“Are you sure this will work?” Skitter asked as she looked up at the Moon marked door before us.
“Fairly.” I answered as I removed the medallion from around my neck, taking it in my hoof, “If it still works like Luna left it.”
It had been over a thousand years after all. Still the door did seem well preserved.
Stepping forward, I closed my eyes as I took the medallion in my left hoof before rubbing the front against the door while thinking of pink hamsters playing drums.
The medallion was the key but you needed to know how to turn it.
The door shone a soft blue before the light faded away. Taking a step back I put the medallion back around my neck.
“Was that's it?” Skitter asked as she gave the door a wary look.
“Should be.”
With that, I stepped up and pushed the door open to reveal a set of chambers in Luna's colors. Dark blues and some purples and blacks. The room was dusty as predicted, but it was intact, even the window.
I turned to Skitter, “Wait here.” before I slowly crossed the threshold. The air smelled stale. Nobody had been here in... a long time.
The furniture reminded me of what Luna had picked out for the tower when she returned. Dark woods of high quality. The same kind of carved works.
Everything was covered by a layer of dust but looked untouched. Books laying where they had been put down, even a empty glass and a bottle of wine. It was open so what remained of the wine was in a clump at the bottom.
She used to live here. This was her private chambers.
I moved slowly and carefully as not to touch anything. Even having been not only invited, but asked to go here, I still felt like I was intruding.
Adjusting the bags on my back, I moved past the book shelves to the second door, pushing it open with my hoof. This one wasn't locked and smoothly swung open with a slight squeak, my horn lightning the way to help the light from outside the windows.
The bedroom was in worse condition. Something had hit one of the walls and the windows were broken. There was rubble across the floor, but some sort of preservation spells were clearly still working as the wood and books were not completely gone.
Oh, the stuff closest to the hole was pretty decayed, but even just the next shelf looked like it had simply been there a couple of decades. The next after that looked... well, not new, but it didn't look like it had been subject to the elements.
I really wanted to look into those books, but they were not what I was after.
Walking over I looked out over the forest far below, taking in the sunlight for a moment before I continued over to what remained of the bed and the nightside table next to it.
Now... let's see.
I tapped my hoof firmly against the outer right corner on the top of the nightside table. Nothing.
Slamming my hoof down on the same spot again there was a click and a hidden compartment swung open on the side. Excellent. I really didn't like the idea of dragging the entire thing back to Luna in case the hidden compartment didn't open. I didn't want to risk hurting it if I tried to take it apart.
Kneeling down, I peeked into the hidden compartment before pulling out an ornate jewelry box about two decimeters a side and a decimeter thick.
Nodding to myself, I pulled my scarf from my bag and wrapping it up before gently putting it back in my bag. I didn't know what was in it, but it was clearly important and personal for Luna.
If she felt like telling me later, then she would.
Getting back up, I looked around. I had what I was looking for. A book on a desk by the inner wall drew my attention. Mostly because it was laying open like it had just been left there.
Walking over I peered at the pages. The language was old. Well, no surprise there, it was a thousand years old after all.
Frowning down at the page, I put my hoof on the desk as I tried to decipher the old faded text. It was something about using emotions to use your magic in different ways. In this case, anger.
That sounded... like dark magic to me. How about we don't do that.
...Then again...
I did meant to look into that. It affected Ponies' minds, but... I wasn't really a pony. Not where it mattered. The problem was that there was not a lot of information about dark magic and I didn't want to ask Luna about it.
Also, I really wanted to avoid turning into Dark Page. For one thing, I'm not sure I would look good in a lot of dark leather. Even more importantly it would hurt Luna. I couldn't do that.
But it wouldn't hurt to read a bit about it, would it?
Settling down, I carefully turned the pages back to start from the beginning.
“Page! Sir! Are you alright!?”
I looked up from the book, “Huh?” That was Skitter. “Yeah, I'm fine. Why?”
“You have been in there for hours.” She yelled from outside the chambers, “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Oh... Uhm yeah.” I said and turned to look out at the sun. Crap, I really had been here for hours! It was almost mid day! Only felt like minutes.
I just got lost in my reading, even with the horribly antiquated language and hoof writing the book had been fascinating. Oh, what it was talking about seemed evil as all hell. It was not just using emotions in your magic, it also talked about draining energy from ponies and had some seriously nasty spells in it. Like spells to flay ponies.
Really Evil, but also fascinating. I had never even seen spells with calculations even close to those before, a completely different structure compared to most spells.
Also, really advanced, I wouldn't be able to cast half of the spells in that book even if I, for some twisted reason, wanted to. Not that I would ever even try most of those. They were just... wrong.
Shaking my head, I got up and closed the book and slit it into my pack before and heading back out to Skitter, “Sorry for making you wait, I got distracted by a book.” I explained with a small cringe.
Skitter just shook her head, “You could have warned me, sir.”
“Sorry.” I mumbled and turned to reseal the chambers, feeling rather bad for leaving her alone out here for some stupid book.