//------------------------------//
// You Have Nothing to Fear... 
// Story: Rainbow Dash's Awesome Nightmare Night Haunted House Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Adventure 
// by TheDriderPony 
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Actually, you do have one more item. One that you decided not to keep in your Inventory. The locket you got from that werewolf mare.

Now that you remember it, it's hard not to notice the little metal disc bouncing up and down on your chest as you're danced around. How is a locket supposed to help you defeat a skeevy ghost who's forcing you to dance with him? You don't know.

But it's the best plan you've got.

The problem that remains is that you still can't use your hooves. But unlike your Inventory Bucket, the locket has the advantage of being a lot closer to your mouth. All you have to do is be patient and wait for a good bounce.

Luck seems to be on your side as the current song winds to a close and the sound of castanets and guitar clues you in that next up is a tango. 

You let out an 'oof' as he pulls you close and the air is knocked from your lungs. One hoof leads you forward like the prow of a ship, the other reaches around to the small of your back, squeezing you in close against his ghostly form. This also traps the locket between your bodies.

Frustrated, you shoot him a glare but he only smiles back, misty-eyed, as if he's not even seeing your anger.

You stride across the dance floor, the two of you cutting through the other dancers without a moment's concern for their presence. He stops on a bit, and suddenly throws you into a dip.

There it is! Your chance! 

The locket rises in the air in a moment of suspended gravity and you dart your head forward like a snake, successfully catching it in your mouth just before he pulls you close again.

It's the work of a moment to flip the clasp open with your tongue then move it back to the edge of your mouth to grip it in your lips. Thank goodness for all those hours spent practicing mouth-writing your autograph.

He pulls you close again and you prepare to hawk it at him. Maybe if you're lucky it'll be cursed, or ghost-repellent, or at least it'll blind him for a moment. But before you can, you're suddenly jerked to a stop.

He's frozen, as have the rest of the dancers and the music. His eyes are fixated on the locket, no, inside the locket.

"Mi... mi Carina?"

A plume of black smoke bursts from the locket, forcing it out of his hooves and onto the floor. It skids along the polished wood, propelled by the ever increasing cloud of escaping miasma.

You scramble back and into a corner, as far away as you can get from whatever monster you just unleashed. Curiously, your dance partner seems to have had the same idea in the opposite corner.

The smoke rises but rather than spreading out it condenses into a roiling mass in the center of the room, still tethered to the locket by a thin wisp. Something moves inside it, bulging against the sides like an animal trapped in a sack. With a noise of screeching violins, the top shreds open releasing the biggest mare you've ever seen. Even with her lower body still inside the cloud, just the part you can see is large enough to make Princess Celestia seem a doll in comparison. Her coat is like a cloudy night and her mane like crashing waves. She wears a dress that's as much smoke as she is, shifting and reforming with every slight motion. And she does not arrive quietly.

"HIGH LORD PHANTOM MUD!" The walls quake as she roars, loosening a storm of dust from the rafters. The stallion squeaks as she narrows in on him.

"There you are! What have you been up to? Nothing good I'm sure. Sneaking away to the living realm to host another of your parties? Ha! I should have expected as much!" The giant mare rears up to scan the room. "Where is she?"

It's incredible to watch the suave stallion from earlier collapse into a stuttering wreck. "W-w-where is h-who, dearest?"

Her eyes flash with infernal fire. "Don't 'w-w-where' me! You know who! Whatever wretched living soul you've roped into your little roleplay. Ah ha!" She dematerializes into smoke only to reform an instant later, facing the other way. Right. At. You.

You try not to move as the monolith of a mare stares into your soul. A long moment passes before she turns away suddenly to slap her husband across the room. "Phantom! You scoundrel! She's barely older than your daughter! Have you no shame?"

As she continues to berate him, a pony-sized tendril of smoke extends from the back of the cloud and snakes its way towards you as it shifts into a more normal-sized version of the same mare.

"You poor thing, just look at you." She speaks gently to you as she takes your face in her hooves and turns it side to side. You remain too shocked to react. "Not even out of your first century yet. I am terribly sorry for my husband's behavior. I try to keep him on a short leash but, stallions. You're not hurt, I hope?"

You shake your head slowly.

"Small mercies. Here." She reaches into her dress and pulls out a slip of paper the size of a receipt, pressing it into your hooves. You also feel most of your fatigue from the forced dance fade away. "For your troubles. I know the owner. She does good work."

Her head snaps around and she darts across the room, picking up the verbal massacre where her larger counterpart cut off. "And take off that guise, you look ridiculous."

"Y-yes dear." Like a melting candle Phantom's figure slumps away. His muscular chest dropping into a pot belly. His razor sharp mustache bursting into a frizzy, untamed mess. Even his hairline recedes halfway up his scalp. In moments he transitions from a cover model to a used cart salespony.

"Much better," his wife comments. "Now. Home. Before I become cross."

He nods silently as he dissolves into a white mist that circles the room before, almost reluctantly, spiraling down into the locket and vanishing. Once he is gone the black smoke as well begins to recede, pulled back inside. Lady Mud turns to you one last time before she too vanishes. 

"Sorry again for all the trouble, dearie."

The last bit of smoke vanishes and the ballroom is finally empty. No dancers, no tables, just you and a lot of disturbed dust. Despite that, you still wait for a minute before risking moving.

Once you manage to convince yourself that the coast is clear, you rise and pick up the locket from where it dropped. Inside are two pictures. On the left, a mare with her head held high and a regal smile. On the right, a stallion cringing in on himself, angled so even the photo looks like it's shying away from its counterpoint. You snap it shut and tuck it away into your Inventory. Something tells you its purpose has been served.

That dealt with, you take a moment to check out the paper the giant spirit mare gave you. It's a thick white card, decorated with intricate purple swirls and containing a message encoded in some strange untranslatable glyphs.

A closer squint reveals the glyphs to just be overly loopy cursive. You eventually translate the message to read:



This voucher entitles the bearer to either fifty percent (50%) off one outfit OR one (1) free fashion consultation by Rarity Belle. Valid only at Carousel Boutique, Ponyville location. Expires first day of Winter Roll-out.



You stare at it incredulously. "Seriously? What am I supposed to do with this?" It's not that you don't appreciate Rarity's work, it's just that for the few occasions you've actually needed to dress up, she's always insisted on a generous friends-and-family discount. You tuck the Boutique Voucher away in your Inventory anyway with the hope it'll somehow be useful later. Maybe if you need a bookmark or find a room where you have to solve some maths and need scratch paper.

With everything squared away, you exit the ballroom.