Equestria: Kingdoms of Old

by Sonic Longstride

Chapter 1: Into the Abyss

Chapter 1: Into the Abyss

Edited by: NeoAlicornofTwilight

Hello, my name is Aurora Longstride, the uniorn descendant of the alicorn Sonic Longstride, and son of the elder god Arkanus (pronounced Ar ‘kay noose). I've been told by some that I shouldn't exist, but I never listened. I have a sister, but as far as anypony knows, she's vanished from the face of the planet. Being the son of an elder god basically means I will never die or age in appearance, past what your typical stallion looks like. I have been in Equestria since the foundation of the kingdom when Princess Celestia and Luna first came into power, and all this time I have been given specific instructions to never interfere with the world around me unless a problem arises that nothing beside me could solve. I have been a wanderer all my life. I never stay in the same place too long. I've stayed in the Everfree forest, the cave beneath Canterlot and pretty much everywhere else. I have always hidden from the public. That is, until recently. Not two days ago, I was sent a letter from Princess Celestia herself, instructing me to come to her castle immediately. Now, it should be noted that the Princesses do know of my existence, but to my knowledge, nopony knew where I was at any given time, so to see a letter suddenly appear in front of me was quite startling. At the time, I had been staying at an old, ruined, abandoned library I found deep within the Everfree forest. To be quite honest, not even I knew it was there until yesterday. Anyway, while I was in the library, just before receiving the letter; I found a book about ancient kingdoms of Equestria. Once I picked up this book, the letter almost simultaneously appeared, so I quickly caught it with my magic. Upon reading it, I flipped open my saddle bag, and galloped off to Canterlot.

I arrived at Canterlot just as the sun was set by Princess Luna. She awkwardly invited me into the castle, despite the obvious sense of urgency I could feel running through the palace. Now I know Luna had problems conversing with ponies normally, but one must understand that a conversation with me is... extremely discomforting... even for me. I don't normally see, let alone talk tom other ponies. On the rare chance I do, I usually end up having to wipe the memories of whoever I was talking to. The princesses have done that plenty of times, but they find the idea of having their memories wiped...a little alarming. As Luna walked me into the throne room of the palace, I knew whatever I was summoned for had to be serious, as Celestia was still sitting at the throne.

"Ah Aurora, it's good to see you," she said with a small grin, "I suppose you must be wondering why I called you here."

"Indeed I am. I'm not normally called by anypony for any reason, due to the restrictions put on my powers, as you know. By any chance, has a problem big enough for you to need my help finally arrived?"

"I'm afraid it would appear so.... As of noon yesterday, I began to feel a dark energy coursing through the land. At one point, I traced the energy back to its point of origin. What I found was... disturbing, to say the least." she stated with a look of utter fear upon her face, which was quite unusual for her.

"Ah yes, I too felt that energy. But what, pray tell, did you find at its point of origin? Might it relate to this book I found?" I questioned while I reached into my saddle bag with my magic, pulling out the book about Equestria's ancient kingdoms.

"Actually yes, where did you find that? Well, never mind. What I found was the entrance seal to the kingdom of the Darkeen. That seal is wearing down. It will no doubt shatter before anyone can get to it."

"The... Darkeen? This is horrible.... I was refreshing my memory on the subject through this book.... It would appear much of the events of that time were lost and never recorded. But if the Darkeen are breaking out, then that means...."

"Yes Aurora. I'm afraid we'll need to reboot the ancient kingdoms again. But I too am terrified of that idea. For, as I’m sure you're aware, if we do reboot the kingdoms, there's every possibility that the Darkeen will infect everything still there. But remember, it's our only hope. The life mech is the only thing that can save the world from the grasp of the Darkeen."

"I don't like this.....but I will do as instructed."

My final remark to the princess was nothing inspirational or admirable in any way, and yet to me, it still held significance. This was the first task in eons that I had been assigned to complete. But I honestly did not approve of rebooting the ancient kingdoms. They were sealed off for this reason as well as many others. One reason being that the robots in the kingdoms that once roamed the great hallways of each kingdom, one day, went completely hay wire and tried to exterminate all life in their respective areas. But I feel I should elaborate more on the Darkeen. The Darkeen are an amorphous race of creatures made entirely out of darkness. They appeared in our world one day after a large meteor struck our planet. They crawled out of their homes and knew only destruction. The thing is though, they grow bigger and stronger the more they consume. They quickly became too much for the surface dwellers to handle, so the ancients created a new machine built to combat these wretched creatures. They called this device the Life Mech. It was designed so that a unicorn would enter this sort of exo-suit and then use the incredible power stored within the device to purge the world of the Darkeen. It was used by me, however, to simply seal them away for what I thought would be an eternity, but now, it would seem, they're breaking free. I do not wish to find the Life mech again, but I will since I was instructed to. Also to some it may appear that I am a pushover who does whatever he's told to do, but in reality, I am bound by order of the Elder Gods to accomplish any task instructed of me by any higher power than myself; and since Celestia and Luna are basically goddesses by their abilities to control the sun and moon, they therefore rank higher in command than even a demigod such as myself. But nevertheless, I serve them with great honor and pride.

I know where each entrance to The Hidden Land is, but I decided, for a change, to get my supplies from the townspeople as well as the Canterlot archives. Although I should mention what “The Hidden Land” is, given that I just mentioned it. The Hidden Land is the also referred to as the land of the Ancients. It is a mystical land protected from aerial entry by a never ending storm which surrounds the entire island, by sea access by a massive chasm in the ocean that those who are unfortunate enough to fall into, are sucked to various other parts of the ocean around our world, and by magical entry by a field of magic dampening energy that prevents any kind of magic from passing through, be it a magic blast, a teleportation spell, or anything else. There are only three entry points into this land: the hidden vault in the bowels of the palace of the two sisters in the Everfree Forest, the hidden gateway within the tallest point of the now weather factory in Cloudsdale, and finally an abandoned and sealed off mine shaft deep in the center of the Crystal Empire. All of these entrances are protected by a series of magical seals that only alicorns or demigods with pure intentions can break. On the surface of the hidden land, however, there are two areas that stand out from the rest of the island: the first is Digital Canyon: a canyon filled with ancient technologies and various machines, scrap metal and spare parts leftover by the past owners of this world: the creatures known as “humans”. The second place is the Tower of the Ancients: a massive, one-thousand floor, behemoth of a building serving as a once place of meeting for important alicorns, and now the final trial before entrance to the fourth and final kingdom of old. I feel it is also important to mention that The Hidden Land’s creators were the alicorns, however, in the final days of the land, the alicorns came to a decision to shut down the kingdoms, and divide their powers to create three separate races of ponies, aside from the few alicorns who would remain to try and keep balance. The three races are as we know them today: Earth, Pegasus, and Unicorn ponies.

I continued my walk through the Canterlot Archives, passing by the guards until I came to what I was looking for. In the center of the Star Swirl the Bearded Wing, there rested a large hour glass. I stared at for a few moments, feeling the sheer weight of my task suddenly hit me like a brick in the face. I then proceeded to ask the guards to turn around for a moment as what I was about to do, they couldn’t see. However, if Princess Celestia hadn’t come and told that it was fine, they would have never turned around. Not even she knew about this secret. The original plans for this wing were actually designed by Star Swirled and I, and we put in a secret chamber, unknown to Celestia, that was connected to this hourglass, though the room isn’t physically connected to the hourglass, there is a spell link that if done right, warps the caster to a parallel dimension version of the room. It was a highly complex spell that took years to develop correctly, but what was to be stored there, needed to be kept at maximum security. I began casting the teleportation spell, all the while moving the various locks and symbols inscribed into the spell into their correct place, resulting in various symbols and connecting lines to run down the hourglass until finally, with a bright flash, I vanished into thin air, appearing in the parallel world. As I looked around the room, I saw that the original design of the room, which was designed with the highest quality of materials gathered from all over Equestria at the time of the room’s creation, were still perfectly intact. That was the odd thing about this dimension, there wasn’t a soul around the world whatsoever, but the atmosphere of the dimension could keep any living thing alive and well forever, and keep anything else perfectly preserved, so that made it perfect for storing the armor I created. The armor I made, I called the Evo X i7 Armor. It was specially crafted to start out by forming around the edges of a pony’s body, and then proceed to assemble the rest of itself after the edge structure had been built. It was forged in the center of the techno-forge: a forge located in the fourth hidden kingdom, a forge that could create even artificial life, the same forge where the Life Mech was crafted. The techno-forge is infused with an essence that was found deep in a crater where Heaven Fall Sanctuary, a fortress at the bottom of the Digital Canyon, was built on top of. The sanctuary draws energy from the strange meteor at the bottom of the crater and uses it to create its own defense system, so in a sense, the sanctuary itself is alive. A portion of this meteor was excavated and then researched until an essence was produced, an essence capable of generating life and technology with a single drop. The essence could also be infused with any and all elemental energies, which proved quite useful. My armor however, became so alive, that when worn, it symbiotically attaches itself to the wearer and in turn is able to keep them alive by repairing wounds caused by enemy attack, and drastically increasing the wearer’s stamina and physical strength. It was originally quite hard to remove, but after some reconfiguration of the user interface on the armor, it became easily removable. However, it does leave the wearer with a permanent link to the system. I am the only person to have ever donned the armor and I would advise no one to wear it. However, given the current circumstances, I had no choice but to don the armor once again, and put myself in the front lines of battle against an enemy I thought was long defeated. I walked over to the large chest at the back of the small chamber I was currently in, and opened the chest. As I mentioned, I have a permanent link to the suit’s system, and upon recognizing that I had opened the chest, the armor actually jumped up onto me and forcibly attached itself to me. At that point I decided it might not have been too thrilled with me for abandoning it for so long, after all, since it was forged in the techno-forge, it is technically a sentient being. After the suit had adjusted itself to fit my current body, I shook off the headache I had received from the suit taking me to the ground, and then proceeded to warp back to the castle using the same spell I had used to get in.

Upon my re-entering of the castle, Celestia and the guards seemed quite alarmed with my current appearance. Celestia even demanded that when I leave the castle to go to the first entry point, it had to be during the night. So I waited out the next day as by the time I had gotten back from the parallel dimension, it was already near morning. As the night settled onto the land of Equestria, I told the princesses I’d be on my way, then quickly teleported to just outside the Everfree forest. It should be noted that it’s actually impossible to warp into any given spot inside of the Everfree forest, due to the strange nature of the place. Somehow the forest created an anti-teleportation field around itself sealing every nook and cranny of the place from being teleported into, however once a pony is inside, in certain areas one can teleport, but those locations are generated at complete random, and change hourly. I began galloping through the forest to the abandoned palace at top speed, dodging anything that came into my path. I quickly found myself standing in front the palace. I slowly walked through the abandoned hallways. It’s incredible just how much this place has been ruined. I thought to myself This place used to be so regal, but now it just looks like it could turn to dust at any minute.

As I continued to talk to myself, I eventually found my way to a concrete wall that was luckily intact, the wall was centered between what appeared to be a mark of a sun on the left side and a moon on the right, but was too faded to tell for sure. If one were to examine the center wall extremely closely, they would be able to make out several thin vertical lines across the wall. I readied myself for the several spells that would follow this moment, as they would be the most laborious spells I would have casted in quite a while. I began with the first spell which, when casted, caused the center wall in front of me to light up with a blue light, and then fall down in vertical strips, revealing a stairwell leading down to an unknown depth. At the bottom of the stairway, there was a very old library, or rather, what was left of it anyway. In the center of the large room there was a series of circular grooves cut into the floor. I stood in the center of the smallest circle and casted another spell, causing symbols to appear in the circles and the circles themselves to light up in various colors. At that moment, the floor, or rather platform, jerked suddenly, and then slowly began to lower into a small shaft. After passing a depth to where even Celestia’s head would be fully below the library above, a new panel covered over the floor where the platform had fallen from. If anypony that had never been down this shaft before was here now, they would have been quite scared, for as the platform further descended down the shaft, it went directly below a pool of lava, and then into what looked like an undersea area, yet was breathable like air. When the platform finally stopped. There was a track that went to the left, but then went into a wall. With a final spell I casted, the wall in front of the track lit up, and then was vaporized. Immediately after that, the platform once again started moving, this time along an extremely long bridge of light shining in the bright colors of the rainbow, until finally stopping at its destination. “Well…. Here we are… The Abyssal Kingdom… why do I have a sinking feeling something’s going to go horribly wrong.” I muttered to myself. As I began to walk to the massive door, it slowly swung open on its own. I thought nothing of it; however, as this was typical of a kingdom created by the Ancients. I began walking through the great hall towards the foyer so as to find the entrance to the lower levels of the kingdom. As I began walking through the hallway I took notice of the lighted display cases with the standard robot of the kingdom inside them, in this case, they were tall, bird-like in facial structure and included a cannon, a sword, and an air-jet propulsion system on their back as I knew from my previous studies, their propulsion system was for use underwater for faster movement, and the robots power source (once started up anyways) was the water that was cycled through them. Creating perpetual energy, so long as the power signal for the kingdom was still active anyways.

I continued the long walk down the hall until I noticed two cases, one on each side of the hall, that contained something different: within each of these display cases was a podium of sorts with a holographic display projected above: the one on the left appeared to be of a lasso, and the one on the right, was possibly some sort of force field. On each podium, there was what appeared to be a hole just big enough for my hoof to fit in. after a moment of deliberation, I decided to break the glass on each and attempt to put my hoof into each. As I moved my right forehoof towards the hole on the left podium, my suit began acting strangely: the textures on the right forehoof became rigid and began to tingle slightly. I cautiously inserted my hoof into the hole and was greeted with a large shock rippling down my suit, causing excruciating pain, but only for a few seconds. As I slowly stood up, I noticed that a new spell had somehow become integrated with my suit. Upon trying it out, I was able to cast a magic lasso that I assumed was versatile in what it could grab, and also that it would come in handy. I decided then to repeat this procedure with the podium on the right, and any others I may find. After absorbing the spell on the right, I found out I was able to summon a force field around me, but the force field looked like no other force field I had seen before. I began looking through the data logs of my suit, and found information on both of the new spells I had obtained. The data logs confirmed my suspicions about the lasso spell: it could in fact grab most anything, but what it could grab would be shown to me by means of a target of sorts. As for the force field, it turned out that I could absorb energy blasts in the force field, which would draw that energy into my horn to then be fired in an equally powerful blast. Upon learning this, I decided to return to my walk towards the foyer, when I felt a low moan in the building’s structure. This moan continued to get louder and occur more frequently as I approached the foyer, until finally once I was in the foyer; I heard such a loud moan, that it felt like the building was being ripped in half. I walked forward and gazed through a large rounded window into a large center room just beyond the foyer which I smiled at, noticing that that was where I needed to go. Not but a few moments later, a massive robot, similar to the others in facial structure, ripped open a hole in the room in the center of the foyer and, with a sweep of one of its massive arms, broke down the large window I had just minutes ago been looking out of, and I just barely managed to jump out of the way of before it came shattering down in a large pile of glass. The robot stared at me with a death like stare and then gave a metallic, screechy roar. “Great. It’s gonna be one of those days isn’t it?”

End of Chapter 1: Into the Abyss

Comments

[Mr. G]

Good exposition, pacing of narrative works effectively here to build tension, set up some details for payoff later. Some tips for future improvement:
1. Clarify the "rules" of your creation--for instance, you claim the Evergreen forest teleportation is completely random, but changes hourly. That seems fairly regular, not random.
2. Make the details count. Elaborating on past histories, responsibilities, etc., is part of character development. Just make sure they're relevant and not repetitive.
3. Using ellipsis points (...) to show hesitation or an unfinished thought works best when used rarely. When overused, it makes dialogue and narration sound choppy and uncertain, not easy on the reader to follow.