A thousand years after the Princesses disappeared from Equestria, Twilight Sparkle meets a lost Cloudsdale scout named Rainbow Dash. Together they look for a way to end the thousand-year night and dispel the darkness that has spread across Equestria.
Edited by Pascoite
Contains fairly mild grim-dark. Inspiration taken from the Dark Souls games, but it's not strictly a crossover.
Chapters titled "Arc #: Chapter Name" are part of the main story. Chapters titled "Character: Chapter Name" are one-shots about other characters, set in the same world, and aren't necessary in order to follow the main story.
Chapters (10)
It's about damn time this was up here.
~Skeeter The Lurker
6078935
Hell...
realgamernewz.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/starcraft-2-tychus.jpg
I remember you telling me about this in 2013. It's great to see you finally pushing it out.
6078951
...Take the damn +1.
So far I'm liking what I'm reading, but you knew that.
~Skeeter The Lurker
sooooo its basically pony dark souls?
hmmm.
6078953
2013?! Holy fuck, shut up. That's depressing. A year and a half...
(Announcing my brand new fic, A Beautiful World, coming fall 2020)
6079001
It's as much Dark Souls as Demon's Souls is.
So very similar but wholly separate.
6079019 then again you got a LOT to explain in your story though. the origin of this curse, if ponies are truly lost, what happened to the elements of harmony let alone the tree of harmony, and if the princesses vanished what became of discord.
gotta lot to do here.
6079036
And a lot I've done. The first arc of the story is done (plan to publish it gradually) and I have the lore reasonably fleshed out.
I was expecting more of a what if Luna won and Celestia lost deal but it's not bad...
Oh. That sound's interesting.
Will this be one of the rare dark fics making it on my fav-list?
Who knows. But it seems promising and I am curious as hell.
So - dear author - bring it on!
I just hope for a happy end.
Awkward phrasing?
Nevertheless this is interesting. I am watching.
Crazy question... changelings involved?
Does anyone think that King Sombra could be behind this?
6079147
was a ruin? was a ruins? were ruins?
Gosh, I'm going to have to look this up.
Super duper amazing!
6079013
Yeah, it was when we were discussing the concept of merging key elements from two or more contemporary, popular concepts to create a new concept, and you used this story idea as an example.
6079079 I'm thinking it's more they both lost and were banished for their folly. And the world left was unable to cope with the villain that took over after they were gone.
Posting this today rather than tomorrow because I'm probably going to be busy most of tomorrow.
Have at 'er.
Interesting start can't wait to see where this is going!
Didn't get an notification that this updated, but luckily I noticed the higher word count in the featured stories. I'm still trying to figure out if Lyra is supposed to represent someone from Dark Souls or not. Either way this is a nice crossover. Rainbow even shows some trademark loyalty to a pony she just met.
... I'm sure it's not my place, but I'd recommend a title change. "Darkquestria" sounds like it can only lead to a horribly cliched and overused story...
6078951 keep this up and I may have to buy a night light
6079731
Believe me, I tried to think of a better title, but most things that are fitting just sound extremely edgy since they have to do with night/the moon/darkness.
If I think of a good one I'll change it.
This reminds me about a survival movie named "The Road".
Yay, the story's out! Have an upvote.
6080158
"The Road" is based on a Cormac McCarthy book of the same name. Book's worth a read. It's got an unusual tone, and if you like tough vocabulary without really fancy-sounding prose, this one has it in spades. I quit consulting a dictionary halfway through just so I could make steady progress.
Might as well follow this, seems like there's potential to be had.
Go on, dear author.
And meanwhile - have this like.
I must say I'm very glad I took a look at this fic (despite the name), because you have a very well written and quite fascinating story going on here. The mood and mental imagery set by your story is adequately foreboding and grim, with just enough detail to make picturing it all easy without going overboard - which isn't always an easy balance to strike, and goes a long way towards ensuring a smooth and pleasant reading.
And since the quality of writing is high, I can't help but be excited about all the worldbuilding and backstory lore you are no doubt about to reveal as the story goes along - I have always loved worldbuilding, and from the looks of it there should be plenty to go around, as we explore this darkened world through the eyes (sort of) of the almost-clueless Rainbow Dash.
And I'm looking towards all of it - how the civilization on ground is faring (it has mostly crumbled I imagine, with a number of isolated city-states still standing), abut this Crystal kingdom Twilight comes from and what she hoped to find in Equestria that was worth exiling herself over (I get the feeling that the crystal Kingdom might be fairly unicorn centric, and thus probably one of the safest places around that are still standing), about this mysterious darkness that slowly whispers in to everyone's ear and drives them insane, about the full story behind the Pegasi abandoning the surface and the ponies who lived on it (do they even have the whispering darkness issue on their clouds above?) ...
And of course I'm looking towards more of Twilight and Rainbow Dash interacting - it will be interesting to see Twilight wrestling with herself as she deals with this one Pegasus she is inclined to dislike because of that fact alone, along with the ruthless pragmatism the darkened land has taught her, when stacked up against her own sympathetic personality that has always led Twilight to helping others (which still is somewhere in there, as evidenced by Rainbow still being alive, if buried under years of hardship and hard lessons) and Rainbow honestly being a good person, if infuriatingly naive - much easier to dislike this disembodied "pegasus" concept than an actual individual in front of you, an individual who is just clueless and good-natured enough that you would never feel good about abandoning or killing.
And I'm looking towards Rainbow truly exploring this land below they seem to know so little about - hell, she is a scout who is expected to go groundside (so she probably has the best information available drilled in to her to help her odds), yet she outright expected Twilight to teleport (despite the magic being long since lost), and doesn't seem to know how the "darkened" work at all - goes to show you just how detached the pegasi are from the rest of country, and how out-of-date their information is. It will be interesting to see how she comes to grips with how life on land truly is, and that her kind did, indeed, abandon the earthbound ponies to it - especially as we have already seen the loyalty part of her personality sparking up (when Lyra made a jab at Twilight that Rainbow disliked).
So ... yeah - all in all, color me intrigued and eagerly awaiting the next chapter, you have a very strong start here.
Just ... for the love of all that's unholy, please consider changing the name of the story - I almost passed it over based on it alone, because "Darkquestria" just screams "Simplistic grimdark for the sake of grimdark here, wasn't even worth it trying to hide the fact!" - and that's definitely not the case, so it would be awesome if the story gained a title that reflects the actual quality of it, not something that promises seemingly mindless violence and edginess.
This is great stuff, but why ponies?
6080518
I swear it's impossible to think of a good name! I've stuck with Darkquestria so far because it's the least edgy and has some kind of "identity". I've been considering A Darkened Land, maybe?
Any title to do with the moon, darkness, night, shadow, or related words just comes out sounding even more generic, forgettable, and edgy. I've gone through a couple dozen title ideas in a document trying to think of a good one.
6079203 We say ruins of smth or smth was in ruins.
Instafav before even reading. You are the author of the Equestria From Dust after all.
6080620
A Darkened Land does sound better, yeah - and I admit that trying to tie those specific themes together in a title, it's somewhat hard to avoid :edgy" or "cliche" sounding ones.
How about instead of focusing on 'darkness' specifically (and all the connotations that tends to bring up) , you do the literal opposite? As in, instead of emphasizing darkness, emphasize the absence of light. "A Sunless Land" (or The Sunless Land), perhaps - it accomplishes much the same and implies the same things, but adds a bit more neutral-sounding mystery to the title.
So, how exactly did this end up featured today? Not that it's badly written, but the last update was well over half a year ago and there really isn't much substance to it.
6081148
I didn't even notice the dates until you mentioned it. Well despite the dates of the chapters the story was just published yesterday per my feed. Per GaryOak's comment it looks like it has been in process since 2013. That would at least explain why I didn't get a notification that it updated the second chapter after the initial publication.
If the other chapters are like the first two in terms of date, all readers tracking the story will not be notified when it updates. Might have to make blog posts tagging the story to let people know it updated.
6081271
Huh... Well, that's curious. If that blog post is right, then this really shouldn't have been dated eight months ago. I wonder what's up with that. Oh well, at least that means it isn't already abandoned after two chapters, which is a plus. It gives me this really weird JRPG vibe that I can't help but feel a bit nostalgic over.
6079833 Duly noted. I look forward to seeing what becomes of your story
This is a cool story. You have me hooked.
"A Darkened Land"
Tagged "Dark"
I don't know why I find this so amusing...
6081148
It was only published yesterday as of writing this comment. I actually updated the chapters a couple weeks ago via the google docs upload, but for some reason editing the chapters doesn't cause the chapter date to change. So they're dated back when I first made the story page and chapter pages.
Hmm...a story that carries similar themes and ideas to Dark Souls, yet also has that added bit of characterization to the main characters that isn't just projecting and also possesses a strange underlying sense of hope and happiness under the dark?
...Writer, you have my attention...
6081765
Hm, I didn't get the impression that Twilight is running for her life - well, escaping a pack of bloodthirsty wolves aside. Twilight being Twilight, she would have her reasons for abandoning the presumed safety of the Crystal Kingdom and coming to Equestria, and I'd imagine she would have done so of her own volition, not to escape from anything.
If this story is going to give a nod to the canon events, perhaps she stumbled upon some prophecy in the archives of the Kingdom's magic university? Maybe something pertaining to how to end the endless night and banish the endless darkness - perhaps hints towards the Elements themselves, which would point to Equestria.
Granted, it could very well be something else, but my preliminary guess would be that she is in Equestria because she is searching for something, something she deemed important enough that it was worth effectively exiling herself from her own home.
As for the Darkness that plagues the night, my first guess would be it being some unexpected side effect of the Moon being up for so long. I'm guessing Celestia and Luna either killed each other or managed to get banished together (since neither princess is around) during Luna's Nightmare escapade, and we are seeing the side effects of overexposure to Equestria's magical Moon.
1,000 years worth of dramatically altered past history... leading to the exact same current characters.
Yep, this is indeed a fanfic!
Color me impressed...
6082245 Seriously dude, if its primary flaw is the question of whether or not the right ponie would do it at the right times or survive, then it has an okay start at the moment.
6079481 ; Yeah I know.. Once I got reading it I saw I was soooo wrong and it's a good story.. it just caught me by surprise is all as I was expecting something else when I first started to read it..
I am liking this, I like this sort of story, post-apocalyptic type. Keep it this well written and I'll be back here every day(Then again I think i'll be back anyway
)
6082245 Or a Star Trek episode. Or Fringe. Or a comic. Or you know...Equestria Girls.
What exactly were the pegasi supposed to do? Add to the number of darkened? Make darkened that can FLY? I can only imagine that most towns are fortified now so making darkened that can fly over walls seems counter productive. Hence the importance of recalling all Pegasi to the sky.
6081774 how long is this tale actually?