//------------------------------//
// Ancient Elders (Don't look...You shouldn't see...) 
// Story: Twilight's book of the most dangerous creatures in Equestria 
// by The Psychopath 
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Spike was bouncing in place on his tiny chair. "What's next? What's next?" he repeated in quick succession.

Twilight stared at him. "I thought these scared you." She pointed at the book.

"They did, but now that I know they're fake, I want to see more!"

The unicorn shrugged. "Well, maybe I can look through more of these 'stars'?"

Spike pondered for a moment, then gave his answer. "Sure, just leave those 'four star' things for last. We should see the normal stars and the other creatures as well."

Twilight nodded in agreement. "That's true. It's always more fun when the big things come last."

She fumbled through the pages once more, finding the ideal place to stop at and let the illustrations do their thing. This time, they took the shape of a being comprised of multiple blue tendrils floating haphazardly in the sky. Multiple segments would find themselves focusing and reflecting the blue of the sky. The head was almost flat and diamond shaped with the rear point being rounded down to a curve. It only had two, barely open eyes and seemed to be in bliss. From the back of its head grew four, very long blue tendrils flapping innocently in the wind.

"The book says that it's called a Silicyn. They are very passive creatures preferring to float eternally in the skies rather than deal with what is below them. In fact, they are so large that legends say an entire civilization lives on its back." Twilight blinked a few times. "That's absurd."

"Why?"

"No creature could be big enough for such a thing let alone not react to it." She groaned loudly and resumed the description. "I've yet to figure out what miracle gives them the power of flight, but I learned the hard way that their tendrils will burn whatever they point at. One had been flying around a growing city and shooting everything in sight. I and a few of my colleagues went to kill it with the help of airships. It turns out, the Silicyn body is quite valuable and makes an excellent additive for things metallurgy and leather. I even added some oil and a thin sheet of its skin on my spear, and the blade remained sharp and durable three times longer than usual.

This thing is a one-star because of the dangers of its powers and its tentacles as well as its size and the methods required to kill it. It is still a very passive creature that emits some kind of low-frequency hum that calms everypony around while it travels, though. Something cool, for sure."

"That was...disappointing," Spike complained.

"There's one more thing at the bottom. Umm; Many legends mention that Silicyn as an eel of the sky that brings the soothing calm of the White Winds to all those in its presence. It has often been described appearing above fields of battle where everypony stopped fighting, and the leaders consolidated their points not through shedding red, but by shedding black."

Spike scratched his nose. "Okay, well I like this more."

Twilight felt a warm feeling of calm joy, but she didn't like what she find a few pages later. The illustration took the shape of a black equine with green, featureless, slanted eyes. Atop its head were deer antlers spreading and growing in multiple random directions, then receding, then repeating in different directs and shapes. Its hind legs were nonexistent. Instead, a dress of darkness took their place. Its entire body was nothing but black, with no other notable traits save for its glowing green eyes, as mentioned earlier. Between the name and the description of the creature were flashing letters in red.

"That's strange," Twilight commented. "It's called a Qwantum Fy, but this warning." She passed for a moment and placed her hoof on her chin slowly. "This is an occultist class monster and should, under NO circumstances, be faced by regular hunters and people of this world."

"What does the author mean by that?" Spike wondered.

Twilight narrowed her gaze as she both thought deeply and felt worry grow as the illustration remained there. She cleared her throat and rotated her shoulders a few times to regain her composure. "The Qwantum Fy is an unknown creature classified as a two-star Dwolcraeft(Occult). She -Yes. A she- looks for somepony or something else to haunt and will follow them forever. Reports suggest that she can possess multiple ponies at once, and one survivor recalled how she crawled out of one of their loved ones' mouth after warping their body into stretched, tendril strands of bone and meat which actively chased after them. My occult colleagues have mentioned that a spying spell allowed them to see 'her' coaxing a blue orb towards her after pushing a pony to killing themselves and 'lovingly' hugging it into her chest.

When confronted by a group of specialized chasers and myself, we cornered her to the point where her dress and dark form slightly unraveled, revealing thousands upon thousands of souls trapped within her body, all wishing for release and freedom to rest. Curiously, she seemed overly protective of them and refused to let us free them, but we still managed to jink her inner body, release a few hundred souls to the afterlife. She tried harming us with those strange antlers, but she was almost sealed away in the process. We now have a piece of her growing and reforming antler to track her, but it's difficult. Fortunately, this isn't my job. I'm busy fighting the usual monsters and trying to avoid quad-stars.

Effects of its haunting start with brief visions of it around the general area, then it appearing on regular objects and appliances, then behavioral changes amongst subjects important to the victim. The stronger the Quantum Fy's hold becomes, the worse the subjects become until they become these...warped things I have to kill. Good thing I have my throos with me."

The two remained silent for a very long time, and spike was quaking in fear.

"Moving on..." Twilight exhaled.

She was about to choose something, but in the process, she dropped the book, unintentionally letting fate choose for her. Unfortunately, it was another one of the creepy 'Occult class' monsters. This time, the creature was covered almost entirely in a blanket of orange, brown, and purple. Only a thin line exposed a portion of the face. More specifically, it exposed a left nostril with no nose, its left eye, and two teeth without an upper lip to cover them. The eye wasn't abnormal in any real manner and the iris was colored bright brown.

Twilight gulped loudly. "Voy Min Opsh. No pony really know this thing's story, but we know what it does. I found this sucker whilst wobbling around for an infestation in a city. I saw this sucker stalking somepony, and when they eventually confronted it, it opened up its blanket and whatever they saw made them scream. It engulfed the poor thing after expanding exponentially and random things around it, and when it finally released them, they were melded randomly and haphazardly together. An eye here, a lightbulb there, a bench plank jutting out somewhere, a twitching leg elsewhere with organs somehow still functioning and pulsating when they were outside of the body. I ended up having to kill the pony as they had gone completely insane from the transformation and their state. I found that strange for a monster and brought in some colleagues from the occult branch after finishing my hunt--"

"He seriously took hunting some tiny rodents precedence over calling about this horrible thing?!"

Twilight didn't removed her eyes from the letters, but her response was pursed lips and a slow, disappointed nod. "When confronted, it turns out that the body we see is just a front. There's a strange, fleshy creature glued to the blanket, the surface of said cloth being attached to a line of 'gum', it looked like, what with a long, smooth surface and multiple 'webs' of flesh hanging from them. The middle of it was a giant hole with teeth randomly placed around, and various elevations and roundings of darker colored meat. It did have two legs, but much like the rest of it, they were 'pushed' open to add to the gum-like appearance. At least, this is what my colleagues told me, and I've since recorded it in this journal. 

I didn't remain to see what they did nor did they tell me what happened. No pony was lost, so I assume it was a good result. Probably more of their 'If you know it, you'll die by it' mumbo-jumbo. I took the liberty of naming it and found this to be a fitting name. It roughly translates to 'Flesh Welder' in a language of a country far to the east. I only knew a few words and searched in a book for this. I find it befitting."

"This...this guy...he's really unfazed by these things, let alone anything," Twilight sighed. "I'm not sure if he's serious or if he's just trying to be a...a..." Twilight thought for a moment. "A 'cool cat'," she joked.

"Don't make it worse, Twilight."

The mare closed the journal and out it on the desk. "I think we can go to sleep now. It's getting late."

Spike looked outside the windows to see only darkness. "C-can I sleep with you?"

Twilight looked over her should her smiled. "Sure. I think we both need something to help us sleep."