Three ponies cautiously entered the ancient ruin. An Earth Pony, a Pegasus, and a Unicorn. Their goal? Same as always: investigate the ancient ruins, and report back anything interesting. Which would be rather hard, for this place was indeed very interesting!
Duke Venture, the male Earth Pony and leader of the trio, certainly agreed with that. Looking around, he hardly didn't see a thing that wasn't interesting. The walls of the labyrinthian ruins were carved with things that depicted things he knew not of. He had seen many different ruins, but not many ruins had captivated him this much.
It wasn't just the carvings. All kinds of foreign symbols dotted the walls as well, accompanying the carvings. An ancient language of sorts, most likely. But no presently available book in Equestria had any information regarding these symbols. These symbols were most certainly new.
"How much history are you willing to bet are carved on these walls, ladies? We have barely even entered the ruin and we've seen what must be years of unrecorded history!" Duke said to his companions, the pegasus Scarlet Breeze and the unicorn Ruby Aurora.
"I wouldn't be betting just yet, Duke. We have no idea how big this thing is." Scarlet replied.
"And not to forget we haven't seen any of the real treasure yet." Ruby added.
"Every time, I tell you we're not here for the treasure, Ruby. As enticing as ancient loot is, it would be best if we left the archaeological remains for the archaeologists... we're just here to make sure it's safe to enter." Duke said, continuing to walk down the hall.
"Should'a been an archaeologist..." Ruby muttered.
Duke ignored her and kept walking. The carvings just kept going on, as did the markings. If not for Ruby being a unicorn, he'd be worried about getting lost. Ruby placed magical markers as they passed, and if they needed to they could make a beeline for the exit. Benefit of having a unicorn in your exploration group.
The 3 continued on before coming to a turn in the hall, and Duke was, for once, surprised not to have been surprised by some nasty trap. The ruin was just... open for exploration. Or so he thought. Whether or not it would continue being like this, he knew not. At last the hall ended at a large door, which had markings covering it and appeared to be a puzzle of some kind...
"Dead end?" Asked Scarlet.
"No. I believe its a puzzle." Duke answered, yanking his notebook from his saddlebag and flipping through a few pages, "And luckily for us, it's written in an early version of Equestrian."
He picked out a few notable words written on the door and looked down at the notebook, and after a few minutes he had come to the conclusion it was a phrase. Ah, the door was unlocked by moving the words to fit a certain phrase! Of course! How quite simple!
"Ruby, I need you to activate Panel one once, Panel two five times, Panel three two times, and Panel four three times." Duke commanded the unicorn.
Ruby nodded and ignited her horn, using her magic to turn the panels the number of times Duke had ordered. At the final movement, there was a loud click and then there was a sliding noise as the door started descending, revealing another hallway which ended with a single large room. From there they could see a stone table in the center, and it was pretty clear they should get closer to it.
"What did it say?" Ruby asked Duke.
"He who walks this path shall find no comfort." Duke said in a monotone voice, continuing forward.
Ruby and Scarlet exchanged glances, but said nothing. Both then followed closely behind Duke.
The three of them entered the room with the stone tablet, and Ruby ignited her horn to provide some light as Duke approached the etched table.
"Fascinating!" Duke proclaimed, "This here would seem to be a passage! And even better, it is written in both that crazy symbol stuff and Ancient Equestrian!"
"What does it say, then?" Scarlet inquired.
"Hold on, give me a moment. I need a few moments to translate this. Have a look around if you wish, it's just a room." Duke waved her off, busying himself with the tablet and notebook.
Scarlet frowned slightly then walked toward one of the walls of the room, which had a lot of carvings decorating it. None of it made any sense to her. All she saw was... some ponies and... some dragon over them, a wind leaving its mouth and hitting the... oh, that wasn't wind, was it? Shaking her head, her eyes scanned the rest of the wall, none of that making sense either. In the upper right corner, there was... what was it? She could hardly tell. Whatever it was was indeterminable due to what had to be erosion. She stopped studying it when Duke cried aloud with excitement.
"So, what does it say?" Scarlet asked once more.
"When four Alicorns rule Equestria, a great evil will awaken. Hmm, if my estimation is correct, this was written before there were any Alicorns. How would the ancients have known about them?"
"Read on, Duke." Ruby poked him.
"Rivers will run red and the sky will be ablaze. Entire cities will be razed, and the ground will be littered with bodies. Good Celestia, we're talking of Armageddon here!"
"Duke, keep reading."
"Magic will be useless, no god nor goddess with the power to defeat him. He will consume the world in a fury, and all will end. Hold on, that's not all..." Duke flipped through his notebook again and did a few rechecks of his translation.
"Alright, here's the rest. But hope is still present. A hero will arise, a hero with a destiny: a destiny to stop the destroyer. This pony will have the body of a mortal, and the soul of a dragon... now that's confusing... with the power to use the breath of a dragon. A great battle will ensue, a battle that will determine the fate of the world. And... that's it." Duke stared blankly at the table, wondering if he had translated correctly. Which he had.
"Well, that was confusing. Soul of a dragon and body of a pony? That's something you don't hear everyday." Duke rose and turned to face his companions.
"It's a pity we have little means of understanding it better." He started for the exit.
"Hey, what about this wall carving?" Ruby said before Duke got far, and he turned to look at her.
"It's probably even more confusing than the tablet, Ruby." He deadpanned.
"And if it isn't? Perhaps this visual will help some? It must be important somehow... the carvings start from right to left in a straight line. This one here," she motions to the wall with the carving she had been studying earlier, "Starts at the top left corner and continues to the right corner, and then hooks around to the bottom right corner, heads to the bottom left, then goes up and forms a spiral pattern that fits perfectly inside the wall. None of the other carvings do this."
Duke audibly sighed and glanced at Scarlet, who shrugged.
"Fine, I suppose I should take a look." He groaned, reentering the room and approaching the mentioned wall.
"Ruby, light please." He got a light in response.
He turned his observing gaze to the top left corner, and started taking everything he saw in, and tried his best to put into words the pictures.
"How unfortunate that the only text on this wall is that crazy symbol language. I would have loved to translate this. Anyway... from what I'm seeing, the wall starts with... something. Unfortunately it's incredibly eroded and so I can't get a good look at it. Also looks like a pony comes into play after the first few bits there. Maybe that's the "hero." The next several slides seem to suggest that this pony meets with one of the Princesses... too bad it's not clear which one. Then the next few carvings introduce a dragon, and... well, he's burning... ponies. The pony from earlier... fights the dragon, and if the number of carvings depicting this battle is to say anything... it is a really long and difficult battle. The pony triumphs over the dragon... and the dragon... explodes? Well, that's new." Duke looked over the wall, making sure he didn't misinterpret anything. Looked like what he said, to him.
"After the dragon... explodes... um... well... something happens. The rest of it is too eroded to decipher." Duke blows at the "eroded" part, hoping it was just dust that had settled over the carving, but it was indeed erosion.
"Does it mean anything to you, Duke?" Ruby finally spoke up.
Duke gazed at her and remained silent for some time, and the ruin was quiet once again. This silence, of course, did not last.
"I can't really say. It's credibility is doubtable... I'd say we best leave while the sun's still up." Duke turned and started for the exit.
Ruby and Scarlet exchanged glances, and with a nod, Ruby pulled out a camera and took a photo of the wall and tablet, then grabbed a piece of paper and pen and quill and wrote down the majority of what Duke had said, then put the items in a bag and replaced it in her saddlebag.
"You girls coming or what?" Duke called from halfway down the hall.
"Yes, we're coming!" Both shouted, running to catch up with him.
It was indeed a shame that there was no wealth here. Ruby had been looking forward to that. Even though Duke had said it was confusing, she had a bad feeling about not taking notice of it. As terrible as the translation was, it did raise a good number of questions. Questions the Princesses might be able to provide answers to, or if not then major contributions to an answer.
Ruby put her thoughts on the matter aside, and thought more on how she could have better spent her time today.