The Hidden Home of a Hermit
Feb. 17th, 2016 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
twilightponyYesterday, over lunch, Moondancer was telling me what she knew of Dr. Clarity Quest's archaeological dig in the San Palomino Desert. Nothing has been published yet and this is all hearsay, but here's what I remember of what Moondancer told me.
Dr. Quest had reason to believe that there was, in the San Palomino Desert, a place that ancient ponies had held in deep reverence. She had read fragments of rotted scrolls invoking the Mare of Mares, the Ancestor, the Sage, and she felt that this desert might have a hidden shrine, a gathering place for pony sages, or some such artifact. It was enough to raise a small grant prior to her expedition to look into the Winter legend. So she's back, thanks to us, and picking up where she left off.
Dr. Quest had had some trouble locating the twin caves she had in mind for the dig. It wasn't that getting frozen for so long had affected her memory, her sense of direction is just fine, the problem was that the once familliar landscape had been shaken up by Tirek during his rampage blasting much further east. (Tirek is a magic eater and he put all of Equestria through the ringer. He also destroyed my Golden Oak library home.) Tremors had caused a few rock falls that had toppled markers on which she depended to get her bearings. She persisted and succeeded in finding her caves just before the first snows of winter. But now, thanks to Tirek's quake, that included a previously scealed entrance to a third cave.
A moon of exploratory digs later she had still not found any signs of pony habitation. She had been excavating deep in the back of the third cave and she was feeling a bit down and frustrated at her lack of success. It was looking like _nothing_ had ever lived in any of these caves. She had been so sure that these caves had been important to ponies, that they had been the ancestor stables inhabitated by pony sages of legend, back in the paleopony period. But they were just dry, dark and dusty. No water, no grazing nearby, and no animals in the area larger than insects.
She was considering giving up and had stopped at about a quarter of the way in from the entrance to that third cave to weigh her options when she felt a surge of joy. In the darkness she caught a glimmer which brought to her attention a crack along a large rock at the side of the passage. She gave the rock a push and to her alarm it fell away easily. She nearly dropped her lantern in her hurry to leap away from a possible cave in.
The collapse didn't happen so she went back cautiously. She was greeted with a musty smell that made her lamp flame dim and saw that there was an empty space behind where the rock had been. Around that hole were now cracks radiating in a regular pattern that looked suspiciously like spaces between carefully stacked stones. She suspected that here she would find a sealed alcove. It was somewhat more than that. It was a sealed doorway to what looked more like the home of an ancient scholar. And she, or he, was still there.
Dr. Quest hit the jackpot! There are several small rooms, apparently lit by glowing lines tracing swirling patterns and branches along the ceiling, and powered by a crystal in the mane room. It's shaped like the frog of a giant pony's hoof, or of a stylized heart. Dr. Quest noted that the white glow of the light system, as well as the feeling of joy, would slowly dim over time, but flare back up when the Crystal Empire lights flowed through the night sky.
One area was apparently a sleeping room and there Dr. Quest found the resident of this hidden stable. A pony skeleton stretched out comfortably on a decayed mattress or bed of straw. It looked like he or she, probably she, had laid down for a nap and had never woken up.
Even though somepony had carefully sealed this place up, and although it's dry and the temperature apparently doesn't swing from hot to cold like it does outside, most of the fabrics had long ago decayed, wooden shelves and furniture had collapsed and things made of plant fibers aren't in good condition either. But nothing had disturbed this place in a very long time.
The skeleton, she, is of a small earth pony. Little silver bells lay scattered about her neck bones and there are many colored beads where her tail would have been. She lies in a nook on a raised area of the floor, by a fireplace, also sealed. The remains of the mattress or bed of straw is blackened and brittle with age, very difficult to move. Dr. Quest gently levitated the skeleton, detected gems and metal, and raised each type of item to a separate height in air to get an expanded view of what all there was to find there. After taking pictures, making sketches, picking out samples and making an inventory of everything, she gently placed it back the way she'd found it.
Dr. Quest had to step gingerly everywhere she went. The floors were littered with fragments of wood planks, shelves warped with age that had shattered when they had fallen from the walls. There were also heaps of what had been cloth, fallen from pegs and collapsed into mounds of dust and fibers, with just a hint of color.
There were scrolls! Many scrolls, piled loosely in the style of how ponies treated written works in the days of the earliest writings. Most were in a small room, piled in the corners, and stacked like logs on a writing desk. The writing desk was still standing! It was there that Dr. Quest found the gold foil scrolls that Moondancer is trying to read. Inventorying the paper scrolls is a difficult job. Old pony written works were not seen the same way we see them now. There was no need for order or a system of classification for scrolls then. They were not used as a way to share knowlege or to build a clearer world view, but as an art form and a way of quiet celebration of thought. So it's all in a jumble, and it's no help that the plant fiber they're written on is blackened and that much of the ink is too faded to read. They crumble at the slightest touch. Moondancer looked dreamy as she told me that the scrolls appear creased and stained from use, that they had probably been read many times. So those scroll haven't been moved. Moondancer will have to go there to read them, via Haycartes.
It's late. I'll tell you what else I remember of what Moondancer told me tomorrow.
Dr. Quest had reason to believe that there was, in the San Palomino Desert, a place that ancient ponies had held in deep reverence. She had read fragments of rotted scrolls invoking the Mare of Mares, the Ancestor, the Sage, and she felt that this desert might have a hidden shrine, a gathering place for pony sages, or some such artifact. It was enough to raise a small grant prior to her expedition to look into the Winter legend. So she's back, thanks to us, and picking up where she left off.
Dr. Quest had had some trouble locating the twin caves she had in mind for the dig. It wasn't that getting frozen for so long had affected her memory, her sense of direction is just fine, the problem was that the once familliar landscape had been shaken up by Tirek during his rampage blasting much further east. (Tirek is a magic eater and he put all of Equestria through the ringer. He also destroyed my Golden Oak library home.) Tremors had caused a few rock falls that had toppled markers on which she depended to get her bearings. She persisted and succeeded in finding her caves just before the first snows of winter. But now, thanks to Tirek's quake, that included a previously scealed entrance to a third cave.
A moon of exploratory digs later she had still not found any signs of pony habitation. She had been excavating deep in the back of the third cave and she was feeling a bit down and frustrated at her lack of success. It was looking like _nothing_ had ever lived in any of these caves. She had been so sure that these caves had been important to ponies, that they had been the ancestor stables inhabitated by pony sages of legend, back in the paleopony period. But they were just dry, dark and dusty. No water, no grazing nearby, and no animals in the area larger than insects.
She was considering giving up and had stopped at about a quarter of the way in from the entrance to that third cave to weigh her options when she felt a surge of joy. In the darkness she caught a glimmer which brought to her attention a crack along a large rock at the side of the passage. She gave the rock a push and to her alarm it fell away easily. She nearly dropped her lantern in her hurry to leap away from a possible cave in.
The collapse didn't happen so she went back cautiously. She was greeted with a musty smell that made her lamp flame dim and saw that there was an empty space behind where the rock had been. Around that hole were now cracks radiating in a regular pattern that looked suspiciously like spaces between carefully stacked stones. She suspected that here she would find a sealed alcove. It was somewhat more than that. It was a sealed doorway to what looked more like the home of an ancient scholar. And she, or he, was still there.
Dr. Quest hit the jackpot! There are several small rooms, apparently lit by glowing lines tracing swirling patterns and branches along the ceiling, and powered by a crystal in the mane room. It's shaped like the frog of a giant pony's hoof, or of a stylized heart. Dr. Quest noted that the white glow of the light system, as well as the feeling of joy, would slowly dim over time, but flare back up when the Crystal Empire lights flowed through the night sky.
One area was apparently a sleeping room and there Dr. Quest found the resident of this hidden stable. A pony skeleton stretched out comfortably on a decayed mattress or bed of straw. It looked like he or she, probably she, had laid down for a nap and had never woken up.
Even though somepony had carefully sealed this place up, and although it's dry and the temperature apparently doesn't swing from hot to cold like it does outside, most of the fabrics had long ago decayed, wooden shelves and furniture had collapsed and things made of plant fibers aren't in good condition either. But nothing had disturbed this place in a very long time.
The skeleton, she, is of a small earth pony. Little silver bells lay scattered about her neck bones and there are many colored beads where her tail would have been. She lies in a nook on a raised area of the floor, by a fireplace, also sealed. The remains of the mattress or bed of straw is blackened and brittle with age, very difficult to move. Dr. Quest gently levitated the skeleton, detected gems and metal, and raised each type of item to a separate height in air to get an expanded view of what all there was to find there. After taking pictures, making sketches, picking out samples and making an inventory of everything, she gently placed it back the way she'd found it.
Dr. Quest had to step gingerly everywhere she went. The floors were littered with fragments of wood planks, shelves warped with age that had shattered when they had fallen from the walls. There were also heaps of what had been cloth, fallen from pegs and collapsed into mounds of dust and fibers, with just a hint of color.
There were scrolls! Many scrolls, piled loosely in the style of how ponies treated written works in the days of the earliest writings. Most were in a small room, piled in the corners, and stacked like logs on a writing desk. The writing desk was still standing! It was there that Dr. Quest found the gold foil scrolls that Moondancer is trying to read. Inventorying the paper scrolls is a difficult job. Old pony written works were not seen the same way we see them now. There was no need for order or a system of classification for scrolls then. They were not used as a way to share knowlege or to build a clearer world view, but as an art form and a way of quiet celebration of thought. So it's all in a jumble, and it's no help that the plant fiber they're written on is blackened and that much of the ink is too faded to read. They crumble at the slightest touch. Moondancer looked dreamy as she told me that the scrolls appear creased and stained from use, that they had probably been read many times. So those scroll haven't been moved. Moondancer will have to go there to read them, via Haycartes.
It's late. I'll tell you what else I remember of what Moondancer told me tomorrow.
