Lightning crackled across the horizon, multicolored bolts striking the ruined city below. The entire landscape was dominated by the city, husks of buildings crumbling beneath the dark and soggy shadow of a sky that never brightened. Here and there, incredibly malformed trees sprouted amongst the broken buildings, allowed to take root in the streets, forests, great halls, and libraries abandoned long ago. A sea of pitch roiled in the distance, noxious fumes rising from it as the waves sluggishly crashed against the crumbling shore.
And Yx waited.
To say that the ruined city was abandoned would not be entirely true. Perhaps it would be better to say that it was abandoned by anything distinguishable as a civilized inhabitant, at least from a pony’s perspective. Creatures great and small crawled, flew, and slid through the ruins, emitting noises no pony of Equestria had ever heard, and which would likely drive them mad if they ever did. The smell of death and putrescence emanated from the city, along with that of decay as rotten tomes festered in the damp.
And Yx waited.
Yx the Oncoming, Yx the All-Knowing, Yx the Cleanser. Not that Yx would have chosen any of these titles. Yx was Yx was Yx. If this realm had a castle filled with courtiers, Yx would be king. If the great temples still stood, tall and free of infestation, Yx would be god. But the courtiers and priests of this realm were long gone. Yet, Yx remained.
And Yx waited.
Near the great, many-tiered palace, a burst of flame shot into the heavens. As the flame subsided, a pony appeared, screaming and clutching his burning flesh. His eyes were wide with shock as he realized that his flesh was no longer burning, but wholly restored. A minor amusement? thought Yx.
“From whence have you come to my realm?” Yx asked in a thousand tongues simultaneously, bombarding the pony’s mind.
The pony had appeared staring out over the city, but turned to face the haunting voice. When he beheld Yx in its true form, his mind snapped and he screamed in terror. Oh well, perhaps next time. As Yx inclined itself toward the pony, he was able to break free of his terror long enough to gallop toward the nearest precipice and hurl himself over the edge. A tentacle quickly snapped him up before he splattered upon the next terrace and brought him to be torn apart by claws and pincers and teeth. More lightning crackled across the sky, the sea continued to churn, and unholy creatures scuttled across a toppling building.
And Yx waited.
Darkest Shadows
Part the Sixth: Beyond Reality
***
Matriarch Tower soared above most of Canterlot’s spires, the modern skyscraper clashing with many of the historic buildings, but fitting in quite well with some of the other nearby buildings, including Hierophant Tower. Both buildings had been constructed by the Nocte Corporation, but Matriarch Tower was their home. It was here on the highest floors, overlooking Canterlot and all Equestria, that the Nocte Corporation was headquartered. In a conference room with a stunning picture window and a long, polished mahogany table, the members of the corporation’s board of directors sat and waited.
It had been a disastrous past month for the company. Failures in every area of business and unexpected refusal to cooperate from other companies had caused the Nocte Corporation’s stock price to drop dramatically. The traders of the Manehattan Stock Exchange advised their investors to stay in at first, but when the company continued to fail, they changed their tune and would no longer buy Nocte stock. The dire straits the company was in had necessitated this very important meeting, as well as dealings with a new board member.
“Pardon my lateness,” the stallion apologized as he entered the board room, his aide in tow.
In the midst of all the madness of failure from a company that hadn’t failed in a hundred years, a new investor had bought up a sizable chunk of stock. This mystery investor was apparently a member of the old nobility, the reclusive Lord Briarheart. So far, he had done all his business through his accountant, Silver Shimmer. He was a pony with substantial means, and in exchange for a seat on the board, he had agreed to invest a portion of his personal fortune into the company to help keep it afloat and continue its ongoing projects. Today, the board would see just who this pony was for the first time.
All in all, he appeared very standard at first glance. Yet, something seemed decidedly off about him. For one thing, he kept his sunglasses on at all times, but that wasn’t what threw the board off; besides, nopony was going to tell the pony who’d saved the company to remove his glasses if he didn’t want to. His suit was about a decade out of fashion, but that also wasn’t the cause for alarm and wasn’t all that unnatural, considering he was a reclusive lord. No, there was something about him that made each of the board members itch under their expensive collars, but they couldn’t quite place their hooves on what it was.
His aide seemed normal, at least. The wine-coated unicorn stood back against the wall with the other assistants, a pad of paper and pencil floating in front of her to jot down notes on behalf of her executive. Berry tried her hardest to be inconspicuous, and so far, she was doing a pretty good job. The chances of anypony recognizing her were miniscule. Shadowmere, on the other hoof, always seemed to give off an aura of otherworldliness, which could be quite incriminating, given the situation.
The Nocte Corporation had had a part to play in most of the large monster attacks since she and Shadowmere had met, which had to be more than mere coincidence. Some evil force was at play here, either within the corporation or controlling it, and Shadowmere wanted to go right to the top. Using his unfathomable wealth, he’d been able to chip away at the Nocte Corporation’s income and eventually cause its near collapse before swooping in to save it at the last minute and worming his way onto the board.
As the board talked about measures to avert the catastrophe they were facing, Shadowmere and Berry carefully observed their surroundings. As Berry carefully probed the executives with her magic (almost all were unicorns), she took note of which had defenses in place to ward off probing spells (which was most of them). It could simply be to prevent corporate espionage, but given the reason she and Shadowmere had come here, there was likely a more sinister reason.
The conference room had also undergone alterations recently. Fresh paint covered part of a wall, and a new section had been inserted into the table. Most curious of all was the wall facing the window, which had a section with several holes for mounting art, but had nothing hanging from it. The shadow of unbleached wood was evidence that some metal symbol had once hung there, though it was unlike any symbol Berry had ever seen. It was most certainly not the icon of the Nocte Corporation, and the Ministry agent made a detailed sketch of it in her notepad.
As the meeting came to an end, the board members rose from the table and filed out of the conference room. Most of them headed to their internal offices; they would meet up again later, informally, to discuss this newcomer. Lord Briarheart and his aide saw themselves to the elevator and out of the building. It wasn’t until they were far away and sure that nopony was around to hear them that they finally spoke to each other.
“They all reek of black magic,” Shadowmere said as he blew his nose, “There’s a dark power over that whole building.”
“Many of them were magically warded,” Berry added, “Are they all witches and warlocks?”
“It’s likely,” Shadowmere answered as they passed through the wall behind Rosethorn Hall, “But it doesn’t make any sense.”
“How do you mean?” Berry asked as they trotted across the lawn, hoping the orphans playing out front wouldn’t come around back and see them.
“I could see their reasoning behind releasing Pewter Belle, but what reason would a witch coven have to summon gargoyles, release a djinn, and bring a lobgoblin here? I don’t understand their motives, and that worries me.”
“So, you’re saying we need more information before we act,” Berry said as they trotted through Shadowmere’s hideout.
“Precisely,” the ancient stallion replied, “At least we have something to go on. It appears that before today, they used to conduct rituals in that conference room. I trust you noticed all the alterations.”
“Yes, though they failed to hide everything,” Berry said as she showed Shadowmere the symbol in her notepad.
“Nothing I recognize,” he said with a frown, “I’ll look into it. Meanwhile, you should return to the Ministry and see what you can dig up there.”
***
As usual, the Ministry was extremely busy, but it had gotten worse now that the number of monster attacks continued to rise with no sign of slowing. Agents were needed everywhere, and were beginning to miss things. Several monster attacks had managed to become common knowledge, and the Ministry was taking drastic action to ensure that the ponies of Equestria remained blissfully unaware of the things that went bump in the night. A special task force had been formed to curtail attacks from the Everfree Forest in particular, with the goal of getting the situation fully under control before the upcoming summer sun celebration in Ponyville. There could be no slip-ups, as all eyes would be on the small town for the historic one thousandth summer sun celebration.
Ignoring the crowds in the Ministry’s lobby as she usually did, Beryl made her way to her office and got to work. She began searching for anything she could find about the symbol in her notepad, but it proved to be a difficult task. How could you search for a symbol? She summoned every record she could find on witch covens and their symbology, but still turned up empty-hooves. She was preparing to head to the Deep Archives to continue her research, when her door opened.
“I have some good news for you, Beryl,” Deputy Director Siren’s Song announced as he stepped into the room.
“Really?” Beryl asked, surprised that he had come directly to her office instead of summoning her to his own or ambushing her in the hallway, as he usually tended to do.
“Yes, your hard work has paid off, and the Director has agreed to grant you level-2 clearance to the Deep Archives,” Siren’s Song said as he closed the door after himself.
“What exactly does that mean?” Beryl asked. Level-3 clearance allowed her to look at retired records, what would level-2 open up?
“Level-2 records are those restricted from even regular Ministry Agent eyes,” Siren’s Song explained, “The most dangerous creatures and the most terrible secrets, known only to a few privileged souls. Level-2 records were deemed unsafe for all but the most skilled and senior agents of the Ministry to handle. I do believe you will be up to it.”
“Thank you,” Beryl said, taking the compliment, “This should be helpful with a case I’m working on.”
“Outside your Ministry duties, I presume. What is it?” Siren’s Song asked curiously, and Beryl wished she’d kept her mouth shut about the matter.
“Tracking down a coven of witches,” Beryl said, seeing no need to keep that a secret now that the cat was out of the bag.
“Well, if you need any help, you know where to find it,” Siren’s Song reminded her, referring of course to the Knights of Dawn, which she hadn’t seen since the matter with Rholharrak, “I’ll let you get back to work.”
After the deputy director left her office, Beryl headed down to the Deep Archives. Unlike when she’d first received access to the Deep Archives, there was no tangible indication of her change in security clearance. The wall gave way, and the guarding spells didn’t attack her as they'd previously done as she descended. Also like usual, Boris was waiting at the bottom of the shaft.
“Ah, Beryl Fields,” the elderly griffin said as he rose from behind his desk and produced a key, “I’ll open up the level-3 archives for you.”
“Actually, I’d like level-2 this time,” Beryl replied.
“Oh, really? Moving up in the world, are we?” Boris chuckled.
He produced a different key from before, inserted it into a different point in the massive door, and made different motions to unlock it. When he was finished, it opened onto a new room, different from what Beryl had seen before. This room was also circular, but the bookcases were all on the exterior walls, with a spiral staircase wrapping around a rickety old elevator in the center. She was also at the lowest point of the archive instead of the highest, and the archive appeared at the moment to be completely empty of ponies.
Thanking Boris, Beryl stepped into level-2 of the Deep Archives. She quickly discovered that the organizational scheme here was also different from the upper archives. The records and books were still organized by topic, but the topics were no longer alphabetical. Rather, they were scattered helter-skelter with no discernable system for determining what topic went where. Finding the records on witch covens was a process that involved trotting around the wall, looking at the books, and trying to determine what topic they were a part of before going up to the next floor and repeating the process.
Eventually, she did find some relevant records, and sat down to read. All kinds of covens had existed, and some still did exist, in Equestria, but none of them had any connection to the symbol sketched in Beryl’s notepad. She had thought that witches were no longer a problem in Equestria, and that the only ones found now were poor excuses for their extremely dangerous predecessors; however, these records proved her wrong. Apparently, as recently as fourteen years ago, a powerful witch coven had been discovered attempting to sink the city of Baltimare beneath the waves. The record also disturbingly suggested that they were capable of such a thing. Perhaps it was for the best that these records stay hidden from most eyes, lest they expose how close Equestria really was to falling to dark forces at any moment.
Many more of the records Beryl dove into were just as unnerving, but none had the symbol she was looking for. Considering the importance of symbols to rituals, Beryl decided that she ought to also look into cults that practiced black magic, and was able to find the associated section of the archives after some more searching. Beryl learned far more than she ever wanted to about the dark cults lurking beneath the surface of Equestrian society, as well as the prominent figures who were part of such cults, but was still unable to find a matching symbol.
She was considering going back up to the level-3 archives in case what she was looking for was not as terrible as she’d expected and had just been retired, but first she wanted to make sure she looked through everything on this level. She continued her search through the archives, and came across many interesting topics, but felt she was getting farther away from what she was looking for. That is, until she found a second section on cults.
Puzzled as to why they’d been sorted separately from the other records, she pulled a few of the books down and looked through them. Immediately she knew that she had stumbled across something that fit what she was looking for. The cults recorded in these books were a special kind of cult that crossed the boundaries of witches and the other cults. All the cults recorded in these books were devoted to something the authors called only the Old Gods. Curious as to what exactly these Old Gods were supposed to be, Beryl dug through more books, looking for a description, but it proved elusive. It appeared the only thing the Ministry knew about the Old Gods was that they were extremely powerful entities that usually had nothing to do with the mortal world, but it would be a catastrophic event if one of them ever managed to come in contact with it.
Almost by chance, Beryl spotted the symbol she’d been looking for this whole time emblazoned on one of the pages. It wasn’t any symbol used for rituals, but the symbol for the Old God Yx, an entity that had many titles all suggesting great power and the intent to destroy the mortal world. This cult had once existed in Canterlot, according to the record, until it was stamped out entirely centuries earlier. Of course, Beryl had read plenty of times about the demise of monsters and groups that she had later had contact with, so it meant absolutely nothing that the cult was supposedly dead.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much other information on the Yx cult, but Beryl absorbed whatever she could. Armed with this information, hopefully either Shadowmere would know more about it, or he would have the info somewhere in his archives. After returning the books to their spots on the shelves, Beryl left the Deep Archives and headed to Rosethorn Hall.
***
As she approached Rosethorn Hall, Berry noticed that there was somepony spying on Lord Briarheart’s estate. Berry quickly ducked out of sight before she was seen, and peeked around the corner of a hat store. She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the spy was one of the aides from the board meeting. So, even they were in on this. Berry had come straight from the Ministry, and she couldn’t be seen here in her uniform if there was a spy for the Yx cult about. She took a long detour to her apartment, changing into the formal wear she’d bought for the board meeting before returning to Rosethorn Hall. The spy was still there when she knocked on the door and one of the caretakers let her in.
“Do you realize you’re being watched?” Berry asked Shadowmere as she entered his apartments and he looked quizzically at her outfit.
“Yes, it’s quite annoying, but nothing I haven’t dealt with before,” Shadowmere said as he shut the book he’d been looking through, “I’ve been unable to find any connection between our new friends and the increasing monster attacks. How about you?”
“I believe this witch coven is part of the Yx cult,” Berry said, and laid out her reasoning before the immortal monster slayer.
“Yes, I see,” Shadowmere said when she’d finished, “Well, that’s another dead end, then. Yx-worshippers have no reason to summon monsters to Canterlot; some other entity must be controlling them.”
“We can’t just let them get away with this, though,” Berry protested, worried that obsession with finding the entity responsible for the gargoyles, djinn, and other monsters would cloud the big picture.
“Of course not, especially if they intend to summon Yx. An Old God here would be worse than anything we’ve faced yet,” Shadowmere said with what seemed to be a shudder.
“The Ministry records mention the Old Gods, but not much about them,” Berry said, “What are they?”
“Remnants of a world that no longer is, like myself,” Shadowmere said as he beckoned for Berry to take a seat, “They were draconequi once, each powerful rulers of a realm in the Beyond, attended to by their Changeling servants. Then, Discord—a fellow draconequus—betrayed them. The Beyond was destroyed in exchange for added time for Aetherius, which eventually fell as well.”
“Forming the passages,” Berry said, remembering what he had told her outside Stalliongrad.
“Precisely, and just like the passages, the draconequi did not, for the most part, simply disappear. Several of them lived on in a twisted and broken way, just like their former realms. Yx was formed by the catastrophic melding of three draconequi: Hermaehorse Mora, Clopicus Vile, and Nocte.”
“The Nocte Corporation,” Berry said with a nod, fitting the pieces together.
“Little of these draconequi’s former personalities and minds remain,” Shadowmere said sadly, “The Old Gods are gods of madness, a crawling, creeping madness that seeks to eradicate all else. If one of them were to reach our world, all would perish and the world would begin to break apart.”
“We’d better stop this coven before they try something like that,” Berry said, rising, “How do we do that, though? An assault on Matriarch Tower seems like a bad idea.”
“I was not involved in the extermination of the initial Yx cult, but I did know about it,” Shadowmere said thoughtfully, “I may know where they have gone.”
“Great, let’s get going,” Berry said, before looking down at her attire, “After I change.”
***
The spy was gone when the two ponies emerged from the lawn of Rosethorn Hall, but in case an accomplice was still hiding somewhere, they crept through the wall and down the abandoned nighttime alleys of Canterlot. Shadowmere led the way, and eventually they arrived at an entrance to the Canterlot sewers. After traveling through the twisting stone passageways, they arrived at a secret passage into less disgusting tunnels.
Apparently, the Nocturnal City wasn’t the only secret world beneath Canterlot. Shadowmere explained that a whole system of secret tunnels and structures had been carved out under Canterlot centuries ago. They had been used in turn by thieves, cultists, revolutionaries, the poor, the rich, serial killers, the city government, the national government, and secret societies. The system was massive, so it was largely abandoned at any given time. Even today, there were probably some groups still using them besides the Yx cultists. Berry thought of where she’d met with the Knights of Dawn for the first time, and suspected that it was connected to this system of tunnels.
The maze of passages was laid out in a bafflingly confusing way, and Berry was soon unsure of where beneath Canterlot they were. Shadowmere seemed to be familiar enough with the underground city, so she continued to follow his lead. Occasionally, they would stop at a crossroads, or pause on a bridge overlooking a cavern filled with aging structures, but then they would be off again.
Shadowmere motioned for silence as torchlight appeared dimly ahead. Stealthily, they crept ahead and passed the torches, which lit the way to a long staircase leading up to the surface. Voices registered as they continued down the passage to where another dim light glowed. They emerged into the upper aisle of a large underground cathedral. It was very much like the space where Berry had met the Knights of Dawn, except larger and grander and more twisted. Columns soared gracefully up from the floor, wrapped in creeping stonework of vines and beasts. The upper levels bent inward menacingly, as if the whole structure was preparing to devour its inhabitants. On one wall was a massive rendition of the symbol of Yx, candles flickering behind it casting the shadow across the cathedral.
“Help! Let me go! Let me go!” a voice screamed piteously from down below, carrying over rhythmic chanting.
The voice was coming from a stallion tied securely with ropes to a long metal spike protruding from a soot-stained altar. He was dripping with oil, and it pooled beneath his hooves on the altar, sparks from the nearby braziers threatening to light him aflame at any moment. Around the altar were two concentric circles of ponies, hooded and cloaked and reciting the awful chant. The air crackled with magic, and Berry could sense the auras of several of the ponies she’d been near in the conference room earlier that day.
Shadowmere and Berry crept to the nearest staircase, keeping an eye on the cultists, and readied themselves for a fight. As Berry slid a crossbow bolt into place, the click echoed through the air unexpectedly, and the cultists turned their heads her way. They rapidly stumbled through the final words of their chant as she appeared over the railing and aimed her crossbow at the group. One used her magic to tip the braziers at the corners of the pentagon-shaped altar onto the oil, and flame swiftly spread. Berry let loose the crossbow bolt, which missed every cultist and struck the altar instead. The flames were quickly doused as ice spread over the surface of the altar and partway up the gibbering sacrifice’s hindhooves.
“Daybreak, to me!” Shadowmere yelled as he reached the bottom of the stairs, and the massive sword materialized before him.
As the black stallion charged the cultists, Berry fired another ice-enchanted bolt down toward the group in an attempt to immobilize some of them, and took off down the stairs. Four of the cultists had fallen, torn apart by Daybreak, by the time Berry reached the base of the cathedral. She spun swiftly as a blast of magic came from her left, and projected a shield in time to deflect it.
Her opponent’s hood had been swept back, and she recognized one of the aides who’d stood beside her that morning. He seemed to recognize her as well, though her attire was very different. She had taken Siren’s Song’s advice, and no longer wore her Ministry uniform except when on an official Ministry job. Instead, she now wore an eclectic mix of pieces from eras of swashbuckling and industrializations. About her person were also more places to store talismans, potions, and, of course, crossbow bolts.
Levitating her weapon, she pointed it at the cultist. His eyes and horn blazed with a smoky power, and she felt a vise grip her heart. Dark magic. Berry kneeled as the grip grew tighter, and her crossbow wavered in her magical hold. Somehow, she managed to pull the crossbow’s trigger before dropping the weapon, and the bolt flew true, shooting through the cultist’s forehead. Immediately, the dark grip on her heart ceased as the stallion tumbled to the ground.
Berry searched through the pouch of talismans at her side until she found the one that was still warm. It was impossible to know going in what kind of dark magic these cultists would be wielding, and wearing too many protective talismans was a recipe for disaster. However, she knew that this one would protect her, assuming these cultists were all using the same kind of witchcraft. She looped it around her neck before emerging from behind a pillar.
During her encounter with the aide, Shadowmere had killed two more of the cultists, and now only three remained. One had drawn a circle of oil around themselves and lit it afire, creating a magical barrier to protect them while they chanted an evil incantation. Shadowy tendrils began to rise around the cultist, a mare who that morning had gone on at length about protecting the families of the Nocte Corporation’s workers. Berry drew a crossbow bolt from her side and used a spell to burn the symbol on it matching the talisman around her neck. The bolt's impact caused the magical shield to collapse, and the flames rushed in towards the cultist. Whatever dark spell she’d been working on dispersed as she tried to put out her flaming robes, and she had no time to summon it up again before Berry’s magical sword cut into her.
Shadowmere decapitated another cultist, Daybreak slicing through her wards as if they didn’t exist, and the remaining member tried to make a run for it. Berry threw a bolas at him, entangling his hooves before he could get far. Desperate, the cultist began a chant, but that ended as Shadowmere looped a talisman identical to the one around Berry’s neck around the cultist’s throat, and he was forced to end his dark spell lest it burn him up.
“Where are the others?” Shadowmere demanded, yanking the stallion upright roughly.
“The Devotees of Yx are myriad and all-knowing, just like the great Yx the Oncoming, who will cleanse this world,” the cultist babbled.
“Don’t give me that,” Shadowmere replied testily, “If you were truly as myriad as you claim, then you would have already opened the Gate to let Yx in. Instead, you are still preparing these sacrifices. I know you’ve been doing this for quite some time, so there must not be very many of you. The Nocte Corporation’s board of directors, and maybe a few more – am I right?”
“It’s too late for you to stop us,” the cultist laughed, “All who doubted Yx will become part of the field of bones covering this world. Only we faithful shall be spared to live with Yx!”
“I don’t think we’re going to get much from him,” Berry said.
“Regrettably, I think you’re right,” Shadowmere said, and the cultist looked terrified for a moment before he was impaled, “Daybreak, be gone.”
“Now what do we do?” Berry asked as she eyed the corpses around the room with disgust. Her duty was to slay monsters, but when those monsters turned out to be ponies, it was never pleasant.
“There were ten here, half executives and half aides. If the board of directors is all we’re dealing with, then that means only ten more with their aides. The trick will be finding them before they make a sacrifice to make up for this one,” Shadowmere answered, “We know their names, but those will surely be protected, so we’ll need some other way to locate them. Matriarch Tower may have something for us. I sensed more than just these witches’ foul stench there.”
“Matriarch Tower it is, then,” Berry said with a nod, “Though I don’t suppose we can just walk in again.”
“E-excuse me,” the sacrificial pony called out and the duo turned to face him, “Could somepony please cut me down and tell me exactly what’s going on?”
***
After cutting the young stallion down, Berry and Shadowmere led him to the surface and wiped his memory of the events before letting him go. Not only was it for the best that he no longer remember the tragic experience and the fact that a secret city existed beneath Canterlot, but he had also seen Shadowmere’s and Berry’s faces, which could prove problematic if he told anypony about the events. He would probably still wonder why he smelled like ceremonial oil, but that was less of a problem than the truth.
Darkness was still over Canterlot as they sneaked into Matriarch Tower, which they’d so blatantly trotted into and out of when the sun was up. No time could be wasted, though. Shadowmere had known of young stallions disappearing for years, but hadn’t connected it to sacrifices by the Yx cult in preparation for opening a Gate until now. The number of sacrificed ponies combined with the cultist’s crazed warning that they were too late increased his worry that the Gate was about to be open. Considering what had happened since Berry and Shadowmere had met, it was par for the course to expect they’d only discovered this threat just as it was about to become most dire.
The elevators weren’t working, and even if they had been, it would have been too risky to travel up in a metal box with the possibility of the other cultists being nearby. Instead, they had to climb all forty-two flights of stairs to reach the floor with the conference room. The view was no less impressive now, but they hadn’t come here to look out at the slumbering city of Canterlot and the distant lights of Equestria’s cities. The architectural plans of this building did not fit its actual layout, and the reason was revealed as Shadowmere kicked down a section of one of the conference room walls.
The conference room had been used for clandestine meetings of the cult and perhaps even a few minor ceremonies, but it was too exposed to ponies bursting in to be safe to do much else. Because of this, the cult had needed some place to do their other deeds during work hours, and nopony would question the board if they spent long hours in the conference room. Shadowmere had opened up a narrow passage between the conference room and the neighboring chamber, housing a staircase leading down to the building’s core. Following the staircase down with weapons at the ready, the ponies discovered the cultists’ den of evil.
For every floor of the Nocte Corporation’s offices, there was a floor here between the elevators assumed empty. However, it was far from empty. Potions and poisons, forbidden grimoires, and frightening statues occupied every corner of the rooms. Magical traps also abounded, and Berry and Shadowmere carefully disarmed them before further examining the witches’ hideout.
While Shadowmere sniffed around for something to help locate the rest of the coven, Berry looked at the different magical utensils scattered about the place. A polished mirror drew her attention the most. It displayed a darkened room, and it seemed that the image was motionless, probably because it was linked to some other magical object. This was not an uncommon trick; if two mirrors were enchanted properly, then the ponies on either end could see and speak to each other. With a start, Berry recognized from the architecture of the other room that it was somewhere within Canterlot Castle. She tried to place it, but it was nowhere she’d been before. What did this mean? Was one of the cultists from Canterlot Castle itself, or could this be how the coven communicated with whoever was directing them to engineer monster attacks? She tried with all her might to recognize the room, but she had truly never seen it before. For some reason, the door, with all its magical and mundane locks, seemed familiar, but she still couldn’t place her hoof on why it should be so.
In a bookcase filled with ancient and evil manuscripts that were falling apart, Berry spotted a thick stack of notes on fresh parchment. Out of curiosity, she pulled them down and paged through them. It was as if she’d hit the jackpot; the coven, made up of business-minded ponies, had meticulously written down and dated all of their activities. As Shadowmere had expected, they’d been behind the disappearances of ponies for years. The tone of the writings grew more fantastic as Berry approached the current date, and her heart raced. She read the latest entry, and dropped the pile of papers onto the nearby desk.
“I found something that will help us track them down,” Shadowmere announced as he trotted into the room with a small wooden box, “It seems they all added clippings of their hooves into this box when they joined.”
“How long will it take to track them down?” Berry asked, and didn’t wait for an answer before continuing solemnly, “They’re going to open a Gate for Yx tonight.”
“Tonight. Of course,” Shadowmere said as he set the box down, “Why must it always be last minute? You know, sometimes I think that our lives are dictated by somepony who finds it terribly exciting to make us race the clock.”
“Will we be able to stop them in time?” Berry asked.
“We interrupted their final sacrifice, so that will delay them. They must find a new sacrifice before they can proceed with opening the Gate,” Shadowmere said, “We do have some time, but there’s no point in delaying.”
With that, the immortal assassin grabbed the box of hoof-clippings and dashed up and out of the coven’s hideout. Berry followed him up and then back down to the floor of the Nocte Corporation’s lobby (which was still on the thirty-seventh floor). Just past the elevators was a large wall with a map of Equestria, important cities and Nocte Corporation sites marked. Where they had built skyscrapers, there was even a little building poking out of the map, with Matriarch and Hierarch Towers covering Canterlot.
Shadowmere said a few words over the box of hoof-clippings before tossing them into the air. As if a magnet had grabbed them, ten of the clippings shot toward the map, while the others (belonging to dead ponies), fell to the ground. All ten of the clipping clung to the Nocte Corporation’s skyscraper in Fillydelphia.
“Well, now we know where they are. We just need to get there,” Berry said.
A soft whirr and a ding sounded from behind them as the elevators became active. Though they’d tried to be stealthy in breaking into the building, time had been more important, and they apparently hadn’t managed to keep their presence here completely secret. Either the police or internal security were on their way, and Berry and Shadowmere had no desire to tangle with them. They had bigger fish to fry.
“We’ll have to go by passage,” Shadowmere said, and Berry nodded.
Shadowmere trotted around the lobby a bit before he located an optimal point and clapped his hooves together. The building went gray and wobbled alarmingly as the portal solidified, revealing the dark tunnel of Shadowmere’s personal passage. The two ponies stepped through, and the Nocte Corporation offices had returned to normality by the time the elevator doors opened and the police stepped through.
***
Berry had traveled through Shadowmere’s passage once before, from Canterlot to Stalliongrad, but it was still an eerie experience. It was nowhere near as alarming as the first passage she’d traveled through, an empty wasteland with nothing but monsters, but it was strange in other ways. The whole realm appeared to be series of interconnected tunnels through haphazardly piled stones. It looked like they could collapse at any moment and bury whoever was inside them. It was also incredibly silent, and apart from scattered patches of phosphorescent mushrooms and the light of Berry’s electric torch, it was pitch black.
Shadowmere was leading the way through the passage, and stopped momentarily as he heard a noise other than pony hooves. After a moment, Berry heard it too. At first, it was just a low hum, but it progressively grew louder and began to sound more like an oncoming wave. Just what it was a wave of, though, was unclear. It was far too sluggish to be water, but didn’t seem to be earth, either; perhaps mud?
“Run!” Shadowmere said before galloping off into the darkness.
As Berry chased after him, more odd sounds began to surface in the passage. The tunnel began to shake to the sound of crumbling, crackling stones. The wave grew louder, and seemed now to be coming distinctly from the right. Small rocks dislodged themselves from the tunnel walls and clattered to the ground. Large rocks came next, leaving gaps in the wall and revealing what laid beyond. Through a large hole, she looked out upon a cosmic vista, vast clouds of stardust spiderwebbed by rocky tunnels like the one she was in. In the other direction, where the sound was emanating from, the tunnels were being smashed to bits by an onrushing mountain of indescribable colors.
“What is that?” Berry yelled breathlessly as she put on extra speed.
“Something knows we’re here, and it wants us out of this passage,” Shadowmere replied as he took a sharp left turn.
“I thought you said this passage was abandoned!”
“That’s not from this passage!” he replied, taking a sharp right.
“Yx?” Berry asked, wondering if she’d just seen an Old God without realizing it.
“Possibly, though I can’t see why it would interfere with us,” Shadowmere said, “Unless it’s after me.”
“Why would Yx be after you?” Berry asked.
Instead of replying, Shadowmere summoned a long knife, and looked through the holes in the crumbling tunnel at the oncoming wave. It was dangerously close now, and he had no choice. Jabbing the knife into the opposite wall, he sliced through stone and air to create a gash in the fabric of the passage. The gash tore open and immediately air flowed into it in a rushing wind.
“Go through!” Shadowmere commanded, and Berry obeyed, jumping through the portal into another passage.
Shadowmere jumped through immediately after, and the gash sealed itself back up just before the wave of color and sound smashed apart what was left of the tunnel.
***
In an abandoned room with three walls and no furniture atop a crumbling skyscraper, a knife blade suddenly appeared in the air and slashed diagonally. A hole in the air appeared long enough for two ponies to stumble through, and then vanished. Shadowmere and Berry took a moment to observe their new surroundings and catch their breath.
“Do you hear that?” Berry asked, and Shadowmere cocked his head, hearing all kinds of things around them, “That wave isn’t here. Did we escape it?”
“I doubt it’s that easy,” Shadowmere said as he trotted up to the edge of the skyscraper and looked down, “That wave didn’t chase us through passage after passage just to give up now. More likely, it was trying to force us into this passage.”
“I thought at first it might be somewhere in our world, but I’m glad that it’s just a passage,” Berry said as she looked out on the ruined city and the distant sea of pitch.
“This is a large passage, and one filled with monsters,” Shadowmere said, backing away from the edge, “I sense places here that are close to the mortal world, though. We may be able to cut through before whatever we’ve been herded here for occurs.”
Shadowmere took out the knife he’d used to jump them from passage to passage and whispered a few words. The blade began to levitate beside him, and it spun to point the way to the nearest weak point in the passage. There was the crumbling ruin of a many-tiered palace not too distant, and the blade appeared to be pointing to its top; that was where they would go first.
Berry conjured up her magic sword and Shadowmere summoned Daybreak before they began to descend the skyscraper. Given the number of monsters that surrounded them, it was unwise to engage them, and yet it was difficult to hear the sound of evil things skittering around in other rooms and the exterior of the tower and choose not to do something. This world belonged to the monsters, though, and hunters of monsters were the hunted here.
At the bottom of the tower, they had no choice but to step out into the open. A long road led directly to the palace, but hideous beasts stalked all down its length. They would never be able to fight them all, or make a run for it, leaving only the option of creeping along and hoping to take each one out before the others noticed.
Berry drew out her crossbow, and lined up a shot on the nearest monster, a massive centipede with crab pincers and a noseless unicorn’s head at one end. Before she could fire, something scrambled down the outside of the building and a scaly tail hung down in the doorway, blocking the shot. Shadowmere approached the tail, stabbed Daybreak into it, and yanked the beast down, stabbing it again in its center mass. As he killed the miniature wyvern with no head and a belly covered in eyes, Berry fired at the centipede creature, and it combusted internally as the bolt found a chink in its chitinous armor.
She kept her crossbow pointed high as she backed out of the skyscraper, but nothing was clinging to the exterior nearby, and nothing farther away saw her. Shadowmere followed, brandishing Daybreak, and they continued together down the road. Twisted trees sprouted up through the cobblestones here and there and seemed to shift as the ponies passed them. One of them opened a seam in its trunk like a mouth, and Berry noted mentally not to stand near them. They weren’t mobile, and they couldn’t give off noise to give away the ponies' presence, but there was still a danger of being eaten by the trees, something that seemed absurd even to a Ministry agent.
Down the road, another beast approached Berry and Shadowmere, jumping over a pile of other monsters it had just killed. It was shaped roughly like a rhinoceros, except for the claws at the ends of its legs and the leathery bat wings on its back. As it spotted them, its face split in four places, unfolding to reveal rows of sharp teeth. It squealed as it jumped into the air and surged toward them. A bolt from Berry’s crossbow shot through one of its wings, and it turned unexpectedly, landing nearby. Another bolt to its head killed it, but its death hadn’t gone unnoticed.
More squeals came from above, and Berry and Shadowmere ducked into the nearest building. Another rhinoceros creature landed on the road, and prodded the dead one with its horn before stalking around, looking for what had killed it. Its mouth flaps quivered unnervingly as it circled the area, sniffing for unfamiliar smells. As it stopped in front of the building the ponies were hiding within and its breathing grew heavier, Shadowmere jumped up and stabbed Daybreak through its throat, the monster squealing and shuddering as it slid off his blade.
The first death had attracted some attention, and this one attracted more. Up and down the road, monsters moved in to see what had killed the rhinoceros-creatures. Some of them snapped each other up as they came, but it was still too many to fight face-on. As they began to congregate outside the building, Berry grabbed a flask of oil and threw it over the crowd of monsters. When it shattered, the oil spread out over the entire area, coating monsters and building alike. With a spell, Berry ignited the oil, and a massive blast of flame covered the area.
Every creature around saw the sudden burst of fire and was drawn to it, but by the time they arrived, Berry and Shadowmere had already fled to another building. With all the monsters in one place, they took care to avoid the gathering and made their way to the palace.
The palace was surprisingly empty. Only a few monsters lurked here, and never in groups of more than two, so they were easily handled. Yet, despite the decrease in monsters, the palace somehow felt more dangerous, as if a sinister presence was nearby. Even though Shadowmere was not a unicorn, he could sense it far more potently than Berry, and the overwhelming pressure only mounted as they neared the upper levels of the palace.
At last they reached the top of the palace and entered a vast plaza and dead garden. Shadowmere used the knife again to find the way back to Equestria, and they followed it until it pointed straight up. Yet, there was nothing above them and no way to get there. The knife quivered and fell as the sinister presence grew stronger.
“Shadowmere…” a voice whispered from the ruins of the palace.
Berry was frozen in place as the source of the voice made itself known. Rearing up before them was a vast, shapeless blob of tentacles, horns, pincers, and eyes. Although the passage itself was overwhelmingly gloomy, the light around this creature seemed to shift even more to draw shadows in. Voices buzzed within Berry’s head as the Old God reached out in thousands of tongues to communicate.
“Shadowmere, have you returned to me?” the Old God asked, inclining a part of the blob that seemed to have more eyes than the rest.
“I don’t know you,” Shadowmere replied with remarkable steadiness.
“Not know me?” the Old God said, and layers of tentacles, claws, and serrated beaks began to unfold like a grotesque flower to reveal the front half of a hooded pony, whose mouth moved when the creature spoke next, “I am hurt that you would forget me, your old master?”
“Nocte,” Shadowmere said, looking at the pony whose hood was part of her face, “You’re not her, not anymore. No, you’re Yx now.”
So, this was Yx: Yx the Oncoming, Yx the All-Knowing, Yx the Cleanser. Yx, who had been formed from destruction out of the draconequi Nocte, Hermaehorse Mora, and Clopicus Vile. And Shadowmere had once served this Nocte, apparently. Yet, he hadn’t known that she still existed within Yx, maybe even as the dominant personality. Though, his fear that Yx had been herding them here to get him certainly suggested he’d suspected it.
“I am Yx …” the Old God said as it reared up, the mare still visible with outstretched hooves, “And I am also Nocte … and Hermaehorse Mora … and Clopicus Vile. I am all and more.”
“And you would have me do what, fall down and worship you? Sacrifice ponies in your name?” Shadowmere challenged the entity with the power to destroy all around them, “I won’t. I no longer serve you.”
“Did you ever, really? You did my bidding, but you had another master, one who exists even now as he did at the beginning. He was not transformed by the destruction of the Beyond and Aetherius. He is still out there somewhere. But, where, Shadowmere? Will you return to him? You know I cannot allow that. Once I was his inferior, but now we are nearer to equals, and every piece in the game counts in a battle between gods.”
“You will lose if you play against him,” Shadowmere said boldly as the massive blob coiled and twisted, the pony part disappearing among the layers of grotesquerie, “I cannot aid you in this. Did you think I would join you in exchange for your holding off the destruction of the mortal world?”
“My, but you’re worried,” Yx thundered, and streaks of multicolored lightning tore across the sky, “If it’s the truth you want, I couldn’t care less when your world is destroyed. I watch and wait, like all Old Gods. My patience is boundless. One day, a Gate will open, and when it does, I will enter your world, but how soon that happens is none of my concern.”
“So, you really only chased us here because you wanted to speak to Shadowmere?” Berry spoke up. It doesn’t know about the cultists trying to summon it. So much for the All-Knowing.
“I did, but as he is uncooperative, his fate must be destruction in this realm.” Yx replied menacingly, “I know you not, but you shall share his fate.”
Without warning, braziers all around the dead garden burst to light, and pillars of flame shot into the heavens. A vast hole appeared in the sky, growing until it was ringed by the fire shooting up from the palace. Craning her neck, Berry looked down upon an Equestrian city still steeped in the darkness just before dawn.
“Shoot this through,” Shadowmere said quietly as Yx’s eyes turned to look up at the Gate to the mortal world.
He passed to her a small, smooth stone with a glowing rune inscribed upon in. Berry carefully attached it to one of her crossbow bolts and shot it upward. The bolt began to lose momentum as it neared the Gate, but then sped up again as it shifted from rising to falling. After several seconds, Shadowmere grabbed Berry, and the realm of Yx vanished, replaced by the rooftop of a skyscraper. Nearby lay the bolt and stone, which had allowed Shadowmere to perform a teleportation across realms with the aid of the fetish he had.
Now that everything was right-side-up, Berry was able to recognize their surroundings. As she’d already guessed, they were in Fillydelphia. The eastern sky over the ocean was just beginning to lighten, and most ponies were probably still asleep, unaware of the terror looming over their city. Through a great circle in the sky, Yx stared down, and as the Gate shifted in its realm, began to protrude through. Storm clouds gathered, and multicolored lighting flashed among them, drawn to the spire of the skyscraper directly beneath the Gate: Cardinal Tower, Fillydelphia headquarters of the Nocte Corporation.
“The Gate is opened,” Berry said as she looked out upon the menace over the city.
It had let them escape Yx’s passage (and Yx), but now it was about to let the Old God through. The crazed writings of the Yx cultists and Yx’s own words made it clear once it was here. All the world would be destroyed, “cleansed,” according to the cultists. Chaos and madness would consume the land until nothing was left.
“Yx isn’t through yet. It’s not over,” Shadowmere said as he retrieved the stone and crossbow bolt, “Can you teleport us to Cardinal Tower?”
“I can try,” Berry said, visualizing the skyscraper.
For success, the caster of a teleportation spell needed to have a clear image of their destination. It was possible to teleport to an area within sight without a precise image, but there tended to be variability in the destination. When teleporting to a skyscraper, that could either mean emerging in a different room than you’d planned, or outside with nothing beneath your hooves. Because of this, Berry purposefully focused on the exterior of the building and teleported herself and Shadowmere to a ledge.
One broken window later and they were inside of Cardinal Tower. The elevators were still a dangerous prospect, so they made their way up the remaining floors using the stairs. Shadowmere had been able to sense their evil back in Matriarch Tower, and now that they were engaged in a terrible ritual, Berry could sense it too.
One last flight of stairs took them up to the highest level of the building, the “Skyservatory,” according to the promotional signs. Cardinal Tower came to a point at its top, and the entire space from where it began to narrow was empty of floors. Instead, it was a tourist attraction, where ponies could come to look out over the city of Fillydelphia for a small fee. Although the exterior showed that the building continued, the interior sloping walls and ceiling were enchanted to display the view from the outside, so that you seemed to be standing atop the building itself with nothing between you and the sky. The sight was probably stunning on a pleasant day, but right now it looked as if Yx was directly overhead and growing closer.
The cultists were arranged in the center of the room in a circle with their left forehooves on each other’s backs, chanting in a tongue Berry had never heard before. To put an end to it, she threw a bomb into the center of the circle. Spikes shot out in all directions … and deflected off the cultists’ magical shields. Five of the cultists separated out while the others continued their chanting.
Shadowmere charged at one with Daybreak, but the magic greatsword could not penetrate the ward. The cultist grinned as he recited dread words, but Shadowmere produced a pouch of dust and blew it onto the ward. The magical shield solidified, and the cultist’s grin vanished as Shadowmere’s hoof shattered the brittle shield and struck his face. Clutching his broken nose, he tried to scramble out of the way, but was unable to escape Daybreak as it stabbed through his throat.
Berry had two in front of her, and took advantage of every moment she had before they realized their black magic wouldn’t work on her. Her magic sword grated against one of their shields, sparks of sorcery flying, while she fired her crossbow at the other. The crossbow was more successful, as an enchanted bolt was able to pierce the shield and explode behind the cultist. As Berry traded the positions of her weapons to finish the fallen cultist off with her sword, the other managed to grab her crossbow with her magic. Berry ducked as a bolt whizzed past her head, but quickly responded. The rapier at her side flew from its sheath and the pommel struck the cultist in the forehead, disorienting her long enough for Berry to spin the blade around and jam it under her chin.
An additional cultist had detached herself from the chanting circle to join another who was trading blows with Shadowmere, deflecting Daybreak with a conjured weapon. A crossbow bolt flew across the room and took the original opponent unawares, lighting him on fire. As he combusted, Shadowmere turned his attention to the newcomer, dodged a blade made out of shadow. Sketching a rune on the ground as he dodged, Shadowmere waited for the right moment before summoning a patch of thorns that tore upward through the cultist’s body and lifted her impaled corpse into the air.
Berry charged toward the remaining cultist not involved in the chant, who ignored her and drank down a vial of oddly colored blood. His shield vanished and he appeared to be in great pain as a transformation swept through his body. Claws sprouted from his forehooves and his tail fell out, replaced by a spiny whip-like tail. His jaw split down the middle and horns sprouted from the sides of his head. The monstrous beast galloped toward Berry, and she slid beneath him as she dodged, firing a bolt into his hindquarters. Claws scraping across the tiles, the creature spun around and charged again, rearing up onto its hindlegs instead of pouncing. Berry was forced to retreat haphazardly as the claws swung for her neck repeatedly. Two more crossbow bolts found their way into the creature before it gave up on attacking in this manner and leaped to the side. Using the invisible wall, it pounced at Berry from above, who fired one more bolt into the beast before rolling away.
Now that all four had pierced its hide, they began to take effect. From the site of each bolt, the monster’s flesh began to stiffen and turn to stone. Realizing what was happening, it tried to get to Berry, but flakes of stone and dust peeled off as it struggled to move. Eventually, the entire creature was solid rock, and it moved no longer.
Another cultist had had a similar idea, only it had transformed itself into a creature with wings, and it circled over Shadowmere, spitting acid at him whenever it got the chance. His duster was no ordinary article of clothing, however, and the acid rolled off his back to sizzle on the floor. From his belt, he drew a boomerang, and threw it at the flying cultist. The serrated edge sliced through one leathery wing, and as the beast fell ponderously to the floor, Shadowmere caught the spinning weapon and finished it off with it.
Three cultists were left, and two of them broke off to allow the third to continue the chant, her lips moving faster and faster as she rushed to complete the ritual that would fully bring Yx into this world. One came for Berry, and one for Shadowmere. The cultist headed for Berry summoned up and levitated a long, black staff that exuded cold. As he dragged it along the ground, the tiles froze and cracked.
Berry jumped back as he swung the staff at her head. She conjured up her magic sword, but the staff whistled right through the blade when she tried to use it to block. He also was able to deflect her crossbow bolts, and the mare was consistently on the defensive, backing toward a wall she couldn’t see. As she nearly stumbled over a fallen cultist, he brought the staff down at her and struck the corpse instead. Ice quickly spread, and a sizable frozen chunk of the pony came with the staff as he yanked it away. The idea came to Berry as she felt the wall against her flank. The cultist lunged in with his staff, and she teleported behind him. The staff struck the wall and stuck momentarily, and Berry bucked the cultist into it. Impaled by his own magical weapon, he froze solid, and the staff vanished with his death.
Meanwhile, Shadowmere was battling the CEO of the Nocte Corporation. With her magic, she summoned the blood of the fallen cultists into weapons to strike at Shadowmere. They gave way to Daybreak, but there were so many that he was in danger of being overwhelmed. Speaking an incantation, he summoned a temporary barrier around himself to hold off the blood weapons, and threw Daybreak at the cultist. As she dodged out of the way, the weapon was able to reach its true target, decapitating the only cultist left still engaged in the ritual.
“No!” the last living cultist screamed as their work was undone.
Multicolored lightning pulsed menacingly as Yx retreated back into the sky and the Gate closed up. The clouds dispersed, making way for a clear day lit by the sun peeking over the horizon now. With a shout of anger, the cultist shattered Shadowmere’s barrier and sliced him to pieces with her blood weapons. As his decapitated, dismembered body tumbled to the ground, Berry fired a crossbow bolt at the cultist. A pool of blood shot up and caught it before it reached her, containing it as it exploded. She slowly turned as all the blood in the room flowed to her across the ground and up to the corners of her mouth.
“You,” the cultist said heavily, with a visible blaze in her eyes as she stared at Berry, “You’re finished.”
“No, you are,” said Shadowmere’s voice.
“What?” the cultist said as she spun back around in shock.
“Believe me, my blood is the last thing you want inside you,” his decapitated head said.
Spikes of blood tore apart the cultist’s body from the inside, and she fell to the floor, disbelieving what had just occurred. Most of the blood that drained from her behaved normally, but some of it flowed back to Shadowmere’s body and into his veins before drawing together his parts into a whole pony once more. It was rather sickening to watch, and Berry turned away until he was completely reassembled and rose from the floor. She’d seen him die and come back once already, experienced it even, in The Lycanthrope Kingdom, but it was still disturbing that he could come back from something that would kill practically anything else. His undeath was far from just immortality; it was a literal inability to die. Sometimes she forgot just how different he was from a normal pony, especially as he looked up into the sky just like she did to confirm that Yx was truly gone.
***
Somewhere in the distance, a building crumbled to the ground, burying the hideous beasts dwelling within. Upon the great, many-tiered palace, Yx still ruled this passage. The chance to rule another realm had come, and gone, but it would surely come again, and Yx had a great deal of patience. Oh well. The multicolored lightning continued to crackle on the horizon. The great sea of pitch continued to crash against the shore. The monsters continued to kill each other as they scuttled among the ruins of an abandoned world.
And Yx waited.
***
Atop the Moon Tower, three bat-ponies blended in with the statues. Some time had passed since Yx’s near entry into the mortal realm, yet they knew what outcome to expect. Now it had simply come to pass, and there was not much to say.
“The Nocte Corporation is no more,” one of them spoke up, glaring at the newest member.
“It is to be expected,” the leader said, “It could serve our purposes no longer, anyway. The coven had grown out of control. If they had actually managed to summon their Old God, it would have been disastrous for us. The Deathwalker saved us a great deal of work in putting an end to them.”
“And now he controls the Nocte Corporation,” the third replied remorsefully, “Although he has broken it into hundreds of smaller companies, there is a chance he could deduce our plans from the records they kept. Forgive me. I should not have acted so rashly in bringing the lobgoblin here.”
“What’s done is done,” the leader said, putting his hoof down, “The Deathwalker will learn nothing he didn’t know already, or anything to compromise us, I can assure you. In the grand scheme of things, the plan continues on. We must move swiftly now to complete it. The time for Her return fast approaches.”