As usual, Twilight Sparkle was to be found in her library, reading. She was studying a very peculiar type of magic, one that was not assigned to her but she simply wanted to research out of curiosity.
Dream magic.
Ever since her encounter and nightmare with the Shadow and Night Shine one week ago, she couldn’t get out of her mind the curiosity as to how that red-eyed monster could have created those illusions, which were so scary, so powerful and yet so believable.
Twilight flipped the page. She was reading Dream Magic for the Advanced Student—the very same book Night Shine had “borrowed” from her earlier in his own investigation of the subject—and what it had to say was more confusing than enlightening. So many different complex interweaving spells were required for somepony to actually forcefully enter and control another pony’s dream that it made Twilight’s head spin.
For starters, the spell to actually enter the other pony’s dream was a combination of a mind-reading and illusion spell (to feel that you are in the dream), another different illusion spell (to make the other pony see you), and a modified teleport spell and mental link (to set the whole thing in motion if another pony is dreaming near you).
Plus the spell gets more difficult if you are controlling somepony’s dream from far away, and even more difficult if you are blending the dreams of six different ponies into one consistent reality. No wonder Night Shine couldn’t magic himself into the dream to fight the Shadow with them…
An urgent hooting from the window snapped Twilight into reality. Owlowiscious was pointing her wing at the window, hooting incessantly.
Twilight trotted over to the window and looked out, squinting her eyes to try and see what Owlowiscious was pointing at. She made out the dark silhouette of a pony sitting on the ground right outside of her house, looking up at the sky.
An involuntary shiver ran up Twilight’s spine as she remembered the last time somepony had stopped by her house at night. She closed her eyes and forced herself to shove the fear out of her mind. No, Twilight. That was a dream. The Shadow is too scared to try anything like THAT again on you.
She walked to her front door and opened it slowly with her hoof. The door creaked loudly as it opened, and light from inside flooded her lawn. The pony turned around and raised a hoof to his eyes, shielding them from the bright light. Twilight saw his green coat, gray mane, and deep gold eyes, and quickly gave a sigh of relief, shutting the door behind her.
“Oh hi, Night Shine. What are you doing here? I haven’t heard from you for a couple days. What have you been up to?” Twilight started conversationally.
Night Shine sighed and his eyes darted around as they always did when he had something to say that made him nervous. “Well…it’s…it’s about the Shadow. I was trying to track him down over the last couple days, and while I couldn’t find the shed on the hill that you described, I did find this letter addressed to him lying on the ground. It’s…well…just…read it.”
Curious, Twilight took the crumpled letter from him and first noticed the odd quality of the paper it was written on. Even though the scroll was crumpled and in a terrible condition, she could see that it was made of Canterlot’s finest paper quality, the likes of which she had only seen on the scrolls given to her by Celestia. Whoever had sent the Shadow this letter had to have some kind of high position in the government.
As she began to read she noticed the peculiar handwriting style. It was very fancy and loopy, reminding her of some of the higher-ups in Canterlot, but it was surprisingly dark, which made it easier to read on the crumpled scroll. It seems whoever wrote the letter pushed down their quill with some force, though Twilight doubted this was intentional.
The scroll contained the following message:

“Dearest brother Shady,
It has been a long time since we last corresponded. Have you been well? I know of your of attitude and self-imposed ‘purpose’ ever since the tragic accident with our parents, but little brother, we must eventually find ways to cope and move on with our lives.
I wish I could say I was writing because I was concerned about your state of affairs, but really I will only be in town on matters of business. Well...I say business, but what I really mean is the special game I do love to play when the Canterlot socio-political scene becomes too much to bear. Call it a game of chess, if you will. This time you will be not my opponent, but my most powerful piece in a game against a local that I met the other night. He was an overly moralistic young colt and self-taught student of deeper magics by the name of Night Shine. Though his attitude was quite frankly very young and naïve (as expected from a colt his age), I was surprised to find that he seemed intelligent and strategic enough to pose an intellectual challenge. I will be sending him a formal request for our game by the morning.
Anyways I require your assistance for you are, as always, my most powerful asset in the game—my Bishop, Rook, and Knight rolled into one, if you will. I did hear you recently made several failed attempts in your everlasting crusade against Laughter that were crushed by a group of friends led by one Twilight Sparkle, another young local. This intrigued me, and with that and the fact that the two aforementioned locals have been corresponding of late I could think of no better pony than this Twilight to play the role of my adversary's Queen.
Now surely you are thinking, "What shall I receive in return for my participation?" I assume you remember the group of 6 mares who live in Ponyville that are all equal friends, including this local Twilight Sparkle. What you may not be aware of is that they are actually bearers of the Elements of Harmony! This would, I assume, crush any grand revenge schemes of yours. I am assuming you have some, of course, since your defeat at their hooves was, well, rather embarrassing. Not to worry though, your older brother has a solution.
Princess Celestia recently commissioned me, one of her most loyal professors of ancient relics, to study a group of five peculiar objects I have found to be as ancient as the Elements themselves, though I believe there is still one out there that has not yet been located. They are of the same approximate dimensions and magical capacity as the Elements as well, I have found upon further investigation. I need you to gather me a suitable team of a queen (maybe two), several knights, rooks, and the like for my chess game. In return, you shall be able to utilize the team in any way you so choose when I am not in need of it. While I have no desire to activate and seal myself to any of the elements personally, you should be able to study them further and use their power to its full potential.
Also...a word of caution. While these objects appear to possess more power than anything I've studied--possibly more than Celestia herself—they have a peculiar sort of draw to them. When I was handling them, no matter what precautions I took, for some reason I had an irresistible urge to...place one around my neck. Luckily my strength of will prevented that. You should seek to use this to your advantage.
I will be expecting a suitable team of at least six, including yourself, assembled and ready by next week if you accept my proposal.
And one last thing...try to let me know when your team is ready. Give me a sign that I will notice without seeking more secret correspondence. I went through enough as it is to get this letter across as it is, and now it would appear Celestia has commissioned some of the Royal Guard to watch me closely, making it harder than ever to keep in touch with you.
As it would be improper for you to write a response with the situation as it is, this will be farewell until you either succeed or fail with my proposal. Goodbye.

Puzzle Master
*****
*****

To be continued in

THE ELEMENTS OF DISHARMONY: NECESSARY CORRUPTION

UPDATE:

The Shadowed Nightmare

by Night_Shine

Epilogue