To say that Hidden History was excited about this new find would be a candidate for the "Understatement of the Century" award. His whole career was centered around discovering the lost history of Equestria and he had just been assigned to what was almost certainly a treasure trove of lost information! He was being assigned to a newly discovered cave that had been until recently sealed off by a boulder and a landslide. The cave itself was just a curiosity; it was what was inside that made him so excited.
From the report that he had been given there were signs of an ancient battle, quite possibly even predating all known history! Not only that, but what also appeared to be a mostly intact large structure!
Little did he know just how important that cave was, and what it held within...
After getting his assistant, a unicorn by the name of Buried Treasure, nicknamed Dig Dug, they set off for the mountain in which the cave was held.
Upon reaching the mountain they quickly found out one of the reasons why the cave had only been recently discovered. A recent land slide had taken part of the mountain face off, at the same time revealing the cave and creating a difficult to climb pathway up to it. Looking at the only way up to the cave, History wished that he was a Pegasus instead of an Earth pony...
Upon reaching and entering the cavern, they discovered that it indeed looked like there was a battle once waged here. Skeletons of all three main types were scattered throughout the area, all equipped in what appeared to be some kind of armor. Many of the Unicorn skeletons had arrows sticking out of their armor, though a few sported what appeared to be severe magical burns, and in a few cases, it looked like they had been the victim of multiple massive lightning strikes. In the distance (yes the cave is THAT big...) stood a large fortress in all its wounded glory, relatively unscathed by the ages.
"This is incredible! It looks like nothing has been able to get into here for AGES!" Hidden exclaimed.
"Considering the fact that this cave has been hidden from everything, including magical scans for some reason, it makes sense that nothing has been able to disturb this area, what with that giant rock and all..." Buried stated.
"Hm... This is obviously pre-unification era, considering how long this appears to have been here undiscovered... yet all of the Pegasus and Earth pony skeletons, along with a few Unicorn skeletons, have uniformed armor styles... that is most unusual as at the time the three tribes were at war with each other, not fighting alongside each other..." History thought out loud.
"Perhaps this was a stronghold of some of the few who believed in working together?" Buried suggested.
It was at this point that they had finished setting up base camp.
"That is looking to be more and more possible, let's check out that fortress and see what's inside. Maybe there will be more clues as to what happened here,” History stated.
They were walking though the ancient battle field, occasionally stopping to examine the old armor, when Buried noticed something.
"Hey, if you look closely here, you can see that the armor for the united front has a symbol that resembles a triangle with a circle on each point! And if you look at that wall, you can see the same symbol!" Buried remarked, pointing to one of the few unscathed portions of the outer wall, which just so happened to be above what remained of the main gate. It looked like it had at one point an intricate locking system, but was just blasted open. "Also the united front forces are more prevalent the closer we get to the fortress."
"Interesting, this implies that the united front were the defenders here, and judging from the magical burns on this gate and the fact that the only ones not in united armor are Unicorns, I would hazard a guess that they managed to piss off a major power in the Unicorn tribe..." History was cut off upon entering through the gates by what he saw.
Inside the outer walls was what appears to have once been a court yard of some kind, but what was almost in the exact middle of that court yard is what caused him to stop in his tracks.
"I think we might want to tell the princesses about this one..." Buried Treasure managed to state after a few minutes of starring.
Hidden History could only nod quietly, for almost exactly in the center of the court yard, was a giant crystal.
A giant crystal, with a Pegasus within it, garbed in a strange set of armor bearing the same mark as the defenders...