The Journal of Oswald Mandus
August 13th, 1880.
My name is Oswald Mandus. I would like to recount to you my horrid tale. A tale of ponies and machines.
I am many things. An architect, a businessman, a tinkerer. I am several things, and I admit 'monster' could be one of them.
But I am also something far worse than a monster.
But what, you may ask yourself, is worse than being a monster? Well, I'll tell you. It's quite simple, really.
What's worse than being a monster, is being the secret-keeper to a greater monster...
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I am a pony of humble origin, though I ofttimes dream of myself as a different creature entirely, walking on two legs, with my front legs torn to my sides and re-sculpted into these horrible, but efficient blunted claws. I am unsure if I am looking ay myself in the past, future, a past life, or an alternate universe, though I know the name of this form to be known as 'human' so that eliminates the future or alternate universe theories. Or would, if I had a way to prove any damn one of them. Perhaps it is knowledge that came with me from exposure to the Guardian's Orb. I will elaborate on that later. Right now, I wish to tell you about my life, and how I came into this position.
My parents were poor folk, but they were honest, or at least tried to be, but hard times meant one had to shelve their morals and swallow their pride and accept the occasional odd job from the less than trustworthy sort. They were always smart about it, never signing any contracts, taking their payment in cash, and skipping town when the job was done so the rogue hiring them for one job wouldn't try to coerce them into another.
I didn't mind. I liked traveling around the places. I met so many new faces and saw so many strange, inconsequential things, but they were strange, inconsequential things that town and only that town had, like a windmill with an oddly shaped fan, or a porting dock that ferried goods between ponies and creatures of the deep with a gaping crater in made by a passing dragon.
Perhaps it was this unsteady upbringing that allowed me to propel myself later in life as I did..
Some years, the world was easier at rest, and the economy was not quite as bad as it had been, so my parents ceased needing to engage in questionable work, and we were finally able to settle down – in Canterlot, no less.
As I grew and matured into my own stallion, I started making deals with my friends to provide services that were much too demanding for me to simply ask for with a clean conscious, and I learned how to do business. I learned how to connect socially.
Slowly, but surely, I made my way into the world, taking that knowledge and applying to bigger and better things. I climbed my way to the top, and eventually, I was as much a Canterlot pony as the next bussinessmare. I was able to compete with the best of them! The cream of the crop.
I was once even able to met Princess Celestia herself in person. I accidentally spilled my grape juice upon her chest. As I stood there quavering, fearful of what she was going to do to punish me for disgracing her person, she teasingly asked if I would like to lick it off her. What scares me most, I'm not entirely she was joking.
I could even get into Fancypants' parties! Though I was not so notable that I would be able to pierce through that arrogant circle of his. Fancypants himself actually graced me with his presence, coming towards me and offering accolades. He was a good friend.
I should have listened to Fancypants when he warned me about the Orb. See, I was looking through some travel catalogs, eager to experience the sensation of traveling again, the wind in my face, the ceiling over me rickety, shaking as it brought me to my destination. I saw of something called 'the Orb' in one catalog, and became interested. Fancypants warned me against it, as he had heard of a horror story of a beautiful student – by the name of Twilight Sparkle – who served under Princess Celestia herself! That is, until a fateful expedition to the ruins of a town called Brennenberg one night, and the fallout from that resulted in Twilight Sparkle closing herself from the Princess and even her own family. This only heightened my curiosity, and I immediately set sail for Saddle Arabia, where the scorching desert mocked me by burning into me an unwanted tan, as if saying I should have stayed home where I could relax in the shade with a cool lemonade or other drink. I pressed onwards, though; the thrill of the hunt had gripped me in its thrall, and I would not be denied.
I had scuffled through endless sand for almost a week, when finally I found the temple where the Orb allegedly rested. It took some doing to convince the local natives I would do no harm beyond merely taking the Orb away for study. They said I could do that much, but warned me that I was a fool wishing for a fate worse than death at an early age.
In hindsight, perhaps I should have listened to them, as now I suffer through living with my terrible secret, which I will describe to you later, dear journal.
Now, back to the temple... I had no trouble getting in, finding the Orb clenched in a clawed pedestal, removing it, and getting out. The Orb was a brilliant piece, an ornate decoration of teal green glass carved int the shape of ...well, of an orb. A magnificent golden claw was sculpted around it as though grasping it protectively.
The sweet stench of victory held firm in my nostrils, I galloped out of the temple to behold my prize in better lighting.
That was when I promptly fell unconscious without warning or explanation. I was not dehydrated. I had not been struck by a blow to the head from some desert bandit. I hadn't contracted a disease, or I wouldn't be able to write about to you, journal, now.
I do not know how long exactly I was in my slumber, but it had to be awhile, as when I awoke, I was in Canterlot, all my businesses had been either shut down or taken over in my prolonged absence, and the Orb was nowhere to be found.
I thought my life was over. That I would have to go back to my humble roots. I was curious as to how the Orb had been taken from me, but I was also cautious that it was because of some ne'er-do-well who would have no trouble with shooting me dead if I were to appear to him.
I staggered about the city, looking for an honest job to keep a roof over my head, and that was when I met her.
Twilight Sparkle, the mare Fancypants had told me about, though I didn't realize it at the time. He neglected to mention she was a unicorn with wings. To me, something about her wings seemed just... off somehow, which, upon reflection, I know why now when I did not then.
I couldn't help but wonder what she was doing in Canterlot either way, and when I worked up the courage to go up and ask her, she surprised me when she answered that she was looking for a stallion whom ran into some trouble with an Orb. The description she gave me matched the appearance of the Orb stolen from me exactly, and I introduced myself as the stallion with the trouble, confident that I was it and we did not have a case of mistaken identity.
She invited me in for a drink in a nearby pub, and we exchanged pleasantries while at the same time thinking about how the other one of us knew about the Orb, and wanted from each other. She was more than open with me about her side of the deal; she wanted to make sure I was all right, as the Orb had turned her own life upside down. I answered honestly and recounted my tale, how I was out for days, and my businesses had been ruined, and I was out an Orb and out a job.
So she offered me one. A good one, in a faraway town where the ponies had advanced technology that made use of burning coals and rising steams. I happily accepted, and with a hoofshake, we had an employee/employer contract sealed.
Twilight brought me to her workshop in this town, and I couldn't help but notice far away from the main city it was. She assured me it was for safety, should one her science experiments go awry. That way, if something caught on fire, it wouldn't spread through the town and destroy some innocent folk's home. I couldn't argue with her logic, though as she led to her workshop, I couldn't help but feel like something more was going on. Denying my baser instinct, I decided not to question it, though by all rights I should have.
She led me inside, and I was amazed by the complex facility within. It was less like a workshop and more like a factory, if the fact the bottom floor was made totally of steel and expansive enough that a crowd of several dozen ponies could be seated comfortably on the ground floor. The ground floor was devoid of all but a desk with a typewriter on it to the right side of the room. When I asked Twilight about it, she answered that it was her desk, and that the majority of work was done upstairs.
I looked up and saw a steel bridge in the shape of a plus sign, linking wall to wall, leading to hallways on the second floor. But I had yet to see the most of it.
She guided me through her building, up the well-hidden stairs, to what was to be my own office. As we ascended further, I heard the sounds of odd moaning, like two lovely ladies having a good time with each other. She quickly pulled me away from the door the sounds were coming from while assuring me what her other employees did during their off-hours was none of my business.
It was good thing she was leading me, as I did not think I would be able to navigate the twisting labyrinth of steel by myself. To top it all off, I hadn't even seen most complex of it yet.
My office was a nice room. There was a desk, a typewriter, some pens and papers, and oddly, a bed and a small mini-fridge. When I turned to ask Twilight what the reason for that was, she answered that most of her employees actually lived in the building as well, sometimes working overtime, sometimes working off-hours, and very occasionally, just living like normal ponies, doing whatever is they did when they're off the clock. She jokingly assured me she wasn't keeping slaves and told me I could live here or in the nearby town at my discretion. Not quite sure she was joking at the moment, I chose to live in town, though later I would discover my fears were unfounded.
I went to work diligently, like a good little worker bee. One day, I was called upon by Twilight to take care of some menial fetching errand, getting her materials from another office on the second floor. It was then I discovered how really, truly complex and brilliant the building was; the hallways on the second floor lead into tiny rooms with doors on all sides, and so many of them! They lead to so many different places! It was like that one painting with the stairs. The one with the several dozens of different stairs leading through seven or so dimensions? It was just like that, only with hallways instead of stairs. Twilight Sparkle soon came to me, saying she wanted to know what was taking so long, and she came and got me when she realized that I didn't know my way around the place.
As I continued working there for the next several days, I was often sent out to town to pick up some groceries for the other employees. When I returned from that particular trip, it occurred to me that her employees had been oft mentioned, but hardly seen. She seemed caught off-guard by my inquiry, but explained to me that her other employees had deformities they kept them from being seen in public without being shunned. That struck a chord with me. I hate when ponies prejudge over injuries and conditions that poor ponies were cursed with that they had no control over.
Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I established myself a hard worker that Miss Sparkle could trust. She and I began conversing directly with each other, bouncing our ideas off the other. Slowly, but surely, the seeds for our greatest creation were planted in the midst of these talks.
After I had been working there for awhile, well enough to last into the winter of that year, Twilight saw it fit to take my aside from my work and tell me about her own experience with the Orb, or Orbs, as she explained to me.
She had been on a expedition to the ruins of Castle Brennenburg, and from there, she and her mentor, Celestia, excavated the Orb lying there. Twilight was briefly entranced by its beauty, but once she was snapped out of it by a fellow researcher who went mad for unexplained reasons, she knew the Orb was something evil and tossed it out the window of her's and the Princess' carriage with due haste. But the evil inside the Orb had gripped Celestia, and behind her student's back, Celestia went and reclaimed the Orb. From there, Twilight stole it from Celestia's chambers, hoping to destroy or exorcise it, but then Celestia sent in the military to reclaim it by force. She wasn't as open about what happened after that, but she shared with me her 'Brennenburg Papers', a collection of diaries and journal entries retrieved from the building that told more of the Orbs, and how they seemed protected by a Shadow... a Shadow Miss Twilight was curiously insistent I refer to as 'The Guardian'. Reading them through, I saw that a poor chap named Daniel had also been a victim of this Guardian, and I reflected it was a shame that Daniel himself could not be with us, as his life had been destroyed by the Orbs just like ours had been. Twilight agreed with me, though she sounded detached about it.
Later that night, though, Twilight Sparkle invited me into her private quarters – a separate room any of the offices much more suited to living it. It even had its own bathroom, in addition to the bed and dining table. Twilight took a perch upon the bed and gazed at me curiously, and suddenly, I felt inadequate, almost as if I wasn't good enough for her. She gestured for me to join her on the bed, and...
Well, let's say she seduced me and leave it at that.
The day afterward at work, she continued on her business, dealing with me as professionally as she before as though nothing had happened between us, although I was given permission to chat to the other employees through the walls if they themselves consented to it. I found one who was willing to talk, and from the sound of her voice, I would have to call her a country bumpkin Southerner sort. Kind and honest, but from her blunt method of talking, I wasn't going to have any fun explaining her to the machines I so adored. She told me her name was Applejack, and when I spoke of my encounter with Twilight in an attempt to clear my conscience, Applejack then delightfully informed me that Twilight had an appetite for that sort of thing and did it with all her employees.
I wasn't sure whether to feel better for not being Twilight's only mark, or worse about myself for being her most recent.
Now, about that greatest creation I spoke of... in the winter, Twilight Sparkle and I continued trading ideas, along with a few barbs, and flirtatious innuendos, and eventually came up with a grand design – the plan for a great and magnificent machine! A flawless contraption of complicated gears, and unfurling wires that wound in on themselves like Ouroboros snakes, cycling on themselves to infinity. As we began discussing the purpose of the machine, my mouth began to water as I imagined the amount of steam, coal and electricity that would be needed to power it. I wasn't too clear on what it did exactly, but it would be great! It would aid the common pony! It would make the city a better place to live in.
I was blissfully ignorant of how literal Twilight was going to make that last statement.
Twilight Sparkle purchased the services of carpenters and masons to add another part onto the workshop, as the machine was to be so large as to need a room entirely for it. I wonder where she really got all the funds that she had. At first, I thought it leftovers from her time as student under royalty, or that her business was just more successful than I realized. However, looking back on it, I find it highly suspect, much like several other things I should have questioned, but didn't. That one is a bit more forgivable, though, I think.
Oh, listen to me ramble on. Where was I? Oh yes, the machine! We spent hours over the furnaces, taking brief crash courses into the art of blacksmithing. No pony could know about our machine but us and the rest of my unseen coworkers. We built every part ourselves, though we did cheat and use Twilight's vast and powerful magic for some of the smaller bits, or parts we needed multiples of. We got so lost in our work, I had forgotten all about my awkward encounter with Twilight on the bed, and by the time we snapped out of our haze, weeks had been and gone and the glorious machine was completed.
It was cylindrical in shape, and practically the size of a large house. I cannot even begin to tell you where the wires ended and gears began on the titanic gizmo. Large, golden gears stuck out of it, rotating slowly, while pistons fell and rose from the other side, going so slow because it was just so big making any of the parts go too fast had the risk of making the machine bring too much force on itself and make it collapse. At the very top was an opening and closing hole that wasn't in my vision for it, but at I didn't mind...at first.
It was a brilliant thing, a true masterpiece of a mechanical, modern marvel.
At this time, I still hadn't given much though to what it did, other than the fact that it was big and would improve the quality of life. But Twilight Sparkle had. She had a clear goal set in mind before we started working, and in our trance states, she never forgot what she was building this machine for.
And she showed me. She showed me the dark purpose she had given to my machine, unrefined from its state as an idealistic dream in my head. I finally met her other employees face to face, and I understood very well why they hid themselves from prying eyes when I laid my eyes upon the terrible things done to them.
Words alone cannot describe the treachery I felt. Twilight Sparkle had taken my machine, and breathed into it the function it would serve. The function it performed. The function I did not, and never intended for it.
She showed me exactly what The Machine did, and how it would 'improve' life for everypony. I could not believe my eyes that my creation could be perverted and corrupted like that. The things it did... I...
No. No, I'm sorry, dear journal, for staining your patient pages with my tears, but the thought of what I saw that thing do... that was not my machine anymore. It was Twilight Sparkle's torture device. I saw... I saw, in his eyes, oh dear Celestia, dear Celestia, have mercy on my blighted soul, the look in his eyes, dear Luna and Celestia up above... you, journal, are the only one I know will not judge me for my sins.
I knew that I could not let this be my legacy. I knew what I had to do, easier said than done.
I had to kill Twilight Sparkle and keep her from using the dreadful thing.
I snuck out one night, lying to her that I was going to put to use my vacation hours that I had earned, when in truth, I headed to town and purchased an old hoofgun from an antique store. It was a risky gamble, as I wasn't sure if the gun would work, but what permit I did have to purchase a gun didn't apply in this state.
Thankfully, I began cleaning up the gun, polishing its barrel inside and out, I found that all its mechanisms were well and truly functional, and could fire a bullet no problem once I did full restoration. I knew better than to tamper with restoration when I wasn't a licensed expert, so I had to settle for 'firing with some problem', but it would have to do. The world could not wait for me to sit idly by while Twilight tested The Machine for kinks and bugs to ensure it was working perfectly.
In the dark of the night, I crept back into the workshop, keeping my hooves as flighty off the ground as I possibly could. The lights of the workshop painted the windows yellow, two beacons shining brightly into the night, in direct contrast to the dark secrets I and the building were hiding from the world.
Antique gun held firmly in my hoof, I pulled out my key and unlocked the main entrance. Exercising the utmost caution, I peered my head in and looked back and forth, trying to see if any of her other employees had been put on sentinel duties. To my relief, the foyer was as dead as disco, and I had no trouble sneaking my way inside.
Coming to the door of Twilight's room, I faltered. This was a pony who had brought me to her bed, who gave me a work when I was without a job, and helped to keep a roof over my head and food in my stomach. And I was about to kill her in cold blood. But I reminded myself of my vision and how she corrupted, those eyes flashing in my head motivating me onwards.
Quietly, I inched the door open to see her sleeping snugly under her covers, the moonlight pouring through the window as though it was no different to the morning sun. She looked so cute, I thought about maybe taking a picture before I ended her life... but then I remembered I didn't have a camera to take one in, so I stepped forward and raised the handgun, closing my eyes as I pulled the trigger without mercy, aiming squarely at her heart.
I heard the shot go off, and the sound of her lifeless body hitting the floor. Her startled voice yelping as the bullet pierced her chest and ended her life.
Except, it didn't.
When I opened my eyes, Twilight was scrambling to her bed, injured but alive. She climbed up and looked at me while I stared in disbelief. Did she have a cigarette box in her breast pocket shielding her heart from bullets? I read about ponies doing that. Was my aim off and I missed her vitals?
I snapped out of my reverie to realize Twilight was glaring at me, her purple eyes narrowing into slits of pure darkness, as cold as the very night that now ensconced us.
My heart sunk into my stomach, and I grimaced, the gun in my hoof quaking. Her horn lit up with magic, and though I could not see any sign of injury, I knew my gun had ceased the ability to function.
She spread her wings and flew over the bed, landing daintily toward me. I did not even try to put up a fight. Earth pony blood infused me with strength, but even my strongest blow wasn't enough to deflect the magic of somepony could bend the very fabric of reality to serve her measly whims.
Imagine, if you can, my surprise when, instead of punishing me or killing me with a thought, she simply walked right by me, using her magic to levitate a coat off the coat rack and onto me. She came back to my person and reservedly threw a scarf around me before handing me an envelope – to write my letter of resignation – and one last paycheck so I could feed myself.
It was understandable I had trouble processing her benevolence towards me, but I managed to write the letter and sign my name before leaving out her room, and then the main entrance. As I stepped into the bitter cold, I stopped short and turned around, shaking my hoof at the second-story window.
“Good bye, Twilight Sparkle! I pray the world never hath to suffer from your dreadful machine!”
I should not have had said that, as she came out the door after me, eyes twitching with all the mania of someone with no contact with reality. I turned to run, and run I did, and I was not far at all when I realized she wasn't chasing me. I turned back to her, and she took in a deep breath before bellowing at me words that I will always remember, as they haunt my being. They echoed off the walls of the snowy mountainsides, making sure that if her scream did not make me remember, then their echoes would;
“IT WAS OUR MACHINEEEEE!”
“OUR MACHINEEEE!” echoed into the merciless night, bouncing off the walls like the balls of a pool table after a particularly well aimed shot from one of the players.
“Our machine...our machine...” I heard her mutter into the snowy winds, as she turned around and went inside the comfort of her workshop.
As I marched out to start looking for a new home and a new job, I reflecting on the bitter truth in Twilight's words: I made that machine just as much, if not slightly more than Twilight did. I am equally responsible for what it brought to this world, and what it could do.
I write this page, in the hopes of somepony finding it before it's too late.
I can imagine several possibilities as to why you might be reading this now and prying into my dear journal's pages. Perhaps you are Twilight Sparkle herself, having decided I was too risky a loose end to not tie up. Perhaps you are a common crook running through my things for something worth stealing. Perhaps you are merely a rambunctious, young child who doesn't have grasp of property yet. Perhaps you are the police, investigating my things for clues about my potential murder.
But no matter which case it is, I beseech you, dear, unknown reader, that now you know of the truth, go to Twilight's workshop. Do whatever it takes. Burn it to the ground. Shoot her a second time. Throw something in the boiler or stick something between the levers. Jam the pulleys.
Anything.
Whatever it takes.
Just stop The Machine.
-Oswald Mandus.
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In her workshop-turned-factory, Twilight Sparkle observed the journal page at her work desk in the foyer, Applejack punitively standing behind the chair, awaiting further orders.
“Ahh, so that's what happened to our dear Mandus...” Twilight reflected to herself, levitating the journal onto her desk.
“Anything interesting, Mistress?” Applejack asked concernedly, sounding fearful she was going to be told to do something nasty to Oswald which she would be willing to do...but would really rather not have to.
“Plenty of interesting things.” Twilight answered to Applejack, snapping the open journal shut and pushing it aside. Without any word spoken, Applejack knew what Twilight wanted done and took the journal.
“Now, you remember my instructions?” Twilight asked Applejack with a quizzical eyebrow.
“Uh, let's see...” Applejack stuttered, turning her head away and rubbing her chin. “Uh, steal 'wald's journal, bring it tah y'all tah read, an'...uh... take it back when y'all were done before he knows he's been robbed?” Applejack asked the last part a little hopefully, not sure of her chances of being right and fearful how Twilight would react if she was wrong.
“That's right!” Twilight jovially confirmed. “Go do that, sweetie...”
“Right, uh...” Applejack turned towards the main entrance, then stopped.
“Yes?” Twilight demanded irritably, knowing her servant wouldn't have delayed if there wasn't something troubling her.
“Well, uh...are we gonna do anythang 'bout Mister Mandus, Mistress?”
Twilight seemed to think about it for a minute, something that Applejack found cause for worrying.
“No.” Twilight answered. “I have too much respect for Mister Mandus to have him suffer an 'accident'. Besides, it's not like he's going to do anything about it soon, if what I read is anything to go by... my plans for The Machine will go unhindered, unless he bucks up and tells somepony. Somehow, given that he's written it into his journal as a last request, I don't think he's confident enough to tell anypony. He feels guilty about making it, and he won't be able to confess his role. I assure you, Applejack, we're quite safe to proceed as planned... oh yes.”