Overgrowth

by ezra09

The Search Begins

“And you believe it was I who attacked the champions?” Nocturne asked some minutes later. Discord had volunteered to collect her, being the only one among them who could teleport long distances, and the four now stood together in Weaver’s clearing.

“Whoever did it was powerful,” Law said. “He or she were in the same league as Discord and Me, and they used magic to hide their true appearance. You weren’t around to protect your champion, but she’s unharmed. She’s the only champion to actually defeat a construct, probably because you sent a weak one after her.”

“Or perhaps she defeated a construct because she’s more powerful than any of the other champions,” Nocturne said. “She is a changeling after all. You forget a few crucial facts, dear sister, first of which is that Trader’s deals are absolute to any who willingly accept them. Even if I could have attacked them, you would all know the moment I had.”

“And she’s not the only one who wasn’t around to protect her champion,” Discord added, jerking a thumb toward Weaver.

“‘Tis true,” Nocturne said. “And Weaver would be better prepared than any of us, I should think.”

“Unnecessary...” Weaver said, not looking up from her work of dismantling the last pieces of her web. “He was nevvver.... At risk.”

“And why not?” Law asked, turning her suspicious look toward the giant spider.

“Another moortal... protected.”

“Ah, that’s right,” Discord said. “Callie’s champion would be close to him. She must have fought two constructs.”

“The point is,” Nocturne said, “you understand Trader’s deals better than any of us. If I could find a way around it, you would know. I am not the one who attacked the champions tonight.”

Law turned her attention back to Nocturne and growled, though it sounded more frustrated than angry. “There aren’t many creatures in the world with that kind of power. Not only that, but it felt familiar.”

“Oh, did you think so too?” Discord asked.

Law nodded. “I’ve felt his magic before. I’m sure of it.”

“Perhaps,” Weaver said, “another iss stronger than... they once were. We had centuries... while you were imprisoned.”

“It really doesn’t matter who they are,” Nocturne said. “Whether they are one of us and somehow acting outside the terms of the contract, or an outsider attempting to interfere, our response will be the same. They are a hunter encroaching on our territory.”

“We’ve already agreed to work together against anyone who’s not on the contract,” Discord said. “I think it’s in all of our best interests to agree, should this intruder target the champions, we’ll protect them, even if they aren’t ours."

“Agreeed,” Weaver said.

“Very well,” Nocturne said. “Not that she needs the help.”

Law gave each of them a skeptical look, but nodded.

*****

The walk to Libiris took forever.

Maybe not forever, Scootaloo thought, but it sure felt that way. Each moment they were in the forest, she felt the tension between her and her friends grow. Thistleroot twitched at each small sound, and she was pretty sure she was going to bruise her ears against her shoulders, she was rubbernecking so much.

The only one who seemed to be in a good mood was Rare Breed. They’d convinced him that the monsters the previous night were a poorly thought out prank by some new friends. A jump scare using sticks and mud and a bit of unicorn levitation. It wasn’t a particularly believable story, but he’d only seen them for a second, and seemed to buy it. He didn’t think anypony was out there, waiting to attack.

Scootaloo envied him.

They made it back to Libiris without incident. One of the caagan was working in the side room on the first floor, and after an impromptu game of charades, understood their request to speak with the Librarian. He arrived several minutes later with Coco and a buck who introduced himself in Equestrian as Mahony. Mahony took Rare Breed and Triplicate aside to process their donations to Libiris, leaving Scootaloo and her friends to talk to the Librarian.

“Have you come with more news of Discord?” The Librarian asked.

“Yeah, we have,” Scootaloo said. She looked back to her friends. Thistleroot gave her a smile while Mimic nodded. They’d already agreed on what to do next.

Scootaloo told the Librarian everything. She started with the Heart of Creation, the treasure sealed inside Libiris, and then she told him about the contract. She told him about the agreement between the eternal spirits to use mortal champions in their search of the heart. And she told him that she and Mimic were two of those champions.

“We’re not going to give the heart to anypony,” Scootaloo said. “I honestly don’t know why they chose us. Mimic doesn’t even like Nocturne. I like Discord, but I don’t really trust him yet. We want to find this heart and make sure nopony gets their hooves on it, and we were hoping you could help us.”

The Librarian was silent for a long few seconds. Scootaloo shifted uncomfortably.

“You three have given me no reason to mistrust you. You have told me what is happening outside these walls, and you did not try to hide your relations to Discord and Nocturne. If not for you, I would not even know what the eternal spirits are searching for.

“What is more, there is a very real possibility that another of these champions will find the heart without our knowledge. I believe someone has entered Libiris without our knowledge. Rooms that should not have been opened in centuries have been disturbed, and a large number of crates are missing from storage. Someone either snuck in through the door undetectable, or else bypassed the entrance entirely.”

“You mean by teleporting or something?” Thistleroot asked.

The Librarian frowned. “Libiris is supposed to be protected from such a thing. One of the eternal spirits might be able to circumvent such a protection, but you said they are unable to enter on their own.”

“Not all of them,” Scootaloo said. “We were attacked last night. Discord tracked down the one behind it, but he got away. Discord said he was as strong as any spirit, but didn’t recognize him. He never signed the contract, so he could come in if he wanted to. The others would stop him, but maybe he did it without their knowing.”

“Then things are worse than I feared. Mortals we could stand against, but none of us would be more than a mild inconvenience to one of the spirits.” He sighed. “I can not promise to give this Heart of Creation to you, should I find it, but I will allow you to search with us.”

He turned his head toward Coco. “You are beginning work on the third greater depository today?” The doe nodded. “Take them with you. They can help. We will make finding the Heart of Creation our highest priority.” He turned back toward them. “I myself will try to learn more about it through the praeteritorium.”

He left, stepping onto the platform before the stairs and vanishing with a word. Coco led them onto it after him.

“Okay, that went well,” Thistleroot said.

Coco nodded and spoke a command word. The platform flashed, a feeling of falling took Scootaloo in the gut, and they were on of the lower platforms that led to the rail system. “Yeah. He doesn’t talk much about personal feelings, but I think he’s taken a liking to you three. He was going to ask for more issues of the Power Ponies when he had a chance.”

“Don’t blame him. That’s a good one,” Thistleroot said. “Your Equestrian is sounding a lot better, by the way. You sound like a natural.”

Coco smiled at that. “So, I guess I should explain what we’re doing. It’s like the Librarian told you last time, Libiris is huge. We’re still mapping it out, because for some reason all the old maps of the place are restricted. For the past year our main jobs have been waking everyone up and sorting through everything. Libiris was sealed earlier than planned, so not everything was accurately catalogued.”

“I’m guessing the greater depositories are those big rooms the Librarian showed us last time,” Mimic said.

Coco nodded. “Yeah. GD1 just holds caagan. The other seven are full of all kinds of things the Archive wanted to preserve. Most of it is art, but there’s some information that doesn’t fit in with the stacks, like carved tablets. I think someone found a big seed vault in one of them. And then there’s a bunch of smaller depositories that are more specialized. Some that just hold the works of a single being. Not much pony work, though.”

Scootaloo groaned. “We’re going to be opening boxes by hoof, aren’t we?”

Coco nodded again, smiling. “By the hundreds.”

*****

Scootaloo had imagined cardboard boxes taped closed and stacked ontop of each other. She was disappointed, but not surprised, to find that things would be more complicated than that. The boxes were wooden, and many were tied closed with twine.

The Heart of Creation wasn’t in the first box Scootaloo opened. She hadn’t really expected it to be, but she’d been hoping their search would be a short one. It wasn’t in the second box either. Or the third.

Or the eighty-sixth. That box contained a set of three urns. Each was painted with a silhouette of a creature. One was a spider, one was a sphinx, and one was some weird bird with a pony head.

“Yay,” she said without any excitement. “More pottery.”

“Right over here,” Coco said, setting down the contents of her own box and marking something on a roll of paper.

“I’ve got this cool bronze sculpture thing over here,” Thistleroot said, holding up a device made of overlapping rings. “Look, it moves.”

“Over there with the early third era inventions. We’ll—” she cut off as green sparks flickered at the tips of her ears. “Lusehk. Hey, will you three be alright for a bit? I’m being called to the front.”

“Yeah,” Scootaloo said. “If we come across anything we can’t figure out, we’ll set it off to the side.”

“Great. I’ll be back.” With that, Coco left the three to continue unpacking.

“I feel like I just moved,” Thistleroot said. “Where are the dishes? Why didn’t we mark them? Oh well, I guess we’ll just eat out.”

Scootaloo chuckled, while Mimic gave him her usual lost look.

“I guess you never had to move in the hives?” Scootaloo asked. “Like, going to live in a new place, far away.”

“Oh. Yes, actually. My brother and I had to, when my parents...” she rolled a hoof rather than finishing the sentence. “There weren’t any boxes, though. I never really owned anything before moving to Canterlot.”

“Fair enough. What about you, Thistleroot? Did you move much?”

“Oh, all the time,” he said. “I think I told you I used to live in Fillydelphia. Before that it was Sire’s Hollow, and before that it was Seaward Shoals. No, Trottingham, and then Seaward.”

“Wow,” Scootaloo said, arching an eyebrow. “You really got around.”

“Yeah,” Thistleroot said, rubbing a hoof against the back of his neck and glancing away. “My dad was a nature writer. Did a lot of travel for it, but didn’t want to split up the family, so we moved basically every time he started a new book.”

“That must have been rough,” Scootaloo said, frowning as she thought back to her own childhood, when she’d first started going to school in Ponyville. She hadn’t known anypony at first. It was terrifying.

Thistleroot shrugged, still looking a little self-conscious. “It was cool, though. He took me out with him during school breaks. That’s actually how I got my cutie mark. It was a relief when I got into Celestia’s school and stopped moving, though. Aw, look at this one.” He held up a large vase with a curved handle on each side. The picture on the front was of two griffons. One was offering a rose to the other.

Scootaloo snorted and rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure the artist actually ever met a griffon. The ones I know aren’t that sappy.”

“Well, I think it’s cute,” Thistleroot said, sticking his tongue out at her. “Mimic agrees with me, right?”

Mimic shrugged and pulled open a new box. “Flowers are pretty, but they just end up wilting.”

Scootaloo nodded. “Getting flowers is nice, but they don’t last long. And it’s kind of unoriginal. I mean...” She gestured toward the thousand year old vase.

“It’s a classic, and the classics never die,” Thistleroot said, gently levitating the vase toward the rest of the pottery. “Unoriginal? How many times have you actually gotten flowers on a date?”

Scootaloo thought about it as she dug into her next box. “Good point. Only twice. Once in high school and then again on my date with Apple Bloom.”

The sound of breaking pottery snagged her attention. Her head snapped up to see Thistleroot and Mimic both staring at her.

“Your what?” They asked in unison.

“My date...” she had told them about that, right? She’d been planning on it, but then Thistleroot had gotten the job offer from the princess... “Oops.”

“I can understand why you would keep that from one of us, but to not share the details with your best gal pal?” Thistleroot asked, hoof coming up to his chest in mock distress. “Shame.”

Scootaloo grinned, already guessing where Thistleroot was going with this. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Mimic.”

“I was talking about me,” Thistleroot said.

Scootaloo chuckled while Mimic rolled her eyes. “So, you two are together?” Mimic asked.

Scootaloo shook her head, the smile dropping. “I think I didn’t mention it before because it was kind of awkward. I guess you both know how I was. Once I was feeling better about everything, I asked her out. Not because I felt like I owed her or anything, but I honestly wanted to see if anything would come of it if I gave it a chance. It didn’t.”

She shrugged. “Apple Bloom understood. I had lunch with her a few days before we left, and nothing seemed different, so, at least I didn’t ruin any friendships or anything.” She tried to put a lighter emphasis on the last part, to make it sound like a joke, but her voice fell flat. A familiar feeling of nerves crept up as she thought about it, but she managed to flatten it. Some habits were hard to break.

“On another note,” Scootaloo said, “maybe we should hide that before Coco comes back.” She pointed toward the vase Thistleroot had dropped, now broken into three large pieces.

Thistleroot looked down, noticing it for the first time, and winced. “Maybe she knows a mending spell?”

*****

Libiris was a mystery that nopony could hope to solve. Everypony living in Greenhaven Grotto had gone to see it at least once. Some groups occasionally planned to make a picnic of it, but were quickly scared off by the unsettling atmosphere that surrounded it.

Libiris was a solid block of stone with no doors or windows. According to the researchers that had been studying it for decades, it was wrapped in the most advanced sealing magic ever discovered. The princesses themselves couldn’t get in.

Ivory Quill pushed against the door and it swung open easily.

That couldn’t be good.

She steeled her nerves and walked through the doorway. A short hall led her into a central room lit by a bright, blue-white light. Two heads looked up as she entered and she froze.

The creatures looked to be made of wood, like timberwolves, but were shaped like bucks. Both were taller than her by a head. One began walking toward her, and she fought the urge to bolt out the door. Star Charmer had mentioned encountering something like this just outside town. It hadn’t hurt her.

“Hello,” she said. “I was told to come here. I brought a book.”

The creature further away spoke. “Dryd fyc Equestrian.”

The other one stopped and turned back. “Y Pony. Mad'c lymm Coco drah.” He started walking toward his friend, pausing to look back at Ivory Quill and jerk his head toward the center of the room. As he did, the points of his antlers flickered with green light. She swallowed and walked to where he’d gestured.

The bucks stood off to the side of the room and waited, talking in low voices. Ivory Quill watched them for a few seconds, wondering what she was supposed to do next, but she’d apparently passed from their attention.

From the center of the room, she could see a large dark circle on the floor, and just past it a spiral staircase leading underground. She took a hesitant step toward it, and one of the bucks cut off mid sentence. She glanced back to see him looking at her again. “Hu. Fyed vun Coco.”

“I have no idea what you're saying,” she said. The buck didn’t answer. “Okay,” she said, pulling her hoof back. “I guess we’ll see what happens.”

She wasn’t waiting long. Another two minutes passed before a shape appeared at the center of the circle with a flash of white light. Ivory Quill jumped in surprise and took a hurried step back.

Another of the wooden deer creatures, this one a doe, turned, saw her, and exchanged a few quick words with the bucks. It then faced her and said, “Hello. My name is Coco. Welcome to Libiris.”

“Oh,” Ivory Quill said. “You speak Equestrian.”

Coco nodded. “You are here to use Libiris?”

“Yes,” Ivory Quill answered. She wasn’t entirely sure what it meant, but Law had told her that Libiris held answers.

“It’s traditional for anyone looking to access the stacks to contribute to Libiris.”

“Will this work?” Ivory Quill asked, reaching into her bag and pulling out a worn textbook. It had been difficult deciding what she would be willing to part with, as Law had suggested, but eventually decided on one of her dad’s old books from law school. It was fairly dated anyway.

“Yes,” Coco said. “Right this way. I’ll get you set up to use Libiris. Oh, wait.” She paused and looked back at Ivory Quill. “Do you mind answering one question, first?”

“No?”

Coco turned toward the bucks. “Etis, oui'na kuut fedr sykel. Yho mea tadaldehk cbammc eh dra Archive?”

The buck that had approached her frowned, and his horns flickered again. After a few seconds he nodded.

“Lycd ed.”

The flickers on his horns solidified into a steady glow. Coco turned back toward Ivory Quill. “Are you a champion for one of the eternal spirits.”

Ivory Quill blinked in surprise. She should have expected something like that, in hindsight, but the question caught her off guard. Coco’s stance changed slightly, as though the doe were expecting trouble.

“No,” Ivory Quill said. “I’m not.” It was technically true. She’d turned Law down, after all.

Coco glanced back toward the buck. The glow from his horns never changed, and after a moment he nodded again. Coco’s posture relaxed. “Okay, good. This way then.”

Fifteen minutes later, Ivory Quill’s book had been seemingly disintegrated and she’d been led to an incredible room filled with bookshelves Coco called the stacks. Every few dozen feet there were enclosures with seats all facing a large rounded crystal.

“A lot of general information is stored in this great big magical construct called the Archive,” Coco explained. “These terminals will let anyone get to that information, even if they aren’t connected to it like us. I’ll set it up to use Equestrian and you can ask it anything you want. If you need anything more specific, it’ll also tell you what books to look in, and you can ask for assistance in finding them.”

“Okay,” Ivory Quill said weakly, still trying to get over what she was seeing. She looked back out over the stacks as Coco set up the terminal. There had to be more books in this room than in all of Canterlot combined.

She was broken out of her stupor by another sound. Voices coming from not that far off. She gave Coco a curious look.

“Other guests,” the doe explained. She pointed.

Ivory Quill could just make out two other ponies across the room and one floor down from her. A brown earth pony and a white unicorn. She didn’t recognize either of them. “Are they those champions you mentioned?”

Coco shook her head. “Just visitors, like you. Was there anything else you needed?”

“No. Thank you for all your help.”

“Happy to help. I should get back to work, though. If you need anything, just instruct the terminal to call me.”

“Okay.” With that, Coco left, leaving Ivory Quill alone with the terminal.

The two ponies down there weren’t champions? That seemed extremely unlikely. She was only there because Law had told her to come.

“Um, is this thing working?”

A cool female voice answered her, “Yes.”

“Oh. Okay. So, I just ask questions?

“Yes.”

Well, might as well give it a shot. “Who are the champions of the eternal spirits?”

“Unknown.”

Ivory Quill frowned. Of course it couldn’t be that easy. Maybe if she came at it from a different direction. “What ponies have gained access to Libiris since it was unsealed?”

“The following pony users have been added to the Archive in the past four hundred fifty six days. Apple Bloom, Rare Breed, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Thistleroot, Triplicate.”

Ivory Quill’s brow furrowed. Scootaloo and Thistleroot? Those were the ponies she’d met last night. But she hadn’t heard their third friend’s name. Mimic, wasn’t it? Maybe she was using a made up name, and she was actually called Apple Bloom or something.

Or maybe you need to be more careful when asking your questions, Ivory Quill thought to herself as she rolled her eyes. “Are there any non-ponies that have gained access to Libiris since it was unsealed?”

“Yes.”

“Who are they? Not including the wooden deer that work here.”

“The following non-pony, non-caagan users have been added to the Archive in the past four hundred fifty six days. Mimic, Spike.”

“So, what is Mimic?” Ivory Quill asked, more to herself than the terminal.

“Mimic is a changeling. No other information available.”

“Oh, this just gets better and better,” Ivory Quill muttered under her breath. “Okay, what do you know about the eternal spirit named Law?”

*****

If the voice from the crystal was being honest, it seemed like Law could be trusted.

Law had said there were others after the crystal. Forces that had tried to throw Equestria into despair before. Maybe creatures like Tirek, the centaur that stole all of the magic in Equestria nearly ten years earlier. It was entirely possible that the fate of all of Equestria had been placed squarely on her shoulders.

“List the eternal spirits.”

The crystal was silent for several seconds before responding. “Nine records found.” A list of names appeared on the crystal, written in Equestrian. She didn’t see Tirek on the list, but there were other names she recognized. Names that made the fur on the back of her neck stand on end.

“Tell me everything about Discord.”

Comments

[ezra09]

Random fact: This is the second longest chapter of pony I've written, second only to 'Anypony' from Harmonics.

[Jirodyne]

Ivory Quill being the smart one, actually using the Library to learn important information and being smart about it.

I like her, I hope she dies last.