Journal 3
3
Last time, Spectrum was tricked by the sinister True North into becoming a victim of experimentation due to his apparent inability to die. In the process of breaking out, a misplaced kick claims the life of another pony, and Spectrum discovered that the lodestone bringing somepony back perfectly is the exception rather than the rule. The reanimated corpse begins to kill others to swell its numbers and, once they run out of living prey, begin some kind of mysterious construction. Spectrum, terrified at what was transpiring, fled into the forest before finding a rubble-strewn valley and a statue bearing the inscription "Canterlot".
If you're thinking about paying a visit to Canterlot, here's my advice: Don't. Those illustrations in the old books? Not really an accurate representation of reality. There's a reason ol' Sun and Moonbutt set up shop in Totemhoof. Yeah, I know, blasphemy— but in this instance, I'm pretty sure they'd forgive me. Not that they were ever really a stickler for that kinda thing anyway.
Probably. I don't know. They're sort of indisposed at the moment.
Anyways. Canterlot. In a word: cold. In three words: Cold and wet. I have no idea what latitude Canterlot's at, but several tons of ice in the form of a waterfall that probably hasn't thawed for a thousand years or more is a pretty effective air conditioner, even when the sun is up— which brings me to the wet. When I arrived at the ruins of Canterlot, the sun was high in the sky, and all the ice and slush on the ground was beginning to melt. It was almost as if I was in a marsh. Every hoofstep I took sank a few inches into the dirt, and I had to pull my hooves out with great effort and a loud squelch.
Canterlot proper, of course was not this slushy wasteland. Canterlot was, in the ancient past, a huge castle at the top of a mountain with a city off to the side. From what I could see, time had not been kind to it. The castle had collapsed who knows how long ago— Huge chunks of stone and marble lay all around me, and the mountain was scarred and scored as though the parts had slid down as one huge avalanche. I assumed that was where the statue had come from. Maybe half the castle remained atop the mountain, but its grandeur was lost. No spires remained to scrape the heavens. The ornate paintings and carefully-tended gardens had long since been eroded by time. All that remained was a grey stone rectangle, the foundation still stubbornly clinging to the mountain face.
I began to look around the rubble. The statue was intriguing. Despite its age and tumble down the mountain, it appeared to be perfectly preserved. It was definitely of a pony, but since it was embedded halway into the permafrost, I had no way of telling who it could be a representation of. I circled around it to see if there was writing anywhere else on the statue, but there didn't appear to be any. Tentatively, I touched my horn to the smooth, golden metal.
Instantly, I knew how this statue had survived the eons. Woven into the metal were powerful spells- spells of warding and protection as well as more mundane ones to ward off wear and tear.
"They could only have been cast by the princesses themselves," I thought, marveling at the strength of the enchantments. If I had wanted to cast spells like this- not that I could, but if I had the power to- I would have to carve glyphs into the surface of the metal and imbue them with magic- and they would need replenishing every few months. To force this kind of power into regular bronze- the magic required was stunning. When you grow up seeing your goddesses walking around the palace every day, it can be easy to forget exactly what they are.
However, I didn't get to marvel at the statue for long. After only a few seconds of probing with my horn, I felt a sudden, searing pain along my back. The lodestone, held there by the strap, was heating up. With a sudden crackle and a concussive blast, I was hurled back from the statue, skidding to a stop a few feet away. Clearly, whatever the lodestone was, it didn't play nice with the spells in the statue.
"What the hell was that?" I said, craning my head around to get a good view of the crystal strapped to my back. It was glowing brightly now, the strange letters rippled over the surface so quickly that they almost formed a solid line of color. The heat was intense- I felt sure that if it got much hotter, it was going to leave serious burns.
Then, as suddenly as it started, the glow faded. The heat stopped. My back felt a little raw, but it was nothing I couldn't handle. But then a sharp crack brought my head whipping around. The statue now had a deep, jagged crack running vertically from the ground to the upside-down base of the metal pony above me. The bronze no longer looked pristine and shining, but old, dull, corroded.
I turned my head back to the now quiescent lodestone, its jet black body now almost devoid of symbols. Unbidden, images of the death and destruction wreaked on the science camp came flooding back to me- the strange and mutilated bodies of the ponies, animated by the lodestone, going about their enigmatic business.
With a gesture of my head, my horn ignited, and I flung the crystal off my back and drove it deep into the muddy ground. I’d had enough of that thing. I didn't know what kind of power that was, and I didn't want to know.
I turned tail and began to gallop away. The power in the statue had impressed me, but the power in the crystal scared me. I didn't want any part in it anymore. Gone was my curiosity about the ruins- all I cared about was that home lay westward.
I ran back through the forest, trampling some tentative green shoots that had sprouted in the thawing ground. After a moment, I arrived at the remains of the firepit I had camped at last night.
I stopped here, panting hard to catch my breath. Even though I hadn't run very far- maybe a quarter mile— I felt very tired.
Snap!
The sound of a twig breaking underhoof came from my left and I just about jumped out of my skin. Something was lurking in the forest, and from the sound of that crack, it was dangerously nearby.
I tensed, trying to hear anything else. Any other sound, so I didn't run headfirst into whatever was lurking in the forest. And hey, maybe it was just a deer! A cute, harmless deer.
A stream of air, hot, wet, and moist, wafted into my face. It smelled disgusting, like rotting meat, a garbage pit, and a sewer drain all rolled into one. There was something else in it, too, a bitter, metallic scent like the smoke rising from the foundry smokestacks. There was another quality to it too, something I couldn't quite place my hoof on, an unnatural quality that made my teeth hurt.
Okay. Not a deer. Or, at least, any deer I wanted to meet. That wasn't the worst bit, though. I could deal with zombie deer. No, the worst bit was what it said.
"Spectrum," it hissed.
"Hissed" doesn't really do it justice, though. It didn't sound like it was coming from any mouth that was supposed to speak. It didn't sound like it was familiar with pony speech at all. It was almost a high-pitched whine, like an electrical transformer, and the S in my name was grossly elongated. I knew what it was immediately. I was dealing with a chaos elemental.
Now, I imagine some of you don't know what a chaos elemental is- not exactly something you'd deal with in day-to-day life. The only reason I even know they existed is that I had voraciously devoured every one of the forager's reports as soon as they became a matter of public record. See, when Jigsaw killed Tantalus, his spirit was destroyed, but his power lingered, in some form or another. He'd twisted the land in so many ways for so long that he left incredibly powerful magical traces behind… wounds on nature, if you will. And that power wasn't sitting around. Some of it corrupted the land and native flora and fauna, some of it left huge, barren wastelands, but some of it lumped together, creating free-willed (though rarely intelligent) beings of pure magic. They were bad news. Very bad news.
I took off running in the opposite direction. I didn't see it, nor did I want to. They could take nearly any form: some of them had bodies made out of earth or water, others were pure energy, and some looked just like ponies. The one thing they all had in common was they were powerful and malign.
I dodged through the trees and across the icy ground at a full gallop, desperately running away from the creature. Behind me, I could hear the elemental crashing through the ancient trees. I glanced over my shoulder.
Mercifully, the creature hadn't yet caught up to me and was obscured by the trees. The only thing I could see was a flash of motion behind the thick trunks, silhouetted against the mountain in the background. Good. I was running away from the lodestone, too.
"Spectrum!" it roared, again in that horrible voice. "C-come back…"
Yeah. No. I was almost to the edge of the forest. I could see the open plains beyond. Just a little bit farther…
The trees began to thin, but even as they did so, the horizon seemed to stretch away. The trees towered over me now, impossibly tall, dark branches piercing the sky like spears. I couldn't see the sun anymore.
I knew I was running the right way. I could feel it in my gut. I would be safe up ahead. The air even seemed to get fresher, losing that awful heat from the creature. The sound of the elemental in the background began to fade. Finally, I burst out of the forest.
I was greeted by the wide, green, rolling hills on the other side. Behind me, the chaos elemental shrieked. I turned just in time to see it. It looked like a huge serpent made of green fire. It shrunk away from the sunlight and slid into the forest. The trees looked normal again, no longer huge, towering monoliths. I didn't really care. I was too relieved.
I turned back to the hills, to try and plot my course. "I should be able to find Totemhoof if I walk due west for a day or two, it won't even be that far- wait, what?"
The green hills had vanished, replace by a huge, steep mountain. The ground was coated in ice, not grass. A few feet ahead of me, half-embedded into the icy sludge, was the lodestone.
I stared for a long time in stunned silence. I didn't quite understand what had happened. Where did the hills go? What about the chaos elemental? I turned on my hooves so I could see the treeline.
There was no chaos elemental that I could see. What was apparent, though, was something much more disturbing: a set of hoofprints heading out into the trees at a gallop, and another set coming back out, sedately, towards me, terminating where I now stood. I had walked out of the forest. Walked, not ran.
I turned back to the lodestone in horror. Had there even been a chaos elemental? Probably not. What had happened? Could I not even run away from this thing properly?
"What do you want from me?" I screamed at the stone. I know, I know. It was dumb, but I was confused and scared.
The stone, of course, didn't answer. The strange symbols just rippled across the ebony surface. It was almost beautiful. I tore my eyes away. My gaze once again fell upon the glittering waterfall and the ruins at the top.
"Well," I said aloud, with a sigh, "I guess that's as good a direction as ever. Maybe I can get the lay of the land." Begrudgingly, I lifted the crystal back onto my back and secured the straps.
To the left of the waterfall, a staircase of immaculately preserved marble wound its way from the base of the mountain, snaking along until it connected with the castle, probably a couple thousand feet above me. The stairs themselves were beautiful- pure white, gleaming in the sunlight. A slight trickle of meltwater flowed down the stairs, like a miniature version of the waterfall that stood like a sculpture to the right. Idly, I wondered how long it would take before it thawed enough to start flowing again. The thought occurred that I was standing in the same place Jigsaw himself must have stood.
Suddenly, inexplicably, I became aware of the fact that I hadn't eaten or drunken anything for over a day. My throat felt dry and raw as sandpaper. I bent my head down and interposed my head between the polished marble and the flow of cold, clear water. It was good. Great, even. If you've never had pure, untouched meltwater from an ancient glacier, I highly recommend it. Though I would still advise against taking a visit to Canterlot for reasons I'll get it into… later.
I drank greedily until my thirst was satiated. I was still hungry, but there was no food to be found down here on the ice ground, so, lacking any other option, I continued up the stairs. I think, despite everything, I was still curious about what lay above. After all, Jigsaw and the rest of the crew had been here, but the history books had always glanced over this particular fragment for reasons I never understood.
I began the ascent, climbing the stairs one by one, making slow progress up the mountain. One nice thing I will say about the lodestone- probably the only nice thing- is that it's light.
I was about halfway up when the crystal shard hanging around my neck began to glow. I stared at it in surprise; I had almost forgotten it was there. It felt warm against my chest, not hot, and the warmth seemed to diffuse into my entire body. It was quite a welcome relief from the chill of the valley and the searing heat the lodestone had given off earlier.
"What are you up to?" I said to the crystal. "Where are you taking me?"
As if in answer, the crystal lifted itself off my chest and tugged me forward, up the steps, drawing me inexorably forward. Despite everything, I couldn't help but fine myself fascinated with this little shard of crystal. It had come from a source of immeasurable power- I had read just about every book on crystal magic there was, I lived above one of the richest magical crystal deposits in the known world, and yet I had never heard of any magic that would allow someone to create a phylactery... not one like this, anyway. That magic must have been incredibly powerful- which makes sense, since Tantalus was kind of a giant evil dragon god or something. The weird thing, though, was that I couldn't really feel anything strong from the crystal, and if anyone should have, it was me. I mean, I knew it was magical, but it didn't give off this aura of great power, nor did it feel especially evil or anything. It felt vaguely magic and that was it. Like an illumination crystal or something. I had a sneaking sensation that this tiny deep blue crystal held more secrets than it let on.
Anyways, the walk up the staircase after that point was fairly uneventful. It was pretty slippery with all that meltwater, but I have to say, it was beautiful. The pseudo-arctic landscape was incredible to behold, vast expanses of deep blue ice, pure white snow, and dark green fields of tenacious evergreens blanketed the land to the east.
The ruins of the castle at the mountain top looked much more intimidating in person. Maybe forty feet of structure still stood, but the castle's most impressive feature was a huge, incredibly ornate door. There were carvings on it I couldn't quite make out, save the inscription above the door- "Canterlot". Of course.
Now, I was in a bit of a bind here: the door had no handles. Or knobs. Or anyof those metal pushbars. And I was pretty sure it wasn't one of those fancy Stalliongradian sliding doors, either.
I walked towards the door, preparing to attempt to push it inwards for lack of other options when suddenly the crystal around my neck began to glow brightly and spark. Taken aback, I stepped away from the door. White sparks showered from the gem around my neck, vanishing as soon as they hit the ground. It tickled.
The doors blasted open and I was buffeted by a strong wind that chilled me to the bone. No- strike that. It chilled me to the marrow. This wind wasn't your usual, pedestrian cold. This wind was prescription strength.
A pale white light appeared in the darkness behind the doors, illuminating a grey stone hallway. After a moment, it began to float towards me, bobbing along like a lure on the water. As it came nearer, wisps of smoke seemed to materialize out of nowhere, swirling around the ball of light. The nearer it came, the more smoke it gathered, forming into the rough shape of a pony walking towards me.. Finally, it came to a stop at the doorway of the castle. I couldn't make out the facial features very well. It looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't put my hoof on it. If I had to say, I'd say it looked like… everypony. A little bit of everypony. The initial light that had appeared in the hallway was now floating directly in the center of its smoky skull, giving the eyes a disturbing lamplike property.
I didn't approach it. My muscles tensed up. My first thought, again, was a chaos elemental, one of the spiritual variety. My second thought was that I wasn't even sure how to tell.
"What are you doing here?" the creature demanded. Its voice was strange, like many voices layered over each other, forming a crowded though not unmelodious chorus.
"I honestly have no idea," I said. "Are you real?"
It didn't answer. Instead, it took a step forward, staring at me with a piercing intensity. I still wasn't sure if it was a hallucination or not- and besides, if it WAS a chaos elemental, there wasn't really anything I could do to defend myself. Besides, death didn't seem to be much of an obstacle for me nowadays.
"You should not be here," it finally said, taking a step back.
"Well, gee, I'm sorry, ghost pony. I'll just head on back down the mountain, then. Nice meeting you! Beautiful ruins you have here."
"I would not be so glib if I were you," it said. "You are a fool, Spectrum. You should not be here. Not yet. You have forced me into a direct confrontation and I find this distasteful, especially with one such as… yourself."
"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" I blurted. I was so relieved at not being eaten that my fear had turned into confusion- and no small amount of indignation.
"The undead," it said, matter-of-factly. "And anything tainting with the power you wear on your back."
"You know about this?" I said, all other thoughts momentarily getting pushed out of my mind. "Do you know what this is?"
It hesitated before it answered. "I do not know much. It is… beyond me. It is too early on your journey for me to reveal too much too soon, but…"
It looked confused. I don't know if you've ever seen a perfectly generic, androgynous smoke pony look confused, but in case you haven't: it's very strange.
"We are… connected, in a way. It is easy for me to manifest here, where the veil is thinnest, but through you I may be able to act more overtly than what is normal. It is not the first time I have helped. The three who came before seeking the fragment of the goddess were judged fairly. I do not have the same luxury with you, but perhaps…"
It trailed off into silence. I waited for a moment, and when it didn't respond again, I began to speak.
"Hey, listen, I love cryptic half-speak as much as the next guy, but if you could tell me what's going on, that would be really gr-"
I was cut off in mid-sentence. The smoky creature whipped its head around and stared directly into me with those headlight eyes, cutting through to my very spirit, and images flashed before me. An ornate crystal tomb. A deep depression in and endless desert. A pillar of fire in the center of a field… and others, jumbled, confused, distorted. It felt as though my head was burning, like there were hot coals behind my eyes, advancing steadily forward, ready to boil through my eyes.
Then, as suddenly as it started, I staggered forwards. The tip of my nose passed through the smoky ethereal flesh of the creature, and tiny ice crystals formed on contact.
"What…?" I didn't have the mental wherewithal to continue.
"All the assistance I can offer now," it said. "You have an important duty, Spectrum. More important than you know. The powers that be have chosen you for a grand destiny, though I cannot fathom why… That crystal complicates matters. I cannot sit idly by if it once more holds power under the sun. Visit the locations I have revealed to you and return once your tasks are completed."
I swallowed. My head was spinning, trying to process what I had just seen and what the creature was telling me.
"Wh-what are you?" I managed, my head still swimming with pain and confusion.
For the first time, the creature smiled, revealing a row of smoky, pointed teeth.
"You know me better than most, Spectrum. I am Death."
Another chilling breeze, this time blowing into castle. The smoke dissipated and the castle doors slammed shut.
"Huh," I said, weakly, before succumbing to the darkness that had begun to accumulate on the edges of my vision.
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3110974 GOOGLE DOCS IMPORTING
fixed now
the lodestone's a marker isn't it
Cryptic destiny shenanigans? I guess I can roll with that.
3111158
I think I said that earlier... It seems like it, though.
Chaos Elementals, eh? I can dig it.
Damn, this must not have been featured in EQD yet or it would have accumulated like 500 comments by now.
3117692 It was, but it's buried inside the Antipodes post, so you actually have to click through. :(
Nice update, we got to find out more about the stone, though a great deal is still left unexplained such as;
-Now that the princess are back, why are they running the sun and moon in the usual way? Why haven't they switched the sun to the frozen side for a week at a time to thaw the centuries of built up ice?
-Why would a hand picked mission lead (True North) of Celestia have behaved that way? And why didn't anyone else object? And if they had any idea of what was happening, why weren't they prepared?
-What is the purpose of a stone like this in the first place, or, who and what would sit down and say to them selves, 'You know, I really need to build a zombie resurrection stone.'
-If it is possible to build an artifact capable of restoring life to the recently deceased, an incredibly complex proposition that would require some form of on board intelligence, and quite a respectable power source, why is this the only example we have seen of this technology?
If it is possible to build an intelligent tool like this, wouldn't we expect to see other examples used for much more common and mundane tasks? How about a stone for farming that fixes soil PH, calls for rain, etc to ensure a good harvest? What about a hospital stone that heals everyone who walks into range of the hospital? How about a military version that handles communications, disinformation, casts illusions, and generally makes the opponent's life hell?
It's just very hard to conceive of circumstances where a technology like this, something generations ahead of its time, comes into existence without any supporting parts or more minor examples of the same to build from. It would be like finding a nuclear reactor in a bronze age civilization.
I don't mean this as criticism, and I really enjoy your work, I'm just hoping to see some of this in the next few chapters.
Keep up the great work! 
3120312
HERE'S WHAT WE CAN REVEAL THUS FAR:
They don't just swap the moon and sun because they don't want to flood the planet by melting all the ice at once! They're taking it slow, trying to let things readjust "naturally".
Everything else in your comment, though, would be spoilers! However, as an aside, natural nuclear reactors exist.
Poor Spectrum. Discovering necromantic artefacts, vivisection, escaping zombies, escaping chaos elementals, and now ghosts of unknown provenance with fetch quests... He has had a busy week so far.
My only (admittedly pinheaded) concern is that this story is going down the same route that Antipodes took. Antipodes was quite epic, but all in all it felt like a series of disjointed set pieces strung together without an overall unifying cohesiveness. Each of the story-arc sub locations were well written in their own right, but overall they lacked a certain je ne sais quoi that tied them together into a larger, unified whole. It feels like I am just teleporting to each location in it's own separate, isolated bubble of spacetime.
I dunno... Maybe I just need to reread the chapters again in one sitting as way of review?
Do not get me wrong. I certainly enjoyed this and cannot wait for more.
3120312
We do what we must because we can... for SCIENCE!
3126546
Nah, that's not just you. That would be a failing of my writing. I'm hoping I can solidify the world a little bit and add that quality to the world, because I know exactly what you're talking about. It's rather difficult because its kind of an abstract concept... I'm not 100% sure what it will take to tie it together, but I'm gonna try! Thanks for the comment!
Yush! Finally, an update! I shall eagerly await the next one. I don't remember Death intervening anywhere in Antipodes, but I guess that's because there was no overt action taken like there is here. Resurrection was not an option for the previous triplet.
So now he's working for Death.
I have a good feeling about this.
Don't know if I want to keep reading this. More questions seemed to be raised than answers with each chapter, which would be fine if the wait between updates wasn't so frustratingly long. Sorry, mate, but I just don't think its worth the time anymore.
very 'dead-space'y.
Damnit! I wanted to read Antipodes (I still will), and wanted to see if this was a sequel before starting, so I read a little of the description, and got hit with a faceful of spoiler in the first sentance! Curse my stupidity!
I likes Antipodes, and I'd like to see how well civilization has been coping since the return of the princesses, so I'll read this one when it's completed (I hate juggling multiple unfinished storylines). You have my support!
3141678 Death was the one that tested them in the Canterlot Castle. Y'know, these creepy "Truth" versions of themselves whit silver eyes? Yeah, that.