Twilight watches as Tombs vanishes into the structure before Strong Hoof throws an illumination crystal into the structure lighting the entrance.
"Ah.. Twilight can I just stay here?" Spike says fear in his voice as he looks at the entrance.
"Sure you don't want to come Spike?" Twilight asks turning to look at him "Could he fun. And no one else will be here with you if you stay"
"Actually Princess" Shield says "Sergeant Knight and Star Chaser will remain outside the building. The Dragon can stay with them"
"If it's not a problem. Alright" Twilight says as Spike climbs off of her back. "Make sure he doesn't get lost" She says to the two escorts who'll be waiting here.
"Of course Princess. You can count on us" Sergeant Knight says with a smile.
Twilight nods before looking to the entrance once more and heading in. As she walks through the hole made she can still feel the heat from the cut. She makes sure to be extra careful as she does a quick mental measurement of the thickness of the massive doors.
She guesses that the cut is two meters long, putting that information away for later she looks around at the massive room. There appears to be another massive door exactly like the last, but the room also contains a smaller door of to the right side which is slightly ajar.
Twilight then notices a red light above the main doorway. She begins to walk closer trying to make it out. It's large illumination crystal from the looks of things held in place by metal brackets. It seems to pulse faintly as if it's almost out of Mana.
"Strong Hoof, start cutting through this door alright?" Tombs says getting Twilight's attention
The two stallions are standing in front of the massive door, Strong Hoof quickly heads out to move the machine into the structure. Meanwhile Silent Charm is taking photos of everything in the clear room.
"Well Princess, what do you think?" Tombs says looking at Twilight a grin on his face.
"Well. I think it's amazing! However. I can't understand why this place would be so big. When the doorway over there is so small... at first I thought they were giants but not? I'm not sure what to think. And this room is so plain" Twilight says with a sign
"Well. Let's go and check out this side door then" Tombs says as he walks forward to the smaller doorway. Silent Charm quickly follows him.
Tombs pushes the door open causing not even a sound as if the doors hinges where new. He peers into the darkness before throwing an illumination crystal. As Twilight approaches she notices Sergeant Taffy nod to Lieutenant Shield and walking over to help Strong Hoof. As she turns her attention back to the other doorway she notices that it too is made of metal and that the side facing the now revealed hallway is covered in dents.
"By the Gods..." Tombs says in shock causing Twilight to stop her inspection and trot forward.
As Twilight trots up beside Tombs she can see what surprised him. Dozens of skeletons lay on the ground in the hallway. There so many that she can't even hope to guess what they look like. But it's clear they're not ponies and that they've been here for a long time. There also appears to be torn fabrics all over the floor and around the skeletons as if they were once clothes.
"I think we found the inhabitants" Tombs says slowly as he slowly picks up a skull. The skull is fairly compact with a small mouth and small eye sockets and a large cranium.
"Alright. Careful from here on. We are going to walk through here and try not to step on the bones" Tombs says as he slowly walks forward taking care of where he steps
"Shouldn't we not disrupt the dead?" Twilight asks slightly revolted that no one cares about this.
"This clearly isn't a grave. This was a fight" Tombs says as he slowly makes his way through. Followed by Silent Charm.
"These people are dead!" Twilight shouts her voice echoing
"Yes. But this isn't a grave. If it was I would go about differently" Tombs replies before throwing an illumination crystal down the hall revealing another door which seems to have even more skeletons piled around it as if they were locked out.
Twilight huffs angrily "And how do you know this was as fight?"
"Well. Two reasons. One, there's a large amount of bodies clearly trying to get into that door. And two" he slowly lifts a large sac like object with his mouth propping it up against him "This Armor of sorts"
All of her anger forgotten, Twilight rushes forward taking care not to step on the bones to see this find. When she gets next to Tombs she takes the sac like thing in her telekinesis to inspect it.
It's much heavier than she thought and it seems to be made of an extremely thick fabric. The sac also has multiple pockets and straps. It's clearly made to be worn and has multiple tears and holes.
She slowly levitates it to the way they came letting it go for further examination. "I don't see how that's Armor, it's heavy but it's not metal"
Tombs shrugs "Look around. There's about five other skeletons with the stuff on and since it's only six with the stuff on. I'm calling it armor"
"Tombs. I found something" Silent says from closer to the doorway. She's holding up a large black object that looks like some sort of club. "I think it's a tool"
"Oh! Now this is a find!" Tomb says hurrying over to look at it.
Twilight heads over as Tombs fuses over it. As approaches him she notices another club. This one much smaller and looks like an L. Slowly she levitates it and inspects it closely. One side seems to be a grip with some sort of lever which is surrounded by a small cover. The other side has a hole which Twilight just can't understand, she levels it close to her eye and looks in. She can't see anything down the hole so she pushes on the lever to see if anything occurs.
A click suddenly feels the hallway causing all conversation to stop and look at her. Twilight also noticed that nothing occurred inside the hole that she could see.
"What's that?" Tombs slowly asks
"A club I think, but there's a hole at one end and a lever at the handle. So I pulled the lever to see what would happen" Twilight says slightly embarrassed.
"Whatever they are, there not clubs" Tombs says and Silent nods.
"The professor is right princess. But I believe you are right by calling them clubs. They most certainly are weapons" Shield says walking over to Twilight to inspect the object.
"I doubt these are weapons Lieutenant. They hold no blades and don't seem dangerous at all" Tomb says "Silent how about you push on the lever just to show that it's harmless"
"You sure that's safe?" Silent asks slowly
"As long as it's not pointed at any pony, yes" Tombs replies
Shield stands in front of Twilight protectively as Silent slowly levitates the object at the opposite door and pushes on the lever causing a click and then a massive bang. A flash comes out slender end of the object and something bangs against the door which bounces off and collides with a mana shield.
Twilight presses her ears against her head her ears ringing and shocked by the power of such a small thing.
"Gods... Silent put that at the other side of the room... we will not be playing around with those" Tombs says clearly shocked.
"You blundering fool!" Shield shouts "You nearly killed somepony because you wanted to prove it was safe! That lever is clearly a trigger like on a crossbow! And only a weapon would need a trigger!" She yells in rage.
"Calm down Lieutenant. No one was -" Tomb begins.
"Don't you say that. If it wasn't for my shield one of you would be dead or injured!" She shouts again.
"I heard a bang! What was that!" Sergeant Taffy says from the way they came.
"A minor set back!" Tombs replies
"An incident that was thankfully avoided" Shield says to which Taffy nods and heads back. Shield then looks at Tombs "If you found any object from this point forward you'll inform me. Understand?" She says threatenly.
"Crystals" Tomb replies before heading to the next door.
Twilight looks to Shield who returns to her normal calm stance before she looks over at Twilight.
"Alright Princess?" She asks her voice filled with concern.
"I think so. Just surprised and scared... I had one of those pointed at my head... I could be dead right now" Twilight responds slowly her voice filled with fright.
"Well you're not. So there's that" Shield says before walking over to where the object which impacted the shield lays. Twilight follows mindful of the bones and looks at the small metal object.
"To think something so small could kill so easily" Shield says.
"Well... this is the most advanced weapon ever encountered before. So I guess it should be deadly. I'm just concerned. Why did only a few have these" Twilight says as she looks around the hallway.
She remembers the indents on the other doorway and as the puzzle comes together. "Oh no... no no no that can't be right!" Twilight says quickly.
She looks at Shield who simply nods her head sadly "Yes princess. These people killed there own for whatever reason"
"But why?! Why would you kill your own people! It's terrible!" Twilight shouts tears coming to her eyes from the thought of this occurring.
"I can't say princess. But this is a civilization we know nothing about" Shield says slowly.
"Princess, I can say with a good amount of evidence they did this to protect whatever this is" Tombs voice comes from the end of the hallway. The doorway being shoved open to show a room filled with multiple faint light sources.
Twilight sniffling approaches the room and steps through the doorway looking around with awe once more. All around the room room are chairs and large glass rectangles which give off the light. And at the far end of of the room on the largest screen is a list of number in the Equestrian language.
"How is that possible?!" Twilight shouts "we shouldn't have the same language!"
"We don't, we just share the same numerical digits" Silent says. "And I believe that this screen is a timer"
Twilight her outburst forgotten looks to the numbers and watches as the very end numbers keep track of the seconds counting up rather than down. She reads the numbers and assuming they follow the same time she counts up the time.
A look of shock crosses her face as she realizes how old this place is. "This says that the structures have been here for over three million years. If we follow our set time"
Silence fills the room as all the ponies look at her "Impossible. Whatever keeps track of the time must be wrong. Nothing should stand that long" Tombs says with conviction
"Professor! The door is open! And you're going to want to see this!" Strong Hoof shouts from the main entrance.
"Well let's go check it out then" Tomb says walking out of the room and towards the main room.
Twilight watches as Silent follows him before looking around the room. She notices several of the armored and clothed skeletons sitting in chairs or leaning against the walls. Twilight guesses they must of died in this room protecting something. But as she looks around she can't see anything important other than the glass and multiple slender rectangles covered with buttons. But since there's so many she can't think they would be important.
As she walks to what she would call the center desk, there's a skeleton wearing a uniform of sorts holding onto the L shaped club in one hand and holding a piece of paper in the other. The uniform has very little on it, just some symbols that show its rank. Twilight removes the piece of paper gently from the skeletons grasp and looks at it finding some sort of writing she can't begin to understand. She then looks over the desk noticing a photograph, some pencils and several other tools she's never seen before.
She picks up the photograph and notices two strange creatures that are smiling. They are dark skinned without any fur other than their long manes. One is clearly an adult the other a child. Both are wearing clothing covering their entire body except their hands and heads.
"I guess these are what they look like" Twilight says more to herself than anypony else.
"They look so strange and happy. I wonder what happened to them" Shield says as she steps next to Twilight to look.
"Lieutenant. Why would these... people build something if they won't use it?" Twilight says looking at Shield "These... these people clearly died of suffocation. Why would they kill themselves? What is so important that they would kill there own people and themselves to protect?"
"I don't know princess. But it must have been important" Shield says. "Now how about you figure out what this thing does" Shield says pointing at the rectangle in front of the glass.
"Alright" Twilight says with a smile as Shield walks off to speak to private Arrow.
Twilight looks over the buttons. She can see two collections of numbers. The first group being at the top of the rectangle and another more squished together to the right. She also notices some mathematical signs and what she can only assume to be letters. Much like a typewriter she thinks as she looks over the buttons for any clues.
Finding none she takes a deep breath and presses the largest button at the bottom. Suddenly the glass in front of her brightens and multiple flashes cover the glass. there meaning lost to her.
Looking over the glass she decides to touch one of the flashing symbols to see if anything would happen.
Suddenly, her hoof connects with something which wasn't there before and a loud beep emits from somewhere in the room. All of the glass rectangles seem to dim minus the massive one which turns a bright white.
Suddenly the glass flashes and an image of the room there in comes onto the screen like a photograph. Voices speaking a strange language are heard and Twilight can see several of the creatures doing various jobs throughout the room. All wearing clothing.
Suddenly a creature walks right into the center of the screen and begins to speak in what sounds like a serious tone. The creature had dark skin and no fur or even a mane. It had a large scar on its face and is wearing the armor. What it's saying Twilight can't even guess.
"Princess! What a this!?" Tombs suddenly shouts as he rushes into the room. "What did you do?!"
"I was looking and presses one of the buttons on their advance typewriters and then I tried to touch the glass and this happened!" Twilight says quickly
"Gods! It's an ancient dialect, similar to Ancient Minus! Silent translation spell!" Tombs shouts quickly
Silent’s horn lights up and suddenly the voice makes sense.
"know you are apart of the repopulation program. It'll be your duty to live on and insure the survival of our people"
The clearly male voice says before he sighs and looks sadden. "When you awake the world will be a different place. We have burnt the earth in hopes of stopping our great enemy and what will come of the world we do not know. But whatever it is you'll adapt and survive. This is your duty just as it's mine to insure you survive till then. My name is Johnson O'Conner and this is my gift to you. Following this message a list of instructions will be given to insure you are prepared for the new world"
Suddenly multiple loud bangs are heard from the doorway and Johnson stands drawing an L shaped object "Barricade the door! Don't let them in!"
Then the glass becomes black with several long lines of an unreadable text.
"Wow... That's pretty intense" Tombs says looking art the glass. "To think we are the first to see this message meant for the survivors of a race"
"What did he mean... burnt the earth?" Twilight asks
"No idea... but if they could really have done that... they must have been very powerful" Tombs says slowly.
"Well. Let's go see that other doorway" Twilight says blinking back tears at what must have unfolded.