Ponyville, a small town founded about sixty years ago by traveling farmers looking for a place to settle. Whether by providence or its convenient location, it's now a thriving community. Although, it still pales in comparison to much older places like Manehattan, the wandering city of Cloudsdale, Canterlot which is the capital of Equestria, and several others.
Most Ponyville houses were made from blueprints bought from the architect Flawless Design. These houses had deceivingly hay looking rooftops with the classic upside down V shape. The wooden roofs actually had a unique moss grown on them that appears very similar to hay. It spreads incredibly slowly, unless somepony provided it flour. It's naturally resistant to the elements and prevents leaks from ever happening. The downside of this moss was that it takes some effort to remove and Celestia forbid a bag of flour was ever dumped on it. Outside of that, it grows so slowly that it only needs to be done once every two years. At any rate, most of the houses are two to three stories near town hall. Thanks to Flawless Design’s design they could have a total of three stories basement excluded. Their exterior displayed classic four-panel windows with pink frames and pink doors. They were painted light yellow and had brown frames which provided structural integrity while also adding a nice contrast in color.
The streets of Ponyville are very spacious and usually filled during the morning setup and evening take-down of Ponyville’s marketplace.
The library of Ponyville is one of the few unique buildings that follow the theme of a quaint little village. It was carved out of a huge oak tree with several homely windows and a welcoming red door. The inside has bookshelves along the walls, stairs following the curve of the tree, and circular counter with a wooden pony head sculpture as a centerpiece. There's a doorway right before the stairs that lead to the basement.
At the moment, four ponies were present inside the library. A light purple alicorn mare with a purple mane and tail with a pink stripe, light purple eyes, and a starburst type cutie mark. An orange pegasus filly with small wings, slightly rough purple mane and tail, and purple eyes. A white unicorn filly with a puffy light purple and pink mane and tail with green eyes. The final pony was a yellow earth pony filly with a red mane and tail, a light red bow tied atop her mane, and orange eyes.
“Alright girls I think you’ve had enough for today,” the alicorn said in a pleasant but commanding tone of voice. As the earth pony filly got a sunflower seed to mature half way by using a drop of potion she had recently made. While the unicorn filly struggled to levitate a pen and paper. Finally, The pegasus filly was currently looking at a bunch of gears, that came from a grandfather clock, with an annoyed frown.
“Ugh, thank you Twilight I think I was gonna go insane if something didn’t happen,” said the pegasus filly with a tomboyish voice; while making a circular gesture to the side of her head with one of her forehooves at the appropriate time.
“Don’t you mean crazy Scootaloo? Insane is when you do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result,” said the unicorn filly in a somewhat high pitched squeak.
“Why by that definition you already are insane Scootaloo. What with the way you fiddled with those two pieces right there for half our time here,” said the yellow earth pony filly with a slight country accent while pointing at said machine parts. Scootaloo glared at her with annoyance.
“Applebloom! That’s not nice,” said the white unicorn filly.
“But it’s true,” Applebloom defended.
“Yeah, well whatever,” Scootaloo dismissed.
“Ok girls, that’s enough. You did a good job today, Sweetie Belle I’m so proud you can now levitate two objects,” Sweetie Belle gave a proud smile, “Applebloom I think you may want to consider learning from Zecora. If you wish to learn more about potion making because I only know what you’re learning from Potions 101,” Applebloom blushed, “and Scootaloo please don’t give up. I know what you’re learning is hard, but if you continue you will be able to not only assemble things but fix things, and I promise I’ll help you a little more,” Twilight said and Scootaloo let out a relieved sigh.
“Thanks Twilight,” they all replied and made their way for the door.
Feeling better with the promise Twilight gave her, Scootaloo asked her best friends, “So you girls have any idea on what we’re gonna try and get our cutie marks in today?” while they left the library and closed the door.
Twilight heard this as she went back to her thick book of equestrian laws. She does not know what her role as princess entails and it's giving her a nagging feeling that she just can’t ignore so instead of asking her mentor she decided to go through all the laws Equestria has made over the thousand years of Celestia’s rain, also she figured she ought to know the laws anyway.
“Oh-oh-oh I do,” said Sweetie Belle while they wandered around aimlessly, passing similar houses, “You remember when Spike gave my sister that book that made her go crazy and turn the town into a mock Crystal Empire?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“Yeah, what about it?” replied Scootaloo. Spike is Twilights assistant, he has a crush on Sweeties sister so when a chance to help her out came by, he took it. It ended up corrupting Sweeties sister for a little bit. “Spike ate that book, and I don’t think I want to know where it is now, also I don’t think we should mess with something that made Rarity more asserative on fashion then she already is.”
“What?...” Sweetie fell behind as her friends kept walking along the street. She quickly ran back to her place by there side, “Ew no, and the word is assertive not whatever that was. What I mean is we could get our explorers cutie marks for finding secrets from the Castle of the Two Sisters, kind of like Daring Do,” Sweetie Belle said rather proud of her idea. They knew Daring Doo as a fictional character from a well-written book series. Rainbow Dash of all ponies introduced it to them. Rainbow is not known for liking to read books, so they didn’t take long to check it out.
Scootaloo heard this and immediately stopped walking and imagined her sister and herself exploring the world, fighting bad guys, and going through dungeons filled with traps. Scootaloo believed Rainbow Dash to be her sister after an incident last summer where she almost died from a huge waterfall drop. Though Rainbow never did seem to treat her any different from how she had previously she was slightly more involved, which was more than Scootaloo could ask for. Applebloom finally spoke up, “Well, Ah for one like that idea.”
Applebloom and Sweetie Belle stopped and stared at Scootaloo as she fantasized about her future awesome life, but she quickly regained her cool and inhaled. Knowing what's coming next, Sweetie and Applebloom prepared for their own yell. They jumped up bumped their right hooves together, “CUTIE MARK CRUSADER EXPLORERS YAY!” This is something the locales of Ponyville to some degree feared as usually they always turn something simple into something complicated and disastrous even if completely unintentionally. Ever since they started their club last year and a half ago or so; they’ve managed to utterly disorganize the library, poison their teacher and Appleblooms brother with a love ‘potion,’ reveal several ponies embarrassing secrets in a school newspaper, and cause general havoc. Sweetie made capes using her sister's materials to wear when they went out on crusades. They quickly decided against using them when on actual crusades after some incidents. They instead used their capes for ‘official crusader meetings.’ Their goal is to get their cutie marks. A mark that appears on a pony after discovering something they’re good at that makes them unique from anypony else.
Sweetie stared straight ahead for half a second then blinked twice, “I need to tell my sister that we’re going there first.”
“Wait just a second Sweetie, if you do that she will never let us go unless some pony comes with us,” replied Applebloom.
“Yeah and if we’re gonna be explorers, we need to be able to make it on our own,” added Scootaloo.
“Fine, but we should leave a note somewhere. So they know where we are. I don’t think Applejack would ever let you out of her sight again if we don’t show some responsibility.” replied Sweetie, referring to an incident where Applejack could not stand the fact that Applebloom will one day grow up and went into super over protective sister mode.
“That’s a good point Sweetie,” agreed Scootaloo after having watched it.
“Was she really that bad?” asked Applebloom.
“Every. Five. Seconds,” Sweetie replied, trying to block those memories out of her head.
“Okay, okay, ah get it. Though ah did learn a lot when ah went to deliver those pies, and that’s to be prepared. So Ah’m gonna go get a rope, compass, map, and canteens. Sweetie you can go get us snacks. Scootaloo ah want you to leave a note on the clubhouse door that says we’re going to the castle of the two sisters and we will be back before dark. We will meet each other at the edge the Everfree in twenty minutes,” said Applebloom confidently.
Sweetie and Scootaloo looked at Apple Bloom like she just saved the world. “How did you come up with that so fast Applebloom that was incredible,” said Sweetie.
Applebloom smiled shyly, “It just came to me, it seemed like the logical thing to do.”
“Okay that’s enough talk, let's do this already,” said Scootaloo excitedly.
With a dash, the three fillies ran their separate ways to accomplish the tasks they had given themselves.
Twenty minutes later, at the edge of the Everfree forest near a cottage that had many animals of various species around it. Applebloom, now carrying a saddle bag with three canteens latched to the saddle bag a map and compass in the right side pocket with a rope in the left side pocket, darted across a grass field from behind a tree to the forest and dived into one of the many bushes near the edge. Quickly recovering she looked around but could not find what she was looking for until she heard somepony whisper, “Hey Applebloom over here, were you spotted at all?”
Finding the orange pegasus who spoke, she looked behind her at the field she just crossed then intensely at the cottage for a few seconds and responded, “No ah think we’re in the clear is Sweetie here?”
“I’m here,” responded Sweetie.
“Let's get going already,” said Scootaloo impatiently. Before they left the cover that the bushes provided, Applebloom and Sweetie handed out canteens and snacks respectively. Sweetie brought them carrots, celery, and to the relief of Scootaloo and Applebloom some candy bars.
They sneaked their way to the entrance of the Everfree which left them exposed to the cottage once they made it. They broke into a gallop until they couldn't see the cottage anymore, which didn't take long. Armed with a map, compass, and stories their sisters had told them about their trials to the Castle of the Two Sisters they had a good idea on how to get there. Thanks to Spike, they also had a good idea of how long it should take to get there. Spike got there in about two hours and since it was currently around 9:30 A.M., that gave them about five hours to explore the castle and leave before it starts to get dark. They all agreed to this, even though Applebloom and Scootaloo won’t admit it, Sweetie knows it’s because of the cockatrice incident, in which they all the stayed the night at Fluttershy’s or in other words the cottage they just ran from. They chased after a chicken that'd ran off during the night, encountered a cockatrice and got a first look at how dangerous they can be. They saw the chicken they went to recover turn into stone before the cockatrice went after them. Fluttershy ended up saving them. At any rate, they knew not to be in there during the night.
“Ah almost want to go show Zecora how much Ah’ve improved on my alchemy,” Applebloom said just thinking out loud. Applebloom was one of the first ponies to actually to try and get to know Zecora a zebra who ponies once believed her akin to a witch. That changed because of Applebloom in part. Zecora peeked Appleblooms interest in alchemy and helped cure her of the cutie pox when she tried to experiment with what she learned.
“It can wait until tomorrow. When you will be able to show her your brand new cutie mark,” said Scootaloo while they continued down the trail.
Appleblooms biggest problems in the world as far as she saw it was her lack of a cutie mark and something else she decided was a kind of trade that she’d have to live with, “Ah reckon that sounds a might better,” she responded.
“And now you sound like your sister,” Scootaloo remarked.
Applebloom laughed at that, “You’re right, ah guess ah did sound like her just then.”
“Shhhhh,” Sweetie hissed. “I don’t want to get eaten by a monster because you two needed to talk,” Sweetie whispered loudly.
Scootaloo and Applebloom looked at each other came to a silent agreement then back at Sweetie and nodded. Sweetie is easily the kindest of their group. The only ponies to truly receive any kind of ire from her is her family. Even Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon who bully them relentlessly wouldn’t get any kind of ill will from Sweetie. Once, a year ago she tried to disown her sister and replace her with Appleblooms sister. Scootaloo didn’t stay along for that, but it is where she got the idea that maybe she could make Rainbow Dash her sister. Recently, Sweetie tried to sabotage her sister's business out of jealousy and they had to go to Canterlot to fix it.
After about fifteen minutes of walking, they came across a ledge that they recognized from their sister's stories and let out a sigh of relief now knowing they were on the right trail. They walked down the ledge with the rope ready for a moments notice. It wasn't needed, fortunately. They checked their compass and map then kept going east. They were walking silently in the hot and humid forest for about eighty minutes as it neared noon. They continued, wary of any monsters they might come across. Until they finally came across their second recognizable landmark, not from the map but their sister's stories.
The trees suddenly looked like they had creepy faces. This freaked out Scootaloo quite a bit as she remembered her nightmares from last summer that helped lead her to that before mentioned waterfall. Putting on her best-winning smile she croaked “Hahaha, looks like we just need to make it past these, not at all scary looking trees.”
“You’re right they’re just trees, though ah admit they do creep me out let’s just get this over with,” Applebloom responded.
Applebloom began walking and Sweetie followed soon after; while, Scootaloo remained and tried to keep her composure. After some walking Sweetie realized Scootaloo wasn’t with them. She looked back to see Scootaloo looking down and shaking slightly, or at least that’s what she thought she saw. She was too far away to be sure.
Scootaloo looked up and saw Sweetie watching her intently; while Applebloom walked up from behind Sweetie to investigate. Scootaloo quickly galloped to them and let out a nervous laugh, “Sorry about that girls. I thought I heard something, but I was wrong. It’s safe.” Just as Scootaloo got in front of them the ground below them disappeared. They had no clue what they felt for a moment until they saw the edge of a circular hole that just appeared. They naturally looked down, but all they saw below them was darkness.
“Ah~!” They screamed; until they landed on something fairly soft with an “Oof.” Whatever it was quickly caved in and threw them across a harder surface, earning them couple minor bruises along the way. Before they could even recover from their fall and find out what happened, they all suddenly felt like they were in the bottom of a deep lake with pressure compressing every part of their body but with a lack of any moisture. They were surprised to find out that they actually could breathe with how oppressive it felt.
Slowly Scootaloo opened her eyes after she calmed herself by breathing. She looked around. The first thing she saw was thick brown roots and lush green leaves going upwards. Her eyes followed them up and saw something confusing to her. It was a huge gray sword with a golden hilt and crossguard that curved upwards, and a black coin shaped pommel with a swirl like a whirlpool. The pommel held a big glowing light blue gem embedded in its center. It was held by the vines but looked like it could easily fall off given the right push. It was easily out of her reach. She shook her head in a failed attempt to get rid of the awful pressure, “is everypony okay?” she asked while looking for her friends.
“I’m fine. I think,” replied Sweetie bringing a hoof to her head.
“Ugh, Ah’ll be fine once this horrible feelin’ goes away,” Applebloom complained.
No longer worried about her friends Scootaloo slowly got up and took a better look at the area they now occupied. First, she looked at where they landed and saw skid marks from crushed leave stems leading up to what appeared to be a giant lily pad. It was slowly but noticeable recovering from the trauma that the three fillies had dealt to it. She watched this with interest for a little while. There were glowing blue flowers surrounding the lilypad in a large circle that lit up the whole area. Two weird but totally cool looking glowing translucent bulb plants. One was pink and the other was green. The circular wall, ceiling, and floor seemed to be covered in leafy vines.
After a while of mesmerized staring at everything around them and trying to ignore the constant pressure, Sweetie finally asked, “Where are we?”
“Ah don’t know but ah bet that there book will give us a clue,” Applebloom responded pointing at a plain blue book far below and to the side of the sword. It rested on a huge leaf.
Scootaloo now standing up, looked to where Applebloom pointed and was surprised to see the book right in front of her face ‘How did I miss that,’ she thought as she went to open it. The first page had several sketches of a lily pad and a hoof hitting a leaf that sprouted above the lily pad, then several sketches of the lily pad rising, and some weird symbols below each picture. The next page was nothing but those same weird symbols that she could not hope to understand. “Eh, I can’t read this it’s not Equestrian,” she said as Applebloom and Sweetie crowded around to get a look at it.
“Uh, ah think it’s showing us how to get out of here, ugh, through that lily pad in the book. It must be one of those we just landed on,” Applebloom weakly replied as she fought the sickening pressure.
“Well let’s go give it a try. This place makes me feel like I used all my magic and I have a headache,” Sweetie said rubbing her head.
“Ah agree, let’s get out of here. Ah can’t take this feeling much longer,” Applebloom said as she picked up the journal and walked to the lily pad as Sweetie followed close behind.
Scootaloo began to make her way over to them until she remembered the sword she first saw when they got there. “Wait! We have to bring that sword with us, I mean look at it, that’s exactly what can get us our explorer's cutie mark!”
Applebloom was reluctant but had to admit that sword was pretty awesome, “Okay, but if we can’t carry it or you can’t safely get it off those vines then we’re leaving it here. Ah really can’t stand this feeling much longer,” Applebloom said seriously.
“Just watch me,” Scootaloo said as she backed away from the sword, took aim and threw her canteen. It sailed across the room and hit the glowing gem in the pommel. The canteen vaporized and turned into dust that promptly fell to the ground in front of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. They stared at this with huge fearful eyes as the gem began to glow and get brighter. Three balls of magic shot out of the gem then hovered in place, and quickly expanded in size. As they got bigger a wild wind manifested in the room that threatened to throw the fillies around so they latched onto each other for dear life. Any attention to the strange pressure that plagued them since they entered was long forgotten and they failed to notice as it disappeared. The wind stopped and everything calmed down just as quickly as it picked up. They slowly separated from each other and fearfully stared at the now huge three orbs of magic. The orbs slowly began to spiral with magic headed towards them, kind of like water going down a drain or a tornado. They backed up. The ends of the orbs grew more intense and sharp as they almost lazily elongated towards them. They backed up even more, unknowingly separating from each other in their fear. The ends of each orb seemed to stalk their movements individually like they had their own targets. Without warning the tail end of the magical vortexes shot at them. Everything went black.
End Chapter 1