Nightmare Night - Part 14: Rarified teaser · 4:08pm Jan 7th, 2019
With two sections written and looking very good if I do say so myself, the new Nightmare Night chapter should be available by the weekend. It all depends on how fast I can get the climactic and critical third section done, and my prereaders can get to it.
As seems to be often the case with my writing, the new chapter pulled me in a couple surprising directions in the first and second sections, and I just went with them. There will actually be a little worldbuilding in the first section, as perspective will shift to Luna for the first time as she marks Nightmare Night in the unofficial thestral capital of Hollow Shades. You'll learn more about the Highborne/Nightborne thestral rivalry and history (kudos to AJ_Aficionado as much of it is borrowed from and I hope contributes to his headcanon).
In the second section, we'll check on Starlight's group for the first time in three chapters, as the second of Twilight's traps will spring. The origin and nature of it, however, is very much a surprise. And in the third section...
Well. The chapter title pretty much says who it involves! Expect two major twists, however, and three in the overall chapter. Teaser follows:
Traveling through roots via Timberwolf magic, Trixie quickly decided, was absolutely no fun at all.
One moment she was just outside the map room chamber with her hoof on Granny Smith’s back and staring several freshly sprouted and leafed branches in the face, and the next she had the nauseating sense of being forced through a small pipe in a sensation she couldn’t but feel was akin to being squeezed through a tube of toothpaste. Her senses went topsy-turvy and her stomach lurched hard as her vision and hearing went greatly distorted, only returning to normally as she was deposited somewhat impolitely on her rump in an entirely different room, leaving it all she could do not to retch.
“That… was… fun…” was all she could immediately manage as the room spun around her, trying but initially failing to stand up, her hoof going to her muzzle to forestall a sudden need to vomit.
“Sorry ‘bout that, young ‘uns,” Granny Smith offered as she helped the younger mare back to her very shaky hooves, still in her disconcerting Timberwolf form. “Ah know that ain’t no fun. It gets easier the more often y'all do it, though.”
Trixie grimaced at the thought. “Fine, but for now, Trixie asks that we not do that ag--”
“Ssh!” Starlight quickly shushed her, clambering back to her own hooves and quickly recasting her stealth spell, probing the very ether around her with her magic. To her relief, she found nothing other than usual privacy and anti-intrusion enchantments that Twilight normally used to secure her study, and the latter wouldn’t have been set off giving their rather unique means of entry, coming up through a surviving branch that Twilight had turned into a centerpiece table in her room. Their entry had accidentally knocked a tea set that had been placed on it onto the floor around them, which thankfully had hit the plush purple rug that surrounded it soundlessly.
“Don’t disturb anything,” Starlight warned them, swiftly replacing the tea set as she identified the incantations Twilight had previously cast and carefully disabled them, leaving them in place but in essence simply turning them off like flicking the wall switches humans used to control their lights. She then cautiously extended her magical awareness outward looking for any more traps or triggers. She didn’t find any, but was scarcely reassured--she hadn’t detected the spells on the downstairs sconces either until they’d set them off; Twilight had somehow masked them. And that shouldn’t even be POSSIBLE given how good at magic I am! “I think we’re all clear…” she said somewhat hesitantly, but still found herself reluctant to step forth.
“You think?” Trixie repeated disbelievingly, casting a very wary look around. Her far-more-crude magical senses and abilities weren’t picking up anything out of place either, but despite her pretensions of being Great and Powerful, she knew full well where she stood on the subject of magic when it came to comparisons to Starlight or Twilight. The former was helping her get better, and she’d unquestionably improved greatly, but she still didn’t trust her aura as much more than a blunt instrument; the more subtle nuances of advanced spells and enchantments remained beyond her to that point. “That’s not very reassuring, Starlight!”
“Let me check…” Granny Smith offered, padding forward smoothly between them on her Timberwolf paws and stopping a yard in front of them, sniffing at the air again, her bark-covered canine ears swiveling back and forth as she did so.
“Anything?” Starlight asked.
After a few more sniffs, Granny Smith finally nodded in satisfaction and turned back to them. “Nah. Coast looks clear. Ah ain’t pickin’ up anything ‘cept for some kinda passive magic on that desk,” she said in a strong and clear voice, pointing with a wooden hoof to the large desk Twilight did her private correspondence at. It sat by the big bay window through which they could see a growing storm in the distance; the lightning flashes from it illuminating them and casting shadows over everything.
That’s odd--there weren’t any storms planned tonight; just spooky skies! Trixie observed in some confusion, taking more note of it than the others. Just what the hay are the weather teams doing…?
“Makes sense. That’s where Twilight keeps the journal she uses to communicate with Sunset Shimmer,” Starlight replied. “It’s in the center drawer--I know because I’ve been around when she’s pulled it out and written in it. It’ll be under much stronger magical lock and key, though. I can get through it, but doing so without alerting Twilight will take me some time,” she grimaced, mentally preparing herself for several minutes of careful spellcasting. “It’ll be draining, too. I might need another of your ether potions after this, Trixie...”
Note I’ve deliberately edited a few things out of that passage that would be too much of a spoiler! The final version of this will be much more fleshed out and telling. Regardless, I should be able to publish the new chapter during or before this weekend. Be looking for it!
