[Task 3]Castle Exploration Unit

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While the town, filled with the disenchanted Crystal Ponies, was almost a little bustling with activity, the Crystal Palace itself had remained relatively quiet. Most ponies, until this point, hadn't been allowed inside; but now that they had had time to become accustomed to the Empire and the way it worked, the large castle seemed to be an obvious place to start searching in earnest.

Cadence breathed a sigh. She'd been keeping her field of love active for a couple of days now, and she knew that she couldn't hold it up forever. Even while Shining's barrier was active and and she could gain a little reprieve, she still needed to keep the field of light active. Conditions would worsen immediately if she were to stop completely. Still, Shining's shield spell did lighten her load considerably when he aided her. And when he helped at night, she could even lessen the light spread, allowing for little more than a projection hiding Sombra's existence and showing a rather basic, starry night scene. During times like those, while she couldn't sleep, she could slip into a meditative state at the very least, resting her mind and body without fully cutting off her faculties. It was nothing compared to a good night's sleep, but it was something.

Right now, however, was no time for rest. The ponies volunteering to explore the castle and dig up some information for them were beginning to gather outside the throne room, and soon enough Shining would let them all in and they would discuss the details of their. She took a deep breath and tried to imagine away the barely noticable bags that were beginning to form under her eyes.

"Alright, Cadence, you can do this..."

The doors opened, and Princess Cadenza sat up straight, beaming widely at the ponies who walked in following her husband's lead. She waited until everypony was settled in before she began. "Thank you, all of you, for coming here to help us. I can't begin to express my gratitude to each of you. I will try to keep this short, as there is much to do and less time than we would like to have. We are here to find as much information about the Crystal Empire and King Sombra as we can, and since this was his seat of power for the short time that he was here, this is a primary location for buried information. Split yourselves into groups, but make sure to travel in no less than twos. While the palace does look safe, I won't lie to you and say that there is no risk of danger. Be vigilant and keep a wary eye."

She took a deep breath and continued. "We will have several ponies acting as checkpoints in the castle. They will be spread through the palace in groups of two. You'll recognize them by the red sashes tied around their upper arms. If you find any information, please return it to one of them, and they will relay it back here. I would like one or two of you to stay here with me. We will be documenting and organizing any information found by you and getting as much out of it as we can." She paused, taking another breath. "...If any of you run into any dangerous situations, please immediately return to the nearest checkpoint and tell them." She relaxed her shoulders and peered over the group. For just a few moments, she dropped her officious tone. "Don't be a hero. We're here to gather information, and every little bit helps. Good luck."

She nodded and with that the group dispersed.

((Ok, I'm going OOC for a sec here. Obviously, I'm not railroading you at all, just laying the groundwork for how things are gonna go. There are gonna be PLENTY of NPCs around, and I'm definitely not gonna have anyone just sit around with Cadence twiddling whatever ponies have instead of thumbs if they don't want to. Also, the checkpoint runners are going to be NPCs, and they can be found in most major nexuses of rooms or easily recognizable places, so just assume you can find them if you need to. Feel free to explore some different rooms, and have fun!))

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Okay, so Rainbow Dash was somewhere in this city...course, Gilda wasn't just gonna go off looking for her like some Dweeb. If they met, cool. If they didn't run into each other...well...okay so that actually would suck. Maybe she'd look for Dash later, but. Right now she was going to enjoy herself regardless. There was stuff to do in the city. It was some impending doom or something like that and they needed help. The first thing she had heard of had been reading books. What kind of job was that? A boring one. It wasn't rocket science to figure that one out. Who wanted to sit around in a thousand year old library. The only thing she might find interesting in there would be some ancient book on flying with some old tricks.

The castle sounded much more interesting. Not to mention the castle didn't have the creepy crystal griffons in front of it. It wasn't that Gilda wasn't all about pride in being a griffon, one could say she had a bit too much pride even, but those crystal griffons were just...oddly well sculpted and she could only think of how Celestia got rid of Discord and if something similar could be done to...less powerful criminals...like griffons.

Anyways, no problem with the Crystal Castle, besides, with how tall it was they were sure to need some fliers to get up to those levels quickly. Gilda had just the pair of wings for that job. She might even find some super cool trinket for a souvenir. She began thinking of something she would actually use that she might find in a castle and be able to carry out and back home. That took swords and weapons off the list...maybe a dagger, nothing big though. She also didn't want some silly little hair clip that would only be good for selling.

Maybe she could find a cool talon file?

She finally landed in front of the castle and walked in while looking around, unimpressed, on the outside at least. The place was pretty cool, but not eye wideningly cool. The only really surprising thing was that the princess herself was here....then again, it was the royal castle. Where else would she be?

Gilda wasn't planning on teaming up with some dweeby pony either . she could take care of herself. What was the worse that could happen? It was a castle after all. Surely no one would put anything too bad in it, maybe trap doors to the dungeon? Gilda could handle that without a struggle, a few flaps of her wings and she'd be out in a jiffy, even if the space was small she could use her claws. "Awesome, info, got it. " she said, just loud enough to be heard over all the ponies. she spread her wings halfway and jumped forward, above the ponies and alone, towards one of the hallways.

"If anyone actually wants to find something I'd suggest not following me unless you can keep up. Otherwise you'll just be left in the dust...if crystals have dust....cya dweebs." Hey, some prissy princess wasn't going to make Gilda the griffon act all soft. She walked forward, her talons clinking on the crystal floor. That would get annoying real quick.

[Time Turner]

By now Time Turner’s enchantment with the Crystal Empire had faded. It wasn’t like he still didn’t think the place beautiful though. He had just gotten used to it. More importantly though, he also thought it would be even grander once these ponies were cheered up and rescued from the darkness outside the dome. His initial running around had failed to find anything of note, however. So when he heard that the castle was being open to exploration, well, he dashed right over. Exploring ancient castles in hopes of finding the secrets of defeating a great evil? He hadn’t been this excited since that time he went over Neighagra Falls in a barrel. Although to be quite honest this had a bit more to stake than that incident…

Anywho, the ponies who chose to explore the castle had all found themselves gathered in the central chambers. Why? To be given their orders by Princess Cadenza herself! Now that was a new experience; he had yet to meet any of the princesses. Except that one time he swore he dreamed about Luna, but that whole thing was iffy at best. So his eyes were wide open with excitement as Cadenza made herself known…and soon narrowed with concern.

She was tired, so very, very tired. Sure, she was probably trying to hide it, but he could recognize that look anywhere. In all his time here he had never thought about how much of a strain that dome was on her. He had already been motivated by the sight of the disheartened ponies. Now, well, now this was the icing on the cake. Sombra had to be stopped; for the Crystal Ponies AND for Cadenza.

With the instructions given, Time Turner was about to walk up and say something to the princess when a nearby griffon made it very clear she was going to go off on her own. And called them all dweebs.

”My, now that was a rather rude send off,” Time Turner said, after making sure the sound of the talons clicking was rather faint. He knew the kind of temper griffons could have. Not an experience he was interested in having again.

With that out of the way, he turned his attention back to the princess. Having never really been before a princess and never being one for protocol anyway, he didn’t do any fancy bowing or anything like that. He just casually walked up to her with a look of concern in his eye and an attempt to smile.

”I’m Time Turner, from Ponyville. And I just wanted to say before I head out that everypony and I will do anything we can to help defeat Sombra. If there’s anything you need, just let me know and I’ll be glad to do it.”

His offer of help extended, his warm, concerned smile soon turned into a devilish, little grin that wouldn’t have been out of place on a foal.

”But for now, there’s a whole castle to explore!”

And with that, he happily galloped off in the direction of the griffon. Whether she wanted help or not, he was going to try and keep up with her. Exploring the unknown dangers of a mysterious place was always better in pairs after all, and who was he to take that enjoyment from her?

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While some time had passed, it felt like just last week that Shining Armor had been keeping up a barrier spell around Canterlot. Here he was, doing basically the same spell, around another metropolis. This time, however, he did not carry the sole burden for the protection of the land. In fact, he carried the lesser the load, his own spell supplementing that of his new wife, Princess Cadence. It was comforting that he could help her, but less so that he could never carry the full burden, as she had to do while he rested.

His heart ached to watch her so encumbered. Shining knew she had chosen a life of public service as freely as he had, that she freely gave herself to the cause. But it was not easy to see her smile through the effort, to be strong for everyone else, as he was often called to do. That dedication to others was one of the many reasons he had fallen for her. If he could choose the way his mind worked, he would have it dwell on that rather than the draining process she was going through. But he couldn’t.

Shining also carried the knowledge that his little sister was no doubt doing her best to help out in one of the other groups that had been created. Along with the other Elements of Harmony, she had proven herself a true defender of the realm. But his sister was safe and as long as the dual barriers held, she would remain so. The only danger she faced was tripping on uneven ground or a paper cut. He always felt some amount of concern for her, but for now she could occupy the back of his mind rather than the front.

He came in toward the end of her speech to the other ponies, walking to her side after another stallion said a few words to her and departed. It was nice to see so much energy on the part of their supporters. He had heard the salutation of the griffin and Time Turner’s greeting, but had stayed out of all that. He wouldn’t stall them by adding anything to what had already been so well said.

”It’s all finally coming together. Who knows, maybe there’s a solution right around the corner and this’ll all be behind us faster than it was upon us.” It was an optimistic hope, but this was the first extensive, modern search. There was no telling what they would find or when they would find it. Despite that, he knew he could safely bet on this all taking a while. ”We couldn’t have found more enthusiastic help, at the very least.”

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Nya had been quietly doing a little private exploration of her own when she heard some pony speak up in a loud, authoritive tone. It came from a couple rooms away and the little Zebra sneaked quietly closer to listen, hiding herself behind a potted plant near the doorway.

"...This is a primary location for buried information. Split yourselves into groups, but make sure to..."

Buried information? So this was like a scavenger hunt? Nya was enthusiastic. This was another game she wanted to play! She was good at finding things. She always found lots of things! Grinning to herself, the little zebra dashed off to get a head start on finding things, without waiting to hear the rest. Down a random hall. Up a flight of stairs. Around a corner. Up another flight of stairs. Then the little foal screeched to a halt.

There was a very official looking pair of ponies standing guard ahead. At least, that's what it looked like they were going. Nya regarded them with suspicion. They were not anything that she wanted to find! Slipping behind a large hanging tapestry, Nya moved past the ponies, a little lump of fabric with four dainty hooves sticking out the bottom, tiptoing past. They didn't seem to notice. Once she was clear of them, Nya went through the first door she reached. Now the search could truly begin!

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What the heck had he roped himself into this time?

That was a question Tekalius (or Tech as he'd rather be called) kept asking himself throughout this experience. This whole city just screamed creepy. First, was the fact that it was in the middle of an artic wasteland. Why it was here of all places, he Tech had no idea. He assumed the barrier that Princess Cadence was creating was what was keeping the frigid artic weather out of the city, though apparently it was also keeping out this, "King Sombra" character too. Whoever he was, Tech had no plans on wanting to meet him anytime soon.

Next, was the fact that not a single person in the whole city could remember anything about what happened. When Tech read first found a flier about how the Crystal Empire was found and that they needed help, Tech assumed he could probably find some work there. The place had been lost for over a thousand years; someone in the city must need something to be fixed right? Well, when he arrived he quickly discovered that no pony could remember anything about their past, and why the city disappeared. This also apparently meant they couldn't remember if anything was broken and needed fixing, as Tech couldn't find anypony who needed his expertise.

And then lastly, this palace. Granted, the place was pretty darn impressive, but at the same time it was kinda creepy. The place was so big, yet so empty. The only other living beings he'd seen since he entered here was the other volunteers, the princess, and those ponies with the red sashes Cadence mentioned. Tech had a pretty strong feeling that there was something hidden here, but what he wasn't sure about was whether or not he really wanted to find out what it was.

So why had he even come in here? Well, the palace had tons of gems and stones that looked kind of valueable. Some of them may even have special properties that he could use for some of his inventions. Maybe, if he helped out, Cadence would give him some of the gems as a reward. The emptiness of the palace made him begin to regret his descision, but there was no turning back at this point.

Hearing someone call him a dweeb snapped Tech back into reality. He'd gotten lost in his own thoughts after Cadence gave all the volunteers a breifing. The only other Griffon in the room (and in all of the Crystal Empire at the moment, most likely), went off on her own to search the palace. A brown Earth Pony with a hourglass cutie mark said something to the princess, and went off after the Girffon.

I should probably get going too. Can't earn a reward if you don't do anything to get one... Tech ran off in the direction the other two went, in hopes of catching up to them.

[Whammy]

After exploring the castle for some time, Gilda would eventually stumble upon a large, magnificent door at the end of some out of the way hall. Luckily the door did not seem to be locked; whatever had kept it locked seemed to have faded. Upon opening, Gilda would discover a giant room with 10 pedestals arranged at the tips of a giant carving of what appeared to be a giant snowflake design.

Most of these pedestals were empty, but five of them had what appeared to be small shards of crystals dimly glowing. These five were located within the inner star of the design, but the very outer edges were bare.

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Gilda walked glided through the castle without a care. She had complete confidence that the traps wouldn't be anything she couldn't handle. This should go easy enough, she'd lead this little party, find some super awesome whatzit-mabobber and then call it a day while everyone was saying how cool she was. That sounded like a pretty solid plan.

As she made yet another turn she found herself met with a hallway that actually seemed to end. " 'bout time." she landed. She wasn't aware of her followers yet. She pushed the doors open with her talons and was prepared to find a simple clue. She wasn't that lucky. "Ponyfeathers." Gilda lifted off into the air again and did a quick circle around the room before landing right back at the door. "....Ponyfeathers!" she said again.

She had no idea what to do. There were the five crystals...they were clearly magic or some junk like that...would she need a unicorn? She stood there, stumped, and then started hearing those behind her...well, that sealed it. She had to do something. If she didn't they would think she was just standing around like some idiot. Gilda walked forward and picked up a single crystal, moving it to one of the outer pedestals...she could only hope nothing bad would happen.

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Tech silently followed the other Griffon through the halls, ignoring anyone else, brown coated or otherwise, who were around. At this point he was mainly following her in case she did something stupid and put the whole empire in jeopardy. Just a hunch, but Tech felt randomly wandering in a place like this was basically asking for bad things to happen.

As luck would have it though, the Griffon actually found something. She went down another hallway and opened a door, with Tech in pursuit behind her. He followed her inside and surveyed the large room.

This room is definitely important. Now to just figure out what to do... Tech thought as he looked at the pedestals before him. As he was about to say something, the Griffon grabbed one of the crystals from a pedestal.

Tech cleared his throat, making a "ahem" noise just loud enough to catch the attention of anyone else in the room and began to speak. "I think it goes without saying that this room has some sort of importance, but what we need to figure out what that is, and what to do once we do know what the room is for.

From what I can tell, the puzzle here involves either rearranging, or replacing crystals. My guesses are: One, we need to move the crystals from the inner pedestals to the outer ones, two, we need to rearrange the crystals in another specific order or position, or three, we need to find five more crystals and place them on the empty pedestals." Tech paused for a moment to think, then continued. "...Since you already took one of the crystals, I guess we can try rearranging them first. If that doesn't work, we should search the room for clues as to what to actually do with these crystals."

[Time Turner]

”Wait…huff….for…huff…me…”

The voice of a panting Time Turner rang out as he slowly made his way into the room. He had lost the griffons in the halls, and had just finally caught up to them. Phew, this place was huge; it was going to take forever before they found…

”Oh…would you look at that.” he said, his breath finally returning to him. It was then that he had noticed there was another griffon in the room. Hmm, odd, but exciting. He never had dealt with griffons much, and this would be a good time as any to try and learn about them.

But first there was the issue of the odd glowing crystal things in the room. One of which it seemed that the griffon was messing with while the other was putting out theories. Yes, that was good, that was good. Theories were a very good thing to have. At this point that was about all they had; that and crystals.

”Well, you’re plan sounds just as good as any other, so let’s get started then shall we?” Time Turner said as he walked over to one of the other crystals.

As he touched it with his hoof, however, the crystal began to glow brightly, to the point of blinding the poor bureaucrat. All the other crystals, even the one in Gilda’s hand, began to do the same. Taking a few steps back, with his hoof guarding his eye, Time Turner had to make a comment.

”Okay, who wants to go with ‘leave the crystals be’ plan?”

While distracted, Time Turner failed to notice that the light had begun to beam out of the room towards some unknown destination. Eventually the lights dimmed, and the crystals returned to their normal levels of glowing. Meanwhile, Time Turner’s vision began to return.

”Well, that was rather exciting, wasn’t it, uhm….I don’t think I’ve ever met you two before. I’m Time Turner, Ponyville’s manager of all things time-related!” he said, one hoof rubbing his still spotty eyes while the other was extended out for a handshake.

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Another griffon...how had she not noticed that?! It wasn't very often that she saw another griffon but, like always, it was always when she was out and about. She hadn't seen a griffon in Cloudsdale since she was young. This one seemed a bit different though, he was carrying...stuff. She then heard the pony, an earth pony. That was more of a normal thing to see.

Unfortunately Gilda was already feeling like she wasn't gonna like this griffon. He seemed like a know it all. She was pretty sure he didn't know any more about this fricken empire than anyone else did. It had just popped into existence, barely anyone knew anything about it. She supposed she could suffer him though. She might even get to ask a few questions about the Griffon Kingdom.

As the crystals began to glow Gilda stepped back from the one she had picked up, a bit stunned by the light, she flapped her wings to push her back and up to get a better look. "Well...that was weird." she said with a flat look on her face. "Anyone have any idea what just happened?" she continued.

She blinked several times before landing and looking at her two followers(just to be clear they had followed her, she had planned on going solo for this). "I...we gotta do something. Whaddya think the crystals are for?" Gilda circled the crystals. "They 'oughta do something right?" she poked one, hoping that the lightshow wouldn't happen a second time. That would really suck. Finally she went over to Time turner looked at his hoof, it always did seem sorta awkward whenever someone...did this. "Hey there, the name is Gilda." she reached out and shook his hoof, being quite careful to make sure her talons didn't prick his skin. "And...I don't think I've ever seen you either."

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Nya looked from the small window ledge she was standing on to the balcony, a good distance away. Normally, she would have attempted (and landed) such a jump without a second thought. But somehow, at the height she was at, it seemed only a hundred times more scary, and it didn't help that she knew the surface below was hard, smooth crystal. But she wanted to get to that room, and this was the fastest way. Pausing only to take a deep, quick breath, the little zebra launched herself off the windowsill to fly for just a moment through space, and then land neatly, almost daintily, on the railing for the balcony. With a self-satisfied grin, the Zebra turned carelessly to jump down, only for her front hooves to slip on the crystalline surface, causing her to land splat on her face!

Getting up again quickly and glancing around to make sure nobody had witnessed that, Nya rubbed her nose thoughtfully and then trotted over to the entrance to the room Did she hear voices inside? She thought she heard voices. Nya peeked around the doorway just time time to get a face-full of blinding light! The striped filly spent a good minute rubbing the spots out of her eyes before she looked into the room again.

She was sorry she did so. Predators! Griffons, to be exact! Two of them! Nya instantly lay flat, as though this would make it harder for them to see her, though she still peeked around the doorframe. Though griffons weren't a problem in her neck of the homeland, she knew enough about them to know they were meat-eaters, more intelligent than the average predator, and that they were big. And now there were two- oh, and another earth pony as well- in the room she'd wanted to explore. And she couldn't even get past them to explore somewhere else until they left!

...Which they were showing no inclination to do.

[Deleted]

The Princess gazed out the window for a moment, her horn faintly glowing as ever. She had set the ponies who had opted to stay and help her manage the reports they got to do a rather simple task. Even now a fair portion of the throne room was dedicated to a group who were moving desks, chairs, paper, quills, and other various things. She had chosen to allow them to set up as opposed to having everything ready for them before they arrived. The downtime between the beginning of the search and the arrival of the first bit of information would have otherwise been filled with awkward and tense silence. Something needed to be accomplished at every moment. Something always needed to be in progress, however small. Downtime would lead to too much thinking, which would cause unneeded stress and anxiety.

She sat over the proceedings, shooting small smiles at her husband from time to time. Perhaps he was right, she told herself. Perhaps the answer would be....

She glanced out the window once more to see a large, bright beam of light shoot from the castle to one of the buildings in the city. She paused, pensively, trying to piece together exactly what that meant. "Shining..." She spoke quietly, so as not to interrupt the proceedings around her. "I think we'll be getting word sooner than we anticipated." She tried to smile more, but a puzzled and slightly concerned expression overrode her somewhat-feigned happiness. What did it mean? What had happened? She certainly hoped nopony had been hurt, but the beam hadn't looked like dark magic. She told herself that everything would be ok once more, breathing in deeply and letting her stress out in a quick and quiet sigh. Surely, this was a sign of good things to come. Good news and secrets unlocked.

She looked around the room again, wondering if anypony else here had noticed. Most of them seemed busy getting the seating arrangements in order, so if anypony had, they hadn't said anything. Not yet, at least.

[Deleted]

Tech was waiting for the other Griffon to respond when he realized an exhausted Earth Pony had ran into the room while he was talking. He could've sworn he flew past him while following the other Griffon, but he hadn't cared enough to pay attention so he couldn't say so for sure.

"Oh, hey," Tech said nonchalantly at the pony's entrance. He felt that he might as well at least knowledge his presence now that the pony was here. Besides extra help was always appreciated; so long as the pony didn't plan on stealing any of Tech's credit.

The Earth Pony seemed to like Tech's plan (not that Tech was surprised by that of course), and immediately went over to one of the crystals. "Now wait a minute, let's not be too hast-" Was all Tech could get out before the pony touched the crystal.

"Argh!" Tech quickly shielded his eyes from the blinding light that emanated from the crystals. As the light faded, Tech quickly rubbed his eyes and surveyed his surroundings to see if anything had changed. No...didn't seem like it. But Tech had no doubt in his mind; It did do something, they just needed to figure out what that was.

"Are you kidding?" Tech said in responce to the brown pony's comment on leaving the crystals alone. In responce to both the pony and the Griffon, Tech continued, saying, "This just proves that these crystals have a purpose. That light did something; I'm sure of it. We may not know what it does yet, but I'm sure we can figure it out."

After speaking Tech immediately went off, flying around the room closely inspecting the walls, the ceiling, anything in particular that could potentially give him some insight into what the crystals did. Behind his back Tech heard the pony and the Griffon introduce themselves to each other; the pony being named Time Turner and the Griffon being named Gilda.

"Since "That Other Griffon" isn't a very convenient name, you can call me Tech. And I doubt I've met either of you before, since I'm not one to stick around in one place for very long," Tech said, calling out to them as he continued to inspect the room. As he flew around he swore he saw something moving over by the doorway.

"Hm?" Thinking that it could potentially be a clue, Tech flew over to the door in order to get a closer look.

[Deleted]

Shining often wondered if other unicorns found comfort in the feeling that came with casting. It was a strange feeling, as casting was an exertion, but then, he found a lot of comfort in running as well. When he was casting, he was doing something. He could consider whether he was doing all he could, but he eliminated the feeling that he was doing nothing. At the same time, he realized that some unicorns couldn’t cast with the ease that he could, so there might only be a few ponies that could relate to him on this topic.

He moved closer to see what it was that had seemingly gotten Cadence’s spirits up, but he must have been too late. Whatever it had been, she didn’t actually seem to be any happier. Momentarily, he wondered if the pressure might be getting to her and she had imagined something, as he couldn’t think of what temporary occurrence could spur a superficial optimism. But he didn’t believe she was quite so out of it that she was hallucinating. As far as he could tell, she still had a ways to go before she reached that level.

“Something worth checking out?” He asked, not wanting to be totally ignorant of the other efforts that were going on outside of this area. He expected that word would make its way to them if anything major occurred, but everypony had a different definition of major. The biggest issue being that each site finding a small bit of the puzzle could equate to a big find, but none of them would realize what they had when they had it.