• Published 20th Nov 2018
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Finding Friendship - Kamen-Zero



After an adventure gone wrong, Twilight decides to spend some time living as a "normal" pony for a change. But not all is at it seems in this quiet little country town she has chosen to settle down in.

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— Chapter Twenty-Nine —

--- A Sarosian's Secrets ---

The third floor of the Golden Oak's library. The den of secrets that was the home of the answers that Twilight Sparkle had been searching these past several days for. Or at least, it was in theory. And while Rainbow Dash was off exploring some of the offshoot-rooms and closets, Twilight was left with the more open section of the floor. Practically a maze of book-laden tables that served to fill the majority of the space up here.

Twilight began by roaming from one of these tables to the next in sequence, scanning the books that laid atop in search of the one she was looking for. Open or closed, none of the texts that Twilight could see were of any real interest, however. Most of these books, as expected, were spell books of various descriptions. Everything from the most basic of techniques like levitation, to things that were far more advanced like healing magic and whatnot. With every book that she glanced at, this felt less and less like a mastermind's lair and more and more like the disorganized study of someone who was borderline obsessed by unicorn magic. There didn't seem to be anything particularly damning here.

That is until Twilight was finally reunited with the book that had helped to start her out on this self-imposed quest.

That silver crescent moon emblazoned on the cover, alongside those three Searăn that had been at the forefront of Twilight's thoughts for days now. Corul Luminii Lunii, the words were alluring in their own right. Practically begging for Twilight to take a look inside at what secrets were held within. It was almost unreal to see it again in the waking world, almost enough to convince Twilight that she was dreaming. Oh, but she was oh so very awake, prooven by a quick pinprick of magic that she centered on the frog of her left forehoof. It wasn't a dream, meaning that whatever she found when she eventually opened that book was going to be the real deal. No cryptic messages or warnings to be interrupted by the Mare in the Moon. No, the only thing held in these aged pages were the answers that Twilight had dedicated herself to uncovering on a whim.

And now that the option to remove the veil was finally within her grasp, she hesitated. The anticipation built and built until it boiled over, the alicorn beginning to shake and tremble from the mixed excitement and anxiety. She could feel her heartbeat elevate in tempo as she stared at the book, only now wondering if she should even look. It was only now that Dash's warnings had come to hit their mark, the promise that more knowledge would lead to only more danger. Was she really willing to risk everything, just for the sake of stopping whatever it was that had been going on in this quiet little country town?

She tore her eyes away from the book, scanning the main hall of the library's third floor for the pegasus who had brought her up here. Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be seen, likely still snooping about in one of the side rooms or closets for whatever it was she had been sent here to find. Maybe she was doing a bit of reading of her own, Twilight idly thought in an attempt to convince herself to do the same. And even though Dash had specifically told Twilight to simply let the Black Hoof know when she found something that looked suspicious, the alicorn couldn't help but make the assumption that this had been an act of creating a cover story. After all, Dash shouldn't have brought Twilight up here in the first place. They'd both be in the same amount of hot water if word of this little tag-along got out. So while Dash had the advantage in being able to legally arrest and detain Twilight for her intrusion, Twilight held just as much leverage herself. Even more, depending on how much Dash valued her job.

So it was decided. Rainbow Dash had brought Twilight up here to assist her in this endeavor, and the only way she was going to be of any use as if she prepared herself. Knowledge was a powerful weapon, and Twilight was ready to arm herself to the teeth. Whatever Knox and his associates were planning was something BIG, and she couldn't just stand idly by and allow such treachery to go on. And thus, Twilight took up the tome in her arcane grip, and she gently opened the aged book and began to read.

The purple pony found herself face to face with a wall of Searăn text—unsurprising, seeing as how that was the language the cover of the book had been in. Another unsurprising discovery was the specific dialect that the book was written in. Languages had the pesky trouble of morphing and mutating with time, and this piece had been written a very long time ago. A few hundred years, at the very least, more than enough time for Seară's spoken and written tongue to alter itself in such a manner. And while Twilight was able to speak, read, and write the modern incarnation of the foreign language, this older dialect was something that she found herself having some issues with. She could still read it, albeit very slowly, and having to go back and reread a sentence or two every once in a while. She wasn't going to be speed reading this passage, but she knew she could get through it if she had the time.

From what she was able to parse, the old book seemed to be some bizarre mix of a spellbook and a research journal. Whoever had written this was not an expert on the subject, but rather an individual who had been studying it themselves. The blurbs of old Searăn were organized by date, which made the book seem more like a log of their progress. And as she pushed her way through the earliest entries in this pseudo diary, Twilight found herself captivated by the constant mention of the unnamed "Equestrian Benefactor" who seemed to be assisting the author in their research, as well as funding the entire operation. There were no names to be had in any of these entries, however. Both the author and the Equestrian Benefactor had been left completely anonymous.

The subject of their research, unsurprisingly, was the titular Choir of Moonlight. But what seemed odd to Twilight was that there seemed to be more mentions of more psychological and metaphysical concepts rather than information on a cult. In fact, any and all mentions of the Choir itself seemed to be written in a way that referenced an individual, not an organization. But that didn't make any sense, how could a Choir be an individual? At first, the young alicorn was under the impression that she was simply misreading what was in front of her. After all, this was an old book written in an old dialect that Twilight wasn't even a native speaker of. It only made sense that she'd misinterpreted something along the way. So she retraced her steps and went to reread what she had already passed, hoping to find where she had made the mistake.

Though no mistake was found on Twilight's part, as far as she could tell. Based on her personal translations, she could only find more mentions of dreams and nightmares and other non-corporal concepts that the Choir seemed to operate on. There wasn't a single mention of when the group was founded, what the chain of command was, nothing of the sort. This was starting to get under Twilight's skin.

It was almost as if the Choir wasn't even a cult at all.

This was when, once again, Twilight paused her brief bit of improvised research. In part to give her mind a short break after straining herself to translate all of this old Searăn text by memory alone, but also to try and comprehend whatever it was she was actually reading. She had come to this book expecting answers but had so far come out with more questions than when she started. Mostly trying to wrap her head around the idea of what the Choir really was. Maybe it was just her shoddy translation work, but there didn't seem to be a whole lot of concrete explanation. She could feel the beginning of a headache forming from the strain she was putting herself through. She was going to need to sit down with the proper tools to translate this book if she was going to make any headway in solving this puzzle.

But that would have to wait until later, for there were more pressing matters to attend to at the moment. A short but shrill yelp of shock belonging to Rainbow Dash from the next room over. Something had gone wrong in her own investigation of this place. And considering what had occurred in Fluttershy's story, it could very easily become something far worse. So the alicorn quickly rushed on over to where the scream came from— absentmindedly stuffing the old tome into her saddlebags as she did so. Caution was thrown to the wind as she rounded the corner, knocking something on a nearby wall loose as she haphazardly ran by, but that wasn't her concern right now. The alicorn practically flew into the room at breakneck speed, only to have her neck almost break as Dash wrapped a foreleg around it to hold her back from venturing any further.

"Not another step, you'll spring the trap!" Dash barked with mixed frustration and fear, "That thing's cursed, and I really don't wanna find out what it'll do to you!"

There was a moment where the two struggled with one another, but it didn't take long for Twilight to give up the ghost. It didn't seem like Dash had been brainwashed, so she decided to at least hear her out. So she did as she was told and didn't advance any further, even taking a step or two back. But that sign of respect didn't stop her from glancing behind the pegasus to see the supposedly cursed item in question, which sat atop a pedestal designed to proudly display such an item.

It was now that Twilight realized that this was one of the two objects Fluttershy had seen in her last visit to this place. It clearly had to be the "weird necklace" that had supposedly given Onwud the gift of magic, just based on its appearance. An inverted triangular amulet comprised of dark-tinted metal with very minimal highlights of silver, with a large red diamond-cut gemstone housed at the very center that held a spark of arcane light within. The relic bore a pair of bird-like wings accented with inlaid carvings colored a vibrant red color. But the most concerning feature was the intensely sculpted head of a stern-looking unicorn, with eyes that shared the same ruby glow of the gem below. This feature, combined with the wings, gave the amulet the unmistakable visage of an alicorn.

Red flag.

"What is that thing?" Twilight couldn't help but ask, finding herself unnerved by the piercing red gaze that the item had. She felt as if it was peering into her very soul itself. And she did not like it one bit. The longer she looked at it, the more she felt this dreadful premonition building up inside of her.

"That's an alicorn amulet..." Dash grimly explained, seemingly too shocked to even try making up some excuse. "One of the most dangerous magical artifacts ever constructed."

"And... why is that?" Twilight asked almost mindlessly, transfixed by the sinister glow of the gemstone. It was practically overflowing with arcane might, almost enough for Twilight to physically choke on it. The word "intimidating" didn't even begin to describe it. It was frightening.

"It gives non-unicorns the ability to do magic... and it gives unicorns the magical output of an alicorn," Dash looked back towards Twilight, "I don't think I need to tell you, of all ponies, why that's so dangerous."

This was what got Twilight's attention off of the magical weapon, her shocked eyes now falling upon the knowledgable pegasus who had told her this. If what Dash had just said was true, then this thing should not exist at all. Twilight knew from experience that alicorn magic was far more potent then the average pony knew, as simple tasks had become grueling tests of mental and magical control after her own ascension. And that was when she wasn't even trying to do any damage. But this? In the wrong hooves, this thing could be used as a weapon of mass destruction. And seeing was how Rainbow had chosen to identify it as "an alicorn amulet," that could only mean one thing. There was more than one of these out there. How many, Twilight couldn't say for sure. But any number of these things wasn't good for anyone in the long run. Thus, utterly appalled by what she had just been told, the next question came to life on its own accord.

"Wh-why would anyone make something that?!"

"We really wanted to win the war..." Rainbow explained in an upset manner, approaching the artifact once again, the red stone it bore beginning to glow brighter and brighter as she drew closer. "Only a few of them were made, and they were thankfully never used... In basic training, I was told that the Queen had them all destroyed... but I guess she missed a few."

This left Twilight shocked further still with the implications of those words. These were Equestrian made weapons of mass destruction, constructed in the time Equestria was a nation at war. And whether or not they were used was irrelevant in Twilight's eyes—making them at all was a horrific and blasphemous act in her mind. This kind of power was dangerous enough in the possession of the few alicorns that existed. It sickened her that her home nation would try to mass produce that, regardless of their reasons for doing so. It made her want to vomit. She had to take her mind off of it, for she couldn't bear to think of it any further. This was when Twilight finally noticed Dash's proximity to the device, something that heavily contradicted with something the other mare had said not too long ago.

"Wait... didn't you just say it was cursed?" The fear and disgust that Twilight felt towards that immensely powerful artifact were replaced with great concern for the Black Hoof's safety—and her own.

"Yup." Rainbow Dash, on the other hoof, seemed more focused on whatever it was she was doing at the moment. Her own saddlebags had been set on the ground, with their owner now digging about within them. "Scared the crap outta me when I came in here, too. You'd think a Black Hoof wouldn't be so jumpy, right?" She chuckled at her own expense.

"And didn't you say that if I got too close I'd set it off?"

"Also yup. So stay back for a minute while I take care of that."

"But... aren't you going to—?!"

Rainbow interrupted the perfectly reasonable question by smacking a hoof against her head three times without looking away from the inside of her bags. Oddly enough, there was an almost metallic clang that chimed out with each smack. The unmistakable sound of a hoof colliding with metal. "There's a plate of adamant in my head. They put it in on my first day as a Black Hoof. Standard issue." Dash finally spared a moment to look back up to Twilight, now bearing a very familiar cocky grin. "Think of it like magic insulation. Keeps all kinds of nasty magic from poking around in my brain. It also makes me really good at headbutting, funnily enough."

Twilight didn't think that anything else could have surprised her today, but there was Dash with another shocking revelation that managed to amaze the young alicorn. Adamant was something that Twilight had learned about in her time at the School for Gifted Unicorns. After all, it was the only mineral in the world that displayed an almost complete immunity to magic in all of its forms. Including alicorn magic. One would need enough raw magical power to fundamentally alter the laws of physics in order to bypass that otherwise immutable fact.

That unique property—combined with its extreme rarity and impossible durability—made it the most expensive material in the world without question. With only a few pounds of the stuff, you'd be able to get enough money to set you up for life. And Rainbow Dash had a plate of it embedded in her head. As did every Black Hoof cooperative, if Dash's claim of "standard issue" was true. No wonder Black Hoofs tended to keep their identities secret, Twilight soon realized. They all have a literal king's ransom tucked away with them at all times.

This was enough to get Twilight's mind off of the horrendously stupid idea sitting at the end of this room, turning and leaving Rainbow to do whatever it was she planned on doing with the amulet. The smart money was on her removing that proximity-based curse by one means or another. Probably salt or something like that. But Twilight didn't spare more than a moment thinking on that, she had other things to do at the moment. And with the Black Hoof preoccupied with that ancient weapon, she was left to continue exploring Golden Oak's third floor without much threat of being interrupted. She went back to doing just that, searching around for anything, in particular, that could have be of importance.

Though it wasn't very long before she took notice of something that very well fit that description. It had been sitting in the back of her mind since she ran to Dash's aide, the thing that she had unwittingly knocked from the wall in her haste. But now she had all the time in the world to rectify her careless mistake, taking the fallen object in her magic hue to see what it was. After all, it could be important.

A large framed painting was the victim of Twilight's reckless running about, depicting nothing more than a lone pony standing in front of the very building that Twilight was in right now. Despite the apparent age of the piece, the alicorn could tell that the pony in the portrait was the owner of an oak colored coat and a vibrant goldenrod colored mane and tail. He was a rather elderly looking stallion, one who had lived through a long life. With minimal regrets, if that kindly smile shown in the painting was worth anything. In particular, however, Twilight was keen on noticing some of the elder pony's features. The tufts of fur at the ends of his ears, the vertical pupils of his olive eyes, and the upwardly curved horn coming from his forehead. The unmistakably visible traits of a sarosian unicorn—more commonly referred to as a sarocorn. What sarosians were to pegasi, sarocorns were to unicorns. A nocturnal counterpart that was native to the regions in and around Seară. Depicted here, as evidently someone rather important. A fact that was proven by the golden plaque engraved into the bottom of the elaborate frame.

In memorial of Golden Oak.
A Wise Scholar and a True Friend.

"Golden Oak, huh..." Twilight murmured to herself as she returned the painting to its place on the wall. "Guess that's where the name came from."

"Who's the geezer?" Dash's sudden question startled Twilight into her own version of the loud yelp that the pegasus had previously let out. This amused said pegasus for a short while before she quickly returned to a more serious demeanor.

"I thought you were—?!"

"Taken care of," Dash proudly patted the saddlebag hanging on her left side, "Curse removed, amulet confiscated."

"Right..." Twilight sighed, turning her attention back to the old portrait and her friend's previous question. "I'm... guessing that this is who the library's named after."

"Huh... neat." The sudden loss of interest was apparent on Rainbow's face as she turned to her old friend. "So, find anything else?"

"N-no," Twilight managed to stammer out, "Nothing important, anyway. Just a bunch of spellbooks."

"Gee, I wonder what he was doing with those?" The sarcasm laden within that question was obvious enough on its own, only made more so as Dash gestured towards her own saddlebag. "Oh, he's not gonna be happy when he gets arrested tomorrow. I can't wait to see the look on his face!"

"Arrested?" This shouldn't have come as a surprise to Twilight, and she knew as much as soon as she asked the admittedly silly question. She considered backtracking for a moment, but Rainbow was too quick on the draw to give her that option.

"Well, duh. Of course, he's gonna get arrested. He's involved with some super illegal stuff. The Alicorn Amulet is just icing on the cake." Dash explained as she stretched herself out, yawning loudly before she felt the need to continue. "And before you ask. Yes, I have a search warrant."

"I... honestly didn't know Black Hoofs needed those..."

"You know the funny thing is, we don't. It just makes it easier." The following chortle on Dash's behalf marked yet another chilling revelation for Twilight to add to the growing list. Neither of them had anything else to add to the current conversation, which prompted the pegasus to continue her search and instructing Twilight to do the same.

And despite not being asked why, Dash chose to explain that even though the amulet was enough to get Knox locked away for several life-sentences, but there were still some top-secret things that Rainbow was required to find. What these things were? She didn't say. In fact, she went out of her way to tell Twilight that she wouldn't tell her, in spite of the fact that Twilight had yet to even attempt to ask. Though to be fair, Twilight had proven herself to be more than a bit nosey on this evening. And besides, at least it was an excuse to keep snooping around without being ushered out by the bossy pegasus. Win-win.

So that was what Twilight continued to do, putting everything else on the back burner for the time being as she went about her business. After all, the strange necklace from Fluttershy's story had already been found. The same could be said for the book that had initially piqued Twilight's interest in this mess in the first place. At this point, she was beginning to have doubts on whether or not that this was going to have any real impact on her investigation, how significant could one little stone be? Well, seeing as how it was one of the things that Fluttershy had chosen to commit to memory, it was at least worth checking out.

Of course, finding a hoof-sized stone in this mess wasn't exactly as easy as it sounded. Hopefully, it was just as important to Knox as that amulet was, otherwise this was going to be a very long night. It didn't help that her attention was divided between actually finding whatever this rock was and making sure Dash didn't find it first—or interrupt when it was actually found. That extra bit of caution was what kept Twilight busy for quite some time, her nerves acting as just as big of an obstacle as anything else.

But even the toughest of problems can be solved with enough perseverance and a tiny bit of luck. The opportunity arose when she noticed Dash examining the large office desk at the back of the room, seemingly groaning in frustration as she couldn't find whatever it was that was on her list, and it was but a simple whim that drew Twilight to check it out after the pegasus went to search elsewhere. Just like the various other tables around the third floor, the ornate desk was littered in books. Most of them spellbooks of varying levels of complexity, unsurprisingly enough, though others did manage to worm their way into Knox's apparent research. Apparently he was trying to teach himself to make mango curry as well as magic if the open cookbook was to be believed.

Though it wasn't these dusty old texts that caught Twilight's attention, but instead the simple wooden box that she spotted just barely peeking out from underneath one of the few closed books in the horde. With only a moment's glance, it would have been quite easy to mistake the container for just another collection of pages. A simple observational error that was likely what caused Dash to leave it be, much to Twilight's benefit. It didn't take her long to unbury the little wooden box—double-checking to make sure Dash wasn't going to apprehend her for interacting with it. But when the other mare didn't even bother to take notice of what she was doing, it was the green light that Twilight needed to go ahead and open the case.

The inside of the box itself wasn't anything special outside of the cushiony velvet used to cradle the sole occupant. No doubt the second of the two items Fluttershy had described in her story, the hoof sized crystal sat in the middle of the box as plain as day. The first thing that anyone would notice was the large, jagged gash in the middle of the seed shaped gem. With the way it was shaped, it almost looked as if something had somehow forced its way out of the unusual rock. There was a smokey white hue to the stone overall, but through the slightly transparent material, one could very easily see what could only be described as wisps of inky black smoke swirling and writhing within the mass, occasionally filling up a majority of the space to create the appearance of the "black stone" just like in Fluttershy's story.

But all of this was lost on Twilight. In fact, everything was lost to Twilight as soon as she laid eyes upon the crystal. Thought was a difficult enough prospect right now, and the privilege of breathing was proving to be just as difficult. The only movement visible on her person was of her wide and dilated eyes, her miniaturized pupils twitching and spamming as if trying to look away from the darkness contained within the stone, yet prevented from doing so by some unseen force. Her heart skipped a beat and a throbbing wave was sent throughout her body in response. When it reached her horn, this uncomfortable pulse had an instantly noticeable effect on her magic. The aura that was holding the box flickered out of existence for a split second, coming back just in time to catch the box and preventing her from taking her eyes off of it. The other spell that Twilight had cast, the small orb of artificial sunlight near the ceiling of the room, also began to fade and flicker. Fighting for its right to even exist, struggling to continue to provide light. But it was a losing battle, as the room was frequently cast into brief bits of absolute darkness followed by longer periods of unstable light.

"Uhh... Twilight?" Rainbow Dash worriedly asked from the other side of the room, her voice sounding far more distant to Twilight then it should have been. "You doing alright over there? Is something wrong?" With every word spoken her voice began to warble more and more in Twilight's ears, to the point where it was almost unrecognizable. The only thing she could hear was a very familiar ringing resonance coming from one of her own saddlebags, of all places. And while she couldn't act to check on the source of it right now, she had a strong feeling she knew where it was coming from.

Yes, something was very wrong. That much was certain. But Twilight lacked the ability to make any kind of reply. Instead, she just stood there, blankly staring at the secret she wished she hadn't uncovered. But while her body was unable to act in any meaningful way, her mind was as sharp as ever, perfectly aware of what was happening here. She knew what this stone was. As something like this had happened to her before, very recently in fact. And although it felt almost entirely different in every way, she knew it was connected to what had occurred in the Everfree Forest just last night. It wasn't exactly hard to figure out, especially thanks to the familiar ringing from her saddlebag, even in Twilight's current state.

It was happening again.

The light of her artificial sun was on its last legs by now, finally dying out completely with a pathetic sizzle of expended magical energy. And as the light sun came to darkness, so too did Twilight. The light around her horn faded as her tensed body finally gave way, swiftly and limply falling to the ground in a heap. The wooden box she was holding, along with the stone, clattered to the ground just as she had. And as her already fleeting sense of awareness began to fade away entirely, Twilight could only just vaguely make out the sound of Rainbow's voice screaming her name in mixed concern and horror. It was the last sound Twilight heard before she once again found her consciousness drifting off into sweet sweet sleep.

And once more, Twilight began to dream of a life lived long ago, one that did not belong to her.

Author's Note:

The "second part" of Chapter 28. You can probably see why I chose to cut it up.

Not that it's going to stop me in the next chapter. That's gonna be a doozy.

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