Journal 4
4
Shining glyphs floated behind my eyelids, searing into my eyes and making me blink in confusion.
I was lying on a cold stone floor, looking out into a dark room. I struggled to my hooves and just about toppled over again, the extra weight from the lodestone strapped to my back momentarily forgotten.
The weight kicked my brain into gear, and memories came flooding back to me: The smokey, insubstantial form that claimed to be Death, and it's assertion that the only way to get rid of this stone was to travel to… where?
I struggled to remember the locations shown to me in the visions. Most of them were unfamiliar—a pillar of fire, a pit in the desert… but one came back to me, clearer than any others: an ornate crystal tomb, the edges cut and polished, shining with all the colors of the rainbow.
This was a sight I recognized. This was one of the most revered places in Totemhoof: the tomb of our founder, Rainbow Dash. She had been enshrined after her death in a coffin made out of the crystal that made Totemhoof viable as a colony, as well as, to paraphrase, "preserve her awesomeness for future generations". But I guess I should explain before I go on exactly who this "Rainbow Dash" character is, right?
Well, way, way back before the fall of the Princesses, there were a group of six ponies—Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy—who controlled this powerful magic known as the Elements of Harmony. The Elements were so powerful that the first thing Tantalus did when he broke free from his magical prison was destroy Twilight Sparkle, rendering them powerless. Most of the information about the ponies except Rainbow Dash has been lost to time, at least in Totemhoof, but Rainbow holds a special place in our hearts. She fought in the Grand Cataclysm and, when it became apparent that neither side was going to win, she left and began scouring the earth for a suitable site to establish a colony, bringing with her a platoon of soldiers. They eventually stumbled across the valley that would become Totemhoof. The defensiveness of being walled in all sides by mountains, as well as the magical cloud barrier that she and a group of other pegasi developed, fueled by the magical crystals that grew underneath the earth, formed a bulwark against the forces of Tantalus that stood the test of time. As far as I know, Totemhoof is the last major civilized area on the planet.
Now, I'd been to her tomb before. Practically everypony had—Rainbow had achieved almost legendary status over the years, and some ponies even went so far as to worship her along with Luna and Celestia (though they've been gently discouraging that since they’ve returned.)
Anyway, back to reality. So there I was, standing at the top of a mountain, looking into a dark, ruined castle, my mind spinning with what I had just learned—not to mention a legendary headache. I had to consider my options.
On one hoof, I had no idea what that creature I just saw was. It seemed to know about the stone on my back, but I didn’t know if it was trustworthy. It could just as easily been a clever chaos elemental or… something alien. And even if it actually was the spirit of Death, was that really somepony I wanted to follow? What would be in it for me? I sure didn't want to die. Again. Forever.
On the other hoof… What else was I going to do? This stone was evil, that much was for sure, and there was definitely something strange going on with me and it that I wanted no part in. Maybe this could help me find something out? Didn't she… he… it… say something about destiny? If it was Death, maybe it… knew about that kinda stuff? I mean, everything has a time to die, right?
But even putting all that aside, I didn't really have any other options. I couldn't just sit and rot in this castle. First of all, I'm pretty sure I couldn't rot because of the stone, and second of all… y'know, that would suck. Now, luckily, Canterlot wasn't all that far from Totemhoof—maybe about a day's walk. Celestia and Luna could help with my undeath problem, and I could visit the tomb, to boot? I made up my mind: going home was the only option that made any kind of sense. If a chaos elemental was, in fact, trying to hitchhike into Totemhoof with me, the mist wall would keep it out. Plus, even though they weren’t back to their former power, Celestia and Luna were a force to be reckoned with.
I turned around and slowly made my way down the icy steps of the castle. Now, coming up a staircase covered in ice sucked, but going down was even worse. I don't know how long it took me to get to the bottom, but it was long enough that I actually considered jumping off the mountain and letting the lodestone revive me.
I won't bore you with my trek through the forest. It really wasn't that interesting. I made my way through the sparse forest until I got to the plains beyond. They were beautiful sweeping carpets of soft, green grass, dotted here and there by the bloodberry bushes that were a delicacy in Totemhoof.
And boy, was I glad to see them. I hadn't eaten anything in almost two days! I ran up to the berries and plucked a few. They tasted sweet and fruity, and their eponymous blood red juice helped to quench my thirst, too.
When I had eaten my fill, I turned to the west to see the shrouded city. Totemhoof was visible for miles around, or so I had read- this was my first time seeing it from the outside. It really was a majestic sight.
The cloud wall that separated Totemhoof from the rest of the world looked a lot less solid from the outside. The mountains weren't huge—about a thousand feet or so—but they looked much larger since the rest of the landscape was flat. Totemhoof was surrounded by—you know what? It would be easier if I just sketched it for you.
Yeah. Roughly like that, but, like... more fog. It was a sight to see.
I made my way across the sea of grass, and before long, I stood at the entrance to Totemhoof. How long had it been since I had left through this very same pass? A month? Two? The ground beneath me was beginning to wear away and reveal track marks, a visible sign of Totemhoof's isolation coming to an end.
Now, I knew I had a problem. A cool breeze blew out from the craggy mountain pass, though it didn't seem to affect the fog at all. The air was crisp and cold. Visibility was shot; I could only see a few feet in front of me, the path into Totemhoof fading away into nothingness before me.
Now, this wasn't ordinary fog. The pegasi used some kind of weather magic that basically meant that unless you had explicit permission, you couldn’t enter. You'd get all twisted around and spit out the other side. You could even dive headlong into the top of the clouds and you would just pop right back up. Trying to walk through it was disorienting and unpleasant. This, of course, was the magic that had kept Totemhoof safe for generations. Of course, not only did I not have permission or a guide to lead me through the clouds, I had a giant ridiculously evil crystal that makes zombies strapped to my back. That seemed like the kind of thing that this barrier was designed specifically to prevent.
Plus… I didn't even really like the thought of taking it into town at all after what I had witnessed at the research camp. Did I really want to take it in after that? Would it cause the same kind of effects it had there? Would the Totemhoof cemetery spring to life, and overrun the people of Totemhoof? (Heh. Spring to life.)
I glanced over my shoulder at the dark surface of the stone. The pale grey light illuminated the tiny glyphs that drifted lazily under the glassy surface of the crystal. Whatever might have been going through my mind, it wasn't too concerned.
All this swirling around in my head made me acutely aware of just how tired and sore I was. Every joint and muscle hurt. My head felt heavy, and it still pounded. Maybe now wasn't the best time. It was hard to tell through the fog, but I was pretty sure the sun had almost set. Yeah, now would be a good time to nap. Take up my adventure tomorrow, try and find a way through the mists. Maybe I could waylay the next pony to come out or something. Either way, that cool grass looked mighty appealing.
I stepped over to the side of the path and curled up on the deep emerald grass. It was slightly damp with dew, which felt good against my sore muscles. I was out in minutes, if not seconds.
In my dream, I was floating above Totemhoof, inside the cloud layer. The city was spread out below me, twinkling in the darkness. The colors were muted and dark. After a moment, I began to glide down. I could feel the cold night air against my face, whipping through my mane. I passed by the soft, rounded steel tops of the Stalliongrad buildings and began to glide towards the older part of town. The buildings became more angular, made out of hewn stone instead of steel and plastic. The streets were cobblestone instead of asphalt, and there was not a pony to be seen. Eventually, we came to the old temple of Luna. It was carved directly into the ground, a building shaped like a huge wheel, buried halfway in the ground.
The of the hallway was spacious and lined with dark blue crystals. During the day, they'd bathe the interior of the hall with soft light, but tonight they were dark. I drifted through the hall and down a twisting stairwell.
At the bottom of the stairwell, the space opened up once again. This was the mouth of the crystal mines. In the center of the room was a colossal statue of a pony carved from a single crystal—the largest ever discovered. Every crystal I enchanted came from here; every bit of magical technology Totemhoof possessed relied on the crystals within to keep running. The mines ran extensively under the mountain but, thank Luna, they haven't shown any signs of running out yet.
By this point I had figured out where I was going. I moved forward through several twisting, subterranean tunnels until I emerged into the mausoleum. Rainbow Dash's tomb glistened and glimmered in the dark. Then, suddenly, a loud crack issued through the hallways and the top of Rainbow's sarcophagus split open. From inside, something shifted, a dark, formless shape, seeping up and out of the crack into the room…
"Ow!"
I shouted and blinked as I was yanked rudely back to consciousness by a sharp pain in my snout. There, standing over me, was a mare with a coat the color of mint chocolate and a mane that was striped with alternating lines of dark green and mint. On her flank was a loaded crossbow.
When I say there was a loaded crossbow on her flank, I don't just mean her cutie mark, mind you. Strapped to her back was a mounted crossbow: a sort of spring-loaded backpack that allowed an earth pony to aim and fire a crossbow easily without needing magic. It sprung out to the side when it was needed, and when it wasn't, it could be easily retracted into the backpack and removed to repair the mechanisms or reload it. The trigger—which was operated by a bite—was already in her mouth. The sharp pain on my nose had been a crossbow bolt scraping against it. She had it trained directly at me.
"Don't make any sudden moves," she said evenly, though her voice was somewhat muffled by the trigger. "Get up. Slowly. You try anything and I'll put a bolt between your eyes."
Now, I know that a crossbow bolt to the head would be less lethal for me than it might be for a normal pony, but I really did not want to experience that. Thankfully, having a loaded crossbow pointed at your face tends to wake a guy up pretty quickly.
I slowly stood up, and the tip of the bolt still aimed at my head.
"Alright, good," the mare said. "Now, why don't you tell me who you are and why, exactly, you're taking a nap just outside the only way in and out of my town?"
I had to think fast. Say the wrong thing now, and I was dead. Again.
"I—bwuh—I was just—I came from—I mean, I’m from... I live in Totemhoof!"
Oh, yeah. Real smooth. Luckily, she didn't fire the bolt.
"Let me try that again," I ventured, straightening up. "I live in Totemhoof. I left on a scientific expedition, but something bad happened, and now I need to go see the Princesses. My name's Spectrum."
"You live in Totemhoof, huh?" the mare responded. "Alright, prove it. Tell me something that a citizen would know."
"Uh, I live in one of the new Stalliongrad apartment buildings, on the thirtieth floor. It's on the western hills. I work in the crystal processing center enchanting crystals. The crystals are mined from beneath the ancient Temple of Luna."
"Not good enough," the mare said, the trigger in her mouth.
"Wait!" I shouted. "I live across the street from a small diner called Equestria Edibles. They make pancakes with bloodberry sauce. I eat there most mornings before I show up for work."
The mare stared at me for a moment, her narrow eyes the color of tree sap. Then she bit down.
I winced, expecting to feel a bolt through my skull, but instead, I heard the sound of a ratcheting gear and the crossbow began to retract into a metal box on the mare's back.
"Well, you convinced me; you're really a pony from Totemhoof. My name is Barkbough. I'm a ranger."
(That would be bough as in boughs of a tree. Pronounce it like you would when you bow down.)
“Bark? Like a dog?”
“Like a tree,” she snapped. Right, okay. Avoid jokes.
“Well, thank you,” I said, relief rolling over me. Rangers were the backbone of Totemhoof. They were the ponies who ventured outside of the city to gather food and lumber from the nearby forest. More importantly, they were part of the very small group that knew how to navigate the mists. “I wasn’t sure how I was going to get back in, but I guess that solves that problem. I—”
“Not so fast, there,” Barkbough said, “I still have quite a few questions before I let you back in. What exactly happened to the rest of your supposed expedition?”
No way I was telling the whole truth. “There was an accident at the facility. An... explosion. I don’t know if anypony else made it out. I just started running.”
“And where exactly was this expedition?”
“To the southeast, where the glaciers are starting to thaw. We were exploring some ruins that got uncovered by the ice.”
Barkbough’s expression was stern and unreadable. I couldn’t tell what was going on behind her eyes. “Likely enough. What’s that you have strapped to your back?”
...Oh. Crap.
“This is something that we uncovered at the site. I brought it back with me. I work with crystals, remember? I thought this might have... interesting... uh, applications. But that’s not the important thing! I need to tell the Princesses what happened!”
“And that small one around your neck?” Barkbough asked.
I had actually completely forgotten about the small crystal dangling around my neck on a chain. Too many damn crystals to keep track of.
“This? This was just a gift from a friend. It’s just pretty, is all.”
I couldn’t tell if Barkbough bought it or if she was about to eject that crossbow and shoot me all over again.
“I’ll take you in,” she said, after a tense silence. “But you won’t get an audience with the Princesses right away. You’ll be held in a holding cell until we can verify your identity. I’ll pass along your message to the royal guards. That crystal of yours will be held in storage until that time. Understand?”
“Yeah, sure, that’s fine,” I said. Inwardly, I was worried about bringing the stone into the city and putting it so near the Princesses, but... this was pretty much my only offer. I just had to hope it would be close enough to me to avoid... whatever it was that had happened in the forest when I had tried to run away.
Barkbough moved closer to me. She was slightly taller than me. She stared directly into me, her bright blue eyes sparkling with intensity.
“If you try anything, if you hurt hurt anypony in my city, if you so much as flick your tail in the wrong direction, I will put a bolt through your neck faster than you can blink. Do you understand me?”
This girl was not kidding around. I’d met rangers before, and they weren’t nearly as scary as Barkbough here was. Then again, I’d always been on the right side of the cloud wall.
“Understand! Understood, I mean. I won’t try anything. I just want to explain what happened and try to get some help.”
Barkbough nodded and turned to face the cloud wall. “Walk slowly and stay next to me. You drift away, you’ll get tossed right back out where you came from.”
The trip through the mists was winding and disorienting. I didn’t know how Barkbough did it. Maybe she counted her steps or something. We’d walk a few yards, stop, turn, and walk a few more. Sometimes we even turned backwards and walked the way we had come. We could barely see a feet through the fog, and to add to the uncomfortable enclosedness of the place, the fog made my fur stand on end. It felt like tiny electric shocks all over my body. Bus is definitely the way to go if you have to get in and out of the city.
Eventually, the mists began to relent, and we emerged into Totemhoof. Home.
Guards at the ready, unicorns, most of them, holding various weapons. However, when they saw Barkbough, they stood at ease, though they still watched me warily. Barkbough approached one of them, a grey unicorn wearing the crested helmet and silver armor that marked him as a royal guard.
“What do we have here?” he said gruffly.
“I found him asleep on the grass just outside the city. He says he’s a citizen who left for a research mission, and he knows an awful lot about the city. I’m inclined to believe him, but I’m going to take him to lockup and hold him there while I verify his ident. Can you run a check to see if there’s anypony named Spectrum living in the city? He says he worked in the crystal factory. Check there first.”
“I had friends that worked there, too,” I interjected. “Flicker and Green Thumb. Find them and ask them. They’ll corroborate my story and who I am.”
The guard pulled up a small tablet and began jotting down information. “Flicker and Green Thumb?”
“Yep,” I responded.
“All right. Barkbough, take him in. I’ll wire this to my commander.”
Barkbough nodded. “Come on,” she said, nudging me forward. “We’re going to the castle.”
It was still pretty early in the morning, so there weren’t too many ponies out on the streets. Before the Stalliongrad refugees, Totemhoof’s population had been disproportionately pegasus, and even now the distribution was still unequal. Most of them lived above us in the clouds and worked to keep the barrier up and the weather regular, but a lot—mostly the ones married to earth ponies or unicorns lived on the ground and commuted to the sky to work. Even among the ones that were on the ground, though, strange looks were surprisingly few and far between. Maybe they were just used to seeing weird stuff come in with rangers.
Much to my relief, the lodestone stayed quiet. The symbols, which had glowed so brightly at the research base, were imperceptibly dark. Nopony fell over dead in the streets, and, perhaps more importantly, no dead ponies rose up through the streets.
We made our way through the winding streets of downtown Totemhoof, passed Incendia’s forges, and passed through the residential area. We passed the sleek, metallic buildings that were the hallmark of Stalliongrad influence and we passed the stone and wood buildings of old Totemhoof. It made me feel good to see all the familiar sites of home again, dire though the circumstances were.
Before long, we had reached the northern face of the valley and were standing at the base of a Celestia and Luna’s castle. It wasn’t a big, showy castle like the ancient one at Canterlot had been. It was shaped like a trident with three towers rising from the central base to reach several hundred feet into the sky. Their tops tapered to a point. At the top of the middle tower, which was longer than the other two, stained glass sparkled in the sunlight, identifying the throne room of the Princesses. From up there, they could see the entire city.
I wasn’t led up the tower, though. Instead, Barkbough again explained my situation to the royal guards, and they allowed her to take me in through the metal doors that served as the entrance to the castle. The inside was beautiful—decorated with white tiles and colorful windows—but I didn’t get too long to enjoy it. Instead of taking me up the stairs at the far end of the hall, I was shuffled through a small door to the left and down a set of stone steps.
The dungeon of the castle was small—only three cells. Totemhoof had its own prison underground, so I guess they didn’t feel the need to build a whole new one here. In fact, judging by the expression of the warden’s face when he saw me, I’m guessing they saw very few actual inmates here.
After another fun round of explaining my predicament, the warden—an elderly brown earth pony—shuffled over and unlocked a cell.
“Quite an unusual situation you’re in there, buddy,” he said. His voice was warm and jolly—not at all what I expected from a jail warden. “I’m sure they’ll all get it worked out in a jiffy, but I need that there big spiky rock you got strapped to your back. It’s protocol, y’see.”
My horn began to glow as I undid the straps that held the lodestone to my back and floated it out in front of me.
“What do you, uh, want me to do with this? You’re, uh...” I said, the stone hovering in front of me. The only ponies in here were earth ponies, and this thing was way too big to be carried in one’s mouth.
Barkbough rolled her eyes. “Just drop it on the ground. I’ll push it. I’d prefer it if you didn’t treat me like I was incompetent,” she said, her voice sharp and venomous.
Yeesh. Ix-nay on the agic-may.
“Alright,” I said quickly, dropping the stone to the floor. Barkbough eyed me suspiciously for a moment longer, then pushed the crystal with her snout, rolling it slowly towards a door behind the warden’s desk.
It comforted me to know it was only going to be a room away, buried here under the castle. Probably the best place for it.
When Barkbough was gone, the warden looked back at me. “Don’t mind Barky,” he said. “She’s young and wants to prove herself, is all. She don’t mean nothin’ by it. She’s a damn fine ranger. It’ll all get sorted out, just you wait.”
Wait I did. For a whole day I sat in that cell, twiddling my hooves and staring at the wall. The warden, bless him, gave me something to read, but all he had in his desk was the latest issue of the Equestrian Inquirer, which got me up to speed on the happenings in Totemhoof since I last left. However, that wasn’t as helpful as you’d think, since the most important event that had happened in the last month was a farmer growing a fifty pound pumpkin. It got a full page spread.
To be fair, it was a pretty impressive pumpkin.
Strangely, though, it wasn’t that bad. Just being home—and having nothing catastrophic happen—had calmed my nerves like nothing else. Everything that came before—the research base, Canterlot Castle, especially meeting Death—felt unreal.
Eventually, in the late afternoon of the day after I arrived, Barkbough came back down the stairs.
“Well, good news, Spectrum,” she said. “Your story checks out. We found your papers, and Flicker confirmed your story. It seems you really are who you say you are.
Phew.
She walked over to the warden’s desk and grabbed the keys off their keyring with her mouth. The warden winked at me. I couldn’t help but crack a smile.
“I’m sorry about the threats,” Barkbough said tersely. “We can’t be too careful. We’ve had cases where a creature has just been in the shape of a pony.”
She surprised me by smiling. She wore a smile well. “And I have a little surprise waiting for you. I’ve arranged a meeting with the Princesses in two hours. They seemed very interested in your story. Flicker said she’d be waiting for you at your apartment. You’re free to go, but don’t be late to your audience.”
“Thank you! Thank you so much!” I stammered.
Barkbough stiffened up and put her inscrutable mask back on.
“You’re welcome. Now get your things and go.”
The warden unlocked the room behind the desk and I strapped the lodestone to my back. I thanked him and Barkbough again, then galloped up the stairs and out the doors of the castle.
I hailed a small taxi cart and had it carry me to my apartment. It was one of the brand new automated hovercarts that had just rolled out earlier this year—much faster than the old horse-drawn ones, if less personal.
After a short ride, I hopped out at the base of my apartment building. To my relief, they hadn’t changed the door code. It opened to my number and I hopped in the elevator.
Thirty floors later, the doors slid open to reveal my apartment. That was the reason I picked this apartment building, incidentally—due to the shape of the building, there was only one apartment on the thirtieth floor, and the elevator opened directly into it. Wasting space? Maybe a bit. But boy, was it nice.
My apartment was just how I left it: in shambles. A thin layer of dust lay over everything. Strangely, though, a delicious smell wafted in the air, and on my couch—
“Spectrum!”
Flicker flung herself from the couch and threw her hooves around me. “I was so worried when they told me what had happened! An explosion? Nopony else has come back! I thought something terrible had happened to you!”
Ha. An explosion would have been significantly less terrible than the truth.
“I’m okay, Flicker. It’s good to see you,” I said, hugging her with my neck. “I’ll tell you all about it after I get back from my appointment with the Princesses.”
Flicker broke the hug and we both flopped down on the couch.
“A private audience with the Princesses, huh?” she said. “That’s pretty impressive. Moving on up in the world.”
“Hardly,” I said with a chuckle.
“I bought you some food. Figured whatever they gave you in jail wasn’t super good. Green Thumb says hello, by the way, but he couldn’t get away from work. What’s up with that weird crystal?”
“Just something I found,” I lied. “I thought it was weird so I wanted to take it back.”
Flicker shrugged and produced a box full of fried vegetables sprinkled with spice. We ate and chatted and laughed. I deliberately avoided the subject of what had happened to me.
“I have to get going to make my appointment,” I said, letting the fork I had been using float to the table. “Thanks, though.”
“You have to tell me what happened when you get back, though,” Flicker said.
“I will,” I said.
“Get going, then,” Flicker said. “It’s nice to have you back. And... Spectrum?”
I was halfway to the elevator. I turned back to her.
“Thanks for keeping that crystal I gave you.”
“Of course I kept it,” I said.
“It was really expensive.”
"Yeah; that's why I kept it," I replied, playfully waggling an eyebrow.
“Get out of here,” Flicker chided dismissively. Her face betrayed her, however, as she wore a warm smile.
I stepped into the elevator and pushed the ground floor button.
~~~
The elevator in the castle was much nicer than the one in my apartment. It had one of those mirrors which face each other and make it look like it tunnels into infinity. I look in it and realized this was the first time I’d seen myself since the research base. To my surprise, I didn’t look as bad as I thought. My fur was clean, and my dark blue mane didn’t have any bloodstains or anything in it, which was nice.
The elevator arrived at the top with a soft ding as the doors slid open. The inside of the throne room was made of polished black marble inlaid with gold, which ran along the floor like rivers, twisting and curving and forming intricate patterns. Barkbough was waiting for me just outside the elevator.
Celestia and Luna were incredible. I’d seen them in person before, riding through town, but they looked positively resplendent in their throne room. Their manes waved through the air ethereally, as if blown by a wind that didn’t exist. I thought I could almost feel waves of power coming off them, Celestia’s like rays of warm sunshine, and Luna’s like a cool breeze. I wasn’t nervous when I had been riding up, but seeing them seated in their golden thrones made me gulp.
They seemed to sense my nervousness. Celestia smiled.
“Come forward. You don’t have anything to be afraid of.”
I slowly approached the thrones and bowed low. Celestia and Luna nodded in response, and I stood back up.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Spectrum,” Luna said, “I wish it were only under better circumstances. I understand you went out with one of our research expeditions.”
“I—yes, I did, your graces. Uh, your majesties?”
“There’s no need for titles,” Celestia said. “We don’t bite. However, we must insist you tell us what happened at the research base. We know you lied to Barkbough.”
I shot a glance at Barkbough, who stood next to me, her face tight.
“How did you know?” I said.
“True North was supposed to file reports directly to us, and the last few reports we got mention that crystal you have on your back.. As time went on, the messages got increasingly erratic, until they stopped altogether. When we got the report about you, and it mentioned you had a crystal strapped to your back, we knew they were connected. And now that it’s here...” Celestia trailed off. “Tell us what happened.”
No point in lying now, I suppose. I started from the beginning.
When I had finished, Barkbough was the first to speak.
“So, this thing on your back drives ponies insane, makes them kill each other, and then turns them into zombies, and you decided to bring it right into the center of town?!”
I flushed. I didn’t really have an answer for that.
“That was very irresponsible, Spectrum,” Luna chided. “However... We do not know that you had any other option. From your tale, it sounds as though you are unable to move too far from the lodestone.”
“Do you know what it is, then?” I asked, hopeful.
Celestia and Luna shuffled uncomfortably. “Actually... no, we don’t,” Celestia said. “I have never heard of any power like this. I felt it the moment you entered the throne room. It is drawing power from us, weakening us. It is not any magic I‘m familiar with, not even that of Tantalus.”
“So... what, then? What do I do?” I asked.
This time, it was Luna who responded. “I know of the Death spirit. The realm of dreams and the realm of the dead sleep side by side. However, never in all my time upon the earth have I heard of death directly contacting the living. These events are unprecedented. As such...” Luna looked over at Celestia, who nodded. “As such, we believe it is most prudent to allow you to continue down the path that the Death spirit has revealed.”
“What?” Barkbough exclaimed. “Isn’t serving Death a bad thing?”
“Like us, Death is a spirit of balance,” Luna replied calmly. “It is tasked with keeping the balance between the world of the living and... whatever comes next. When I was fragmented, it protected part of me, keeping it out of the hooves of those that would use it for ill. If it seeks your help, than the power that stone carries is a threat to that balance.”
My heart sank. This is not what I wanted to hear. “Isn’t there anything you can do?”
“Yes, there is,” Celestia said. “We can assign Barkbough to help you.”
“What?” Barkbough and I said in unison. We glanced at each other.
“Please, you can’t do that,” Barkbough continued after a moment. “I belong here, protecting the city! Surely there must be somepony better suited to this than me. One of your royal guards!”
“Or all of them,” I offered. “Why not just send an army?”
“Because,” Luna said, cutting off Barkbough before she could retort, “We cannot spare an army. Totemhoof is still besieged by raiders, creatures, and wild magic. We are still weak. We need the royal guard to keep the city safe. If we sent them all with you, we would be overrun. However, one ranger can be spared. Barkbough knows how to use the stars to navigate and how to survive in the wild. She will help to keep you safe and to move quickly on your endeavor, because we fear time is of the essence.” She glanced uneasily at the lodestone. “Even now, it draws power from us. We expect it is dormant because it expended all of its stored energy at the research base, but that will not be the case much longer.”
“Complete your quest as fast as you can, Spectrum,” Celestia said. “Do not linger here. Your first objective should be to head to the tomb. And not a word from you, young mare,” Celestia said sternly, her gaze shifting to Barkbough. “This is a direct order from me. You are an excellent ranger . Do you understand?”
Barkbough nodded curtly.
Celestia and Luna stood from their thrones and extended their wings. They filled the entire room with their presence.
“Go, now, Spectrum and Barkbough,” Luna said formally, “and accept our blessings on your quest. We will help in any way we can.”
Barkbough bowed low, and I followed her lead, dropping my head low. The black marble floors were so glossy I could see my blue eyes staring back up at me.
“You are dismissed,” Celestia declared.
Barkbough stood, spun on the spot, and began to trot towards the elevator. I quickly followed.
“Listen up,” Barkbough said after the golden doors had slid shut. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this situation. I don’t trust all of this magical nonsense. It complicates things and doesn’t help anypony do anything. And, most importantly, I don’t trust you.”
She gave me her cold death stare again. I was getting pretty familiar with this look. Ever looked a cocatrice full in the face? This is worse.
“Do you know what being a ranger means? It means I’ve dedicated my life to protecting the people of Totemhoof. You brought that... thing,” she said, gesturing with her head at the lodestone, “into my city, endangering everypony in it, and you did it knowingly. Worst of all, though, you lied to me. You knew what you were doing and you looked me right in the eyes and you lied. So I want to make one thing clear.”
She sprang into motion, catching me unaware. Before I knew what had happened, I was pinned against the side of the elevator cabin, Barkbough’s hoof pressed against my throat. I tried to gasp, to shout, but I couldn’t get any air.
“We are not friends,” she growled. “We’re not partners. You’re an assignment, and if you put one hair out of line, I won’t hesitate to put a bolt in your brain, undying or not. It takes you a while to revive, right? In your story, you were out for nearly a day before you came back. I wonder how that would work if you were six feet underground at the time. Are we clear?”
“C-clear,” I squeaked.
Barkbough let her hoof fall away, and I collapsed to the floor of the elevator.
Hoooooly crap. This mare was not messing around. Just my luck that I would get assigned a “protector” that hates my guts and doesn’t trust magic. I had a feeling the Princesses had done more damage than help.
We reached the base of the tower and the elevator slid open. “We should head straight to the tomb,” Barkbough said. “Get this over with.”
“Good idea,” I said. Barkbough gave me a withering look. Flattery gets you everywhere.
The tomb was built in the eastern hills, a short walk around the rim of the valley. There were more ponies on the street today, watering crops, pulling wagons full of goods, hawking wares at street corners. For whatever reason, I got way more strange looks this time around than when I walked through the city the first time. This did not help my mood.
Finally, we arrived at the old temple of Luna. Once the spiritual center of Totemhoof, it had been declining in popularity a bit in the decades since the return of the Princesses. Why worship at an old temple when you have the flesh and blood Luna walking amongst you?
The inside of the temple was lit by magical crystals, the kind I had enchanted hundreds of in my time at the factory. I thought I could see them dim just a bit as we entered.
We were waylaid once on the way to the tomb by a priest, but he promptly let us pass when Barkbough said we wished to visit the tomb of Rainbow Dash. I’m glad Barkbough knew the path through the temple, because it had been a long time since I’d been through here in anything but a dream.
The tomb itself was magnificent. Cut from a single block of crystal, it gleamed and sparkled in the low light as though it was lit from within. Every color of the rainbow shimmered and shone from its surface, causing multicolored lights to dance around the room like droplets of water on a hot stovetop. Carved into the stone of the coffin was an image of a pegasus soaring through the clouds.
“So... what now?” Barkbough said. “What’s supposed to happen?”
As if in response, or possibly actually in response, the lodestone on my back began to get hot. Like, burning hot.
“Argh!” I exclaimed, casting it off my back.
The black surface of the crystal began to glow with those strange symbols, and the atmosphere in the room changed. The colors seemed to grow muted and dull. Waves of strange energy radiated from the lodestone, just like it had back at the camp.
Something was off this time, though. I couldn’t quite place it, but something felt... different. There was something else, some other power at work here, something... something coming from the tomb.
The lodestone began to quiver, then shake, then positively writhe in a grotesque way, more like an animal than a crystal.
There was a flash of light, a deafening crack, and the lid of the coffin broke in two and fell away.
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You leave us with THIS for a cliffhanger? You're positively evil... carry on
Eldritch abomination imminent?
Well, either Rainbow Dash is coming back to help them or there's some artifact she was buried with that they need.
3765493 Or we're about to bear witness to the most awesome zombie apocalypse known to ponykind.
Okay okay....Spectrum you are officially the second biggest fool ever
I say second because thankfully nothing bad happened...yet
Ooh I'll definitely read this once it's complete. Don't like reading into stories that are incomplete ;). I loved Antipodes though so this will definitely be interesting I'm sure
Dat cliffhanger ending... I hope we do not have to wait until 2015 for the next chapter.
3765493
Rainbow Revenant?
Holy... fuck.
This is not good.
Based on what we've seen, the undead don't bother spectrum, however Barky will probably get attacked by whatever got revived.
Zombie dashie!
ZOMBIE DASHIE!
Flee, mortals, from the prismatic undead!
Oooo, that seems bad. Hopefully Dash turns out to be the helpful sort of undead as opposed to the BRAAAAINS type.
I wonder if the Princesses thought about the potential consequences of bringing a zombie reviving stone to a tomb when they sent Spectrum on his way. Could be a plan to revive the Elements I suppose.
They said that Death would also keep the balance.
Perhaps the mane six are needed to defeat some big bad?
3832916
That would make sense l. And would be cool
Well, this chapter was... I can't lie. It's got problems. I'm going to play harsh critic for once and say that I thought it was actually pretty damn lazy. Using a picture as a substitute for actually describing your environment with prose? Skipping over possibly the most important conversation in the story so far in two sentences? And that pacing problem from last time hasn't gone away either. In fact, it's worse because of the use of the scene break, which almost completely arbitrary.
And that's its own separate problem. There was one scene break in the entire chapter, and where did you put it? Between Spectrum getting into an elevator at his apartment and getting into another elevator at the castle. The first part of the story before that scene break featured a goddamn dream sequence. He went to sleep in the middle of all this and you didn't employ a scene break. Hell, he made a trek down the mountain and a cross-country trip from Canterlot to Totemhoof without a single scene break!
I really don't get this. If you're going to condense such large amounts of time into so few words, then why couldn't the trip to castle also be skipped over? Or better yet, why couldn't there just be scene breaks in other places that appropriately separate events occurring in different settings or times instead of lumping them all together so that it feels like we're moving at a mile a minute?
And to go back to the image for a second, that's really kind of jarring to see when, as far as I remember, no previous chapters have used them. Okay, this being (supposedly) a journal-format story, I could see narratively why you went with the inclusion of sketches. It makes sense to put sketches in a personal journal. But if your story format allows for the inclusion of non-literary elements like that, you've got to establish that in the first chapter so that it doesn't come out on nowhere.
It doesn't help that the journal format itself doesn't really seem like it is one. I know it says "journal" in the chapter titles, but I didn't even remember that it was meant to be a journal until the sketch showed up and broke my immersion. It made me go back to chapter one and the first scene. Made me realise that despite being called journals, these are all being written at once far later on rather than being in real time like an actual journal. Made me realise that at some point during his fight for the fate of the world, Spectrum decided to sit down and write a novel-length chronicle of how he got here.
I know Littlepip in Fallout: Equestria did the same thing, but she downloaded all her memories with magitech and apparently edited them for brevity later. This just makes no sense at all, and I'm only just realising that. I get the feeling that this story should have either been written as a real-time journal with just a large level of detail, or it should have been standard prose like Antipodes but written in first person. What we've got, I'm now realising, is actually just something that combines the weaker elements of both styles.
I'd probably forgive the pacing a lot more if the journal format was actually reinforced, but instead it seems like first person narration rather than a written journal, so it seems so much weaker when we skip over things. If this were a guy writing down what happened to him that day, I'd have less complaints, because he'd be summing up and most people don't usually get very verbose or lengthy in journals, diaries, personal logs, etc.
Please don't think my extensive criticisms mean I'm not enjoying the story. I am. Just not as much as I could be. It takes a lot to make me just quit reading a story I've already gotten invested in, so don't worry about losing me. But this story's problems are very apparent, and I don't think I'd be showing you due respect as a writer if I didn't do my best to make you aware of those problems so that you could learn from them and improve, which, as a writer myself, I always implore my commenters to do for me.
I hope my long-winded comment is of use to you, and I hope that next chapter goes better.
This is REALLY creepy.
And I am really worried about that crystal. 
Please tell me this will end well. I don't really like this story as much as Antipodes.
3769407 who's the first?
4178382 I'm pretty sure it's me.
1921212
You spoke too soon...
4178382 The pony you just used in your message,
THE GREAT AND POWAHEPICFAIL TWIXIEZ! Okay, he probaly wasnt talking about her but still, she gets 0,1st place.
NOOOO! WHERE ARE YOU, NEXT CHAPTER BUTTON? WWHEERE?
...Wait i need to wait for updates now...
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
.NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
..No, i dont need decaf.
4414477 yes you do need it very much
So fat so great. Please new chapter soon.
Great story!
Please continue writing and posting. :)
Did OP abandon this story? D:
5288440 never say never, but i honestly haven't had the time or motivation to work on it
i still check fimfiction regularly though ;D
5290578 it's been so long, the resources are running low, I've read this story 4 or 5 times, please.... Send help!!!
5290578
I'm unsure of whether it's just me, but where the image was supposed to be in this chapter, I got a message saying it no longer exists. You may want to look into that.
derpicdn.net/img/2013/4/11/294318/large.png
Well... this escalated quickly.
It's refreshing to actually get the Princesses on the same page as the protagonist relatively early, even if they can't help that much.
...Aaaand just checked your blog. Should this be marked as Cancelled, then?
7092693
Looks like PK hasn't visited the site in almost 5 months
So ... any chance of a spoilercast?