A New Adventure

by Late2TheGame

Chapter 5 - Learning is magic [Edited]

It was a quiet morning in the Golden Oaks Library with Twilight Sparkle, the newest alicorn princess of Equestria. She was a lavinder mare with purple eyes and a purple mane with a strip pink and one of a deeper purple. Her cutie mark was a six-pointed pink star surrounded by five smaller white stars.

She had been up early, reading a new book that had just been delivered to the library. ‘Ancient pony-made structures throughout history. Volume 3.’

As she continued to read, she found something in one of the pages and let out a small gasp before grabbing the book in her magic and running downstairs into the main room. “Spike! Where are you? I’ve got you show you this!” She called out excitedly.

A moment later, Spike, a baby dragon with purple scales and green spines walks in wearing a bright pink apron while carrying two plates of pancakes with a small smile on his face. “Yeah Twilight?”

His walk to their dining table was cut short by a book being telekinetically shoved in his face, causing him to lose his balance and fall back, dropping the plates in the process.

Not noticing, Twilight points to the page in question “I was reading this book about ancient structures, you see most in Equestria have already been explored but not these ones! The secret vaults of Mystic the Marvel!”

Spike; dizzy, annoyed and throughly confused got up off the floor and brushed himself off “Uhhh oh yeah? That’s…really cool Twilight.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide as she continued to explain. “Spike don’t you see?! These are pieces of Equestria’s history, and they’re just sitting there untouched! Just think of all that we could learn if we got the chance to explore them!”

Twilight was beaming with excitement, her face almost right up against Spike’s who just backed up uncomfortably “Well it’s a shame that we can’t then, isn’t it?” He said, tryin to sound disappointed for her.

“But that’s just it Spike.” she said with her smile growing on her face, pointing at a particular section of the page “This one is only a few hours away from Ponyville!” She squealed in excitement. “If we pack now we can be there by midday.” She said, about to go and gather her things, until she was interrupted by Spike clearing his throat.

She turned to see him looking at her disapprovingly, arms crossed and eyebrow raised while tapping his foot. Now she noticed the pancakes and broken plates on the floor. Her ears fell flat against her head as a small blush appears on her face, realising that she got a little carried away “Hehehe…sorry.” she said with a sheepish smile.

After some more apologising and cleaning the mess she made, Twilight returned the conversation to the Tomb of Mystic the Marvel “So would you like to come with me to excavate this tomb, I’m sure an old vault like this one would have plenty of gemstones for a growing dragon.” She said trying to convince him to tag along on an educational adventure.

Spike considers it for a moment, slightly drooling at the thought of a pile of gems all for him. But he snaps out of his daydream as he remembers something. “I’m sorry Twilight, I can’t go. I promised Rarity that I would help her today, and she’s supposed to be really busy with a huge order. But maybe the other girls can help.” He suggested, feeling a little bad for leaving his big sister hanging like that.

“Oh, that’s fine. I’ll ask the girls, I’ll see you later then Spike.” Twilight said with a small smile, she was slightly disappointed that Spike couldn’t come but she’s sure at least one of her friends could make it. So she took some time to gather her blank scrolls, quills, ink, backup quills & ink, magnifying glass, a camera, backup backup quills & ink and her book, which shows the location of the vault. With her saddlebags almost overflowing, she heads out into the day to ask her friends to join her.

---

Getting to Ponyville was easy, it was just a single train from Canterlot. After stepping off the train and readying his cart, Blaze felt that he couldn’t shake his nerves from his meeting with that creepy mare from the previous night. He didn’t trust her at all but this magic spyglass was too temping to not at least take a look. Taking the path of least resistance, he cuts through the village and finds himself in front of a large forest that the map refers to as ‘The Everfree Forest’. Supposedly it’s filled with unnatural weather, magical beasts and dark magic. The forest seems to make the locals nervous as he discovered when asking if there was a path he could follow.

After finding a path and making sure that he could follow it to the location on the map. He sets off to find the vault of this ’Mystic the Marvel’.

In the limited time he had to research this job before coming this far, he was able to discover that Mystic was a powerful wizard from Equestria’s past. He was born a couple hundred years after the banishment of Nightmare Moon, became a recluse late into this adult life and faded away into obscurity, that was until some of this old notes and research was found in his old home. Apparently he had built vaults all over Equestria and filled them with all the wealth he collected and all the magical items he made over the course of his life. Many tried to access them but nopony ever could. “Of course they haven’t, because Celestia forbid it be easy for me.” Blaze thought to himself, remembering that little tidbit of information.

After a couple of hours of following the directions on his map, he came across a small cleaning connecting to a cliff-face that was completely covered in moss. He looked around and found there was no entrance to be found “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me.” He was about ready to leave when he heard a twig snap in the foliage behind him.

Slowly turning to the source of the noice, Blaze readies himself to defend or run. Slowly something starts to creep from the bushes, something with with teeth and claws made of sharp pieces of wood, a green light burning in their eye sockets and shining through the cracks and gaps in their wooden bodies.

“Timber wolves, of course.” Blaze sighs to himself as four timber wolves stepped into the clearing, snarling at the lone unicorn as they surround him, cornering him with his back to the cliff-face. They stood in a stalemate for what felt like hours, until one of the smaller wolves gets impatient and pounces. Blaze turns and fires a concussive beam, knocking it into a nearby tree shattering its body “It’ll come back from that soon.” he reminded himself.

Two more jumping in, attacking from each side. Blaze waited until they were just a few feet from him, then he teleported 10 feet into the air, causing the wolves crash into each other. Blaze then casts a small fire ball spell beneath him at the two collapsed wolves, engulfing them in flames. Casting another spell, he created a strong gust of wind that extinguishes the fire, scattering the now charred wood and softens his landing.

The final and largest Timber Wolf snarled at him with eyes full of rage. It pounced for him just as he landed, tackling him to the ground. The Wolf tried to take a bite out his throat, so to protect himself Blaze put his hoof in the way. A burning pain rushing up his leg as the wooden teeth sank into his forleg. He needed to put as much distance between him and the Wolf as possible, before the smaller one finished rebuilding itself. So as quickly as he could, he put much magic as he could into his horn and blasted the wolf, sending it flying into the moss-covered stone of the cliff-face. Not wasting anymore time, he clambered to his hooves and sends another fire ball at the prone wolf, burning it to charcoal.

Turning to the the smaller wolf, now fully reformed, it runs back into the forest with its tail between it’s legs. Thankful, Blaze almost collapsed in exhaustion as the adrenaline left his body, letting out a sigh of relief.

Checking over his injured forleg, he was glad to find that it wasn’t broken though it was bleeding. Grabbing his first-aid kit along with his saddlebags and he began the process of cleaning and bandaging it. “Some more scars for the collection.” He joked, straining in pain as he wraps the bandage around his fetlock. Looking through his bag, he picks out a potion to stop the bleeding, he hates this stuff so he finishes it quickly with a loud gag as the wound begins to clot, stopping the bleeding.

Once he was satisfied that he is was to walk with no issues, he turned to where the wolf hit the wall, noticing that some of the moss was knocked off, revealing what looked like carvings in the stone. So with a telekinetic grip, he took a hold of a chunk of moss and ripped it from the stone, revealing what looked like a large stone door carved into the wall. He took the mass of dirt and moss and telekinetically threw it into the forest.

He inspected the large stone doors, they are designed with like what appears to be Coltic knots. Upon further inspection, the knots themselves have runes carved in to them. Taking a closer look, he grabbed one of his old notebooks on runes from his saddbags to figure out what kind of runes they were then he could see about translating them. Following the line of runes he saw that some of them were still obscured by dirt, so he tried to brush it away with his hoof.

Upon touching the stone door, the runes lit up with a soft golden glow. Just then, a loud unlatching sound is heard and the doors slowly slide open. Blaze is dumbfounded for a moment “What the- I thought nopony was ever able to open one of these?” He questioned, thinking this might turn out be be more interesting than he suspected.

Before going any further, he moved his cart into the tree line and using the environment to hide it, not knowing whether any spell he casts will maintain once he is inside. And now, with a newfound curiosity, he put on his saddlebags, cracked his neck and cautiously enters through the vault door. Once inside, the stone door slowly closes behind him.

---

Twilight was taking a lonely, cautious journey through the Everfree by herself; she was so disappointed that none of her friends were free to help her. And she was going to wait until they could like they had suggested, especially with Rainbow Dash not wanting to miss the opportunity to have a ‘Daring Do style adventure’. But she was filled with too much curiosity and excitement to wait another day, the possibilities for learning were just too tempting to not at least take a look.

Also if she was being honest, since becoming a princess, she found that her friends, along with everypony else had become more protective of her. She was happy that they cared so much, but she also found that most ponies now seemed to walk on eggshells around her as though they were trying not to offend her in anyway, she didn’t know if she would ever get used to that. She even had to tell her friends to not refer to her as ‘your majesty’. So honestly, she was glad to to have the opportunity to prove she didn’t need to be treated like different class of pony, that she was just like everypony else.

After a moment, she came across a clearing in the forest; and to Twilights astonishment, she was met with a large carved stone door in the side of a mountain. She moved closer to investigate when she noticed a pile of charred wood by the door “Was somepony camping out here?” she thought to herself, looking around to see if there was anymore evidence of somepony else being there. Unable to find anything, she continued to the door. “They’ve probably left by now.” She reasoned as she took a closer look at the door.

“This writing; I wonder what it means. Ohh how exciting!” she squealed, copying down the runes onto one of her blank scrolls. She had to brush some dirt off the door to finish but eventually wrote it all down. “Now. How do I open you?” She asked the door as her excitement continued to grow.

Comments

[Fluffy_Wing]

Nice. Waiting for new updates

[f0st3r21]

Guess I was wrong