Evergreen Falls

by Meep the Changeling

16 - Nightmare Night

Junebug - 16th of Harvestide, 4 EoH
Hackamore Valley Observatory - Evergreen Falls

June and Sam had spent four long days working hard on the astrolabe. Between Sam’s contact with the entity within and June’s revelation, they had little desire to do anything else. Between the two of them, they’d managed to fully document the device’s controls, and in so doing, learned its primary functions.

In short, the Astrolabe was a navigational device; a tool for locating and opening gateways between universes. It also tracked relative time between them, kept an up to date map, allowed for comparing up to three universes side by side, and helped the user locate elements unique to a particular universe once within it. These functions all aligned perfectly with one of the two sonnets June had translated from the device’s engravings.

She’d made copies of the translation, side by side with the original runes, just in case anypony noticed something off about her Equishization of the text (despite nopony else present knowing the language).

Contain Astrolabe Galaxy(s) waltz(?)

Chart rug planet <silence>(?)

Door road contain fancy

Activation box large is

Medeis’ touch fancy make

Unbox whisper mighty distant

Box link pick

Find place quick

Spooky fancy mighty

Spooky mighty box

Fighty spooky

Get out fox(?)

Box is one of

Go do not shove

Within this astrolabe, a cosmic dance,
It maps the tapestry of realms untold,
Portal and pathway, in its elegance,
Key to the universe’s manifold.

By Medeis' hoof, this intricate design,
Unveils the secrets of the great expanse,
Each universe and link it can define,
A gateway for the curious to enhance.

Yet hidden in its depths, a purpose grand,
To bind eldritch power, keep chaos at bay,
Routing foul energies, a plan,
Ensuring horrors in their prison stay.

So take this artifact, a marvel rare,
Unlock the multiverse with utmost care.

There was, of course, the second set of potentially correct text which had emerged from the starting cipher. June naturally gave it the same treatment.

Place go eyes no

Hourglass Astrolabe wayfinder masterpiece

Stitch rug flow tug

Back wound right found

Gate box eye

Gate star wise

Medeis rhyme lies

Chaos Ruin Skies

Medeis wise trance

Fancy make enhance

Spooky out fox(?) waltz(?)

Planet claws tango(?)

Wise exhale

Astrolabe skull

In realms beyond what mortal eyes can see,
A timeless astrolabe, a guide profound,
It links the threads of multiverse, yet plea,
Return it whence it came, let truth resound.

With portals to each universe it shows,
A gateway to the stars, both near and far,
Yet heed this cryptic verse, let wisdom close,
Lest chaos reign, unbind an eldritch scar.

Archmagus Medeis, in wisdom's trance,
Did forge this artifact, a mystic art,
A prison for the horror's wicked dance,
To save our worlds from tearing them apart.

So bear this warning well, hold not your breath,
Return the astrolabe, avert the death.

June looked up from her translations for the umpteenth time today to address her small squad of helpers.

“Did you turn thirty six emoji inta’ two bucking sonnets?” Sam asked, incredulous.

“Yes, because they’re sonnets, you can tell, because there are thirty six of them, obviously.” June said to the small group gathered around the laboratory table. “The quality of the poems notwithstanding, both are distinctly warnings.”

“Are they even distinct warnings?” Violet asked, staring at her copy of the first sonnet. “To me this one reads more like ‘I made a cool thing but it’s powered by an unspeakable evil so don’t drop it.’ You know?”

Enox nodded twice. “I’m with her on that. The second one is more like ‘Hey this thing opens gateways. Don’t.’ which is the kind of warning I’d put on something I couldn’t for some reason cast into a block of concrete and stick in a random heliocentric orbit around, say, Proxima Centauri. ɔː jɔː mɒm.”

Fluttershy giggled.

June put a hoof to her chin. “Well, yes… But the main problem here is that these are translated poems. We lack a lot of cultural context. We don’t know if they are being literal, figurative, or exaggeratory. We don’t know if something is a metaphor or a common saying. There’s just, next to nothing on First Kingdom culture.”

Fluttershy raised her hoof along with Sam. Shy lowered her hoof and nodded to Sam. “You go first.”

Sam dipped her head in thanks. “Why don’t we use this First Kingdom’s name? Is it one of those ‘don’t speak of it because magic’ things?”

Shy’s ears perked. “Oh! That's what I was going to ask.”

June shook her head slowly. “We don’t know it. No one does,” she explained as bluntly as she could. “Ever hear about ‘the power in a name’? That’s true in some arcane disciplines for some things. The First Kingdom’s name had arcane power, and it was destroyed at the end of the First Thaumaturgic War. Like, the actual physical knowledge of what the kingdom was called was destroyed. They blew up a word. Several, actually.”

Sam’s wings snapped open. “Wait! We’re dealing with something from a school of magic that can destroy a concept!?”

“That doesn't seem safe,” Violet said, frowning steeply. “Enox, is that safe?”

“Very unsafe,” Enox answered.

“Thank you, Enox.” Violet sat back in her chair and stared at the Astrolabe. “That explains why you haven’t opened a gate to see if it really can do that.”

June’s eye twitched slightly. “That, and like, a hundred other reasons. Seriously, in stories like this they just open a portal and poof! It goes right to hell, demons everywhere, and not the fun kind that just want to make things kinky.”

Enox’s tail wagged. “I could go for shooting some murder demons. It’s been a good few millennia...”

Everypony took a moment to stare at the alien pony. Enox frowned. “What? I was on an interstellar cruise and it went all Event Horizon. It happens.”

The group turned their attention back to the artifact.

Sam cleared her throat. “Well… Both poems say this was made by Medeis. Do we know anything about them? Would they use a portal to tartarus to power something?”

June sighed and nodded again. “I know a little. I know he was an Archmagus who worked with the First Kingdom, and possibly predates its formation. I know he was the infuriating type of mage who liked to encode information to test the wisdom and intellect of his apprentices. It's entirely possible that we’re supposed to interpret these poems using each other, comparing them through some cultural touchstone lost to time.”

Fluttershy crossed her forelegs over her barrel and glared at her copies of the sonnets. “My dad did that once…”

June tilted her head and looked at Shy. “W— Why?”

“He bought a new computer for the family while I was grounded,” Shy answered, sinking in her seat a little. “So he made it so I couldn’t learn to use it without decoding the manual using Celestia’s ‘Way of Equestria’ as the cipher key.”

Violet winced. “Wow. Dick move.”

Enox tapped a hoof to her helmet since she couldn’t reach her chin. “Well… I don’t think the five of us are going to figure this out. If I have my history right, we’re talking about someone from around twelve thousand years ago?”

June nodded. “Yes. If they pre-dated. If not, then around five thousand years ago. Why do you ask? Other than… I should probably have just told you all that… Mmm… Sorry.”

Enox shook her head. “It’s fine… That’s long enough ago there’s a chance the Lux Foundation Library has a book on the guy. They used to hop from place to place making copies of all the books they could find.”

“The what?” Shy asked, frowning slightly. “I um… I like to read and I’ve never heard of that library.”

Enox coughed awkwardly. “It uh… It’s not in this neighborhood. And come to think of it, even if they do have a book on him, it probably wouldn’t talk about this specifically. And we’d have to work around the infestation of flesh melting shadows.”

Everypony winced.

“Yeah, that’s not an option.” Violet said with a shiver. “I like you guys too much and I don’t think I could fix melted pony goop.”

June’s ears perked as an idea occurred to her. “You know… That library’s a no go, but we have our own local library!”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Uh… I don’t think the public library is going to have a copy of the Book of Ancient Obscure Wizards for CARE researchers.”

“Why not?” Shy asked quite seriously. “That sounds like a vital resource for lots of projects!”

“Because it’s a book I made up for sarcasm,” Sam explained politely.

“Oh! Thank you,” Shy said, grateful for the explanation.

Violet shyly scootched over and gave the yellow mare a side hug. “I didn’t get that it was sarcasm either.”

June let a slow breath out of her nostrils. “I meant we could call the Trottingham Mage’s Library,” she informed, doing her best to remain professional. “If anypony has an expert on this, they do. Though… I’d rather not have everypony know we’re stumped and need help…”

Sam blinked and gave Juen her best ‘are you stupid’ look. “Why the buck not? Cuz we are! We need help.”

“Yeah,” June admitted, hanging her head. “It’s just… I got this job because Dusk recommended me. I was expressly told I was hired on as a Masters thanks to her, and I wouldn’t have gotten it without a PhD otherwise… So, I’m not even formally qualified for this job. If I need outside help, they might decide to fire me and…”

June trailed off for a moment then looked up. “I don’t want to have to go… I love you guys. S— Short time, I know, but—”

Sam got up and gave June a tight hug. “Hey, I get it. It’s okay. I feel like we’re family too.”

June relaxed as somepony else said it. She was about to say thank you when Enox rolled her eyes. “I’ll just tell Raven if she fires you for this I’ll incinerate the First Bank of Fillydelphia again.”

Shy giggled at what she presumed to be a joke. “Could you blow up the Ponyville DMV for me afterwards?”

Enox nodded, thought for a second, then got out of her chair. “I’ll do that for you now, actu—”

June reached out and put a hoof on Enox’s helmet to stop her. “No. Bad.”

Enox’s ears drooped and she sat back down. “Fine…”

“Why not call an expert for some other reason?” Violet suggested, having spent the last few moments thinking of a half-decent plan. “We have a whole observatory to run, right? There has to be something we might want a wizard— Uh, it’s a mage’s library that does research, right? So that means they’re wizards?”

June nodded. “Yes. Go on, please.”

“Well, I mean. Observatory. Wizard. CARE has this project as priority for us. We could be like ‘Hey we’re focusing on the astrolabe, so we would like someone from the library to check out this thing because we don’t have time to. Also, it would be convenient if they knew something about First Kingdom history because if we’re bringing a wizard out here we might as well have them check our work, right?’ and then we look responsible instead of stuck. I think? Am I anticipating pony socializing correctly?”

Enox nodded and flashed Violet a grin. “Yes! That is exactly how they think.”

“That would never work!” June objected. “It's super transparent.”

Sam coughed and shook her head. “Uh, no that could work. Ranger training includes some social manipulation. That’s almost right out of the textbook. But you don’t need to—”

Fluttershy reached into her saddlebag and removed an Equish copy of ‘A Changeling’s Guide to Fine Dining’. “It is right out of this book.”

Enox’s ears perked at the sight of the book. “Can I read that when you’re done?”

Shy nodded.

June sighed. “Okay… Fine. I’ll make a phone call,” she turned to Sam. “Should I just go right to Raven? Or the mayor?”

“Raven,” everypony said at once.

“Why is that even a question at this point?” Enox added.

June nodded in agreement then cast an eye across the group. “Okay so… What else is the Observatory doing?”

Violet’s ears perked. “Oh! Well, I’m almost done with the full night sky map path encoding!”

June’s eyes widened with horror. “Full? Like, the one for everything, everything?”

“Yes, that’s what the mission file said to do,” Violet agreed, nodding once and puffing her chest out proudly. “I even found a bug which would prevent it from recording a few stars randomly here and there. Patched it out. It will be a perfect map! We could ask them to have a guy check to make sure it’s—”

June jumped up and ran to the lab phone. “Violet, stop that program. Now!”

“What? Why? What if it’s hypothetically too late?” Vi asked, frowning and tilting her head.

“Yeah, what’s wrong with a full star chart? I have one,” Enox agreed.

“There’s an ancient prophecy that says doomsday will fall when ponies know the full breath of the heavens. IE; stars,” June explained quickly. “A lot of academia thinks it might actually be true. Look, even if it’s horse apples, a full map would be off industry standard and throw off every formula used for astronomy because— Like, there’s an algorithm and… Just stop it. We need someone to delete the Safety Stars from the map. It will be off spec if we don’t.”

“That’s stupid,” Enox objected, huffing and crossing her forelegs. “Stop being stupid!”

Violet had already left the lab the moment June had said ‘off industry standard’. Even if the standard had arisen from superstition, the android would rather die than publish work that didn’t meet spec.

“Maybe a little, or maybe the prophecy is true and that one old dead dude was right that writing down every star in one record would fulfill the prophecy,” June said as she picked up the phone and began to dial Raven’s hotel room via its direct extension.

“We could test it by burning my nav database to disk and giving it to a random pony,” Enox said thoughtfully.

June closed her eyes tightly for a moment while the phone rang in her ear. “Hon, if it’s true, the dead star we orbit would reignite. Between it and the sun orbiting our world, everything would—”

“Oh, let's not do that then,” Enox agreed, wincing.

“Yeah, no… Let’s not,” Sam said with a shiver.

“If we survived, we would become desert adapted though. I wonder what ponies would look like after that evolutionary pressure?” Shy said thoughtfully.

Sam spent a moment looking between Fluttershy and Enox. “Living charcoal horses?” She asked the alien mare.

“Plasma ponies, maybe,” Enox disagreed. “... Probably still cute…”

June did her best to ignore her friends/family/assistants and listened to the ringing phone until it was finally answered.

“You’ve reached Regent Raven, I’m currently attending a critical matter of state and not in my office. How may I help you?” Raven said with an artificial calm even June could accept.

“Uh, hi Raven. It’s June. I have a small request, I promise it’s nothing you need to worry about. You sound like you had a bad day, so can I just ask real quick?”

“One of the worst so far,” Raven said. “What is it?”

“Well, I asked Violet to handle the sky mapping project since I’m focused on the astrolabe. She had no idea we have to leave out the Safety Stars and—”

“And she added them in because she thought it was a bug instead of dumb academic superstition?”

“Exactly. I don’t know which stars they are, obviously, so I can’t fix it, and I’m also pretty busy. I was hoping you could arrange for someone from the Trottingham Mage’s Library to come fix it, that way I could ask them for a second opinion on a hypothesis I have. I um… I don’t want to be wrong about this, you know?”

“Are you trying to get a consultation on your project while making it look like you don’t need help?” Raven asked, audibly smiling at the follies of youth.

June’s ears flicked back with irritation. She turned to glare at everypony and held the phone away from her ear. “It. Didn’t. Work.”

Enox winced. “Yeah, because you suck at it!”

Sam and Shy nodded in agreement.

“Also super unnecessary,” Sam grumbled.

June rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the phone. “Well, yes. But while looking for an excuse uh… The map problem is already quite real.”

Raven was quiet for a moment, detecting the fear in June’s voice. “June, did you think we’d fire you for needing help?”

“Uh—” June said, audibly wincing at being called out so directly that Raven had her answer.

“June, there’s nothing wrong with asking for an outside consult, or calling in an expert,” Raven said as kindly as she could. “I understand the feeling of needing to do everything yourself but sometimes you need some outside help. Also, tell your assistants that getting anyone more qualified than a college astronomy department worker to do a Safety Star check was a dead giveaway. What subject do you need help with?”

June’s wings fluttered triumphantly. HA! I was right. Suck it, girls! She cleared her throat. “I need an expert in First Kingdom mages. I want to verify our hypothesis of the astroable’s creator and a couple translation issues. I uh… I mean, who knows anything about First Kingdom culture? These translate into poems. I have no idea what is supposed to be a metaphor and what’s supposed to be literal.”

“The runes are First Kingdom poems?” Raven asked.

“Yes.”

“That’s rough. I had to analyze one in college. It meant twelve things. I’ll get you the specialist. I have to go now, you’ll get a call from the Library with more information later. Goodbye.”

“Bye,” June said as the phone clicked and began to shriek its dial tone.

June hung up the handset and trotted back to the table. “Okay. So… I guess they’re not as strict and vindictive as I expected.”

“CARE’s more of a co-operative organization,” Enox pointed out, turning her attention back to the sonnets.

Sam walked over to June and gently put a hoof on her shoulder, making the younger mare look up.

“June,” Sam said in as motherly a voice as she could manage. “You’re not in college anymore. Asking for help isn’t cheating. This isn’t about your grade. We’re not here to test you. We’re here to solve a real problem with a real thing in the real world.”

June frowned, processing her statement for several long moments then facehooved. “Oh. My. Celestia… I’m a bucking idiot!”

Sam nodded. “We all are sometimes. Want to keep taking a crack at these while we wait, or should we do something else?”

Fluttershy cleared her throat. “I could use a break. Would anypony like to wait for Enox to go home so we can hide under her window and listen to her cartoo—” Shy eeped, realizing she said that in front of Enox.

Enox blinked. “Y— You can just come in and watch the bad anime with me. That’s fine.” She offered, doing her best to look shocked and confused out of a genuine desire to make Fluttershy understand she could just. Come. In.

“I um… I don’t want to get probed…” Shy said, turning red. “You’ve got the sign on the door.”

Enox rolled her eyes. “Dammit, Shy! I’m horny, not a rapist. The signs are just there because I think it’s funny.”

June giggled, grateful for the laugh. “Besides, she just means she’d break out her toy box and have fun with you, if you asked.”

“Oh…” Shy blushed and curled into a little ball of emotions in her seat.

Sam gave the three of them a blank look then shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder if ADHD is contagious. Can we focus on the problem we’re here for? We’re like, so close to officially being done for the moment and I really want a beer.”

“I have to stay near the phone,” June lamented. “We could watch some TV in the commons though. Maybe order a pizza? I’m sick of cooking and working…”

⁜ ⁜ ⁜

Junebug - 19th of Harvestide (Nightmare Night), 4 EoH
Hackamore Valley Observatory - Evergreen Falls

June paced back and forth in her lab, tired, irritable, and full of enough caffeine to kill a changeling. Despite knowing the Library had dispatched a historian specializing in First Kingdom writings she couldn’t help but try and solve the problem on her own.

I wish Sam’s lesson had taken better, June wished, fully appreciating the irony of her desires. She’s right. Like, entirely. But here I am, still compelled to solve it on my own. The two poems together have to mean a third thing.

Her pacing was interrupted by the lab’s intercom crackling to life.

“June? The old pony you ordered is here,” Dew said over the intercom with a mischievous kid giggle before switching the intercom back off.

June facehooved. Dammit! Now I have to deal with a wizard who's mad at a foal.

June exited her lab, locking up behind her and mumbling a morning greeting to the random unmorphed changeling in SkyTech janitor’s overalls who was mopping the floor.

I can’t believe we were so focused on the project we basically spaced out them moving in four days ago… June thought to herself. At least they’re quiet.

“Morning!” They called back happily. “Oh! Uh, did you girls say yes to letting us clean the dorm building too?”

“Yeah, we did.” June replied, starting to walk away.

“Cool. I didn’t get the memo. Oh! Um, would you mind if I copied you?”

June blinked. “What, like, now?”

She shrugged. “I mean like, in general. You look like a fun pony to be, and I don’t wanna be rude and copy you without asking.”

I’m too tired to care about that, June decided. “Knock yourself out.”

“Awesome! Thanks! I’ll go red fur and white mane so nopony confuses us, okay?” The changeling said, immediately assuming June’s general appearance, but giving herself notably different fur and mane colors.

“Okay,” June said as she left the observatory.

She made it across half the compound before bumping into Trixie. “Hey June! Have you seen Sam? I made her breakfast but she’s not in her room.”

“She’s helping Violet fix a computer in the control room,” June answered with a ‘I-got-four-hours-of-sleep’ yawn.

“Ah! I’ll go let her know then, thanks,” Trixie said as she started to walk towards the appropriate building.

June frowned for a moment then called after her. “Wait! Does it mean anything if not just one but three changelings have wanted to morph into me?”

Trixie didn’t even have to think to reply. “You’re a slightly chubby pegasus with enough earth pony in you to be tall. That’s not exactly common and a lot of us like to ‘dress exoticly’. Don’t think anything about it, it’s a compliment really.”

“They all asked permission though?” June pressed.

Trixie’s eyes widened. “Wow. Emeralds are a lot more polite than we are. I just wait till my friends aren't around before trying out being them.”

June arched an eyebrow at Trixie.

“What? Not shapeshifting would be like if you just decided to not fly.”

“Huh… Fair point,” June admitted.

“It only means something if they’re young, generally unmorphed, and looking to adopt a pony shape as their own for daily life. In which case ask if they can use your shape to base their ‘daily wear’ on. They’ll change colors up and stuff, but like, you’ll be the base of their pony-self,” Trixie said, finishing the explanation.

June frowned as she realized just how many ponies she’d seen who looked just like someone else only a different color. OH! Well… I guess it’s fine. I’ll ask her to change up her manecut too later…

“Okay. Thanks, Trix.”

“No problem. Oh! There’s an ancient wizard in the lobby waiting for you,” she said as she trotted off.

Right! June winced and ran to the common room, arriving through the kitchen. She slowed to a jog as she entered the living room, nearly tripping over the rug, dreading upsetting any practicing wizard by making them wait overlong.

To her surprise, a tall, elderly, silver and blue-gray unicorn stallion wearing the distinct unadorned beige robes of the Mage’s Library was not exactly waiting for her. The Wizard was quite occupied, his horn lit and glowing a lovely plum while he cast a spell on Dew.

June gulped and cleared her throat, calling out to save the not-so-young mare from whatever dire fate awaited her. “Whatever she did to annoy you, please make the newt transformation temporary. She’s a good pony.”

The wizard laughed, the outburst not interrupting his spell at all. “I’m doing no such thing, Miss June. Please, give me a moment.”

He closed his eyes and focused while Dew did her best to remain as perfectly still as somepony with a filly’s belly full of sugary cereal can be. June buttoned her lip and watched as the wizard simply held his spell’s aura over Dew and seemed to nod to himself.

“Yes… I do believe I was correct, it is a first order soul curse,” he said, ending his spell.

“Then you can break the curse?” Dew asked hopefully.

“Not personally, but if you’ll give me a moment…” He removed a notepad and an everlasting quill from his robes and wrote down three names and addresses. “Here, write any of these ponies and tell them Primary Source is giving you a referral for treatment. Master Repose could certainly break the spell entirely or even selectively remove the parts you dislike, Doctor Lily could allow your body to enter puberty and possibly develop to adulthood despite the curse, and Lady Mint could pester Princess Cadence until she found a place for you to live as an adult despite your appearance.”

Dew grabbed the paper, then jumped into the air, hovering to hug Source. “Thank you so much!”

He returned the hug. “Mind you, none of them will work for free. But you’re welcome to use my discount or call in some of my favors. That is a nasty case of runebranding and nopony deserves such a fate.”

Dew nodded and ran to her room to start writing letters. Source straightened his robes and turned to June. “My apologies, miss. Your friend reminded me greatly of my younger brother. He too was struck with a runic brand, and your organization’s research into Dew allowed it to be… Mostly mitigated. I felt I owed her some gratitude.”

“I completely understand,” June said, doing her best not to hug the wizard and failing. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet. We have work to do!” Source laughed, briefly hugging back before giving her space so he could bow. “Primary Source, Library Historian and today, bearer of an industry standard list of Safety Stars for your automaton friend to remove from a database. Which you could have found on Nest Porch.”

June fluttered her wings, doing her best to pretend she hadn’t been a huge idiot in asking a Library wizard to do something that was apparently one lookup on a BBS away. “Hey so… Is there any truth to the whole Safty Star prophecy or is it just one of those things ponies do?”

“It’s rooted in a particular legend,” Source said, his expression darkening. “At the turn of the…”

Source cleared his throat and quickly stopped himself from channeling the spirit of Lindybeige and launching into a multi-hour impromptu lecture on a random historic subject. “For time’s sake, during the Second Thaumaturgic War an archmage attempted to prevent his enemies' arcane workings from, well, working, by denying them the ability to have complete star charts by constructing a doomsday weapon. The tradition arose from a fear that the device was completed, and is still functional. In theory if we found the runestone powering the curse we could confirm the story, and eliminate the threat… But that would cost time and money and we can simply leave a few irrelevant stars off any maps we make.”

June flinched. “I’d rather get rid of the rock.”

“So would I. But don’t worry, it's largely myth and tradition and sometimes ponies are silly,” Source gestured to the door. “Shall we deliver the list and get to our mutual specialties?”

June blushed. “Oh! Um… I’ve only got a Masters and my specialty is field work actually—”

Source smiled, shook his head, and put his hoof back down. “Don’t belittle yourself. Translating a Medeis Cipher from the runework is no small feat. And you knew they could be translated multiple ways. Please, think more highly of yourself. Just try not to get a swollen head. At any rate, shall we? I’m excited to see a lost piece of history in person.”

“Sure! Violet’s in the control building with Sam. It’s not too far from my lab,” June said as she turned to leave. “You’re going to be boiling in those robes.”

⁜ ⁜ ⁜

With the list of stars to skip and remove delivered to Violet, June and Source sat down in June’s lab to work. The wizard had no eyes for the lab or its equipment. He was drawn entirely and wholly to the astrolabe itself.

Source made a bee line for the relic and got close enough that June was worried he might touch it, though he didn’t. He simply admired it up close, moving to see it from every angle before asking June very softly. “May I hold it?”

June nodded. “Yes, but do not touch any of the controls.”

“But of course,” he lifted the bronze implement with a hoof and gently turned it to catch the light. “This is without a doubt at least a very early First Kingdom relic, Miss June. Perfectly preserved! Oh, this is a marvel! Would that I could keep it on my desk, but alas… It is not to be.”

Source set the astrolabe back on its stand and took a deep breath. “Thank you. Now… I see you have many copies of the sonnets on the table here. Let’s see… Ah, here’s one of each. May I?”

June nodded and trotted up to take a seat next to the standing wizard. “It's why we called you.”

Primary Source studied the two sonnets for a moment then retrieved his notepad and quill and began to make a copy of each. Notably in Prench. He nodded to himself as he finished then looked to June. “Do you speak Prench?”

“No.”

“Ah… I should have asked if you natively knew another language before I… Erm, do you?”

“I can read Neighponese.”

“Sadly, I cannot,” he sighed and put his note and quill away. “Shame, it’s always fun to demonstrate Medeis’ writings. These are authentic.”

“How do you know?” June asked, frowning and looking at the pocket he stored his pad in. “Some kind of phrase pattern analysis?”

“Not at all,” Source said with a knowing smile. “How do you know these are sonnets?”

“Because when I translated them, they were sonnets,” June reapplied deadpan.

“Do you think if I were to translate a song from Prench to Equish, it would retain its rhyme scheme and measure?” Source pressed.

June paused, frowning as she realized. “No… No I don’t… How the buck did this come out as a sonnet?”

“That would be the work of Medeis,” Source answered cheerfully. “His very writing was enchanted to preserve its form through translations. The…quality certainly takes a nosedive, but it remains in the form he originally wrote it. It all comes back to his love of testing people through puzzles. If the clues were lost in translation, his puzzle would be unfair, see?”

June laughed. “That’s adorable, and crazy in that way you hope ancient wizards were.”

“Isn’t it just?” Source said as he magically levitated both sonnets to look at them without looking down at the desk. “Now, in my opinion, as a pony who has completed a small number of his puzzles, what we are looking at with these sonnets is called a Shuffle Cipher. We need to transpose the meanings of each sonnet line by line onto each other, making use of the appropriate cultural lenses. Only then will the poem’s true meaning be revealed.”

“Its a good thing I wrote down the runes then. The computer program Violet wrote for me had to output them as numbers,” June said with a sad laugh.

Source nodded solemnly. “It’s good you checked all permutations. If only our knowledge of the language was complete. It’s possible we’re missing one or two other sonnets simply due to not knowing all rune combinations.”

June flinched and rested her head in her hooves. “Celestia above! You’re right. I forgot my professor mentioned we only know about… Eighty five percent of it?”

Source nodded a second time. “Indeed. However, I will be able to at the very minimum gather more information through the Shuffle Cipher. This may also be the complete set, I was merely commenting on your thoroughness, and how it has granted us the best chance of learning what we seek.”

“Thanks,” June said with a genuine smile, before her ears fell somewhat. “Though it is a little disappointing that I couldn't have done this on my own. Linguistics is my special talent.”

Source’s ears twitched irritably. “Perhaps not, but that’s what asking for help is for. Cheer up! I’ll need your assistance to decode these.”

June arched an eyebrow.

“I’m not infantilizing you,” Source promised. “I will be most intensely focused, and will need you to read the lines I am working with outloud at my request. Else we will be here a good six hours instead of perhaps forty minutes.”

June nodded and slid two copies of the poems to where she could easily see them. “Okay. Just say when.”

Source nodded and once again retrieved his notepad. “Oh, and by the way. Of the three Princesses, only Cadence likes to be sworn by. Celestia is rather opposed to it.”

June flinched. “Oh. Uh. Noted.”

Source licked the tip of his quill and stared at the first line of the first poem. “First line, second poem, please.”

June glanced down. “In realms beyond what mortal eyes can see.”

“Yes… I see,” Source said as he began to write.

⁜ ⁜ ⁜

Source’s estimate of forty minutes proved to be a little optimistic. An hour and twenty minutes, the wizard set his quill down and nodded in satisfaction. “There. I am confident this is the final poem. I preserved your runes and Equish formatting.”

“May I?” June asked.

Source slid it across the table to her. “By all means, and feel free to remove the page to keep.”

June looked down at the sonnet and began to read.

Astrolabe fancy galaxy dance(?)

Stitch world rug silence

Gate and road shape does not hold

Key unknown thing not shown

Medeis making fancy

Gateway galaxy dance(?)

Universe string angle

Door dream entangle

Shape purpose true

Spooky hold undue

Map good through

Spooky bane true

Lift and very go

One moon limit

In bronze embrace, a dance profound,

It weaves the realms, a tapestry untold,

Portal and pathway in its form unbound,

A key to secrets, mysteries to unfold.

By Medeis' touch, its intricate design,

Reveals the pathways of the cosmic scheme,

Each universe and thread it can align,

A gateway for the dreamer's daring dream.

Yet in its core, a purpose nobly penned,

To hold eldritch power, chaos in thrall,

Guiding energies to a righteous end,

Restraining horrors, lest the worlds should fall.

Take it from the pedestal, explore the great maze.

Be sure to return it by the moon's next phase.

June let out a deep breath. “That… is way more clear.”

“And more importantly, something that sounds like Medeis wrote it,” Source said with a satisfied nod. “Yes. His voice. His tooling on the device, his styles of puzzles… This is solved.”

“The hay it is,” June scoffed, tapping one line roughly with a hoof tip. “This is a clear as day instruction to put this thing back where you found it within a quarter moon! It’s been up here for at least a year! Probably longer!”

Source frowned. “Well, yes. Granted its warning is specific and dire, however, the correctness is what matters…” He trailed off realizing for the first time the meaning of what he had just decoded. “Oh dear… I believe we should call your boss and get this sorted.”

“You’re telling me!” June said as she raced to the lab phone and began to frantically dial Raven’s hotel room for the third time this week.

Raven picked up after several agonizing minutes. “Raven Inkwell’s Second Office,” Raven greeted, sounding quite tired. “Raven speaking.”

“The astrolabe is a dimensional travel device created by the ancient world archmage Medeis, which serves the dual purpose of keeping an eldritch creature prisoner, but only while it’s on a pedestal. We have to put the astrolabe back on the pedestal it was found on, right now!” June said without bothering with pleasantries.

Raven paused for a long moment. “I was taking a nap. Could you repeat that?”

“The astrolabe. It keeps an unspecified evil sealed. It can be removed from its pedestal, but not for long. It’s been off that pedestal way, way, way too long. We need to put it back… Unless it was keeping Discord contained?”

Raven groaned. “No… No, that was the Elements of Harmony. How sure are you about this?”

“As sure as the Library Mage who helped me translate the poems Medeis wrote on the astrolabe, who has translated other writings of his before,” June answered before holding the phone out to Source. “Please back me up.”

“I can attest to Miss June’s statement, Regent,” Source said honestly and simply. “The final transcription of this writing is a statement informing the reader of the device’s functions, but warning it should not be away from a particular location, referred to as a pedestal, for a period of more than a quarter moon. However, as no dire threat has emerged, we can infer the danger is either no longer present, or takes quite some time to reach a problematic level.”

June took the phone back. “Yeah, fair point, Source… But much like that probably broken doomsday runestone, I’d like to not have this be a thing!”

“That goes for me as well,” Raven agreed as June put the phone back up to her ear. “We lost the records of the retrieval in a fire. I do however know the astrolabe was located in a hidden chamber accessed somewhere within the First Kingdom Palace.”

Raven paused for a moment, almost long enough for June to say something, but not quite.

“I’m reassigning you to project related field work,” Raven said firmly. “This is not a punishment, June. You have a degree in xenology and we need somepony to find that pedestal and how to safely interact with it. That’s your degree, correct?”

“That is literally my degree,” June confirmed, her wings floofing up excitedly.

“I will be sending a STF squad to retrieve the astrolabe within the hour, it will be held in secure containment until it can be returned. We can continue research into it on location as needed. The SkyTech team is currently working on getting safe access to the ruins, check in with them starting… After lunch. I imagine you’ll want a full belly.”

June nodded eagerly. “Thanks for taking this seriously. Even if we’re super lucky and whatever this sealed away is long dead, it should be on its pedestal.”

“Just keep as quiet as you can about this, June. I’ve learned a few things relating to… Ah, right. Not a secure line. Lets just say the astrolabe has more to do with the problems here than you’d think. Just not directly.” Raven said before hanging up.

June winced and hung up. That can’t be good. June thought as she turned to Source. “Well, um. Thank you for the help. I’d love to chat, but my boss did just order me to go get SkyTech to let me into the ruins, so—”

“Oh, that’s not gonna happen any time soon,” a stallion said from the lab’s door.

June yelped and jumped spinning around in alarm. Primary Source looked up at the stallion and nodded in recognition of the burnt orange, electric blue maned pegasus standing in the doorway.

The pegasus extended manipulator gauntlet clad hoof to shake. “Sorry for spooking you, the door was open and I was on my way to the apartments to say hi to everypony. Name’s Sky Trigger, yes that one. This job seemed like fun so I came to help out in person.”

June looked at him suspiciously. “Why won't you let me in the ruins?”

Sky frowned and wiggled his hoof as if to say “Come on… Shake it.”. June couldn’t help but shake his hoof.

“Nothing nefarious or anything,” Sky said as June let go. “It’s just the tunnel from the quarry into the run collapsed without warning last night, killing one of CARE’s dudes. So we’ll need to dig a new one, and they need to have an investigation. It’s going to take at least three weeks. Maybe a month.”

“Buck…” June swore under her breath, knowing in her gut the oily shadow that seemed linked to the Astrolabe was somehow responsible.

“Yeah, welcome to boring,” replied Sky Trigger, “It’s boring.”

Comments

[swarm chaser]

And we’d have to work around the infestation of flesh melting shadows.”

dr who
Silence in the Library? They didn't melt people but same otherwise

[Midknight Defender]

So we have an oily, eldritch shadow monster doing questionable things to unsuspecting ponies, a library with an infestation of flesh melting shadows, and an astrolabe with an eldritch brain with a sweet tooth inside that keeps a shadowy ancient evil locked away somewhere that has been out of its proper locking position for many, many multiples of the recommended maximum time frame for it to not be locking that evil away.

These cannot be related at all. Nope!

[smolbep]

Well fuck. Reading the inscriptions is important, people. And the warnings should come BEFORE the instructions, damnit. This Archmagus, like many, is an asshole.