Chapter 1 Revised
Canterlot, 567 C.R. (Celestia’s Reign)
“Find him! Find him no matter the cost and throw him in the dungeons! Do what you have to just bring me the book!” Celestia ordered the large platoon of guards from her position on the throne. She had just received word that the forbidden book, a monstrosity of spells most foul, had been stolen from its chest by a mysterious stallion that was last seen running towards the forest below Canterlot.
“Captain! Send word to the outposts on the far end of the forest; send search parties to root him out!” The pegasus guard quickly saluted before flying off to deliver the message. “I want unicorn and earth ponies to form groups of seven and fan out though the forest leaving no stone un-turned. Pegasi battalions, you’re with me scanning the forest from above, now let’s go!” Celestia ordered.
Her guards carried out her will with precision as she made her way to the forefront of the battalion. Once her troops were ready, she took off into the night, her sister’s visage watching her from her prison on the moon.
The stallion was deep within the Everfree Forest, further than anypony had gone before. Well, anypony that had ever come back alive, that is. The suffocating darkness pressed in from all around him while Nightmare Moon’s prison cast a red glow through the tree tops, twisting his perception of what he did see into horrifying monstrosities.
He was looking for a place to hide the book amongst the trees, looking over his shoulder almost constantly. He was glad though, otherwise he might not of seen the wolf prowling not far behind him. He turned to face the wolf, his horn alight with a brilliant glow. But his thoughts were interrupted by more growls, he turned his head left, then right, before risking a glance behind himself.
He was surrounded, he counted six closing him in and who knows how many more waiting in the brush. He quickly charged his magic and blasted the wolf in front of him, reducing it to splinters. Two wolves on either side took this as an opportunity to charge towards him, successfully taking him by surprise. One bit into his right shoulder, he jerked and flailed, causing the other wolf to miss its target, getting his ear instead of his neck.
The stallion screamed in pain as his left ear was torn from his body, a strip of flesh peeling away from his face as the ear was torn away. In a desperate attempt the stallion twisted around and bit into the first wolf’s neck, causing it to release him with a pained yowl. He made to turn and flee, but found his way blocked by the wolf still in the process of pulling himself back together.
Bleeding profusely and in agonizing pain, he realized he had two options: be eaten by these wolves and never realize his dream, or risk an emergency teleport which may either kill or maim him, but has the better chance of survival.
Needless to say, his decision was already made for him. He lit up his horn in a quick flash, blinding and disorienting the wolves to buy him time. He picked a random direction, charged his horn, and vanished with a burst of energy. By the time the wolves recovered, the pony had fled. They sniffed the surrounding area but the trail was dead, their prey had gotten away. The forest reverberated with the sound of angered howls, alerting several of the pegasi guards.
The forest light up with a flash, followed by a howl of pain. He glanced over himself and to his horror, his emergency jump came with a sacrifice. His left hind leg had materialized inside a tree stump. He strained against it carefully, but it was no use, the stump and his leg had fused together permanently.
In the end it was of little matter to the stallion, as long as he hid the book and managed to retrieve it sometime in the future. He looked back at his leg; the stump was halfway between his knee and his flank. His horn lit up, a similar aura circling his leg about an inch above the stump. He took a deep breath, another, and a third, closed his eyes, and- “Damnit!” He whimpered.
He let out a breath as his magic faded, sweat drenching his brow and burning his open wound on his face. “Damnit, I have to or its all for nothing!” he said to himself, riling up his bravery. His horn glowed and the aura returned to his leg. “Come on… I can do this, I can do this!” the aura faded. “Shit!”
“Okay, Okay, I’ll distract myself.” He lit his aura around his leg once again. “What’s that over there? Where?!” He whipped his head to the opposite side as he sent the command to his magic: contract. The circle of magic restricted on itself, crushing bone and severing flesh as it contracted around his leg.
There was a ‘SNAP!’ as his leg was suddenly severed, the breath left the stallion as though he was kicked in the gut, so great was the pain. His three remaining legs shaking beneath him as he screamed silently, air not having the chance to enter his lungs.
He was about to pass out before he heaved a lungful of air and let it out in an instant, hyperventilating as the shock hit his system. “H-h-have…H-have t-to…” he muttered as his mind tried to work around the shock. He unbuckled an extra strap from his saddlebag, his magic fading in and out but managing to continue grasping it. He wrapped it around the bleeding remains of his leg and pulled it tight, forcing himself to work through the renewed agony flaring in his leg as he hastily wrapped the belt tightly.
When he finished, he allowed himself to collapse on his good side. He lay there, focusing on breathing and nothing more as he stared ahead into the forest. Then he saw it, sitting right in front of him. The exposed roots! He pulled himself up to his remaining hooves, the job still needed to be done.
He hobbled into a small circle of trees with a number of exposed roots. He shrugged off his saddlebags and spilled their contents onto the ground. His magic was sporadic as he picked up one of the books, a seemingly random book containing various theories by Starswirl the Bearded, then forced the pages to separate from the binding. He carefully set the two parts aside and moved on to the second book. This was the book he had spent the better part of four years researching its existence, and then hatching a plan to retrieve it in hopes of expanding his knowledge of forbidden magic.
He took a moment to appreciate the book, its magic granting it immortality, in a way. He gave the pages within a firm tug, meaning to swap the covers, but the pages stayed intact. He channeled hos magic over the pages and tried again, with more force. Suddenly the book was wrenched from his grap.
“KYEAAAK! Shitty dirty horse thing! You dare harm masters book?!” A high pitched voice cried out.
“I only do so to protect it!” He called out to the voice. There was a moment’s pause as the book floated a few feet into the air. The cover opened and the pages flipped past from left to right, the words and teachings now lost to all those unworthy of its greatness.
“Stupid horse! Filthy animal! You think to learn of Master’s teachings!? You shall never know them! Not you, not anything, not ever! KYAHAHA!!” The book slammed shut with an echoing boom, shaking the leaves from several surrounding trees. Deep purple magic began to swirl around it, then blasted the pieces of Starswirl’s book. The pages insert themselves into the cover and a powerful illusion transformed the book into its likeness, while the talking book illusioned itself to look like Starswirl’s book.
“You’ll be discovered with that one, and be put to death! RWAA!! Now, be gone! Hobble away and die you pathetic creature!” The book spun in place, the earth beneath it opening up into a large crater. The book lowered itself into the hollowed space, roots coming to life and twisting around the book as the dirt closed up over itself. Several trees in the area were pulled together by their roots, fusing them into a single massive tree that would withstand the sands of time.
He stood there and gaped openly, the painful throb of his leg the only measurement of time. His dream, his goals he had worked so hard for, those he had deceived all his life with the hopes of one day mastering the most powerful magic in existence, crushed. Denied by none other than the book itself as it insulted him, and he was broken.
“There he is!”
“Seize him!”
Princess Celestia heard the shouts from below and to the left of her where she saw a number of her guards descend through the tree tops. She quickly followed in their wake and alighted onto the ground as her guards surrounded the suspect with leveled spears and horns aglow.
She found him, sobbing and bleeding, a leg missing and one side of his face nearly torn off. The princess reeled back in shock. In an instant she cast a light onto the dark figure, a gasp escaping her lips as the pony was identified. “Dusk, my student, what in the wide wide world of Equestria happened to you? What would drive you to betray me?” Her head was swirling from the confusion. What would her faithful student want with, and sacrifice so much for, the very tool that turned her own sister into a monster?
“Betray you?” Dusk responded, rage rising in his voice as he fought back his despair. “Yes… Yes I did. I lied, from day one. Ever since I learned about that book, the moment I got my cutie mark, I knew it was my destiny to wield its power. I did everything I could to get to this point, and for what?! To be betrayed by the book itself!”
The princess said nothing, instead turning her gaze to the book laying not too far from them. From this distance she could feel the dark magic of the book as the grass around it withered and died. “You are a fool then, wasting your talents in such a pointless endeavor, and look where you are now, bleeding and broken. To see you as you really are, all I can think is the waste of time and effort, time and effort that would have bettered some other colt or filly as they embraced their future careers.” Celestia said, the pain and heartache she felt for this betrayal forcing her to hide behind a mask of indifference.
Duck could only laugh for a moment and he shakily stood on his remaining limbs, his vision swimming in and out of focus as the blood loss and shock was taking its toll. “You were the bigger fool, all I had to do was say a few choice words and you were like putty to be molded to my desires. You sicken me.”
“Guards,” Celestia said, “Take him into custody, he will stand trial for his crimes.”
Several guards cautiously trotted forward, raising their spears as they prepared a magic damper and restraints. Dust took this as a chance to escape for a moment longer, to show as much resistance as he could while he was able. His sudden movements frightened one of the newer recruits, causing him to lower his spear defensively.
Dusk, in his haste, stumbled on his three legs, causing him to fall to the side. A new pain suddenly pierced through him. He looked toward the left only to stare into the eyes of a young guard, whose spear he had accidentally gored himself with. His breathing became ragged and he soon succumbed to the darkness, his death quick due to being speared through the heart.
Celestia watched her pupil accidently spear himself and go limp as life left his body. She blinked back a tear as she bent forward to open a bag at her hooves. She used a stick to slide a book bound in pony hide with a five point star enclosed within a circle burned into the cover inside the bag with a visible shudder. She whispered a final farewell to her late student, and then ordered for his body to be taken to the morgue.
She teleported to the Library Archives in the castle, where she placed the book in the corner on a pedestal, then summoned a number of bars to keep anypony from approaching it. As an added measure, she cast a vast multitude of detection and anti-magic spells around the cage to prevent any tampering and for her to be notified of any tampering should it occur.
Canterlot, 989 C.R.
The princess watched as the small purple filly bounced around with glee. This was the first time she was allowed access to the archives. The small bundle of boundless energy raced from shelf to shelf as she tried to take in every detail as fast as she could.
She looked at the immaculate windows, the detailed carvings on the bookshelves, and the various odds and ends placed on the display tables. She looked at the various tools used by ponies long forgotten and saw how they lived their lives based on the tools they left behind.
She eventually managed to get back into the less used area of the archives. The layers of dust on the floor were broken by her hooves and marked her progress to a section near the far wall. She stopped her examination of the shelves as something caught her eye. She turned to see a set of bars, behind which stood a pedestal. Too short to see the top, she grabbed a large number of random books and built a small staircase up to the bars.
She nodded as she looked over her hoofwork and made the assent. At the top, she reared up and braced her hooves on the two bars framing her head as she gazed upon a book, and not just any book. This book was special in a way she couldn’t fathom.
“Mysterious, isn’t it?” The filly yelped in terror and was sent tumbling to the floor in an avalanche of books. She poked her little head out of the top of the pile and gazed up at the sound of soft laughter. “Oh Twilight, my faithful student, you never cease to amaze me.”
Twilight blushed in embarrassment as she pulled herself from the pile. “I’m sorry Princess. I was just looking at that book. What’s so special about it?”
“That is a very dangerous book, Twilight.” The princess answered with a suppressed sigh. “I keep it here away from the prying eyes of ponies and protected by spells, for their own safety and the safety of others around them.”
“How do you know it’s dangerous? Did you read it? If it's dangerous did you try to destroy it?” asked Twilight, ever the innocent student.
“No, no. I never opened the cover. But someone I loved long ago did, and it changed them for the worse, and drove another to madness. The book is able to resist all forms of destruction, which forced me to lock it up here.” Princess Celestia let the silence wash over them.
Twilight no doubt had more questions. Questions she was too young to hear the answers to. Fortunately, Celestia knew how to distract Twilight and steer her away effectively. “You know, I heard the kitchen’s just got a fresh shipment of a new type of ice cream and they need a little pony taste test it.” Twilight’s eyes widened and seemed to light up. “You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find such a filly willing to eat some ice cream, would you?”
“Oh! Oh! Me!” Twilight bounced up and down in excitement. “I want to test it!”
“Oh? And why is that?” Celestia asked with a smirk as she started making her way back to the entrance.
Twilight stopped bouncing and frowned in thought for a moment before resuming her display of joy. “Because you’re the best teacher in the world and because I will write a full report on everything about the ice cream!”
An unbidden memory flashed through her mind. The memory was of the tragic end of her last personal student, and how it had all be nothing but lies. She pushed the thought away with a forced laugh, no, Twilight is different, one deserving of my teachings and respect. “That’s not what I was hoping to hear my dear Twilight, but I suppose it will do.”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!” Twilight chanted as she bounced out of the main gate to the archives.
Ponyville, Books and Branches Library, 02 T.S.R. (Two Sisters’ Reign)
“Special delivery!” An excited voice called though the door. Spike ran to the entrance, tripped, and slammed into the door before he managed to open it. He was greeted with a pair of golden eyes, sliding slightly off center as he looked at the Mail Mare.
“Morning, Ditzy, what have you got for us?” Spike greeted.
“A box!” Ditzy replied enthusiastically with a wide grin as Spike continued to look at her.
“Okay, where is it?” Spike asked after a moment of awkward silence. Ditzy frowned and looked lost and perturbed for a moment.
“Where is what?” She asked in confusion.
“The box.” Spike replied calmly. This was not the first incident.
“The box?” She asked.
“Yes Ditzy, the box you were supposed to deliver, where is it?” Spike asked with a sigh.
“Oh!” Her eyes lit up. “That box, I remember now!” Another pause in the conversation washed over them.
“It’s at the main office because it’s too big for you to carry, isn’t it?” Spike guessed.
“What’s too big to carry?” Spike shook his head.
“Nothing Ditzy.” He said. “Thank you, here’s a muffin for you today.” Spike grabbed one off the nearby table that didn’t have a bite out of it and gave it to the Mail Mare. She visibly brightened and gave him a tight hug of thanks before flying off to the next stop in her route. Shaking his head, Spike turned back inside the library where he saw Twilight descending the stairs with a yawn.
“Who was that Spike?” She asked hazily.
“The Mail Mare. We got a big box at the office that I need to go pick up. You want me to put it on the table when I get back?”
“No, I’m not going to look at it right away. Put it somewhere so I can get to it later. It’s just a bunch of replacement books I ordered for the damaged ones. We seem to have a lot of damaged books now that I think about it.” Twilight trailed off in thought, seeming to stare at the opposite wall.
“Well if you would stop throwing them all over the floor for me to pick up they wouldn’t get damaged.” Spike muttered.
“What was that?” Twilight asked as she came back to reality.
“Oh, umm…” Spike's eyes shifted nervously a moment, “I asked if I could just put the box in the basement, you know, until you need it?” Spike relaxed at the cleverness of the cover-up, until he saw Twilight’s bewildered expression. “Twilight? You okay?”
Twilight looked at him like he was insane. “We haven’t cleaned the basement since that time I tried to figure out Pinkie…”
It was Spike’s turn to look bewildered, “Are you serious? That was over a year and a half ago! What kept us from it?”
“I- well, I think I just kept getting side tracked and it slipped my mind.” Twilight admitted after a brief moment of denial.
“Want to help me clean it?”
“No.” Spike laughed at the mixed expression of anger and confusion on Twilight’s face. “I’m just messing around Twi, of course I will. But you go first; I’m not too enthusiastic about the mess.” Spike walked to the back edge of the main room of the library and stopped before one of the book shelves. He bent down and grasped metal ring that sat even with the floor boards. With a grunt Spike pulled open a trapdoor, revealing a set of stairs descending into the darkness.
“Spike go run to the post office, I want assess the damage before we get too excited.” Twilight said as she gathered a number of candles and cleaning materials and made her way downstairs.
“Sure Twi, I’ll be back before you know, so don’t have too much fun without me.” He said as he departed. Twilight’s excited giggles prevented his playful jab from reaching her ears.
Twilight heard the door slam shut as she made her descent into the basement, a lit candle her only source of light. Once she made it to the landing a few feet down, she beheld the wonders of the mistreated basement. To put more accurately, the intricate designs of the many, many cobwebs now hanging from the ceiling. Twilight lit up her horn and cast a detecting spell for any insects or rodents, mainly spiders, bats, and snakes. She visibly shivered at the thought. To her immense relief there were none and the webs were merely the remains of a long dead infestation.
Twilight stared at the work before her, she was only expecting several layers of dust at most! Where did all the spiders come from in the first place, where did they go?! Are they in the attic? Under her bed? Twilight began to panic at the implications an infestation of this magnitude would cause. Thoughts of structural integrity and life insurance flashing through her mind before she shook her head, knocking the thoughts away.
“No, Twilight, I’m not having a mental breakdown over a few spider webs. Granted, few being enough to hide most of the ceiling and walls but that’s Future Twilight’s problem!” She raised her head in determination, she was going to clean up this mess if it took her the rest of the day!
She set the cleaning materials against the wall and armed herself. She used the wooden handle of a broom to twist around the more concentrated clumps of web, turning it into something that looked like inedible cotton candy. Once that was done, she set about dusting the walls and ceiling. Halfway along the second wall Twilight felt a breeze caress her mane.
She looked closely at the wall where she felt the breeze and tapped, and tapped it. the section of the wall suddenly fell to the floor, eliciting a small ‘eep!’ of surprise from Twilgiht. In its place was a dense tangle of roots, looking closer she saw they were wrapped around something. Curiosity getting the best of her, she used her magic to push the roots aside, allowing her to remove what appeared to be a book.
She turned it over and was barely able to read the mostly eroded cover, “Starswirl the Bearded, the History of Magic.” She read aloud. She jumped again at the sound of the library door being slammed once again. She was about to investigate when Spike poked his head through the trap door.
“I’m back! Where do you want them?” he asked as he admired her handy work. "Nice job with the cleaning, if I’m not careful I might be out of a job,” He chuckled.
“I doubt I’m as good as my Number One Assistant.” She giggled. “Just put them over there in the corner for now, I need to see if I already have a copy of this book I found.”
“I thought you cleaned up all the books down here last time.” Spike said as he looked around once more, placing the large box near the bottom of the stairs.
“Oh, this was in a tangle of roots that got exposed when a part of the wall fell apart. I’m going to have to talk with Big Mac and see if he can fix it and check for any infestations.” She shuddered again, “Anyway, start cleaning that wall and work around. I’ll be back in a sec.” She said as she headed up to the main library.
Twilight walked to the bookshelf dedicated to history and magic related history. After a quick search she found an exact, newer version of the book she found. She was about to head back downstairs when she heard a knock on the door. Upon answering it she was met by Rarity.
“Twilight, there you are. I was wondering if you could help Sweetie Belle with something?” She asked.
“Sure, I’d be glad to help. What does she need?” Twilight asked, slightly curious about why Rarity was acting so cautious.
“Well, you see Twilight, she and her friends need to write a history paper for school, and they need a book to research from.” Twilight nodded in understanding. To let those three possess a book at the same time meant either permanent damage or the absolute destruction of her beloved research material.
“So I was wondering,” Rarity continued, “If you by chance had a history book that you no longer needed that they could use without fear of it being damaged too much?” Twilight was just about to say that she didn’t have any when she remembered what she found a few moments ago that was still grasped in her magic.
“Actually, I found this one in my basement this morning and I have a perfectly good copy already, so she and her friends can have this one indefinitely.” Twilight smiled as Rarity beamed at her.
“Oh thank you, Twilight, you are such a great friend. We should attend a spa date soon, how about next Thursday? My treat of course.” Rarity said as she took the book in her own magic and placed it in her saddle bag.
Twilight mentally shuffled around her schedule and made room for the afternoon spa date. “Sure, it’s not a problem. I’ll see you there!”
“Ta ta, darling!” Rarity called in a sing-song voice as she cantered away from the library. Twilight closed the door behind her and went back to cleaning her disheveled basement.
Rarity was halfway to her boutique when she heard the telltale signs of the crusaders, namely Scootaloo’s buzzing wings as she pulled her friends in a wagon. With a glance at the clock tower, she confirmed that the morning class had, indeed, been let out for the day.
The buzzing grew louder as they approached at high speed before stopping in front of Rarity in a cloud of dust. “Girls! Do watch what you are doing! You almost got me dirty!”
Scootaloo rolled her eyes, “Yeah yeah, whatever.”
“Did you get us a book to use?” asked Sweetie Belle from her spot in the wagon.
“As a matter of fact I did,” Rarity levitated the book out of her bag and into the wagon. “Twilight said that you three can keep this one because she has a second copy. Be sure to thank her if you see her.”
“We will, thank you, sis!” Sweetie Belle called as Scootaloo revved her wings and took off down the street.
Not long after that, the Crusaders made their way to their club house with their new book in tow. Eager to get started on their report and see if they can get a cutie mark related to history, they opened the cover to the first page. They looked on in confusion as the front page seemed to swim before their eyes, a slight whisper and malicious laugh on the wind. The fillies blinked and shook their heads. Their eyes must have been playing tricks on them, the title was written clear as day.
“What’s a Ne-Neck... ah can't even say that word.” Applebloom said as she failed to read the strange text.
“I don’t know. I’m not the dictionary here. Sweetie Belle, you got any ideas?” Scootaloo asked.
“No, and the term dictionary is offensive, I prefer the term encyclopedia,” Sweetie said with a giggle, “But it says it’s called the Necronomicon, and it sounds like a lot more fun than some boring old history book. Let’s see what it says!” And together they turned to the next page.
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....Sweetie Belle, with the Necronomicon... This will not end well.
You got a good start here, keep it up.
Oh of course it's that book. So I take it that some eldritch abominations will show up at some point.
Fantastic! I can't wait until Chapter 2!
This is going to be 100% fun! Love the CMC, I also liked your OC...Dusk....I wonder what is so important about the book that he would steal?....anyway, I'm hoping to read more of this, keep up the amazing work, you got a few spelling and grammewrerros but nothing major, will be waiting...also, just to inform you for no reaso, Sweetie belle is my favorite CMC.
A necronomicon? LOL! This is not gonna go well.
866565 Isn't Dusk also the name of R63 Twilight
Ponyville, Books and Branches Library, 02 T.S.R. (Twin Sisters’ Reign) But Celestia and Luna aren't twins?