Twilight scribbled furiously on a clipboard held in her magical aura, the badge that Eribia had found was floating gently in a lazy rotation inside a glass sphere while several machines hooked up to it let out strangely soothing mechanical sounds while they scanned the magical signature of the item in question.
"This is no mere artifact... It's able to be classified as both a level seven magical item as well as a minor artifact, even the minor artifact status seems to be because it is connected to a single specific magical signature." Twilight muttered as Eribia stood by and grabbed a paper that had been fed out of one of the nearby machines. In a blur of violet Twilight snatched up the sheet and began to read off the reading. "It's a strong conjuration aura centered around dimensional magic... definitely arcane since there isn't a trace of any divine or primal energy... lingering particles suggest that it bounced through the Plane of Shadow so it's quite possibly from a different Material Plane."
"Wait... bounced through the Plane of Shadow?" Eribia interrupted as she gave the badge a closer look.
Twilight nodded as she used her magic to gently push the Majin away from the machine. "Starswirl the Bearded came up with a great many theories... but it was Mordekainen the Mad who had discovered that every Material plane in existence was connected to a single Plane of Shadows, where all darkness originates." She explained as she moved to a machine that put out yet another reading. "Some call it The Void but its real name is the Plane of Shadows. It's a really complex theory of dimensional travel... but the basic summary is this... if you try to go outside of the material plane you pass through the Plane of Shadows to arrive in an alternate material plane but to get to the inner and outer plains of existence you have to first go in before going out."
"And... how do you go in before going out?" Eribia asked with a confused look.
"You have to pass through the Ethereal plane, the source of spirits and phantoms. It's also referred to as the Astral plane." Twilight passed the Majin a device that looked like the beveled part of a top with several colored spheres on the flat part. "That is a cosmological map, it's the closest thing we, on the material plane, have to mapping out the inner and outer planes of existence."
The Majin looked at the map, noting the various colored spheres and the green squares along the outside rim. "Okay... what are the colored spheres?"
"The one in the center is the material plane, where mortal life exists, the white semi-circle represents the ethereal plane and the black one represents the shadow plane because both of those ones overlap the material plane, making teleportation possible." She paused before looking back over to Eribia. "Well... magical teleportation anyway... we didn't find you until morning because you didn't use a teleportation that bounced off of the astral plane."
She cleared her throat as she walked over and pointed to each of the smaller spheres surrounding the orange, white and black one. "The ones adjacent to the material plane are the elemental planes, they are the sources that keep the material plane in balance and provide the elemental energy needed to keep our world supplied." At the Majin's nod she pointed towards the green sphere at the top of the map. "This is meant to represent the positive energy plane, where the power for healing spells comes from... and the red one directly across from it is the negative energy plane, the source of harming spells and necromancy effects."
Her fingers traced the light blue and dark blue spheres on the top right and bottom left positions respectively. "The plane of fire and plane of water..." Next was the purple one in the top left and the green one on the bottom right. "Air and earth..." then her finger indicated the circle around the outside filled with green squares. "Then these are the outer planes... Since the badge in the energy field scanner is showing to have traces of shadow plane energy on it the evidence proves that the badge is from an alternate reality that has magic like we do."
Eribia passed the map back to Twilight as she took a seat in one of the wooden chairs set next to a small tea table. "So... that badge is from an alternate Equestria?"
"Well... it didn't have enough of a shadow signature to show that it traveled far so I can certainly bet that it's from another Equestria." Twilight replied as she pressed several buttons to open the glass sphere. "Whoever made this object is quite possibly as magically inclined, if not moreso, than Celestia herself." She said in slight awe as she gingerly took the badge from where it hovered and passed it back to Eribia. "It would be best to gain whatever spellcaster made this item as an ally... Without field-testing it though none of my equipment can tell what would happen when the badge is used or what specific creature or creatures it will summon."
"It's a police badge Twilight... unless your machine detected an evil aura alongside the conjuration one we're talking about summoning a cop or several cops... kinda like the royal guard... I really hope they're not like the royal guard..."
"What do you have against the Guard?" Twilight asked with a slight glare. "My brother is the guard captain."
Eribia rolled her eyes. "Where was he when I broke out of my stone torture prison?" the Majin retorted. "Because I certainly noticed a distinct lack of guards trying to apprehend me alongside the fact that you and your friends had to use the maguffins of the week in order to reduce my power."
"He was busy directing the royal guard to evacuate Canterlot into a more secure location before any chaos could lead to the destruction of the city or loss of pony life." Twilight replied a bit colder than she had intended. The bearer of the Element of Magic flinched a little as the basement door slammed shut, letting her know that Eribia had left... or at least wasn't in the room anymore. "...dammit..." the student-scientist muttered as she made the final preparations to shut down the machines that had been scanning the badge.
@}~}~~~ ~~~{~{@
Eribia looked on in confusion as she noticed Spike sitting in front of a piece of technology that her human memories knew very well... A television set. "You have a TV?" she asked in disbelief.
Spike nodded with a small smile, indicating to have her sit down. "Yeah, the patent went to the princess and they're still pretty expensive... but the Princess sent it to us so that Twilight could have easy access to the current news in other places..." He looked around before he leaned in. "And right around now there's a station that uses animation to make shows... it's like comic books but with movement!" He whispered excitedly.
Eribia looked at the TV curiously. It certainly had a better screen definition than the original TV's back on the earthlings' world, a subtle sense of the machine revealed that it was infused with a special kind of recording crystal that made up the screen so the resolution could certainly be a lot better than the originals. "So... what show is on that animation channel?"
He smiled eagerly as he picked up a remote that looked like it was made out of various materials, "They just got the permission to make a Power Ponies animated show so that's all that's on right now aside from news feeds from around Equestria. It's definitely faster than the newspapers and several businesses that are a bit more successful have at least one to stream the news from." As he pressed a button on the remote though the channel had a light tan earth pony with a very profound mustache sitting behind a desk as a screen just off to his left displayed various ponies running for their lives.
"This just in, we're experiencing reports from local Baltimare news crews that the town is being attacked by an army of pony-like creatures, it is unknown who exactly is directing them but the Royal Guard has already reported casualties in the hundreds as the invaders are moving from block to block seemingly only interested in causing widespread panic and destruction."
Twilight stood behind the couch with her mouth agape only to recover just as she noticed Eribia move to the door. "Where are you going?"
"...Baltimare... I can sense the massive spike of necromantic energy from here, this isn't an army to conquer Equestria, it's here to destroy it." Eribia replied as she opened the door and let her pink aura flare out before she kicked off the ground and swiftly made her way towards the huge source of evil energy.
@}~}~~~ ~~~{~{@
Mordy scowled as he brought a steel rod that he had enchanted himself up to point at one of the negative energy-filled suits of armor, a white flash of light appeared for several seconds before the suit collapsed into a heap on the ground. "Damn..." He muttered as he pulled a chiseled pale sapphire from his robes and brought the gem up to his muzzle before speaking into it. "Swift, how did a necromancer of this magnitude escape detection!?" The grey unicorn asked into the gem as he brought the rod up to point at several more suits with the same results as the first.
A slightly older voice replied back through the gem. "It didn't... Razul is back..."
The grey unicorn's heart skipped a beat in terror as his commanding officer spoke the name. "A-are you sure?!"
"His energy signature is too distinct to mistake for anyone else... we're dealing with a lich, kid."
Mordy swore under his breath as he quickly stowed the gem, increasing the pace of his spells as he walked through the streets, thankful that they were only facing dread guards instead of more powerful undead as he brought his white-steel mace to bear on several of the shambling suits of armor. "Why don't these guys ever learn to quit?" he grumbled as he began to tear through the ranks of undead standing before him.
@xxxx[{::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::>
A burly earth pony stallion in a matte black set of full plate armor knelt before a jewel-encrusted skull that sat upon an altar, the original dark god long forgotten, each gem gleamed in the candlelight with the essence of stolen lifeforce. The room was silent for only a few moments before an echoed voice emanated from the skull.
"The time is almost upon us... scour the desert wastes for the orb... let no one stop you." the voice instructed, earning a nod from the armored stallion. "If you come across the changelings... bring me their queen, as long as it does not interrupt your primary goal."
"Yes... my master..." The stallion replied before he stood once again.
"Before you leave... the sword in the statue to your left... take it with you..." The stallion nodded once more as he lifted a longsword in a black scabbard decorated with images of bleeding alicorns from the hands of a pegasus statue. "It should help... convince... the sultan to join us..."