Why One Should Never Mess With Ancient Ritual Sites
In the depths of Equestria’s badlands, far below the shifting sand, a chamber rested. It was neither remarkable nor mundane, and any treasure hunter worth their salt would probably mark it as a typical find in their treasure hunting career.
The decrepit chamber shook as the large boulder hiding it from the world above was rolled away. For the two individuals venturing down into its depths, it was bound to be something truly memorable.
A faint blue light chased the shadows of the chamber away as a dark blue pony cautiously stepped into the decrepit chamber. Not far behind her, a blonde haired human peeked his head in. He wore glasses and a long pair of khakis, and an olive colored short sleeved shirt.
“Is it safe?” the human asked.
The pony tilted her head. “I am unsure Jacob, it is sometimes difficult to tell with these old chambers. Arch mages favored setting magical traps on the floors and walls, so watch your step. One minute you are a hairless monkey, and the next you may be a green amphibian.”
Jacob chuckled. “It’s called a ‘frog’, Luna.”
Luna waved her hoof dismissively.
Jacob cracked a grin and stuck his head back into the stairway. “It’s all good down here, guards, can you stay up there and keep watch?”
The thestral guards either did not seem to hear him, as the clanking of their armor could be heard coming down the stairwell.
Luna tore her gaze away from the chamber and stuck her head next to Jacob’s. “All is clear, faithful guards. Please maintain your guarding duties above.”
The clanking of armor stopped briefly, before it continued back up the stairway. Luna returned to examining the chamber as Jacob groaned.
“Why don’t they ever listen to me?”
“They are the royal guard.” Luna smirked and trotted around the perimeter of the room. “You are not royalty.”
Jacob rolled his eyes and followed behind Luna, his gaze wandering around the chamber to search for anything of value.
“Still, they’re total sticks in the mud. You’d think that by now they’d be able to trust I’m not tricking them into usurping you or anything.”
Luna chuckled. “We believe their trust in your intentions was shattered when they caught you putting cake batter above the door to Our chambers, in a petty and immature attempt at revenge.”
“One time! And you totally had that coming!” Luna giggled again, and the two walked in silence for a moment. Jacob’s eyes wandered to the chamber’s walls. In the dim light, he could barely make out some sort of paintings. It depicted what looked like ponies, along with some sort of other creature Jacob couldn’t quite make out. Whatever it was, it was long and very snake like. “These ruins seem similar to the ones we found in the catacombs of Constantineighpole. Do you think they were made by the same pe— ponies?”
“We think it is quite possible.” Luna blew her breath across a dusty tabletop, which caused a cloud of dust to billow into the air. “The Mareyans had a strong presence in Equestria long ago, before even my sister and I, or any of our ponies arrived here.”
“So they might be the ones who created that ritual tome that brought me here?” Jacob carefully stepped around a statue depicting a pony wearing an old tribal headdress.
Luna clicked her tongue. “It is difficult to say. The tome that contained the spell was nigh indecipherable, pages so worn with time that even the slightest touch, magic or no, caused them to crumble to dust.” The corners of her mouth twitched as her wings began to unfurl slightly. “Still, can you imagine the findings? That stone tablet that we found in the old Aztrot ruins was solid crystal, and it could contain mysteries We have been wondering about concerning the origins of Equestria since Our arrival here!” she spoke with an excited tone, then looked back to Jacob expectantly. The human was whistling a tune, his hands shoved in his pockets as he looked around.
“Mhm, sounds interesting.” Luna frowned and turned her attention back to where she was going.
“Honestly, you could show a little interest in Our cultural heritage. It’s not often that things like you wind up here as a result of them.”
“I am not a ‘thing’—” He air-quoted for emphasis “—and I am interested, honestly.” Jacob stepped around a broken tile on the floor. “I wouldn’t trade these expeditions we do into the outermost regions of Equestria for anything. It’s just th—” His breath left his mouth in a whoosh as he bumped into Luna’s outstretched hoof. “Hey, what are you doing?”
“Shhh.” Luna moved her hoof to the wall. Her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth as she delicately pressed the wall in random places. Jacob was going to comment on how ridiculous she looked when Luna rapped on the center of the wall two times.
At first, nothing happened. Then, the chamber began to shake violently. The wall Luna had bumped her hoof on began to crack, and both Luna and Jacob were forced to jump back as it began to crack and crumble. Loose debris fell from the ceiling and shattered around them. A particularly big chunk broke off from directly above. It plummeted towards the two, its shadow growing wider as Jacob crouched in a feeble attempt to brace himself.
He expected to be crushed, but instead felt a faint tingling sensation, followed shortly by a loud crash. Jacob glanced up in time to see that Luna had erected an arcane shield around the two of them. The stone debris from above bounced harmlessly off of it. Jacob breathed a sigh of relief.
“Thank you, Luna.” Jacob said.
Luna cracked a grin. “Think nothing of it, friend. We shall simply add that to the tally of times We saved your life. It is adding up quite rapidly.”
Jacob only rolled his eyes as the chamber around them continued to tremble and quake. The wall crumbled away with an explosion of dust and stone, and what lay beyond left them both gaping in awe.
A second chamber was before them. It was perfectly circular, with staircase leading up on the outer edges of the circle to chests with piles of gold, jewels, crystals, diamonds—all manner of precious treasure. The entire chamber was lit by a single stream of sunlight that filtered from a hole in the ceiling, and a large statue of a massive worm-like creature with tentacles emerging from its mouth cast an ominous shadow onto the ground. Below the statue stood a pedestal, above which a glowing book floated. It was open, its pages turning slowly to reveal glowing lettering and a language that spoke of ancient spells and mystery.
Luna dismissed her arcane shield, and Jacob stepped towards the chamber slowly. His eyes widened as he took in the entirety of what he saw. He could be rich with all of this back home!
“It seems this denomination was fond of the Tatzlwurm,” Luna said dryly. “We cannot imagine why—they are vicious creatures that would sooner eat you than look at you.” Jacob heard her but did not acknowledge it. He continued his trek forward, foot ready to step onto the inside of the treasure room.
A sudden force jerked him back, and he glanced behind himself to see that Luna had grabbed the collar of his shirt with her teeth and quickly yanked him backwards.
“What did you do that for?” he said irritably.
Luna spat the mouthful of fabric and pointed towards the chamber with an outstretched hoof. “Do you really think that they would put such precious artifacts here without leaving some sort of trap in place? This is practically the picturesque image of every ‘ancient treasure room’ scenario I have ever read! Don’t you read any Daring Do at all?”
Jacob scowled. “Don’t remind me of her.” His expression softened though, and he sighed. “You’re probably right. So what do we do then?”
Luna looked at the chamber thoughtfully. She crept forward slowly, then her horn glowed as she stood at its edge.
“Chaos runes.” she said in an annoyed tone. “They trapped the floors and walls with chaos runes.” She backed up again slowly.
“Chaos runes?” Jacob asked.
“Runes outfitted with magic based on chaos.” Luna sighed. “Runes based on transfiguration will turn you into a frog, but runes based on chaos will turn you into an inside out frog.”
Jacob cringed at that mental image. “So… they’re more deadly?”
“They’re completely unpredictable.” Luna tilted her head. “One could just as easily kill you as it would throw a pie in your face.”
Jacob looked out into the chamber again, but he couldn’t see these ‘runes’ that Luna was talking about. “How do we know where they are if we can’t see them?”
“They are invisible, to the naked eye at least.” Luna’s horn glowed bright again as she stepped forward. Once the glow of her magic reached the floor, a bright green trail of lines appeared. They crisscrossed each other with such intricate complexity that Jacob thought he might need to cross his eyes ten times over to even begin to understand what they meant.
“Ugh, my head hurts just from looking at them.” He took off his glasses to rub his eyes.
“Just grab onto Our tail—” She flicked her tail up as she spoke “—and follow us closely.” Jacob complied, gently grabbing onto Luna tail as she set one hoof down onto the floor where the lines were absent. After she tested the floor, she quickly stepped down and began to search around for the next tile.
Once she moved, Jacob carefully stepped down after her. One tile after the next, the pair moved across the room as quickly as they could. Finally, they reached the altar. Jacob let go of Luna’s tail and stood next to her as the pair watched the pages of the floating book turn on their own.
“Think it’s rigged?” Jacob waved his hand over the top of the floating book.
“Most likely.” Luna waved her hoof underneath of it.
“Well there doesn’t seem to be anything around it…” Jacob slowly reached a hand out to touch the book.
Luna stopped him. “Let Us do this, please.” Jacob frowned as Luna stepped in front of him. She tried to grasp the book with her magic, but she could not get a grip on it. Whenever she thought she had it locked in her magical influence, her magical grip simply slid off. “It is resistant to magic,” she observed. “This requires more traditional means.” Slowly, she reached a hoof out, barely touching the edge of the book.
Before either of them could react, a small boulder broke loose from the ceiling above. It fell quickly, and gave Luna a solid conk on the head.
“Ow!” Luna’s ears went flat as she rubbed her head with a hoof, frowning.
“Are you okay?” Jacobwalked forward a little with a concerned look on his face.
“I’ll be fine.” She sighed. “I suppose I should be more careful with centuries old chambers.”
What neither of them noticed was the drop of blood that dripped down from behind Luna’s ear, then fell onto a page of the tome. It quickly moved to the center of the page, where it vanished from sight.
The book flashed in a brilliant white light suddenly, causing the pair to jump back. The chamber began to quake again, and the marble tiles on the floor of the chamber began to spin. Each and every one of them, including the tiles with the treasure on them much to Jacob’s lament, turned facedown. In the place of the blank tiles, there was the picture of the black silhouette of a pony. The pony had a long, spiked and reptilian like tail, as well as tentacles wiggling out of its mouth.
“... Odd, to say the least,” Luna chided.
“Definitely,” Jacob agreed.
They turned their attention back to the book, which had closed itself and was sat on the altar, unmoving. Luna went to touch it again, but Jacob stepped in front of her. “Let me do this, please.” Luna’s ears went flat against her head, and she frowned as Jacob grinned. Then, he carefully touched the book with an outstretched finger.
…
…
…
...nothing happened.
Jacob grabbed the book, and lifted it from the altar. Still, nothing happened. “I think...it’s safe?” He spoke in an uncertain tone.
Luna looked cautious, but grabbed the book with her magic. Thankfully, it seemed to work this time. “Hm, it seems we have bested the trials that this chamber hath challenged us with.”
“All that treasure…” Jacob whined.
“Would amount to maybe a week’s worth of food,” Luna interjected, turning to make her way back up the stairs they came down from.
“You ponies have jewels under rocks around here.” Jacob shoved his hands into his pockets and followed behind. “Back home that would have been worth a fortune.”
“Come now, accompanying Us on this venture and seeing the ruins of an ancient civilization was not a treasure in of itself?” Luna blinked her eyes at him, smiling widely.
“No,” Jacob deadpanned.
Luna frowned and flicked her tail, then held her head high. “Very well then, we shall not ask you to accompany Us any further.” She purposefully strode up the stairs.
“Wait!” Jacob chased after her. “I didn’t mean it like that!”
As the pair disappeared from view, the statue of the tatzlwurm’s eyes began to glow red.
~Later that night~
Luna sat alone in the private section of the Royal Canterlot Library. She was lying on the floor, hind legs curled underneath of her and her forelegs stretched out in front of her with the book she’d acquired from the tatzlwurm chamber lying on the ground in front of her.
Her face was scrunched up as her eyes trailed over the words of the page for what must have been the thirtieth time that night. After a while, she groaned in frustration.
“This is not possible!” She stood and stormed out onto the balcony for a moment to collect her thoughts. “I should be able to understand this…” she mumbled. The moon hung high in the sky, giving the royal gardens below a silvery glow. Midnight Bloom bloomed across the gardens, a flower that Luna had taken a liking to after her return. Unlike most plants, it only bloomed in the soft light of the moon. Still, it did little to soothe her irritation.
She looked up at the moon and sighed. The language in this tome was totally unlike the one that had brought Jacob to their world. Luna hadn’t managed to decipher that one either, but she had at least understood some of the words. Modern Equis was derived from ancient Equis, and some of the words held similarities. However, this language was anything unlike she had ever seen. How could anypony hope to understand it?
She almost wished she’d asked Jacob to stay up and keep her company. He seemed very tired though, probably from their quest today. She’d sent him to bed despite his protests. She just hoped that she could have made some sort of progress on her own.
A bright, white flash from behind her got her attention. She turned, only to see the tome floating above the ground. Slowly, a soft whispering began to fill Luna’s head, and her eyes were drawn to the book. The pages began to turn, the whispering increasing in speed and volume until it felt as if someone were whispering directly into her ear. She tried to shake the sensation off, but to no avail.
Words left the pages and swirled around her like magic.They spun around her faster and faster, closing in more and more until she felt that she could not move. They entranced her with their complexity, and Luna cringed as she felt something within her shift and change. Her tail stretched out longer and became more narrow. it grew scales as two lightning bolt-like scars appeared below the corner of both of her eyes. She became slightly taller, her body sleeker as the changes continued.
The whispering became louder, and the words left her. She felt that she could move again, and she began approaching the book in hopes that she would hear it more clearly. The pages began to turn faster, the glowing becoming more intense. Luna’s eyes grew wider, and she crept closer. Before long, she stood right in front of the book. It finally stopped turning and stopped on a page with a bloodstain in its middle.
Luna blinked once, then there was a bright flash and all was silent. All except for the crickets that chirped their endless nocturnal tune.
~Perspective change with a scene transition, because I’m ever so good at those, right?~
Jacob lay in his bed in the guest chambers of Canterlot Castle. Ever since he’d agreed to help Luna on her expeditions, both she and Celestia had been kind enough to grant him this room. Honestly, he didn’t feel like he deserved it. Still, it was close to his friend, Luna, and that alone made him feel more at ease.
There were times that he would have nightmares. nightmares about never getting to see home again, or his friends and family dying alone without him. However, every time he thought he was about to lose his mind, Luna came and chased the nightmares away. He would kill for the ability to walk the dream realm like she did, an ever present sentinel and guardian of the night.
He wasn’t exactly asleep yet. Luna had sent him to bed, but he could practically imagine her up in the library poring over every page of the book they’d recovered. She’d spend hours analyzing ancient tomes and trying to understand them, but often she’d study them to the point of exhaustion that she wouldn’t even wake up at all the next day. He figured that was probably going to be the case tonight, too.
A sudden breeze caused him to shiver on his bed. He cracked an eye open and saw that the window was open. He sat up in bed, arching an eyebrow as he stared at the night sky beyond. As he recalled the events of the previous night, he realized that he did not open that window.
He suddenly felt something heavy and warm settle onto his legs. Jacob froze up immediately, his breathing slowed as he slowly turned his head to face whoever had suddenly decided to accompany him to his bed tonight.
Much to his relief, he saw Luna staring at him. Her aqua colored eyes gazed at him curiously, and she slowly tilted her head to the side.
“Oh, Luna it’s just you.” Jacob placed a hand over his chest and breathed a massive sigh of relief. “I thought you were a thief or something—don’t scare me like that.”
Luna didn’t respond immediately. She simply held her curious stare for a moment. Jacob shivered again from another breeze, and Luna frowned.
“Luna…?” Jacob tried again to get a response from her, but she didn’t seem to understand him. Jacob decided to try and get up to close the window, but Luna’s weight had him pinned to the bed. “Uh, Luna, could you get off of me?” It was then that Jacob noticed something different about her. Luna had curious lightning bolt like streaks at the corner of both of her eyes, a strange pair of scars across her otherwise pristine face.
Suddenly her face stretched into an excited smile, and a spiked reptilian tail lifted from below Jason’s bed and began to wag back and forth behind Luna excitedly.
That was not Luna’s tail.
Jacob blinked. “Luna, what the heck happened to you?”
Luna’s mouth opened impossibly wide then, and several tentacle like appendages slithered out as they grabbed ahold of Jacob.
“Luna?! What the fu— mmph!”
~Scene transitions abound! SCENE TRANSITIONS ABOUND!~
The Princess of the Sun roused from her dreamless sleep. She cracked an eye open, expecting to see the usual descent of the moon beyond her windowed balcony. Instead, the moon remained high in the sky.
Strange… Celestia yawned and slowly sat up in bed. Perhaps her sister had gotten so wrapped up in her studies that she’d forgotten to lower the moon tonight. Celestia would stop by the library to remind her.
She glanced over at her wall-mounted clock, decorated with pictures of the sun and the moon to depict sunrise and sunset. As she predicted, the minute hand was a little past the image of the sunrise. Celestia sighed and slid out of bed to adhere to her usual morning preparations.
She washed away the gunk of sleepiness and donned her royal wear. Then she set out to find her sister, and hopefully rectify the slow start of the day.
Celestia greeted the guards in passing as she made her way to the library. Some of them looked confused as to why the moon remained hung in the sky, but she reassured them it was nothing serious. Once she arrived, she was rather shocked to discover no one there. Not even the books that usually lay scattered about after a night of Luna’s studying.
Finding nothing there, Celestia decided to stop by Luna’s bedroom. She quickly descended the tower stairwell, and reascended the one next to her own. Upon arriving at the top and opening the doors, she found her sister curled up on the bed in a curious feline like pose. Her back was to Celestia, and her wings were open and curled around her. Celestia smiled.
“Lu-lu?”
Luna’s ear twitched but she simply shifted a bit to get more comfortable, and the soft snoring continued.
“Luna?”
Luna didn't respond this time, the soft snoring persisted.
Celestia chuckled quietly and prodded Luna with a hoof gently. “Luna? You have missed the lowering of the moon, little sister.”
This got a response. Luna raised her head, then looked back at Celestia with a pair of squinted eyes. Celestia smiled, then noticed two curious jagged scars below the corners of her sister’s eyes.. Her amused expression dissolved into a concerned one.
“Luna, you didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”
Luna yawned, several tentacle-like appendages leaving her mouth and wiggling in the air as she did. Celestia gasped, backing up a step or two at this. What had happened to her sister?
After that, Luna took the opportunity to stretch. She hiked her backside high into the air, then drove her body forward and stretched out her forelegs. This gave Celestia a view of her now drastically changed tail. It was long and spiked at the top. It also looked abnormally fat, with a bulge near the base of it.
“L-Luna?” Celestia tried again. Luna turned to face her, then her mouth opened and she made some sort of excited squeal and rushed up to Celestia, nuzzling her side excitedly. Celestia was confused, but returned the nuzzle. “Sister, I’m… happy to see you too, but what exactly...happened?”
Luna lifted her face and looked up at Celestia, eyes shining in confusion and curiosity. Then her ears perked, and she looked back at her tail. The bulge at the base of it moved slightly. Luna made another high pitched squealing sound and backed up a few steps. She began breathing deeply, then leaned her head forward and made gagging noises.
Celestia scrunched up her muzzle and took a few steps back as the bulge in Luna’s tail began to move back up her body, towards her mouth. Before long, Luna expelled the bulge, and a saliva covered Jacob was lying on the ground between her and her sister.
Luna made a sound like a purr, and began licking the saliva off of him. Jacob on the other hand, was simply staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes. His gaze moved upwards, and he was
able to catch a glimpse of a horrified Celestia.
“...I have a lot of explaining to do, don’t I?” he asked as Luna affectionately licked his face with her tentacle-tongue.