//------------------------------//
// 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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It's a disgusting, horrible decision, but you really have no choice. It's either this, or watch your whole career go down the drain.

Aware that all eyes are on you, you remove the bucket of well water from your Inventory and pour yourself a glass. It's far from clean, tinged beige with whatever nastiness is inside. There's even little bits of algae floating through it.

But it's all you have.

Quashing your disgust as best you can, you bring the glass to your lips and drink.

If anything, it's worse than you imagined. You nearly spit it out the moment it touches your tongue, but you persist, fighting past the gag reflex. It tastes of swamp and mud, of fetid things and long-expired salad. And yet you can feel it taking the cheese with it as you choke it down.

Finally, after an eternity you finish the glass and set it back down, panting at the effort. The assembled High Commission continues to watch, silent in their cold indifference.

You clear your throat once more, feeling it finally clear properly. "Sorry about that, ladies and gentlestallions, I had something in my— *Urgh*."

No. Not again.

"Something in my—*Urfp*."

You cough and gag. There's something caught in your throat. It feels like a leaf or blade of grass didn't make it down. Your throat convulses again, forcibly expelling it back into your mouth. With every stalled second counting, you lift a napkin to hide your mouth with one hoof while the other grasps it off your tongue. 

You grab it, but even as you pull you can feel it tickle then back of your throat. You pull it farther, a hooflength out. Two. Still you can feel the end of it hanging down your throat. There's enough out now you can see it.

It's a long black hair.

You continue to pull, dropping the napkin to free your other hoof. One hair becomes two, then three, tangled together into a rough cord. 

More and more comes out, scratching up your throat as coils of rope-like hair start to form on your plate, ever getting thicker as you go.

Pull after pull, thicker and thicker, more and more hair.

Finally you tug and it stops. Again, but no more will come out. It's stuck. You breathe through your nose as you wrap the rope around your hooves and put your all into it. No thought is given to the High Commission or your presentation, you need to get this out!

With a herculean pull that knocks you off your hooves, the blockage dislodges, filling your throat and mouth and distending your jaw to a painful degree. Eyes watering, you strain to look down and see what it is you've been choking on.

A familiar pale and bloated face looks back, her skull and shoulders deformed from being forced through your jaw. 

You try to scream, but you can't. Your mouth is still full. The monster filly screams instead.

You remember nothing else but a terrible sensation of movement within you.

[Not all monsters stay beaten. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]





You cough and choke as you wake up, your body desperate to void itself of a blockage that's no longer there. You dry heave for a few minutes before the sensation of it finally fades into memory. You rise in the foyer, shaken, but whole and unharmed.

"I really—"

"Seriously Trixie, what the buck?"

She seems startled by you cutting her off, but you don't care. You don't care about how she feels, whatever witty little quip she has ready, or why she hasn't got a new costume. All you care about is venting.

"Like, really? Making me cough up a whole pony hair-first? Who thinks up something like that? What if Fluttershy was doing this? Or Pinkie Pie? You think they'd come out okay after something like that? Faust above, I don't know if you need more drugs or less!"

She stares down at you, unimpressed. "You done? Great. First of all, that's not something Starlight or I designed. You did an action we never expected and didn't plan for, so the spells figured out a solution based on the context. Second, duh we wouldn't do that to them! Unlike some ponies, we have common sense! But you told me to put it on the highest scare setting! So of course the spells created the worst possible fate. This is all on you! Who takes a bucket of cursed water and decides that drinking it would be a good idea?!"

"Maybe if you didn't make me think my career was on the line, I'd have been thinking clear enough to come up with something better!"

"Sounds like not my problem!" she fires back. "You made your decision, you face the consequences! Don't start blaming me for your bad judgement!" With that, she turns on her hoof and storms off.

Alone, even angry as you are you can't help but feel she may have had a point. Part of one. But it was her that goaded you into agreeing to the highest setting, so she's not off the hook either!

Still fuming, you turn to the halls to decide your next direction.





There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.

If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.