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// Chapter 3 
// Story: The Terror Below Hayseed Manor 
// by the7Saviors 
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It felt as though I'd hardly closed my eyes before a sharp spasm of terror tore me from my slumber. I awoke with a gasp, not knowing or remembering why I was afraid. For a moment I panicked, unsure of where I was or what I'd been doing before unconsciousness had taken me, but the feeling quickly passed into relief as I saw the light of the morning sun shining through the window across from me.

Recognition and realization of my current situation gradually set in and slowed my rapidly beating heart. Both Moon Dancer and I were too tired to have a proper bed prepared for me, so I took to curling up on a small couch in the main room like a common house cat. Not ideal in the slightest but it hardly would have been the first time I'd had to deal with sleeping in such an uncomfortable position.

Unfortunately I hadn't slept well and could feel the beginnings of a headache rising, though oddly enough it didn't evolve past a mere whisper. It was a dull throb of pain that was easily ignored and by the time I'd pulled myself off the couch, the pain had ceased entirely and was quickly forgotten in the face of my hunger. It appeared Moon Dancer had woken well before me, as I could smell the alluring scent of pancakes and orange juice freshly made somewhere nearby.

I found the meal sitting on the coffee table where I'd sat the day before, the plate of steaming flapjacks and glass of orange juice having replaced yesterday's snack. While breakfast was indeed a welcome sight, it failed to distract me from the fact that Moon Dancer was once again, nowhere to be found, at least not upstairs. Straining my ears in the relative silence of the house, I could just make out Moon Dancer's voice from somewhere below, once more unintelligible and muted by the floorboards that separated us.

With a sigh of resignation I ate alone and cleared the plate and glass from the table before making my way back down the steps to Moon Dancer's basement study. Admittedly the lack of leisurely communication was galling, but I could at least take solace in the fact that Moon Dancer was not so far gone in her own world that she couldn't think of her friend's needs.

As I suspected, the mare stood before the furthermost desk at the back of the study, her muzzle buried in the tome's yellowed pages. As she heard me coming down the wooden staircase, her incomprehensible ramblings ceased and she turned to usher me into the study with an impatient scowl. We shared a quick greeting before diving right back into our research, and as I'd promised, we took a far more methodical and detail approach to our work. A few hours passed and frustration began to mount, our hard work having gotten us nowhere in particular.

It was just after noon when we halted our studies, determined that our current resources were going to be wholly insufficient for the task. We'd hit a wall we couldn't overcome without outside help, and so I made a suggestion. I hadn't known it at the time, but that suggestion would be the key that opened the way to an even bigger mystery, and in doing so would also set us on the path to ruin and tragedy.

If we lacked the necessary materials to continue forward, then we would simply have to find and retrieve the right materials for the job, and I knew just the place to go for such materials. There was a little known curio shop on the outskirts of Manehattan that sold all manner of rare and exotic trinkets and literature. I'd personally tracked it down some time ago to ensure any cursed or dangerous objects had been properly confiscated, as this had been the very same shop that had sold Trixie the alicorn amulet.

I'd come to find out later that the actual owner, a kindly old stallion, had left the shop in his son's care while he'd been away seeking more wares for his shop at the time of the incident. After a brief discussion of what had transpired, I agreed to let the owner keep his more questionable wares so long as they were taken off the shelves. I myself had found several items of interest as I perused his shop and always made some time to stop by whenever I had the chance to visit Manehattan.

The old stallion had picked up more than few rare and archaic tomes in his distant travels over the years, and had even gained help from Daring Do herself on a few of his more dangerous expeditions. I thought if nothing else, it would be prudent to show the tome to a professional with plenty of experience in dealing with the obscure and arcane. If we couldn't gain new materials to help us in our research then perhaps we could gain some insight into how to proceed.

Moon Dancer was skeptical, having never heard of this shop before, but I assured her that the stallion ran a legitimate business, his wares were genuine, and that the shop itself had been dealing in unique odds and ends for several generations dating as far back as two hundred years or so. Admittedly I found that last fact somewhat strange given the shop was still as obscure as its wares, but the owner had the official documentation to prove the claim. As the night before, it took a good deal of convincing to get Moon Dancer to agree as she seemed oddly reluctant to show anypony else the tome.

Agree she did in the end though, and together we gathered our research materials and took the next train to Manehattan. The trip was a quiet one, as Moon Dancer not only refused to discuss the tome in public, but she wouldn't or perhaps couldn't tear her eyes from the book. I watched her methodically scan page after page, silent words passing through her lips and a strange gleam in her eye that I didn't like. After a few uncomfortable moments I turned my attention to the passing scenery beyond the window, but that didn't last long before my eyelids began to droop and I fell into slumber.

I call it slumber, but in reality it hardly felt like any kind of sleep at all. One moment I'd closed my eyes and the next we were pulling into the station in Manehattan. I'd jolted awake in a fright, exactly the same as I had that very morning, and like that morning I could feel the ghost of a headache that quickly slipped away before becoming too severe.

The odd phenomenon troubled me, but I was able to rationalize it as simple overexposure to the horrible images that covered many of the pages in that dreadful book. The sight of such things would give anypony nightmares and frankly I was thankful not to have remembered them. I asked Moon Dancer if she'd gone through the same experience I had, to which she replied that she hadn't had any trouble sleeping whatsoever. With that response I chose to put the matter behind me, and focus on leading Moon Dancer to the curio shop on the opposite side of town.