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// It found me, and I could not resist... 
// Story: It Sleeps Beneath Foal Mountain 
// by the7Saviors 
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I was jolted suddenly awake not by the smell of breakfast or the light of the sun, nor at the behest of Daring Do herself, but rather a familiar unpleasant tingling in the horn. The strange sensation shot down my spine and made me gasp and shiver involuntarily, and I sat up from the comfortable chair in which I'd fallen soundly asleep.

I scanned the room around me, panicked and tensing for danger of any kind, only to find nothing out of the ordinary. The fire above the hearth had long since gone out, and I found the main room both eerily quiet, and terribly dark. The darkness as it was didn't bother me overmuch and I could still see well enough with my enhanced sight, but I could feel that there were more disquieting things at work, even if it seemed otherwise.

A glance towards one of the windows revealed only the slightest hint of dawn on the horizon. I estimated maybe an hour or two before it came time for Celestia to push the sun into its inevitable ascent past the distant mountains. As the initial shock began to abate, I could hear the soft rhythmic sound of snoring coming from the room at the back of the cottage. The sound was somewhat reassuring and told me I was the first to wake, which was just as well.

As comforting as it was knowing Daring Do was nearby, the assurance did nothing to quell that horribly irresistible pull at my mind. It took me little time to recognize the sensation as what I'd felt back in the cellar below; the same sensation that I'd felt when I was near that ghastly tome.

Realizing this, I found myself suddenly overwhelmed by an odd sort of excitement that I wouldn't have been able to explain were I asked to. Perhaps it would've been more accurate to call it nervous anticipation of some as of yet unseen discovery. That unnatural tingling in my horn and down my spine seemed to tug me towards some unknown destination, and—perhaps against my better judgement—I let it lead me without restraint or resistance.

I hadn't taken more than a few steps towards the saddlebags I'd placed upon a rack near the cottage entrance when the odd tingling became a steady pounding in my horn; a malevolent pulsing presence in my mind. The world wavered in my vision and I staggered somewhat drunkenly the rest of the way towards the rack.

Something was there, in those bags, something I wanted—something I desperately needed to see. Even in my addled state I knew that there was something completely and utterly wrong about the whole thing, but I couldn't bring myself to care; not when what I sought was so close!

The very idea of using magic to retrieve the object felt blasphemous for some reason. As I finally made my way to the rack, it was by my own hooves that I unfastened the straps holding the bag shut and pulled out the dreaded thing I knew I'd find within.

To my horror and bewilderment, I held none other than the ancient, tattered grimoire that had been safely tucked away beneath Daring Do's cottage. Just as baffling was the disappearance of the fog that had clouded my mind and the immense relief that soon followed after.

It was as though some great weight had been lifted from my shoulders as I stared open mouthed at the thing in my hooves. The confusion remained, but the horror quickly gave way to a queer sense of peace, as if the tome was finally where it belonged. I sat transfixed and disbelieving, my mind racing to find the answer as to how such a thing could've found its way into my possession.

Had some mysterious and unwholesome force once again taken hold of me during my lapse in consciousness, moving my sleeping form about like a puppet on a string? Had I unwittingly played the part of a simple thief on the whim of something I couldn't possibly understand?

Or was it merely another possible case of sleepwalking on my part?

Whatever the case may have been, I'd now gotten hold of that thing which I'd been both so eager and so terrified to obtain. I brushed a hoof over the worn cover with a care and gentleness usually reserved for a foal, marveling at what little detail I could still make out upon the ancient leather surface.

The book was strangely warm to the touch, as though left by the light of the fireplace overnight. This surprised me, as I'd expected it to be cold as the grave to match its ominous air and sinister nature.

The cover itself was indeed made of actual leather, but I'd expected as much and it did little to bother me. As I continued to ponder the circumstances in which the tome had come to rest in my saddlebags, a sudden and irresistible desire to  pull back the cover and browse the contents within seized me.

I was no stranger to the siren's call of a good book, but this was a need unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. This was not simple curiosity at work, but something far stronger; far more compelling and heinous in nature. I hastened to pull the book open, but hesitated at the last moment in a final bid of self control.

I feel it was that last effort that saved me, for just that instant, I heard the tell-tale sounds of Daring Do stirring from the back room. The urge to peruse the tome flared again, but it was too late; the moment had passed and the unnatural desire to read gave way to thoughtless panic as I heard the unmistakable sound of hooves plodding along the hardwood floor towards the main room.

Quickly I replaced the grimoire back into my saddlebags, and closed the latch not a moment too soon. Daring Do emerged from the back room a moment later, sleepy eyed and yawning widely. I bade the mare good morning, though my thoughts remained on that tome and what would've happened had I not stopped myself from reading it when I did.

I realized with a slight shudder that, had I been allowed to continue reading, I felt I may not have been able to stop. Daring Do had spoken of the odd, indecipherable language of the book, but by this point I was convinced that if I were to read that script, somehow all would be made clear. I dreaded to think what sorts of morbid and gruesome things I would find within those pages.

And yet, I couldn't bring myself to tell the other mare I'd stumbled across the thing in my saddlebags. Some deeper part of me didn't want to let the tome go. The morning passed by as though nothing was out of the ordinary and, much to my own shame and disgust, I had not once mentioned the grimoire to Daring Do.

This was the pony I'd be trusting my life and sanity to, and still, despite the danger and—or perhaps because of the terrible temptation, I couldn't bring myself to reveal my own misdeed at keeping my possession of the book secret.

Guilty and nervous though I felt at the thought of not only pilfering a precious treasure from a mare whom I admired greatly, that was not enough to get me to return the tome to its owner. I could still feel its sinister hold on my mind as Daring and I prepared to set out on our journey, but said nothing about it to the other mare.

Daring Do had taken note of my immense unease and inquired the issue out of concern, but I deflected the question, citing a minor headache from the day before as the source of my discomfort. I told her to think nothing of it, and as we left the cottage and began our nonstop flight to the train station, I realized there was no turning back now. 

I'd knowingly put myself in a precarious position, afraid that it would only be a matter of time before I could no longer resist the grimoire's allure. The tome was a heavy weight in my bags, but I couldn't deny that deep down I felt a sort of dark satisfaction knowing I held such an unfathomably old and as of yet untapped font of knowledge.

Doing my best to push all thoughts of the book aside, I returned my focus to the task at hoof. Daring and I were to board the train and take it all the way to Canterlot. There we'd take an airship southeast across the Celestial Sea to the Saddle Arabian port city of Dammare. From that point on it would be a no doubt tiresome trek through the Saddle Arabian desert until we reached our destination.

The full trip would take upwards of a week to complete by mine and Daring's estimate and we both agreed it would be best to avoid any unnecessary stops on the way. We'd pick up such supplies as needed for our trip through the desert once we reached Dammare.

I admit to more than a bit of reluctance on my part to meet with the other Princesses in Canterlot, and in truth, it was only after a minor panic attack that Daring decided against a potential meeting altogether. I agreed readily, and with that decided, we made our way to Canterlot. Despite my worries about the mysterious grimoire and a possible encounter with my friends or loved ones, the journey to Dammare was fairly painless and uneventful.

There'd been no unwanted encounters with friends or family, no strange and horrifying experiences or dreams on my part, and even the desire to read the grimoire, while initially strong, began to wane as we traveled. At some point I found it much easier to ignore, but I never forgot that the book was there in my bag.

Our journey was going so well in fact, that I began to grow suspicious—wary of some unknown disaster lurking just out of sight and reach until the time was right. My suspicion grew into a minor, but terribly acute sense of paranoia as we neared Saddle Arabia and the port city of Dammare.

I held my fears in check until we reached Dammare, but it was clear to Daring that something was wrong. I admitted to the mare my concerns and she suggested we take a couple of days to rest and recuperate in the city. I almost declined and insisted we push forward, but it didn't take much convincing on Daring's part to persuade me.

It may very well have been that I needed to rest my weary mind, and so we chose to stay the next few nights in a hotel Daring Do was familiar with. The lodgings were comfortable, the atmosphere pleasant and the Saddle Arabian citizens friendly and welcoming. If anypony had noticed my affliction, they spoke nothing of it, for which I was rather grateful.

In an effort to quell my mounting stress, Daring Do offered to give me a tour of Dammare. She'd already been to the city more than once, and knew it well. I declined the offer initially, but acquiesced eventually, hoping it would do me some good. Together we took some time to admire the city before returning to the hotel for the night.

I'd been expecting something a bit more exotic, but in many aspects, Dammare was similar to any other city such as Manehattan or Fillydelphia. Still, there was the odd foreign structure or two, and just traveling the city I could tell Saddle Arabia was rich in a culture different from my own.

It was quite a fulfilling experience and I was glad for it, but then it came time to return to our lodgings, and that was when all sense of reason left me. I was tired, my mind weary and my body spent from keeping constant guard against an enemy I could not see nor even knew for certain was there.

The first mistake I made was the choice to acquire a room separate from Daring Do.

On the surface, I wasn't sure what had possessed me to do such a thing, and I had no doubt it was a rather odd decision from Daring Do's perspective, but in reality I knew exactly why I'd made the decision. I had thought myself free of the grimoire's influence, but it had always been there, lurking in the darkest recesses of my mind.

By the end of our tour around the city, I could hear it calling out to me again, and I was in no fit state to resist. Daring suggested we stop by one of the many lavish restaurants in town for dinner, but I gave her a polite but firm refusal. At this point I knew well what I was about to do, and was unabashedly eager to turn in for the night.

I partook of a quick dinner at the hotel and gave a brief 'good night' to Daring Do before hurrying back to my own room across from hers. Finding solitude at last, I bolted the lock on the door and, with that same nervous anticipation I'd experienced only a few days ago, retrieved my saddlebags from their resting place beside my bed.

There was no horrible tingling this time around, nor was there any lightheadedness, or strange tugging sensation or anything of the sort. There was no need of any of it I think, for I had found what I so feverishly sought and so desperately wish I hadn't found. There was no time wasted in pulling the tome from the bag and with that, I once again held what may possibly have been the answer to all of my questions.

That most ancient and accursed grimoire.

It still felt warm to the touch and its presence remained paradoxically comforting and distressingly ominous. That same dread and tight knot of guilt in my chest welled up within me, but as I stared at the cover of that old and tattered tome, I felt it far less keenly than before. 

I thought back on what I'd told Daring Do; how we'd find some other way to solve the macabre mystery of Ponehenge and the dark secrets of the Tree of Harmony. I suppose it may have been my idea of a last ditch attempt to persuade myself to stop while I still had some of my wits about me, but it was to no avail. 

The tome was in my possession and that unnaturally powerful need to see the contents within had once more taken hold. With a shuddering breath and my heart pounding wildly beneath my ribs, I made myself comfortable upon the bed, opened the grimoire, and began to read.  

I waited for something; some sign that I'd unleashed some gruesome alien entity from beyond all imagination, but the room remained quiet and I remained yet alone. There was no sudden biting chill in the air or malevolent presence like I expected, and I gave a heavy sigh of relief before reading the tome in earnest.

Though no great horror came of it, I still found reading the grimoire to be both a queer and unsettling experience. At first, I could make neither heads nor tales of the script. It had indeed been the same sort of scrawl I'd written in my journal, just as Daring had surmised.

The images alone however, were enough to make my stomach turn. Just as Daring described, I would occasionally stumble across depictions of unspeakably hideous monsters that I knew for certain could not have possibly existed anywhere on this planet. At the very least that was my hope, for just the sight of these terrifying beasts was enough for me to believe none of my friends or I could stand up to them.

These creatures were not the only oddity I came across as I perused the pages of the grimoire. I also bore witness to the images of not ponies, but people. They looked nothing like what I'd seen beyond the mirror, and yet they were still unmistakably human. My mind would've reeled at the thought of what this could mean, if not for the gruesome and disturbing acts and rituals on display.

Scattered amongst the otherworldly monsters, the unfamiliar runes and sigils, and indiscernible text, were detailed sketches of humans in the act of what I could only assume were ritual sacrifices. Bodies of both humans and animals lay on altars or in the middle of massive rune inscribed circles surrounded by dozens of candles.

Some remained whole and others were splayed open as though on a dissecting table. This alone would've been enough to sicken me to my very core, but it didn't stop there. Many of these scenes showed the humans prostrating themselves in one way or another before some kind of awful tentacled monstrosity the likes of which I'd only seen in my dreams and visions, perhaps worse even.

These humans were sacrificing other humans to these grotesque alien beings almost as if they were gods. The realization left me dumbfounded and horrified, but this was not enough to sate my ravenous curiosity. If anything it only grew stronger, for I had no context for any of what I was seeing.

I need to know more, and so I continued to carelessly flip through the tome, trying to find something I could understand. There had to be something here I could read; some passage or phrase or word—anything. I grew frantic and needy, my hooves sweaty and my eyes wide and searching.

Then I turned the page one last time and stopped cold.

Up until this point, I had no recognition of any of the creatures I'd come across. Each one had been more horrendous than the last, but they were not familiar to me, until I saw the depiction of the thing taking up the majority of the page I'd turned to. 

It wasn't as gruesome to look upon as many of the other creatures I'd seen thus far, but this image above all others, made me tremble with a fear I hadn't felt since that first traumatic nightmare. The picture lacked both color and the maddeningly massive presence of the entity I'd seen within that dream, but there was no mistaking the rough spherical shape or the baleful glare of that single burning eye.

My breath grew short and my heart thundered fearfully in my chest at the sight. I felt the air grow colder and colder around me and the malevolent presence that had been so strangely absent at the beginning was closing in. As the memories of that horrid vision—that mind rending nightmare, ran through my mind, I became less and less sure of whether or not what I was feeling was real or imagined.

There were words scrawled at the bottom of the page below the image, and it was several more moments before I realized I could read them. At first I was convinced I'd been seeing things in my fear induced delirium, but with each passing moment I grew more certain that what I read could be nothing other than modern Ponish, and it read as thus:

Reviled is the wandering moon that sings its siren's song of waking, for it is Ghroth, the Harbinger who rouses the sleeping with its wretched music of the spheres.

Upon reading the passage, I quickly snapped the book shut and returned it to my bags with shaking hooves. I didn't quite know what to make of what I'd read, but I did not like the implications in the least. It would have been one thing to simply see the image and read the words written on the page, but if this tome was to be believed—and I had no reason to doubt it—I had most likely heard that dreaded 'music of the spheres'.

I certainly witnessed this Harbinger for myself, of that there was no doubt whatsoever. In reading the grimoire, I'd obtained some much needed answers, but the questions only continued to mount higher and now I feared the situation was far more dire than I could have known.

My last act that night before slipping into bed was to once more document all I had learned in my journal. Now that I'd gained this knowledge, a new dilemma presented itself in the form of revealing said knowledge to Daring Do. Should I tell her the truth of the matter and make known my theft of the grimoire, or weave a story of nightmares and revelations?

A part of me wanted nothing more to do with the book, but another, louder part of me knew I wouldn't give it up—I couldn't give it up, not now that I could read the words. As horrified as I was, I needed to know more. With this grimoire, I might've been able to expand upon whatever discoveries Daring Do and I might make within the confines of that ancient temple in the desert. 

No, I would not reveal that I'd taken the tome, not until the truth of what in the world was happening came to light. I would push past my fears and continue to read the old yellowed pages of this invaluable book to the end if I had to. With newfound resolve I nearly retrieved the tome from my bag, but before the thought could properly come to fruition, an unexpected wave of drowsiness overtook me.

I was all but certain sleep would not find me after what I'd read, but in mere moments my eyelids grew too heavy to lift and the world as I knew it faded away entirely soon after.