyville combined, "how many of those do you have?"

Twilight, though slightly embarrassed, admitted, "...Way more than I'll ever need.  Ever."

"Then how will you be able to tell it apart from the others?"

"I thought I'd be able to feel how much it has left!" Twilight exclaimed.

"You can.  While you're holding it.  If you're not holding it, you can't feel it.  So if you put that back wherever you keep all of your money, how would you be able to find it amongst all of the others you have?"

Twilight opened her mouth, and then closed it again.  She knew it was a high possibility.  She could separate it from the rest, but her OCD wouldn't allow that.  She knew she'd immediately put it with all of the other 100,000 bit coins.  Then how would she ever find it again?  She didn't even know how many of those coins she had.

"Need help setting something apart, you say?" A voice suddenly echoed through the forest clearing, causing both Pinkie and Twilight to jump in alarm.  "I think I can help."

A bright flash of light appeared right next to Twilight, and she yelled slightly as a tall figure appeared within.  There was only one creature she knew who would do that.

"Discord!  What have I told you about sneaking up on ponies like that?!" Twilight yelled.

"My, my, aren't we snappy today!" Discord replied, pretending to recoil slightly.  Then, he leaned down and took a look at Twilight's six-figure bit.  "Here."

With a wave of his lion's paw, the coin flashed with light, and Discord vanished again.  Twilight looked down at the full-color picture of her face now imprinted on the coin. Her eyes were wide with surprise, and she was wearing a giant golden crown and a red cape of royalty.

"Discord!" Twilight yelled, looking around in anger, "you get back here and fix this right now!"

Pinkie could only gape at the coin, open-mouthed.

"That was more money than I'll make in my entire life..." she said, in an indiscernable tone.

Twilight, calming slightly, looked down an the now-worthless coin.

"At least that problem's fixed..." she mumbled.  Then she glared.  "If anypony ever judges me over this coin, I will kill you, Discord!"

"Whelp, now there's only one thing left to do!" Pinkie said.

Twilight looked around, just in time to see Pinkie's knife two inches from her chest.  For the second time that day, excruciating pain shot through her like poison, from her chest outward.  She tumbled backward into the hole, as Pinkie called out to her, "Whatever you do, DON'T DROP THAT BIT!"

Twilight clenched the warm little piece of metal in her hoof, as once again, her heart stopped beating, and she was engulfed in the darkness.


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"So how often do artifacts need recharging?" Twilight asked Pinkie.  They had met up in the Ponyville square, just like they had previously done.

"Meh, It depends," Pinkie said, scratching her chin absent-mindedly with a hoof.  "They're usually good for four or five trips, but some more magically powerful ones can last a trip or two longer."

"So how do I use it?" Twilight asked.

"Easy!" Pinkie exclaimed, bouncing slightly, "Just hold onto it real tight and wish that you could jump back into the main world, and it'll happen!"

Twilight held onto her bit, and was about to will it to take her back upstairs when it was suddenly yanked from her hoof.

"Uh-uh-uh," Pinkie scolded, tossing the bit lightly into the air and catching it again, "you don't want to waste a trip, do you?"

"Waste a trip?" Twilight said, her ears drooping slightly.  "There's more?"

"Of course there is, silly goose!" Pinkie said.  "I haven't taught you everything yet!"

As she opened her hoof to catch the bit again, it didn't ever come.  She looked around to see it held in Twilight's magical grasp.

"I'm done for today, Pinkie," Twilight declared.  "I died today -- twice!  I'm exhausted, my head hurts, and I just want to go home."

Before Pinkie could protest further, Twilight willed the bit in her hoof to take her upstairs.  Immediately, the thick, gloomy air of the Basement dissipated, and even though she knew right where Pinkie was standing, she couldn't get her eyes to stay there.  She got an eerie, opressive feeling in her mind whenever she tried.  This, she supposed, was the feeling Pinkie had described earlier, where it's hard for anypony to notice them while they're down under.

Suddenly, Pinkie appeared right next to Twilight, clenching a rubber chicken in her hoof; Boneless 3, her main artifact.

"Aww, Twilight!" Pinkie whined.  "I still have so much more to teach you!"

"It'll have to wait until tomorrow, Pinkie," Twilight said, making her way across town towards her castle.  "I'm completely beat."

"Oh... all right," Pinkie pouted in defeat. "But I'll be over here first thing tomorrow morning to get you!"

Twilight meandered to her tree castle, not focused on where she was going.  Before she could blink, she found herself in the throne room.

"Where have you been?!" Spike exclaimed the moment he saw her.  "I had four different ponies come ask me where you were!  You didn't show up for your appointments with anyone today!"

"I'm going to my bedroom," Twilight informed him.  "Unless it's dire, no interruptions."

Spike wanted to ask more questions, but in cases like this, Twilight's word was final.  He kept silent as she walked through the hidden door disguised as a wall, and ascended the castle to her bedroom.  She collapsed onto her four-poster bed, completely drained.

Of course, she couldn't actually get any sleep.  It was still about five in the evening, and there was zero chance of her sleeping.  As soon as she could muster the energy, she got up, and got an empty journal from a bookshelf.

"Time to document all of this," she declared to the air, quill raised.

She began writing down everything she could think of about the Basement, how she got there, and what its effects seemed to be.  When she had finished with it, she locked it in her lockbox, which contained all of the dark magic books she owned.

Then she paced the room for three straight hours, with only the clip-clop of her hooves to keep her company.  She was tempted to leave her bedroom before she remembered that the last thing she wanted right now was to deal with more people.  (Twilight has said people in the show, it's allowed!)

When 9:00 hit, she couldn't resist it anymore.  Even though she hated every moment she had to spend in it, she had to discover more about the Basement.

"Four or five trips, huh?" she said, looking down at the bit-sized version of her face.  "All right.  Take me back downstairs!"

The air around her thickened, and the opressive feeling returned to her chest.  She knew it had worked.

"All right," she muttered, pulling paper and quill from one of her drawers.  "Better start mapping this."

Even if she despised it, if the Basement proved useful, she might as well use it.

She drew her bedroom, and the two doors that it held.  She looked at the door to her bathroom.  "I wonder if this counts as a 'door.'  It doesn't lead anywhere important... but then again, Pinkie's closet led somewhere.  I'll have to try my closet too," she realized with a jolt, and hurriedly added it to the map.  "But first, bathroom."

She took a deep breath to ready herself, and she charged full-speed at her bathroom door.  She burst through it in a frenzy, caught one glimpse of the still-shiny interior, and was swallowed by darkness again.

When the darkness dissipated, it was immediately clear that she had moved.  But it was a place she had never been before.

It was dark, lit only by a few oil lamps.  A massive yawn filled the air, and Twilight jumped again.  Right in the center of the little room was the last person she had expected: Discord.

Discord finished his enormous yawn, before his eyes widened.  He looked around in alarm.

"Who's there?" he said.

Twilight assumed Discord was magically powerful enough to have sensed her.  After all, he was at least as old and at least as powerful as Celestia, so it was no surprise.

Is this where Discord lives? Twilight wondered silently.  I didn't think it'd be so... gloomy.

"Twilight?" Discord said.

Next thing Twilight knew, she had been picked up around the middle by a griffon's talon.  Discord hugged her to his side.  "Twilight, it's you!"

Surprised, Twilight teleported out of his grasp in a lavender flash of light, reappearing on the ground.

"I see you've discovered the powers of the Basement," Discord observed.

Twilight's mouth fell open once again in shock.  "You know about it too?!"

"Please, I know the Basement like the back of my head," Discord said, as eyes popped out of his head to peer behind it.  "...Oh, that's new."

He teleported right behind Twilight, bending his neck so his head was level with hers, "as is this connection within the Basement.  I didn't think the Basement was connected to this place."

"What is this place?" Twilight asked.

"Oh, this old thing?  This is my home!" Discord proclaimed.  "It's a nice little pocket in space-time, shoved into the gap between two quantum dimensions that I exist in; The Equestrian Dimension, and The United Federation of Planets Dimension."

"What's 'The United Federation' --"

"Oh, it's not important," Discord interrupted her, waving his paw.  "The point is, this is my home.  But now let's get you back to yours."

With a snap of his fingers, the area around them changed.  Twilight was back in her bedroom once again, but still in the Basement.

"Hey, now that you're so close, you should come visit me more often!" Discord said, rubbing his hands together.  "Oh, the fun we'll have..."

He disappeared again.

Twilight, making a mental note to always use the bathroom before jumping down to the Basement, drew a little square next to her bathroom door on her map, labeling it "Discord."

Next, she headed for her closet door.  She pulled it open and walked inside, closing it behind her as the familiar darkness enveloped her.  When it subsided, her eyes widened.

Once again, she had no idea where it had taken her.  She could hear echoing, deep-frequency sounds eminating from somewhere nearby.  She looked down the hallway she had appeared in, and saw a door at the very end.  Turning around, she was surprised to find a door leading right outside.  She immediately recognized the city; Canterlot.  Right outside the door stood two ponies, which Twilight realized were bouncers.

Why would my closet lead to a Canterlot Nightclub? Twilight wondered silently.

She wanted to go back through the door, but even with the stealth abilities the Basement provided, she didn't know if she could get past the bouncers without being noticed.  Instead, she turned back and walked down the hallway.  The deep bass of the club music got louder as she went.  Soon, she found herself in front of the door, and she stopped.  Should she walk through the door and go somewhere else, or should she go into the club?

"Why would I be at a club?" she wondered aloud.  "Is it significant, or just random?  But then again, the routes from Pinkie's room seemed to lead her to places that she found useful.  Maybe this club is significant?  But I guess my bathroom led to Discord.  Why would that be useful to me?

"But I'll never know until I see it," she concluded.  She lit her horn, and teleported to the other side of the door.

It was a semi-crowded nightclub.  There was room to walk, but there was definitely a distinct path, due to the groups of ponies dancing in the center.  A familiar face sat at the DJ podium; Vinyl Scratch.

"So this is what she meant when she said 'the night shift,'" Twilight muttered with a small smile.

Something was slightly off about all of this, though.  Twilight knew that Vinyl Scratch wasn't the only reason she was here.  She felt a pressing need to cross through the nightclub crowd towards one of the walls.  She did so, snaking her way between the ponies until she reached the outside of the dance floor.  There, leaning right against the wall where she had been headed, was another familiar, though uncommon, face.

"Cheese Sandwich?"

The stallion looked up at her from beneath his cowboy hat, opening his eyes.  His tough disposition evaporated as he saw who had addressed him.

"Princess Twilight?" he said, not believing his eyes.  Then, he lit up with sudden joy, scarily similar to how Pinkie Pie could, "Well, howdy-doo, Princess!  I haven't seen you since Rainbow Dash's Annibirthaversary!  What brings you here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Twilight said, raising an eyebrow.  "What brings you here?"

Cheese grinned widely, before popping up right beside Twilight.

"I think," he began as he started pushing her along, "we have some catching up to do!"

Twilight, surprised to find herself being pushed across the floor, couldn't form a coherent reply.  She was distracted by the scraping sound of her hooves sliding along the floor, and the lack of a reaction from other ponies.  The lack of reaction meant one thing; she and Cheese were both still in the Bassment.  Soon, Cheese pushed her into one side of a booth that she hadn't noticed.

"I'll go get the ketchup," Cheese proclaimed.  As he turned away, his voice grew deadly serious, "and then the ketching up will begin."

Twilight had never imagined she would meet another pony quite as crazy as Pinkie Pie.  But as she watched Cheese Sandwich walking away, she realized he might be the competitor.

"No wonder she likes him so much..." Twilight muttered, shaking her head a bit.  "They're perfect for each other... two crazy, random, party ponies."

Cheese Sandwich soon returned, carrying a hot dog stuffed full of ketchup packets in one hoof, and a mug of a brown liquid in the other.  He bounded into the booth with a crash, as he slid the glass of liquid across the little table, and Twilight caught it.

"That's for you," he informed her, as he began pulling all the ketchup packs out from every nook and cranny of the hot dog bun.  Twilight looked at the brown liquid, and tested it with her tongue.

"Root beer?" she said, surprised, but pleased.  "How'd you know I like root beer?"

"You drank about three barrels of it at the Annibirthaversary," Cheese Sandwich replied.  "Hoo-wee, I've never seen a pony drink so much root beer so fast!  You ran me dry of the stuff!"

Twilight gave an embarrassed little laugh, and took a sip of her glass.  It was just as good as the last time she'd had it.

"In all seriousness, though," Cheese Sandwich began, his face darkening and his voice lowering, "when did you die?  The last time I saw you, you definitely weren't a Basement customer."

Twilight told him about the Death Hole, how she had examined it thoroughly, how she had been fatally wounded and then fell down, and how Pinkie had taught her everything about it.  To her surprise, Cheese Sandwich didn't crack a single joke. In fact, he didn't say a word.  He just sat and listened to Twilight's explanation until it was finished.

"That sounds about right," Cheese said.  "It looks like you're a full-time Basement customer."

"It looks like you are too," she pointed out.  "It's your turn.  How did you find the Basement?"

Cheese took a bite of his ketchup-slathered hot dog, closing his eyes and chewing it slowly.  When he swallowed it, he opened his eyes, and stared at his plate.

"It happened when I was just a child, during my wanderings.  I hadn't found anyplace to go, anywhere I belonged.  I felt... worthless.  I decided the world didn't need somepony like me, and I decided to get out."

Twilight breathed in sharply, covering her mouth with a hoof.  She knew what he had done without him having to say it.

"I stumbled across the hole in the ground as I looked for a place to do it.  I stabbed myself through the heart, and in case that didn't work, I jumped into the hole as well.  When I woke up, I found myself back home. My knife was gone.  My heart was beating.  I was alive."

"Oh my gosh," Twilight said, eyes watering.  "I'm so sorry, Cheese Sandwich."

"To tell the truth," Cheese said, still staring down at his hot dog, "I was still in the Basement when I stumbled into Ponyville.  It was Pinkie throwing Boneless at me that brought me back upstairs.  I didn't only discover my love for partying that day.  I discovered a reason to remain alive."

They sat in silence for a while, the party around them and the notes of the music becoming white noise to them.  Though his childhood was rough, Twilight would never have guessed Cheese Sandwich to be a pony who had attempted to take his own life.  He had never seemed down in his time in Ponyville.  Did everypony who discovered the Basement have a similar story?  And if that was the case, what was the story behind Pinkie discovering the Basement?

"But why are we talking about that," Cheese said, suddenly smiling brightly, "when there's a good party happening around us?"

Cheese Sandwich picked her up, and as Twilight yelped slightly, he quite literally threw her into the partying crowd.