Something interesting was brought into the lab today.
Okay, well a lot of interesting things get brought into the lab to be fair, but this OOPArt, in particular, piqued my interest more than anything I've seen since I started working with the other researchers. Not only that, but the story behind the treasure we retrieved is just as, if not more interesting. Well, not interesting so much as absolutely horrifying. I'm not too sure where to begin, so I'll start with the events surrounding the retrieval of the OOPArt.
I'm pretty sure a good chunk of this journal is going to be redacted if anypony important ever finds out about this, assuming they don't decide to just outright wipe the thing from existence.
Alright, so a little under a week ago, the Royal Guard received an anonymous tip from a concerned civilian that another cult was gaining ground in a small nameless town on the northern outskirts of Equestria just short of the Crystal Mountains. I guess the stallion was afraid the cult's members would come for him because he wouldn't give any more information on the cult other than its location. Naturally, our first assumption was that another Nightmare Cult had risen so the Guard informed the Princess and the Princess brought the case to our desk so to speak.
Well, technically it was brought to SMILE's desk but since there was a chance the cult might've picked up another OOPArt, we were dragged into the case. Thankfully, I wasn't involved this time and was only briefed about the details once they brought said OOPArt back to the lab. As the briefing goes, they sent in one pony from POUT and one from SMILE to do an undercover investigation of the nameless town.
Interestingly enough, the SMILE agent just so happened to be Prism Streak, though I wasn't well acquainted with the POUT agent they sent. I think the mare's name was Rolling Stone? I'm not too sure, but from what I hear she's a fairly mellow earth pony. They make for a pretty intriguing dynamic, but it's honestly not the team I would've chosen for that kind of mission. Regardless, the two of them made their way to the town way out in the middle of a rocky desert to see what was actually going on, and what they found wasn't at all what any of us expected.
It certainly wasn't a Nightmare Cult.
What they found was a lot creepier than any Nightmare Cult I've ever heard about. What they found were ponies wandering about the town with smiles plastered on their faces, and these weren't normal smiles. To hear Prism talk about it, these were the kinds of smiles that gave you chills—the kinds of smiles born of fear and madness rather than joy or laughter. Prism Streak was a tough pony, but just thinking about it made her face grow pale.
And that wasn't all.
Rolling Stone and Prism Streak spent all of three nights in that town before they discovered the truth behind the cult and from what I heard, it wasn't a pleasant experience in the slightest. All sorts of strange and horrific things wound up happening. Unsettling sounds coming from beneath the floorboards, ponies pleading for help only to go missing the next day, displaced and incomprehensible whispers in the dead of night. The two agents had even witnessed multiple suicide attempts on the same day, and they weren't able to save all of them.
Frankly, I'm amazed the two didn't go mad, but that's not to say it didn't have an effect on Prism Streak, because it definitely did. After she told me about what happened she locked herself in her room and I haven't seen her since. Rolling Stone seems to have taken it a bit better, but then again, she tends to wear the same expression all the time, so it's harder to tell what she's thinking.
As for what actually happened...
The reports show that there were two ponies at the root of this morbid mystery cult. The first was one Starlight Glimmer, a unicorn mare who had allegedly discovered the abandoned ghost town in the middle of the desert. Through means that are still being investigated even as I write this, she managed to gather a whole town's worth of ponies and founded her own small village she called 'Our Town'. Not much is known about her past at the moment, but—and again, this is coming from Prism and Rolling Stone's report—she originally built the town on the idea that a pony didn't need a cutie mark to be happy or feel fulfilled.
She founded the town with absolute equality in mind, and while I can get behind the message of unity born of equality, I cannot and will not get behind such an idea if it means giving up one's talents and individuality—doubly so if the mare preaching such a message refuses to abide by said message herself. To make a long story short, the mare had put herself above the rest of the town and the ideals she preached, all the while magically removing each and every one of their cutie marks.
I'm not sure how she did it or what kind of spell she used, but I know a spell like that was never taught in any school I went to. In her report, Rolling Stone suspected the mare might've had a talent for spell crafting, so that might've played into it. Whatever the case and however she did it, the fact of the matter was that what she was doing was already morally questionable. But then a second pony arrived in town and things took a much darker turn.
An earth pony stallion dressed in black formal wear arrived seemingly out of nowhere one day and introduced himself to Starlight as Sound Mind. It was this stallion who supposedly twisted the mare's cult of personality into a true occult nightmare, and he did it all with a book—a tome to be specific. Once he showed up he was quick to integrate himself into Starlight's inner circle and in a matter of days, he became Starlight's righthoof stallion.
It's clear he was the one who gave her the tome, and as the story goes, she never went anywhere without it once she had it in her possession. She became obsessed with the thing to the point of neglecting her duties as head of the village she created. Some ponies in the village told Prism and Rolling Stone about how the mare's demeanor changed and how she no longer seemed to care about true equality. She suddenly started going on about how 'we mortal creatures were inferior and insignificant' and that 'true equality didn't and couldn't exist and didn't matter in the face of greater truths'.
In short, she'd gone quite mad. Some citizens had said that her physical appearance had even begun to change as if to reflect her loosening grip on reality. Then one day she suddenly threw herself back into her role as the head of the village. She started to preach of cosmic truths and eldritch entities which transcended mortal concepts. She asked her 'faithful followers' to peer into the void with her and that they would all be rewarded a far more fulfilling existence if they excepted some great eldritch deity called 'Azathoth' as the one true God.
All the while, the mysterious pony calling himself Sound Mind stood by her side each and every step of the way. It sounds like your typical crazy cult, but the problem is that she wasn't just spouting horseapples, at least not according to Prism Streak. See, most of the citizens were scared out of their minds, but Starlight did manage to get more than a few of the ponies to convert to her way of thinking. Those that chose to follow her and Sound Mind started to change and some of those changes were... well, they definitely weren't natural.
I actually saw some photos taken by Rolling Stone of some of the villagers who'd converted and a few of them made me legitimately sick to my stomach. Starlight had made good on her promise to show them these 'cosmic truths' and by 'cosmic truths' she meant horrifying abominations that didn't belong here. And I mean here as in they were twisted horrors that in no way belonged in this dimension. Needless to say Prism Streak and Rolling Stone had to call in backup from both SMILE and RIDES to take care of the problem.
Apparently that wasn't the first time RIDES and SMILE had to deal with something of this nature, but it was one of the more severe cases they'd seen.
Somehow they were able to send those things back where they came from and retrieve the tome Starlight was carrying but it came at a heavy loss. Both teams made it out okay for the most part, but the villagers and Starlight weren't so lucky. Some of those who'd embraced the occult had to be neutralized and others wound up committing suicide in the name of their eldritch gods. We were able to rescue the rest, but most of them would require intensive therapy, Prism Streak, and Rolling Stone included.
The Crown provides free counseling for ponies who worked for each agency and in some cases, it was required. I actually went through some therapy after my first investigation and it was partially thanks to that that I didn't wind up a complete emotional wreck in the long run.
Getting back to the story, Starlight was disposed of—courtesy of Prism Streak herself—but by the time everything was said and done, Sound Mind was nowhere to be found. We never found out who the stallion was or his motivation in giving Starlight that tome and somehow I got the feeling we never would. The thought sends chills down my spine for some reason, but the tome is a different story.
The book's cover was in a hideous state when they brought it in. The thing looked positively ancient with its worn dark leather cover and rusty metal lining. There were signs of some kind of symbol or insignia, but time had worn it away along with the title. The pages were yellowed with age from what I could tell, but I didn't get a chance to actually look through it, even though I really wanted to. I knew it was bad news, but I still had to resist the urge to take a peek, and it wasn't like I was the only one.
As it was being transferred to the Vault to await further study, I caught some of my colleagues casting longing glances at the tome whenever the ponies transporting it would pass by. It was a really good thing we had wards to protect against this exact kind of mental tampering (and that had to be what it was) or else one or more of us might've wound up like Starlight Glimmer. Since we couldn't determine the title of the book and none of our revealing spells seemed to work we chose to call it the 'Nameless Tome'.
We haven't given it a classification just yet, but given the reports we received and the nature of the object in question, it would be a bit hard to pin down. The book clearly has some kind of preternatural 'pull' about it but the real danger the tome poses has yet to be determined. If the tome itself is what allowed Starlight to summon those things, then it could be anywhere from a City Level Threat to an Extinction Level Threat depending on what kinds of creatures it could potentially pull into this dimension.
One thing I know for sure is that I'm glad we were able to retrieve and contain the thing. That being said though, I can't help but feel like I've seen that tome somewhere before. I don't know if it's just me or if the other researchers feel this way too, but something in the back of my mind stirs whenever I look at it. I find it infinitely fascinating but at the same time, I can't help but feel a horrible sense of dread—like if I even glance at a single page in that book there'll be no turning back for me, mental wards or no.
I'll be off the research team and busy with other duties for the rest of this week and next week so odds are I won't be looking into the tome, but I'm starting to think that might be for the best. I think maybe I'll talk to Sunset about it, or maybe I'll try talking to Prism one more time or even Rolling Stone. I don't know if either of them will be up to it, but they might be able to relate. It's worth a try, and they could probably use the company. I know I'd want somepony to talk to after everything they'd seen, that's for sure.
After hearing Prism Streak's account of what happened, what I went through during my first investigation seems horribly shallow and insignificant in comparison.