It was a normal day in Ponyville, the sky was clear, the market is bustling, the CMC where in the Everfree. Yep, a normal day in Ponyville.
"I'm not sure about this." Said Sweetie Belle.
They were circling a set of three shovels, three pickaxes, and three hard hats clearly too big for them.
"I mean, isn't Everfree excavators a bit specific?"
"We've tried all the general stuff by now, it's time to get more specific." Said Scootaloo.
"And nopony would let us do it if we did it anywhere else." Said Applebloom.
"If we told anypony then they wouldn't let us do it!" Sweetie noted.
"Exactly!" They both said simultaneously.
Sweetie face hoofed. *sigh* "Let's just get this over with."
After three hours of digging, they found a natural cave that led ever downward, and after exploring it for a while, they find what seem to be the ruins of a large underground city.
" Wow... Who knew there was a huge underground ruin of sorts under the Everfree." Said Scootaloo.
"Maybe we get our cutie marks in ruin exploration!" Said Applebloom.
As Applebloom and Scootaloo continue into the ruins, Sweetie Belle slowly backed away. "I don't know about this girls, what if there's something dangerous in here." She said.
"Don't chicken out on us yet, Sweetie." Said Scoots.
"Yeah, we nee-"
But Sweetie wasn't listening anymore as she has gotten too far away for it to be coherent.
She knew this was bound to end badly, after cutie mark crusaders dungeoneering, which she cannot describe, yes it went that badly. She started trying to avoid the possibly more dangerous crusades.
After an hour and a half, she made it back to Ponyville and gave a simple phrase to Rarity. "Applebloom and Scoots found an ancient and possibly dangerous ruin."
Rarity was holding needles when Sweetie said that, and dropped them as soon as the words ancient and ruin where spoken."Sweetie, stay right there while I get Twilight and the others."
After a minute or two, Rarity came back with the rest of the mane six. "Alright Sweetie, lead the way." Said Twilight.
After another hour and a half, they made it to the entrance to the ancient ruin.
"Okay everypony, we are on a mission to find our sister and adopted sister." Said Twilight, looking towards Applejack and Rainbow Dash.
"And study a previously unknown ruin." She whispered excitedly.
And so everypony entered the ruins minus Fluttershy and Sweetie Belle. "We're not going in there!" They said simultaneously.
"OH come on you two!" Said Rainbow. "We need to get going, so either you're going on your own power, or I'm going to carry you!"
After that Rainbow was forced to carry the dead weight, while the others stared in awe at the full site.
The ceiling seemed to be fifty meters high, and the buildings just as tall.
But beyond that, it was really just a long hallway with buildings to either side, but massive.
"What could have lived here, it's far too big for it to be a diamond dog settlement, and dragons aren't known to have a civilization, so who built this place?" Asked Twilight.
"Whoever it was, they certainly don't know the first thing about creative architecture." Said Rarity.
"The closest thing I can think of is a legend Discord told, around two hundred thousand years ago, a mighty race of giant beings came from the sky, but there is no way to prove it or not." Said Twilight.
"Sounds like it was dragons, what does it matter?"
"There's more to it than that, most of our technology was found in a large burrow filled with a mysterious language covering everything, but since there were no translation spells strong enough to translate it back then, and most of it was destroyed when the burrow collapsed a few years later." Said Twilight. “We still haven’t translated everything yet!”
After trotting a bit through the ruin they finally found the two missing members of the CMC trying to open a door that even a buffalo would find huge.
"Girls." Said Twilight.
When the two looked toward Twilights voice they were caught in a hug by their sister/sister figure.
“Applebloom, don’t you ever scare me like that again!” Said Applejack.
“Same here. why did you have to do that Scoots?” Asked Rainbow.
Both of them now showed a hint of regret after being scolded by Applejack and Rainbow Cash.
"Alright, Rainbow, Applejack, Rarity, I want you to take the CMC back to Ponyville, while the rest of us explore the ruin." Said Twilight.
After that, the remaining trio… Duo continued onwards to the largest building in the ruin, which like the rest of the place was surprisingly intact, whoever built this place built to last since Twilight dated the buildings to be at least twenty thousand years old, putting it in the Precursor time frame (as Pinkie liked to put it).
Before they reached the building Twilight noticed something in the corner of her eye.
Looking towards it, she see’s what seems to be elephant tracks.
“Pinkie, I want you to get Fluttershy and get her to come by showing her a drawing of those tracks, I think they had elephants here.”
“Okey Dokey Lokey!” Said Pinkie as she hopped off.
After Pinkie was out of sight, Twilight was alone with the ruin, and wasted no time galloping to the largest building with a notebook and quill in her magic.
Upon reaching the door she tried to open it to find it wouldn’t budge, thinking it was locked, she probed the door with her magic to try and find the locking mechanism and learn how to open it.
But there was no locking mechanism, so she tried opening it again and found out the problem, this door weighs half as much as an ursa minor!
It was also a sliding door that was meant to be controlled by a motor of sorts, and after entering the door slid shut and the lights turned on.
She was in a glass tube six to nine meters tall and twice as wide with a staircase that led to a large dome like structure made of the same glass.
After a long and difficult trot up the staircase (each step was as tall as her.) Twilight finally made it to the top to find in the dome was a four meter or so table and a glowing screen that reminds her of the computers from the mirror world, but in a language she has never seen before.
there wasn’t much up here to do, even with a translation spell, there is no point in working with the terminal if she can’t learn this places purpose.
Then she noticed something in her line of sight, on the table was a peculiar book, unlike the rest of the objects in the building, this book was pony sized.
Levitating the book over, she prepared to read when she realized it was written in the same alien dialect as the rest of the writing in this ruin.
“Nothing a translation spell can’t fix.” Twilight said as she cast it on the book and read the title.
Factory Manual
By Fefaloo
Twilight was concerned that the author’s name wasn’t apparently translated, but she figured that it may have a meaning that the translation spell doesn’t have words that fit so it just shows the untranslated word.
She then opened to the first page.
Dear Special child
If you’re reading this, then that means that not only have you found the Precursor starship factory, but you also have translated the Precursor dialect as well.
As we’ve always known, Ponies are almost as clever as Humans.
In these pages, you will find everything you need to properly work this factory, from what resources you need to gather, to how to work the factory itself, this guide will help you in you uplift yourself from the planet under your feet to the stars with us.
We hope the best of luck to you our special child.
Yours truly
Fefaloo
P.S. If this is Pinkie Pie, then do know that we are proud of you, you’ve grown strong our special clever child.
Twilight didn’t know what to think, but eventually figured it out. “Why is Pinkie at the end of the letter?”
That was when Pinkie came in. “Hey Twilight, I just got twitchy tail, eye flutter, burning hoof, which means somepony just read my name… Oh, and I brought Fluttershy, and she brought Discord, there outside.”
Twilight decided to ask. “Pinkie, who is Fefaloo?”
Pinkie seemed to ponder the question, then gasped. “She’s back! Oh Celestia I’m not ready, I need to prepare a welcome back to Equestria party for her.”
Twilight grabbed Pinkie's tail in her magic before she bounced out of the building. "Pinkie, Fefaloo isn't back, I just read your name in her book!" She said.
Suddenly Pinkie stopped trying to leave, and sped faster than Twilight could see straight at said book. "This is even better, This city is the promised gift!" She said, swiping said book out of Twilight's magic.
This made Twilight wonder what Pinkie knows, but decided to push the question later.
Meanwhile, at the Gamma Serpentis star system.
My presence was requested by the Yehat high queen herself, and we are now reaching a stable orbit over the Yehat/Pkunk homeworld.
prepared the hailing frequency, I began to think about what the Chmrr told me, that the Pkunk have obtained through their psychic powers information on a precursor starship that can wield a new mysterious form of esper potential, but couldn’t gather any more detail.
Ah captain, it’s good to see you after two years of exploration.
"I'm glad to be back as well, now wasn't there something you wanted to ask me about."
Yes let's get down to business. You see, we had a vision of the a precursor starship using some kind of psychic power to defeat the Kohr-Ah.
"Can you tell if it's the precursors themselves who help us?"
Hmm... No they're far too small to be the precursors, only a meter tall, but they seem to be the first users of telekinesis we've seen in a while, so they could be related, but unlikely.
"How does telekinesis relate to the precursors?"
That's a very good question, to answer it... I don't have the slightest idea! But we have much more important things to discuss, for instance, what are you going to do to find this vessel?
"I need a place to start, do know where it is?"
Wait! A spirit voice rings within my soul, it says to look where the green aliens once were... And that's it, a very soft spoken spirit really.
"Alright, that should be everything, I think I'll go now."
Good luck fair human, when the stars align to the perfect crystal alignment, we will meet again.
As I thought about the hint, where the green aliens once were, and there are only two green aliens who've left this region of space, the Arilou, and the Kzer-Za, and neither area would be easy to search through for one's already been explored in its entirety, while the other one is just too big to explore to any degree.
Whichever it is, I'll find that ship and bring a new ally to the new alliance of free stars.