Forbidden Deeper

by SaltyJustice

Chapter 2

To my dear sister Celestia, keeper of the sun and bringer of light, was entrusted the Element of Wisdom. It took the form of a small pendant which hung around her neck, in the shape of the sun she bore on her flank. It was a trinket, but it was more than that as well, a feeling that surrounded her and brought calm and tranquility. It has been my pet theory that the Elements are only physical things in the most base of perceptions, and are something else entirely when they are not needed. It is only a theory.

To Luna, was entrusted the Element of Courage. It took the form of the crescent moon which has been her mark from the day we were created. It suits her well, for she always was the mightiest among us, stoic and resolute no matter the danger.

And to me, came the Element of Love. It was a depiction of a heart on a small brass tiara, barely large enough to extend above my mane. It fit my head perfectly, like it had been molded for it, though I did not wear it until the time came.

We issued a challenge to the most notorious of the Unmaker's generals, Discord. We believed he would answer the call out of foolhardiness, and we were not mistaken. He brought no escort, he came alone and met us, also alone, out in the fields beyond the walls of our fort. If anything, he seemed more curious than aggressive, wanting to see for himself what these supposed magic toys could do. He had spent much of the time before taunting us, and more viciously, torturing our unfortunate soldiers with his sadistic mind games. I had been told that, before he answered the Unmaker's call, he had been a minor trickster spirit, reveling in watching ponies grow minorly upset with one another at misunderstandings and giggling to himself as they shooed him away. With the Unmaker's power, his ways had not changed, but the games had become so much more deadly.

We left his petrified body on the field where it lay, though I believe it was recovered later on. Celestia had told me she had it put on display somewhere, though that stopped recently. She didn't tell me the details either.

The message to the other generals was clear, and no sooner had they found out about Discord's defeat did they scatter to the winds like the cowards they were. Disorganized and leaderless, the faceless hordes were lured into ambush after ambush and thoroughly routed, the remainder retreating into the ground itself to return to the place where we had first encountered them, so they could be closer to their master.

Finally, the time had come to end this conflict. A century of war had left the world scarred, its populations devastated, and our own armies in ruins. Though the Redeemers were fantastically powerful, they could be destroyed, and their numbers had dwindled in place of the living creatures they defended. There were now only fifty of them still standing. We took them, along with fifteen volunteers, to lead an expedition deep into the Abyss to strike at evil itself.

It had been called the Abyss ever since the war had begun, though I presumed the cave system was not truly bottomless. Rather, it would end where the shell of its creator began, and so we struck out for that cave I had visited a century ago and entered it, with no resistance.

Though we had initially thought the faceless had perhaps been reincorporated into the walls, it was not to be. As we made our way into a grand cavern, hollowed out by an underground lake that still lay at its base, we were assaulted by a grand creature, five stories tall. It had been made out of the remaining faceless ones, fused together into one giant creature, and it wasted no time laying into our formation. The Redeemers fought back, while we three Bearers and a few of our volunteers escaped further into the cavern.

Now we were twenty, though some had fallen in the battle, a few Redeemers had made it along with us. We hoped we were clear of the horrors the Unmaker could throw at us, but there were still challenges ahead. It pulled monstrosities, not of its own creation, but out of the minds of our followers, taking their primal fears and carving the living rock into those shapes to attack us. Apparitions made of billowing smoke would strike and drag off victims before we could react, and our party frequently had to break and run deeper into the caverns. This was only compounded by what was happening to Celestia.

As we had been traveling further and further underground, she began to lose her connection to the Ssn, and thus her strength left her as well. At first, she had simply complained of feeling dizzy, fearing it was some unidentified gas causing the weakness. Then, she kept requesting us to slow down and rest, unable to keep pace with us. We took the supplies she carried and redistributed them amongst ourselves to lighten her load, and that helped for a time, but soon she was unable to carry her own suit of armor. We dropped that too.

Soon she was unable to trot alongside us, so we slowed our pace. Then, she could no longer stand, and Luna and I hefted her along with us. Our friends fell, the Redeemers met their end in battle against the monstrosities, and soon it was five of us left, my sisters, myself, and the last two Redeemers. Celestia could no longer keep her eyes open of her own accord, and spoke faintly, in a harsh, raspy tone.

Though her strength had left her, she insisted we kept going further down, no matter the consequences, and we did, descending the last few levels of the caverns without incident. It became eerily quiet as we entered a dead-zone where there were no attacks, so close to the shell of the Unmaker, until we came across it. Luna, her sight better in the dark, noticed it first, and we saw that the floor we had been walking on was no longer made of rock, but a thick insect-like carapace, too strong to cut with my sword. We followed the winding trails of flesh until we found an opening in them, and the opening billowed out hatred so pure that it chilled my bones to their cores.

The Redeemers wasted no time in attacking, but their weapons could make no impact on the creature. Though this was its shell, it seemed nigh-impenetrable to anything physical, so we called upon the powers of the Elements of Harmony again. As we did so, Celestia, scarcely able to stay conscious, began to shudder as the magic flowed through her. Without her concentration, it began to dissolve her very essence back into itself, and we had to stop the spell.

Desperate to defeat the evil and put it away for all time, we pleaded with Celestia to summon up the last of her strength and focus long enough to cast the spell. She assured us she could do it, and we started again. This time she would not cancel the spell even as the Elements started to tug at her very being and break her into a million points of light that only I could see with my sight. This time, I stopped the spell, but Celestia would not. She told me, in halting whispers, that her life was of no moment compared to what we needed to do here, and to complete the spell even if it meant sacrificing her. Luna and I refused, and while Celestia insisted, she could do nothing to stop us.

I sent out one last prayer to the Keepers, begging them to save my sister, to take me instead if they had to, to give us some way out of this without leaving the whole world in jeopardy. The Element I wore on my head is what responded, in a soft whisper, and it told me to take my sister back to the surface.

I did as it asked, and we left the three Elements behind us in that cavern, to the protestations of Celestia. The Elements formed a barrier with their own magic, but remained permanently a part of that barrier. The Unmaker was not defeated, but merely sealed away, all because I was not strong enough to part with my sister and finish the job I had been created to do.

We left the Redeemers down there, for their mission, too, was to bind the beast as best they could. We told them to build a structure that would keep it in, and any careless explorer out, though we never heard back from them after we left.

The Elements have since manifested themselves in different ways to us, but they are scarcely a shade of their former power. I suspect they are still mostly at the bottom of the Abyss, still binding the creature there until some other pony can come and finish the task we had started.

To assist in the binding of the Unmaker, we had gathered every sample of Ziristone we could, for it is a material known for its ability to absorb magic itself. We left it in lumps at the entrance of the Abyss, and the work crews would report that each day, as they went to place more in, what they had previously left was gone. I hoped the Redeemers made good use of it. After that, the area around the Abyss had been considered off-limits, forbidden for any creature to tread upon without explicit approval from one of us three, who history would later label the Triumvirate.

With the now-weakened Elements, we set about chasing down the remaining generals of the former faceless hordes. We did not catch them all, for ephemeral spirits show themselves only when they have to, but the threat, such as it was, was ended. The world was finally allowed to gain peace, and the long and difficult task of rebuilding the world began.

My sisters are not aware of it, or maybe they are, on some level, but I believe I know why we have never since heard a whisper from the Keepers of Order. They had seemed aloof, only responding when the situation was truly dire, and since the binding, they have never spoken to us or done anything. I know why, because when I pleaded for my sister's life, the Element of Love answered me. I believe that the Elements and the Keepers are one and the same, bound into physical form, bereft of their own free will so they might bind their ancient foe. All for the life of my sister. Our victory came at the highest possible cost, and I have always felt unworthy of their sacrifice.

And now, ten-thousand years later, that seal is weakening, and I do not know why. The terrible strands of corruption lash through the barrier with increasing frequency, and though my sister Luna has returned to us, healthy and whole, I fear we are once again on the verge of war. This time, we have no greater power to appeal to. I hope Celestia is right, I hope that little Twilight Sparkle really will be the one who saves us all. To me, she has always been that same filly, though she has grown now, become independent, made friends. If she is not, then the end comes soon and I can see no way to prevent it.

I hope Celestia is right. Hope, as she had told me once, is will, in the absence of action.