Of Treasures and Darkness

by Material Defender

Visions

Daring immediately ran to a corner and vacated her stomach's contents, heaving quietly in the corner to as to avoid drawing attention to them. Blake grimaced and kneeled down, holding his torch closer to the corpses to gain a better look at what they had once been.

"Wait..." he said, a glint of metal flashing as his torch floated over it. "There's something here..." Pausing for a moment at the sight of all the blood, he dove his hand in quickly and retrieved the object. It was a small golden amulet with a blue gem encrusted in the center. "Daring... what's this?"

Steadying herself as she leaned against the wall, Daring turned her head to look at the object he was holding. "That... uh... I don't know what that is..." She turned around and continued her retching.

Not satisfied with the answer, Blake looked back at the spot where he had picked up the amulet, only to see something that was actually hidden underneath it. The object appeared to be an envelope made of paper, and he stuffed the amulet into his bag before retrieving it.

"Daring, there's something else here." The continued sound of coughing meant that as long as Daring stayed within this room, he wouldn't get any answers. "Uh, come on, let's just head outside, get you some fresh air..." Letter still in hand, he slowly guided her outside, where she took a deep breath of fresh air.

"Don't you raid catacombs and ancient tombs for a living?" Blake asked her. "You'd think the sight of some bodies wouldn't put you off."

"Yeah, well, most of those buddies are usually mummified, not all fresh and bloody and... ugh, I feel like I'm going to throw up again just thinking about it," she said. "Enough of that, I don't want to talk about it. What's that letter you have there?"

He looked at the front and back of the letter. "Well, it seems like it's already been opened." He pulled out the paper within and tried to read it. "Um... yeah, I can't read this. It's from one of your own kind, maybe you'll have better luck with it." Daring took the paper from him and read it aloud:

(===)

To the brave ponies of the royal Equestrian task force,

I have entrusted your teams all with a single amulet, to be arranged and used in the center of Nightmare Moon's capital city of Nightfall. These amulets hold aspects of my own pure magic, which I hope will rehabilitate my sister into the alicorn she once was. To reiterate, they are as follows:

-Vision of Temperance (Yellow)

-Vision of Humility (Green)

-Vision of Trust (Blue)

-Vision of Love (Red)

If all else should fail, and Nightmare Moon's armies march upon Canterlot, I will be forced to fall back upon my last resort: the Elements of Harmony. For all of Equestria, do not fail in your mission.

-Princess Celestia

(===)

"...and this letter is ancient... this must have been written a millenia ago," Daring said. "But that's impossible. Those... bodies... that we saw inside were still fresh! The guards can't have lived for this long, so something must be going on around here after they died... probably magic."

"Wouldn't surprise me," Blake said. "Maybe there's some sort of... thing in the air that prevents the bodies from decomposing?"

"It makes even more sense considering that they probably use bodies to turn them into those monsters that we fought a while back. To think that they marched against the ponies during the Celestial War..."

Another howl pierced the air as Blake held his torch closer to himself. "Let's not stay here for too long. Still got any idea where the library is?"

"No idea. But let's keep looking... I think I've had enough of this place as it is." She turned away, coughing several more times as she struggled to bring fresh air into her lungs again. "Was there... anything else inside the envelope?"

"I don't think there is, but..." He reached inside and pulled out a cloth map. "Well, there you go." He rotated it several times, trying to get an idea on where they stood, but nothing on the map was marked save for the center of the city. "Ugh, I can't get anything from this. The only thing that's marked on here is the center, which is where they were probably supposed to take these 'visions' to."

Daring took it, eyeing it herself. "Well, there's the problem: the words on this are written in Ancient Equestrian... I didn't think I'd ever have a huge use for it. Nice to see that it comes in handy now. But, it's like you said: none of the service buildings are marked, only the locations of four towards at each corner of the city, and the center of the city itself."

"You think this 'Nightmare Moon' might still be around?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know... magic's a powerful thing in Equestria."

"I also have a bad feeling about this place."

"What else could possibly be worse than knowing that we're trapped in some sort of nightmare city?"

"Something tells me that I'm not the first human that's been here before... and that's really bad."

"Well, I'm not sure that I follow. So we run into a few of your kind that turned into... uh, those things. What next?" The rather casual reaction Daring had towards Blake's kind indicated to him that she'd never seen them wearing more fearsome weapons than what he had at the moment.

He pulled out his Colt, holding it in the air in front of her. "Any treasure hunter worth their salt in my world never goes anywhere without bringing a gun along, for wild animals, or nosy government soldiers. Imagine if we run into a whole group of them with these things, other treasure hunters sent in here before me or you."

"Oh..." Daring said, distinctly remembering the feel of a barrel pressed against her head.

"On the bright side, if they use common ammunition, I don't think we'll have a problem dealing with them in the long run, so long as I'm around." Except the part where we get shot at, he left out.

"There's a general residential quarter here laid out, I can see," Daring said, pointing at a spot in the southeast of the city. "The tightly-packed buildings seem to indicate so, since most ancient Equestrian building layouts tend to follow the same pattern. Chances are, the library will either be there, or..." she trailed off.

"Or? Or what?" Blake asked. "It can't be that bad, right?"

"Well, you see, academics in the ancient times was something usually reserved for those of high birth, like unicorns. If the library isn't in the residential quarter, than that means it'll most likely be located within the nobles' district or some seat of bureaucratic power."

"And how is that bad?"

"Because usually, those areas are accompanied with a higher guard presence. As much as I'd like to just hop on down there and dig up some treasures that these ponies don't need any longer, the idea of running into things that are more capable of killing me than Ahuizotl can isn't a real big thing with me."

Another screech in the air gave them pause. "We'd best keep moving along. We can look at the map while we're moving," Blake said.

---

"I... do you think we're safe here?" Daring asked. Blake fortified the door with various furnishings, lighting the torches inside the room.

"Well, I don't know. We'll just to sleep with an eye open and hope nothing comes knocking. Speaking of which, how are your rations?"

"My rations? Well, I still have some stuff leftover, but most of it was left at my base camp... before I ended up here, of course." She shifted uncomfortably as she sat down: the thought of being without food in such a forsaken place wasn't very comforting.

"I still have some dried stuff I picked up for this one," Blake said. "But it's not a lot. Just some dried fruit and baked goods from the local populace before I headed up here. I didn't plan on staying long."

"I... well, I just have some dried stuff, too. Mostly just fruits, though." They pooled together their rations and eyed the meager amount before them. "Well, I guess it'll have to do."

"Then I guess it's kind of obvious," he said, taking a bit of dried apricot. "We have to finish what these guards came here to do, and try to get back home somehow. It's not like we have anything else to do, and trying to survive here in the long run is out of the question since we'll be without any food."

Daring nodded. "Yeah, I guess it would be easier if we could find a way back home, but not with these things breathing down our necks. I hope those amulets work, though, otherwise we'll be in a world of trouble."

"You and me both," he laughed, taking another bite. They were in this together, for better or for worse. "So I guess the first order of business is figuring out where to set this damn thing up." He pulled the blue-jeweled amulet out of his bag, flipping it around as he examined the inscriptions. "There's something inscribed on the back of this."

"Let me see it." He tossed the amulet to her, and her eyes scrolled over the blocky ancient Equestrian text on the back. "It says: 'to my dearest Luna, for responsibility cannot be given without trust'. I'm not really sure what that means, but there was a lot of falling out between the two Princesses during the Celestial War. I wonder if Celestia was trying to show Luna the error of her ways using these."

"Well, what is it, exactly?" Blake asked. After all, the usage of magical amulets back on Earth wasn't entirely common, and so were talking ponies.

"It's a cleansing gem, but from the looks of it... a very powerful one, since it comes straight from Princess Celestia herself. Gems like these were used back in the day for all sorts of ailments. She called them 'visions', so I guess they were meant to illuminate something to the recipient. Stuff like this was the rarest, since they involved directly interacting with the mind."

"So I guess we collect all of them and put them in the towers, and hope for the best?" Like many things, it sounded simple, but the execution was in the difficulty.

"Well, it looks like it. We should probably head to high ground tomorrow to try to get our bearings," Daring said. "Until then, we should probably try to get some sleep."

"Yeah, it's been a long day... night, or whatever. The purple sky of this place really freaks me out."

Pulling out a blanket from her bag, Daring wrapped herself and laid her head on the ground. "Well, that makes two of us... this whole place just gives me the creeps."

"Don't worry about anything sneaking up on us..." Blake said, tapping the Colt in its holster. "I'll make short work of them."

"Judging by how you handled my rescue - minus the gun pointing at me, that is - I think I'll be safe," Daring said. "Well, Blake... good night."

He grunted his affirmation, taking no comfort in knowing that he didn't have his own sleeping bag with him. There were some incredibly ancient floor cushions around him, though, and despite the years, they showed no further wear and tear than the day the city was sealed. He sat on one in front of a wall and leaned against it, closing his eyes and nodding off to sleep.