//------------------------------// // 2 - Unrealized Dreams // Story: An Unlikely Story // by Eldorado //------------------------------// ~ONE THOUSAND YEARS LATER~ Unrealized Dreams “…and with Celestia out of the picture and all Equestria under the command of her newly-formed Empire of the Moon, Nightmare Moon went right to work on finding ways for ponies to survive in an environment of endless night.” The yellow unicorn’s voice echoed off the hard walls of the darkened library. “No small task, mind you, but she did have the Elements of Harmony.” “Mm-hmm,” the brown stallion lying on the chaise longue across the library absently agreed. The drone of an airship passed lazily overhead, muffled by the manor’s brick walls. “It’s somewhat strange, how she flips back and forth between an almost paranoid skepticism of the Elements and a frantic, desperate dependence on them, but I think I understand her logic. The plan to bring eternal darkness included extensive use of the Elements, which she fully trusted and believed in at the time. She only began seeing them as more of a liability than an asset after she realized they’d made it impossible for her to kill her sister – that’s when she realized the kinds of unseen side-effects the Elements conjured with each usage. But by then, the only way forward was through further use of the Elements, and she wasn’t going to totally abandon her dreams of perpetual night based only on the possibility that those dreams would come with strings attached.” “Mm-hmm.” “The Elements allowed her to forge a new spell which negated the need for Celestia’s day, one which imitated sunlight to keep plants growing at all hours of the night. Under Nightmare Moon, all farms needed to thrive was a resident team of unicorns who could wander the fields casting the spell at regular intervals, and plants would grow up bigger and faster than ever before. The Empire of the Moon actually produced more food than Old Equestria ever had, and it did so during the blackest depths of night. But it wasn’t as simple as that. It never is, not when dealing with the Elements.” “Mm-hmm.” The stallion flipped a page in his comic book. “You see, the sun-surrogate spell was very taxing, and Nightmare Moon’s demands for productivity pushed the unicorns to exhaustion. The plants’ faster growth cycle and insatiable thirst overworked the earth ponies working the farm fields and the pegasi controlling the weather, too. Under Celestia, Equestria had flourished as a carefree land with ample time for play, where ponies could enjoy themselves and still thrive as a nation. By comparison, the Empire of the Moon, for all its comparative economic might, was built entirely upon brutal, miserable slave labor.” “Mmm.” “After five and a half centuries of that, the unicorns had had enough. They rebelled against Nightmare Moon, combining their power against her to take Equestria for themselves. This was dozens of generations after Luna’s coup against Celestia, of course, and the unicorn population alive then had grown up magically imitating the sun from early childhood without ever seeing so much as a painting of the real thing. As a creation of the Elements, the spell allowed its users to tap into a small part of the Elemental power in order to manipulate sunlight. That connection allowed for a very minute fraction of control over the Elements themselves – another one of the Elements’ signature side-effects. Individually, unicorns were still too weak to do much of anything, but when a large percentage of them banded together into a unified rebellion, they collectively managed to manipulate and eventually outright sever the bond tying Nightmare Moon to the Elements. She found herself deposed, cut off from the Elemental magic just like she’d done to her sister. In a way, Celestia ended up getting the last laugh, even after five hundred years of imprisonment.” “Yep.” The stallion twisted his body into a more comfortable position on the chaise longue, adjusting his comic book and turning to the next page. The low drone of the airship’s engines overhead faded slowly away into the distance. “After that is where things get spotty,” the unicorn’s brow furrowed with his displeasure at the historical gap. “Nightmare Moon tried to hold things together, but she was powerless to resist the revolution without her magic. As the Empire of the Moon slowly broke apart and the citizens struggled to organize to form their own government, we lose a lot of the history. A whole bunch of small local tribes cropped up, fought with each other, and broke apart again. We can’t even really be sure how the rebellion itself came together or what became of its members in the years afterward. All we know for certain is that Nightmare Moon was cast down and likely killed by the rebels when they marched on Canterlot. Her death would end Celestia, too, whatever was left of her after five and a half centuries of imprisonment. And with the princesses dead, the Elements relinquished power of the sun and moon back to nature itself for the first time since before Discord, allowing for the regular day/night cycle we have today, even without the Princesses’ influence.“ “Ah.” “The Elements themselves disappeared in the rebellion, either destroyed by the death of the princesses or teleported to another universe, nopony knows for sure. Given the unpredictable nature of the accursed things, I wouldn’t be surprised if they turned into gaudy monogrammed necklaces and sold themselves at auction. Regardless of the finer details, the Empire of the Moon collapsed at the hands of a unicorn rebellion, daylight returned to Equestria, and the Elements were never found. A few decades later the three pony races got together and formed the Empire of Equestria that we have today, and the rest you can learn from any history book. All in all, quite an interesting tale.” “Uh-huh.” The yellow unicorn looked up from his work and glared at the stallion over the top of his round glasses. “Have you been listening to anything I’ve been saying?” “Not a word.” The unicorn sighed as he levitated away the dusty leather-bound book he’d been studying during his lecture. “I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve lived here for six years, and I can’t for the life of me remember a time when you actually did.” He looked absently at the ceiling of the library, pondering the stallion’s existence. “I don’t get it. Wasn’t learning a few things about history the whole reason you took this job?” The comic book fell to the stallion’s lap, his eyes half-closed with detached apathy. “No, I took the job because it sounded like an easy gig,” he stated. The comic book rose again and obscured his eyes, but he lowered it almost immediately when he realized how he must have looked lying there sprawled out on the chaise longue. “And it is.” The comic book snapped back upright, and the unicorn rolled his eyes. “Your everlasting indolence continues to astonish and bewilder us all, Mr. Shadow. One can only wonder why your flank is not absolutely rife with images of comic books and sofas by now.” The stallion’s blasé shrug in response was hardly a surprise. Sky Shadow was nearly a full adult, a rich chocolate-brown earth pony who simply could not be bothered to do or care about anything beyond just barely keeping his eyes open through the dreadful expanse of time between staggering out of bed in the morning and falling back in at night. His cutie mark had still not appeared on his flank, a full decade later than most, and it could remain absent forever as far as he cared. So long as he had a place to sleep, food to eat, and a general ability to mind his own business without anypony getting in his way or bothering him, Sky Shadow was content. He didn’t need a big ugly picture on his flank to tell him what his interests were. The much older yellow unicorn in the fat armchair across the library from him was the esteemed historian known in certain intellectual circles as Dr. Ersatz Lexicon (an intolerably pretentious mouthful of a name Shadow could never be bothered to pronounce when a simple ‘Doc’ conveyed more or less the same general idea), who had hired him six years prior in exchange for room and board as a “um…well, sort of a live-in butler/assistant/ manservant kind of thing, uh…just…you know, a kind of general all-around ‘handyman’ type of character, more or less, I suppose.” Sky Shadow had taken the job without even a moment’s hesitation. Any position with a description that vague simply had to be everything Shadow was looking for in a job—flexible hours, free food, and nothing more mentally draining than the occasional request for lifting a crate of books or maps or other miscellaneous research supplies, something his muscular earth pony body was more than suited for. Dr. Lexicon, once a prominent university history professor, was now happily retired, although he still enjoyed giving lengthy historical lectures to his live-in “handyman.” Lately he had become something of a recluse, if a fabulously wealthy one, who preferred the company of his books and the tales of ancient history to actual social interaction. When the last of his surviving relatives died, he found himself the lone inhabitant of a sprawling estate, and the emptiness of the old house started getting to him. Ostensibly, he’d hired Shadow to take care of the manor in exchange for the privilege of inhabiting it, but all he had truly wanted was a captive audience to spew random strings of historical information at while he pored over his books as a way of reliving his glory days at the university. Since then, the two of them had spent most of their days together in the extravagant Lexicon Manor’s immense library, where the last surviving pony of the historic Lexicon family’s genealogical line frittered away the remaining few decades of his existence by burying his muzzle in various books about history and going on long-winded lectures to a selectively deaf handyman who would rather fritter his own existence away with his muzzle buried in a choose-your-own-adventure-style Daring Do comic book. It was far from an exciting life, but it did make the both of them content. The sound of the doorbell startled both of them, breaking the monotony of another day in the library. For a moment they looked at each other, confused; neither was expecting a call today, or any day for that matter. After a long moment of surprised silence, Dr. Lexicon jolted upright in his armchair. “Oh! That’ll be the post!” He was out of the chair and stumbling across the carpet before he’d finished the interjection. “We get mail here now?” Shadow lazily closed the book and rolled himself off the chaise longue. “Since when?” He followed lethargically after Lexicon through the door out of the library. “Since I revived my studies of the Nightmare Vault!” Lexicon was ecstatic, bounding down the corridor like a racehorse while Shadow matched his pace at a slow trot. “The what?” “Nightmare Vault! The greatest and most infamous treasure known to ponykind! Come now, you must have heard of it!” “I have not.” “It’s where Nightmare Moon hid all the valuables from Canterlot when the unicorn rebellion destroyed her magic, so they couldn’t take it all for themselves,” Lexicon explained as he stepped quickly down the sweeping grand staircase in the manor’s cavernous entrance hall. “It’s the greatest treasure in Equestrian history, a legendary legacy of wealth beyond anything you or I could even imagine. But Nightmare Moon covered her tracks very well, and what little evidence she left behind was largely destroyed in the rebellion. Hundreds of ponies have tried to find it over the centuries, but nopony ever has. Some hit dead ends and gave up, some came back badly injured, and some never returned at all. One way or another, every last one of them failed, even—” Lexicon reached the front door and flung it open with his magic. “Package here for Dr. Ersatz Lexicon!” The mailpony standing there held out a cracked leather-bound journal with the name of its owner printed across the cover in faded gold capitals: DARING DO Seeing the name of his comic book idol spelled out on a journal related to one of Dr. Lexicon’s stuffy historical research projects surprised Shadow, as he never imagined Daring Do as anything more than a series of two-dimensional images that acted out dramatic scenes based on his page-turning decisions. His image of her was of a romanticized action hero; watching the eggheaded historian Dr. Ersatz Lexicon gallop to the door, fling a few bits at a nervous colt in a mailpony’s uniform, and rush off back to the library with a journal bearing her name was something he’d never have expected. “What’s his problem?” the bewildered mailpony asked. Sky Shadow glanced over his shoulder at the pale yellow streak galloping excitedly back upstairs with the journal hovering out in front, then turned back to the mailpony, his sky blue eyes half closed with general disinterest. “Schizophrenia,” he invented matter-of-factly, then closed the door. “You seem excited,” Shadow commented once he’d made his way slowly back to the library. Dr. Lexicon was already back in his armchair, staring purposefully at the journal through his little round glasses. “What’s with the book?” “This is Daring Do’s personal journal from her expedition to find the Nightmare Vault,” he said, not taking his eyes off the pages. “That’s why I brought up that story earlier of how the Empire of the Moon rose and fell. The Vault is out there, somewhere, and I intend to find it. I got in contact with the ponies that owned the journal, then purchased it from them and had it shipped here. Surely this must contain the missing piece….somewhere within these pages…” “You’ve been working on this for awhile, then, I take it?” Sky Shadow heaved himself back onto the chaise longue and picked up the comic book to continue the adventure. “Oh, of course,” his giddy joy hadn’t subsided. “I’d say going on twenty years, by now. It’s my life’s greatest work.” “Really?” he was surprised to hear that. Dr. Lexicon had never even mentioned it to him before now. “Oh yes. Off and on, of course, but fully invested in it, nonetheless. See, where all the rough-and-tumble adventuring types have gone wrong is they set out with nothing but the bare basics and delude themselves into believing they’re proper treasure hunters. They’ve got a few old ponies’ tales of the Vault to go on, some superstitious folklore version of the thing that’s based more in wild imaginings and dramatic storytelling than fact. They go out into the field, find some clues that lead them along a ways, hit a dead end, and give up. Hundreds of ponies have done this. Still we remain no closer to finding the Vault than we were four hundred years ago. Instead, I’m collecting all the journals, maps, and logs they left behind and comparing notes to try and find common ground and fill in the gaps to build a more complete picture of the Vault and where it might be located. Individually, history’s adventurers all failed, but collectively, we may have something.” “That actually sounds like a good idea,” Sky Shadow said with an earnest interest that surprised even him. “How close are you to finding it?” Dr. Lexicon shrugged. “It’s hard to say. I’ve always hit a roadblock, just like the adventurers themselves. The difference is all I have to do to keep making progress is find another historical expedition’s memorabilia and buy all the records they kept along the way. Now that I have Daring Do’s…maybe I’ll find something new. Even though she didn’t actually find the Nightmare Vault, I would expect history’s greatest adventurer to have found at least a few pieces of the puzzle that I’ve never seen before. I might be able to finally solve this thing and find out where the Vault is.” “And what if you do? Why are you so interested in this?” Dr. Lexicon’s obsession with the treasure was almost as startling as Sky Shadow’s inexplicable desire to care about something his employer was working on; that had never happened before. Lexicon struggled to understand how anypony could manage to not become obsessed with the Vault, even somepony as apathetic as Sky Shadow. “Do you even know what the Nightmare Vault is?” “Yes. You told me in the hallway. Literally five minutes ago. It’s the place where—” “It’s Nightmare Moon’s personal treasure cache,” Dr. Lexicon continued anyway. “When the unicorn rebellion cut her off from the Elements, she didn’t immediately surrender and accept her fate willingly. She still had the Royal Night Guard, and she knew they would last at least a few weeks before the earth pony armies following the unicorn coup overwhelmed them. She ordered everything of value taken away from her fortress in Canterlot, locked away somewhere else. That treasure has never been found, so it still lies out there, somewhere…undisturbed even through the endless passage of time. Think of it, Mr. Shadow – an entire warehouse stuffed full of gold, silver, gemstones, and countless other riches. Imagine what that would be worth today!” “So it’s about money?” Sky Shadow looked confused. “Why? Your family is loaded, Doc. You don’t need it.” Dr. Lexicon shook his head. “No, it’s not about the money. Not for me anyway. It’s a puzzle, the world’s greatest logic problem for me to solve. I enjoy doing the big grid-puzzles they put in the newspaper, but the Nightmare Vault is different. This isn’t a completed final product with most of the data omitted, leaving a logical flow of progress from start to finish to reconstruct everything taken away. This is something with real history, something that actually exists somewhere, and the only evidence and clues I have to go on is what I can find in life. It’s an historical logic puzzle, the grandest and most infamous of them all. If I find this, if I take on a challenge of this magnitude and actually find the answers I’ve been seeking for so long, then I can die happy. That’s all I’ve ever really wanted.” “Is there anything I can do to help?” Sky Shadow scarcely believed the offer had left this mouth voluntarily. “For now…no…” Dr. Lexicon turned a page in the book. “I don’t believe so. Actually, if you don’t mind, I think I’d prefer to be alone with this.” Shadow shrugged, climbing off the chaise longue again. “Fine by me.” He bit the comic book and flung it onto his back, then carried it out of the library and down the hall to his room. He was grateful to be turned away; something about this particular example of Lexicon’s rambling lectures had actually sparked some residual interest within him, and he feared his employer’s fascination with dusty history books and tales of ponies who’d been dead for two hundred years was beginning to rub off on him. That wouldn’t do at all. CRACK! CRUNCH! The ancient stone doors parted, opening up the way into the passage beyond. Daring Do, the intrepid adventurer, and Valor, the earth stallion she’d met back in the Njama Kifaa Bazaar in zebra country, stared into the abyss before them, wary of what they may find. Steeling themselves, they went inside, their hooves tap-tapping on the cobbles. As they passed through the door, the darkness spread out into the distance all around them. “This has to be it,” said Valor’s voice from the darkness. “But I can’t see a thing!” “Here’s a torch,” Daring do replied. She pulled it blindly off the wall. “You still have that book of matches?” “Of course.” Valor produced a little wooden stick and struck it on his front hoof. The tiny little orange flicker cast enough light for him to see the torch Daring Do had found. He touched the match to the top of it and Whoosh! The torch flooded the corridor with light. At the far end, a giant gold crown adorned with every type of gemstone imaginable sat on a red velvet pillow atop a sturdy pedestal. Sky Shadow turned to the next page. “This is it!” Valor shrieked with glee. “The Dragon King’s Crown! We’ve found it!” Daring Do tried to stop him, but he charged off too fast. His hoof snagged on a tripwire halfway to the crown’s pedestal. BOOM! The door behind them sealed tight, locking them inside. Daring Do ran to the crown, but Valor had already snatched it from the pedestal and tucked it into his pack. The room fell silent, except for the sound of their frightened breathing. “Now you’ve done it,” she scolded him. “Help me look for a way out.” Daring Do’s hooves tapped on the stone as she frantically paced the room, trying not to panic. All the walls were solid stone. They were trapped. HISS! Hot yellow desert sand poured into the room from vents in the ceiling, quickly forming large mounds on the floor. Valor yelped in surprise. “It’s filling up the room!” he cried. “We’re going to die!” Shadow mused at the temporary suspense, then turned the page. Daring Do found something in a recessed alcove built into one wall, hidden behind a large pot. It was a lever, no doubt connected to some ancient mechanism. “Over here!” Valor called out. “Look, there’s a small button built into the floor. Maybe if we press it, it’ll open the doors back up.” “There’s a lever in that alcove, too,” Daring Do told him. “Hidden behind the pot.” “Well, what do we do?” Valor asked. (PRESS THE BUTTON!) – page 23 (PULL THE LEVER!) – page 28 Sky Shadow was mildly surprised. Usually there was at least some kind of justification to picking one over the other, some evidence intended to sway decision to be made. This one seemed completely luck-of-the-draw. He turned ahead to page 28. “Pull the lever!” Daring Do announced. She grabbed it in her teeth and threw it down. The whole room rumbled loudly from beneath them, and the sand poured into the room in even greater volumes. Daring Do tried to push the lever back up, but it was stuck. “Aiieee!” Valor shrieked as a few rattlesnakes landed on the sand pile rising up before him. He backed away quickly towards the room’s center. Daring Do helped him climb up onto the pedestal that had once held the crown, and they watched the room fill up with sand. HISS! The snakes slithered inwards, and the sand kept falling. It rose up over the pedestal, burying their hooves. Daring Do couldn’t help her wings from flaring in an instinctive will to flee, but there was nowhere to fly to from here. The room’s ceiling was solid stone. Valor cried out again, and Daring Do turned to see he had been bitten by one of the snakes. “No!” she yelled, reaching out to catch him. But she missed, and he fell into the rising sand. The Dragon King’s Crown, treasure Daring Do had been chasing for months, was lost from the world forever as the sand washed over it. Valor’s dying body sank alongside it as more of the serpents came hissing towards Daring Do herself. She felt their sharp fangs dig into— Daring Do found something in a recessed alcove built into one wall, hidden behind a large pot. It was a lever, no doubt connected to some ancient mechanism. “Over here!” Valor called out. “Look, there’s a small button built into the floor. Maybe if we press it, it’ll open the doors back up.” “There’s a lever in that alcove, too,” Daring Do told him. “Hidden behind the pot.” “Well, what do we do?” Valor asked. (PRESS THE BUTTON!) – page 23 (PULL THE LEVER!) – page 28 “Press the button!” Daring Do advised. Valor stomped it into the ground right as the sand flow washed over it. The entire room shuddered and rumbled, and big holes opened up in the floor as the stonework pulled back. “Whoa!” Valor jumped back, watching the sand fall down into the blackness below. “That did it!” CRACK! The wall opposite the crown rolled away, opening out onto a courtyard. The bright sunlight flooded in, nearly blinding the adventurers. They stepped out into the daylight, shielding their eyes. The gold crown in Valor’s pack gleamed with the light, until an enormous shadow blocked out the sun. “We meet again, Daring Do!” said Ahuitzotl. Sky Shadow decided he was thirsty. He glanced to his side, and noticed that the cup he’d put on the end table last night was empty. With a reluctant grunt, he closed the book in mid-scene, slid off the side of the bed, and exited for the hallway. His hooves made muffled taps on the carpeting, but even these low sounds echoed off the manor’s walls. The intense silence of the Lexicon Estate could be unnerving at times. “Hey, Doc,” he greeted flatly as he pushed open the library door and went for the pitcher of water on the table by his chaise longue. “Came down for a refill. How’s the real-life version coming along?” “…I can’t believe it.” Dr. Lexicon was out of his chair, his legs set wide as he stared interrogatively at a handful of crumpled yellow pages. Books and scraps of notes lay scattered on the floor all around him. His clothes and mane were badly unkempt, the look of a pony who’d not slept all night. “It’s so close…but it may as well be in another dimension.” “Trouble?” Shadow paused. “Maybe you should sleep on it.” Lexicon shook his head. “No, no, not lack of sleep. It’s right here…everything I need is right here.” “Then what’s the problem?” Shadow put the book down. “You’re not making any sense. Although that’s not exactly news.” Lexicon kicked the journal over to him. “Look. Look right there on that page. Daring Do makes mention of a temple, some kind of shrine built to Nightmare Moon. She found a big revolving door there, something with rotating rings that needed to be aligned in a specific fashion. This was late in her expedition, after a lot of other research and spelunking which matches up nicely with what I’ve read elsewhere. “Then there’s a missing page, followed by one explaining how she ‘made the wrong choice’ and was nearly killed. She goes on to explore other leads which go nowhere, and eventually gives up the search entirely a few weeks later. She never makes mention of this temple again, but I know it has to be significant. I’ve seen mentions of it in other expeditions, but apparently only one other pony actually got there before Daring Do, and he was never heard from again. I’m almost certain that forgotten temple is the last resting place of Nightmare Moon’s greatest treasure. The Nightmare Vault itself must lie beyond the circular puzzle door.” “So you’ve found it then,” Shadow skimmed over Daring Do’s scribbled writing and crude sketches. Dr. Lexicon had given it an accurate summary. “Now, in all the comic books, she’d have made a note on a map of where this temple was somewhere around here. But I don’t see anything like that.” “Precisely. Daring Do was impeccable in her attention to detail. I’ve no doubt she made such a record of the temple’s location; she did it with every other place she ever went. I have to assume that her note regarding this temple was on that missing page. I’ve been all through the journal, and I can’t find it. It must have been torn out on her journey, or in the decades after. It’s gone. As if she was never even there.” Shadow shook his head with sympathy. “I’m sorry, Doc. That’s gotta be heartbreaking. You were counting on this, and it turns out to be just a giant tease.” Lexicon nodded in solemn agreement. “You want to know what the worst of it is?” “Hmm?” “Take a look at this.” His yellow hoof pushed over another old journal, this one much more faded and weathered than Daring Do’s. “That belonged to Looking Glass, one of the earliest adventurers to ever seek the Vault. He was the only pony other than Daring Do to arrive at that temple. His expedition dates back to the earliest days of the Empire of Equestria, when the unicorn government was still on shaky footing and we had to contend with those pegasus rebel bands who wanted to rule instead. He thought if a pegasus found the Vault, they’d have enough money to buy their way to power. Of course he failed, like all those who would follow in his footsteps. His journal turned up a few years later in an auction; apparently he left it behind at whatever hotel he’d been staying at in whatever city he happened to be in—he was terrible at keeping his thoughts organized—and somepony else found it. Looking Glass himself, however, was never seen nor heard from again.” Sky Shadow read the journal’s last entry: Met an old grey pegasus today, claimed he was one of Nightmare Moon’s Royal Night Guard back in the day. One of the old witch’s top officers, in fact. I believe him, too—he’s got that kind of look about him. For one reason or another, the rebellion didn’t kill him, and now he’s living out his last years in relative comfort here. He mentioned an old temple up in the mountains, said I might be interested in what’s been locked away there. I’m heading there tomorrow, after I get some sleep. I can feel it. I’m actually getting close. The Nightmare Vault will be claimed in the name of the pegasi. It’s only a matter of time now. “The most ironic thing of all is how Looking Glass even managed to get the Night Guard to give him the code for the door. Nightmare Moon would have only given it out to her most trusted Night Guard officers, those she entrusted with relocating the treasure. This one gave his code to Looking Glass, and now I’ve got it through his journal. So that’s it—I’ve got confirmation the temple exists, based on matching accounts by Looking Glass and Daring Do, and a good reason to believe the Nightmare Vault lies within. I’ve even got the code to open the door. I’ve got everything I need…but a single torn-out page has withheld the location from me. Without it, there’s no way of knowing where exactly this temple is.” Scribbled in the margins of the page was a note that caught Sky Shadow’s eye: Night Guard says ~2’146’570. “What about here?” he asked. “Hmm? Oh, no, that’s not a place, it’s the door code. I’m assuming the door is something like a series of concentric rings with numbers on them that all need to be aligned in the proper order. I’ve seen that design in a few other expedition notes.” Sky Shadow shook his head. “This is old pegasus grid code, Doc. My uncle taught me how to use it. Pegasi used to use this for navigation before the Empire really came together and solidified, or so my uncle said. Wouldn’t that be around the time Looking Glass was alive?” Dr. Lexicon looked completely bewildered, as if Shadow had just questioned the existence of gravity. “Pegasus grid code?” “What, you don’t think we always used the unicorn method, do you?”—Shadow caught himself—“They, sorry. That’s my mother’s side’s old pegasus pride talking.” “So you’ve seen these types of numbers before, with the apostrophes?” “From my uncle, yeah, when I was practically a foal. He wanted me to grow up a ‘proper’ pegasus, even though I didn’t have wings.” “So how does this work? Why the apostrophes?” Lexicon was skeptical. The Empire had been founded by unicorns, and now conformed to the traditional unicorn standard of navigating based on latitude and longitude. Other forms were present in old historical texts, but “pegasus grid code” had never appeared in anything he’d ever even read about. “It’s a dead way of navigating, and it wasn’t even very good,” Sky Shadow explained. “From what I understand, even the pegasi who came up with it hardly ever used it because it was rough and imprecise, and most pegasi preferred flying by landmarks and compass points. Grid code was their failed attempt at standardizing everything, developed by the pegasi serving on the Royal Night Guard. Basically, the first number refers to a hemisphere, which is divided into a thousand grid squares, numbered 000-999. Each of those is divided down further into another thousand. You write the final result out with apostrophes separating the numbers and a little squiggly line to kind of say ‘hey, this is grid code.’ It’s really awkward to use, and it isn’t precise in the slightest. It wasn’t popular back in the day, and it’s all but gone from the planet by now. My family’s probably the only one proud enough of our heritage to keep passing it down anymore.” The wheels in Lexicon’s mind were turning, trying to fit the pieces together. “So this Night Guard would have understood and used it, coming from the very organization that created it, and Looking Glass would have understood it simply because he was a pegasus back in the rebellion days. Centuries later, Daring Do finds the grid code and understands it because she’s a pegasus, too, and knowledgeable about the history of her race. Anypony else who looked at this journal would never make the connection, since grid code died out long ago.” “Sure. Probably. Honestly, the history stuff is all you, Doc. I’m just part pegasus.” “That’s…” Lexicon considered everything he’d just said, the implications of what Sky Shadow had just revealed. “By the stars above, that’s so off-the-wall it can’t possibly be anything less than the truth. You’ve done it, Mr. Shadow!” Lexicon hugged him. “So can you find…what’s this say again? ~2’146’570? If so, then we’ve got it for sure!” “Give me a globe. I’ll see if I can remember what my uncle had me do when he was teaching me how to use it.” Lexicon wheeled over the ornate wooden globe he kept in the library. It was beautiful, practically a work of art. The frame was dark mahogany beautifully carved by the finest unicorn magical craftsmen, and the globe surface itself had an exquisitely antique class. It had to have cost thousands of bits. Shadow looked it over, then bit his lip as he prepared to give the doctor some bad news. “…I’m going to have to write on it. I need to draw in the grids. Sorry to mark up this thing, but…” Lexicon levitated a thick black pen out of his vest pocket and held it out for Shadow to take. “We’ll be able to afford a thousand just like it if you find the Nightmare Vault. Mark away, my good stallion.” Shadow bit the pen and took it to the globe, his uncle’s words sounding in his ears. “That first ‘2’ should mean ‘northern hemisphere,’ so I’ll only do that half to save time.” Lexicon watched him draw long vertical lines from the planet’s poles down to the equator, spacing them every few hundred miles. He went all the way around, then drew in more lines horizontally. So far, it looked like the same basic idea as latitude and longitude, except the lines didn’t match up and the system was based not on the intersection of any two given lines but instead on the spaces left in the middle. Once he was done drawing, they had to count. “You start here at the poles and go counterclockwise until you get all the way around, then you drop down a row and keep going around until you hit the equator. Here’s one, two, three, four, five, six, seven…” “…one hundred forty-five, one hundred forty-six,” Lexicon finished, his heart pounding in his chest. “That’s the second part, and we’re right in the middle of Equestria. Sounds about right. Now…570.” Shadow made a check mark in the corner of grid square 146, then contemplated how he was going to do the next level. “The pen’s too fat. I’m going to cross strokes.” “Can’t we eyeball it? You said yourself it was an imprecise science to begin with.” “That’s true. Well, 500 would be dead center, so 570 would be halfway to the right edge of the square. Say…here?” Dr. Lexicon looked at the spot where Sky Shadow had placed the pen. He let out a long whistle. “The mountains south of Canterlot. Really. This whole time, Nightmare Moon relocated all her possessions to a temple less than 30 miles from her palace.” Sky Shadow shrugged. “Easier that way when you’ve got a lot to move.” “It does fit the journal entry describing mountains. I suppose it’s only accessible by the air; Daring Do and Looking Glass had no trouble getting there, but nopony else in history has even glimpsed the thing, as far as I can tell.” “That’s it, then? We found it?” “I believe we did, Mr. Shadow,” Lexicon could hardly believe the words were leaving his mouth. “Twenty years of searching…and with your help I was finally able to crack it. All those journals I read through, all those maps I studied, all those expeditions I compared and contrasted and analyzed to the point of insanity…and all of it comes down to this. A mountain temple thirty miles south of Canterlot, deep inside which resides the lost fortunes of the greatest tyrant in Equestrian history, excepting Discord, of course. All of this uncovered by an aging unicorn historian and a lazy half-pegasus, without one ounce of field work or formal adventuring. Truly, this is an historic day.” “So now what? Are we going to go find it?” “Oh… I…” Lexicon suddenly faltered in his passion. “…A decade ago I’d have agreed in a heartbeat, but now…I’m not so sure. I’m not exactly young, Mr. Shadow. The mountains could be dangerous. Looking Glass never returned, and Daring Do gave up after admitting she was nearly killed. I’ve no desire to throw my life away like that. And I technically *did* find the Nightmare Vault. I’ve done all I set myself to do. I think it’s best I put this thing to bed at last, and let it all end here.” Sky Shadow shrugged in immediate surrender. “Alright. It’s your call, Doc.” He flopped onto the chaise longue and opened the comic book again. “Doesn’t affect me any.” “We meet again, Daring Do!” said Ahuitzotl. “Ahuitzotl!” Daring Do spat. “What are you doing here?” “I want the Dragon King’s Crown! If you hand it over peacefully, I’ll let you live.” Dr. Lexicon watched the stallion’s eyes flash over the images in the comic. For six years, Sky Shadow had been generally apathetic about everything his employer worked on. He’d never once said anything about the state of the manor. He seemed content to sit on that chair for the rest of his existence, reading about the lives and adventures of ponies who didn’t even exist. Well, to be fair, Daring Do did exist. But the comics were a heavily fictionalized account of her adventures, and often depicted treasure hunts Daring Do never even went on, for treasures that did not actually exist. Sky Shadow made Lexicon feel sad. He was a bright young colt with plenty of potential; he recalled how to use pegasus grid code based on lessons from an uncle he hadn’t seen in a decade. He’d solved the greatest puzzle Dr. Lexicon had ever worked on, and he’d made Lexicon look stupid while doing it. And he didn’t have his cutie mark yet, had no intentions of ever figuring out what it was supposed to be, and would doubtlessly live the rest of his life reading works of fiction instead of actually living his life. Dr. Lexicon shook his head. The sight of dust and cobwebs caught his eye; it was the neglected bookshelf beside his armchair. He’d lived in the house all his life, spent literally years here in this very room. But he’d never really seen it before, not for what it truly was. This was an elegantly-styled classic country mansion, with high ceilings and dark wood furniture. But it had long since fallen into disrepair. Cobwebs hung from the lights and the bookshelves, and dust adorned every surface. The thick velvet curtains were dirty, and the floors badly needed swept. Faded splendor. Unrealized dreams. A bygone age of prosperity. He’d never intended the Nightmare Vault to be anything more than a passive hobby, but before he knew it he was hopelessly obsessed. There were always those plans for “when this is done with” and “once I figure this all out,” but such days often came years later than he’d hoped. Lexicon suddenly realized that he was poorer than anypony else he knew. The Lexicon accounts still held vast stores of gold, but he’d missed out on actually living his life, and no amount of money could bring that back. He was no better than Sky Shadow, living out his life reading about the adventures of ponies who had been dead for two hundred years and missing out on everything good about life. “Mr. Shadow?” “Yeah.” “You know, I think I just had an epiphany.” “Oh?” “It occurs to me…this was my life’s greatest work. I think I need to see it all the way through. Besides, I was always in this for the glory more so than the fortune; the satisfaction of knowing I’d solved a logic problem as complex as the Nightmare Vault was always enough. But…now that we know where it is…I don’t think I can just leave it alone.” “So now you do want to go find it?” “Yes, I think so. Mr. Shadow…I’ve spent my life reading about adventure, learning about adventure, and experiencing adventure in my imagination. But unless you call standing up in front of a room full of colts and fillies and giving lectures about ancient history an ‘adventure,’ I’ve not ever truly had any for myself. I think it’s time we changed that.” “Are you sure about that?” “Absolutely,” he lied. In truth, Dr. Lexicon had never been less sure of anything else; his tongue was suddenly bone-dry, rebelling against his speaking such crimes against the established order of sitting around reading journals. “In another ten or maybe fifteen years, I’ll be too old to get out of the house very much. This is my last chance to get out there and do something for real. Besides, it’ll be easy. We already know where to look.” “Yeah,” Sky Shadow turned back to his book. “Up in the mountains where only pegasi can go.” “Then I’ll post a commission with the Port Authority and get us an airship,” he proposed. “Mr. Shadow, all I’ve done for years is sit here and live comfortably off the fortune my ancestors managed to accumulate. It’s time I spent a chunk of it on something we can enjoy.” Shadow closed the book again. “Alright, if you’re set on doing this, I’ll follow you.” “I am. Come now, Mr. Shadow—we already know exactly where it is, and we can be there in a few hours’ time once I commission us an airship. It’ll be easy. A bread run.” Sky Shadow thought about it. It would be fun to be on the other side of the adventuring game, like living in one of the Daring Do comics. “I’m sold,” he committed, discarding the comic book. “Let’s do this.”