How do you go scouting for a giant, shape-changing bug monster? I wasn't sure. I was pretty sure that I wasn't supposed to go floating around calling 'Here, Bursa, Bursa, Bursa. Hey, Bursa!' That might have possibly, maybe, perhaps, a stupid idea. That's why I didn't do it…twice.
I floated along by myself, through walls, and out into other corridors. I was invisible and formless, but the eerie lights still came on whenever I entered an area. I guessed they detected magic, not movement. That meant that there was no hiding that I was around, even if I was invisible and not making a sound. I wondered why Bursa wasn't triggering the lights if she was down here. It seemed unfair that she got to move around stealthy, but the rest of us didn't.
Since I wanted to be as unpredictable in my movements as possible, I took to flying through walls and traveling through them for stretches of a few hundred feet before coming out somewhere else. That made lights go out and flicker back on in some random other places. I was the ghost in the walls, and if I had an audience, they would only know the general region of the massive labyrinth I was in.
I hoped I didn't lose track of that. My only way of finding my way back if I got lost was to go straight up, above ground, find the well again, and try to find everyone else from the entrance. That or wander aimlessly until I floated across them again. The complex under the Well of Shade was massive, and I'd yet to have found any giant bug monsters, red resin, or captured ponies. I had seen lots of ancient dead bodies, along with what looked like a treasure hoard room that amazingly was still sealed and had never been looted. I was sure any archaeologist would die of happiness if they came down here if it weren't for the constant whispering of the shadows.
Oh! And the shadows could touch me. That had not been pleasant to find out. I'd tried coming out of a wall at one point only to run into a mass of the creepy-not-normal shadows, and it was like running into a brick wall with my physical body. Thankfully, the ghastly shadows weren't everywhere, and most shadows in the place were normal run-of-the-mill, not haunted types. I just had to go back in the wall and come out somewhere else. Still, it was unnerving.
I wonder why Luna never got rid of these things.
"You called to me, Rebecca Riddle?"
I stopped dead in my tracks as Luna appeared before me, or at least, her dream form did. The alicorn looked around, and her ears flattened as the shadows quickly retreated from the area. In my mind, I almost felt like I could feel their terror of Equestria's Dreamwarden as they fled.
"Oh my! This is the Well of Shade!" Luna exclaimed. "What are you doing here? This is a cursed and dangerous place, Rebecca Riddle. You should not be here, even in your projected form. Explain yourself."
"We're trying to find Roger's mom. Some bug named Bursa took her down here," I answered.
"This is where the pseudo-changeling-queen has holed up?" Luna asked. "Are Twilight and her friends there as well?"
I nodded. "Yeah, she found us when we came down. She has me looking around for the bug lady. She felt it was safer than sending us home unprotected."
Luna seemed to consider that. "Not an ideal situation, but perhaps the most advisable strategy given the circumstances. I would not expect any of her friends to succumb to this darkness. Who else is here?"
"Sunflower and Blanche are down here; Roger and Jonathan are outside with my body," I informed her. "Luna, what's up with this place? These shadows are all kinds of bad juju."
Luna sighed. "They are fragments of minds—the collected remaining consciousness of those who laid down their lives here…my victims, all bound to these halls. No singular consciousness has survived, only purpose and emotion. They are less than what they once were, slowly fading with time. If you had set hoof down here a millennium prior, you would have found their presence overwhelming. Perhaps in another millennium, they will all fade completely away, and this place will be safe to inhabit again."
"Why haven't you gotten rid of them?" I asked, gesturing around.
"You would not understand," Luna said, shaking her head, crying. "They would not surrender, and the threat they presented was too great. The war had raged on for so long and taken so many. I had no choice. I couldn't allow it to continue. They were helpless against me, unable to touch me with their mind magic, yet they wouldn't stand down. I slew them, begging them to surrender, but they kept fighting. These shadows are all that remain of those night ponies."
"But why do you let them continue to be here?" I asked again. "Shouldn't you put them to rest?"
"The souls are at rest; these are fragments, echoes," Luna explained. "Yet they are still life— soulless life, but life all the same. Life that only exists due to my guilt. I cannot bring myself to crush it out without reason. It would be a daunting task anyway. These fragments do not sleep. They skirt the border of the dream realm, but they do not breach it. They are beyond my purview. It is best to advise ponies to keep their distance and let time wear them away."
I could see where she was coming from, but I still wasn't sure I agreed. These shadows were evil. It wasn't even a personal opinion to call them evil. They wanted to possess others, and they wanted to hurt. All they knew was rage, fear, and the desire for vengeance. If they couldn't be fought in the dream realm, it seemed like this place should be sealed or destroyed. This was some awe-inspiring architecture, a regular wonder of the ancient Equestrian world, so being inclined to destroy it was not something I felt lightly.
Luna watched her. "I feel your disagreement with me. That is alright. You are allowed to disagree. Krik has also stated his belief that I should purge the Well of Shade from existence, so you are not alone in your opinion. It is my decision to make, and I say the Well of Shade should stay. I hope that one day the night ponies can return to their ancestral halls. This place is a major part of their history and heritage. That day may yet be far into the future, but I will not destroy the home of their forestallions and foremares. I have taken enough from them. I will not take this."
"Um, well, do you know any good places that the bug lady could be hiding?" I asked. "This place is big."
"Sadly, that is a problem," Luna answered. "The Well is massive in scale, extending through many of your Earth miles. When you get deeper in, you will find the old residences of the nobles. There are over a hundred of them, each a mansion. That is a lot of rooms to hide within."
"Oh…well, that sucks," I said miserably, thinking about how much searching I still had to do.
"I will try to dispatch the guard to assist in your endeavor. I shall not have them enter the Well for fear of its corrupting effects, but they can guard the entrance and side gates, as well as be ready to provide medical assistance. Twilight always seems so hesitant to call for assistance."
"There are side gates?"
"There were side gates," Luna corrected. "They have been sealed since the war and blocked with debris. The night ponies only had one exit in and out by the end of it. Some of the entrances they blocked themselves, my sister's armies blocked others, but the result was the same. I do not think Bursa will be able to use them any more than they could, but they are worth watching for the sake of caution. She is strong; it is not out of the question she could dig her way through if she felt cornered. She is not evil, merely confused. We would not hurt her, but she is desperate to return to your world and must always be approached with caution."
"We don't have giant bug ladies back home, Luna," I informed her. I didn't blame her for not knowing. I didn't know everything that lived on this side of the portal, so why should she be expected to know all about Earth?
"She was not as she is now when she was on Earth. From the broken memories I have gathered from her, I believe she was once human," Luna replied with a sigh. "We made her what she is today. It was a mercy. She was dying. My student was actually the one who devised the method of saving her, and Twilight herself performed the spell."
I shivered. "What kind of injury could possibly require turning her into a bug monster?"
"It was beyond mere injury. Her entire resonance was collapsing. If not for my student's ingenuity and Twilight's skill, Bursa would not have survived," Luna answered. "Terrible ponies on Earth did unspeakable experiments on her in their quest to make an alicorn. She has gotten over her hatred of ponies that she developed after what was done to her, but she has not put aside her lust for revenge or the desire to return to the place of her birth to find her history. Your government assures me they are doing all they can to find her tormentors, but a creature such as she cannot be allowed on Earth."
I looked forlornly at the walls and sighed. "Guess I should get back to looking. I can only keep this form up so long before my body gets tired of dancing its tushie off. I'm going to have to go back to it soon."
Luna nodded. "You show remarkable ability to have maintained it this long. I would advise finding Twilight, rather than continuing your search, to advise her that the guards are coming."
"Will do!" It sounded better than searching around this place. These halls were creeping me out. I looked forward to seeing daylight again.
Luna vanished, and I tried to determine which general direction I had come from. I had been moving through walls and corridors somewhat erratically. Finding Princess Twilight and the others might be a tall order in itself. Since Luna was gone, I heard the whispering of the shadows coming back out again. That meant having to dodge around those.
After about a minute of trying to get my bearings, I chose a direction. Landmarks were primarily the occasional mural in a wall or some very distinctive skeletal remains— many were wearing armor or robes, and sometimes there was somebody who had been wearing something incredibly ornate or gaudy, or they had something else that stood out like a pike sticking out of the skull. There was no shortage of things that I would never forget seeing, even if I'd rather never have seen them. Once I was out of this place, I had no intention of returning.
I was making my way down a larger corridor when it suddenly went dead quiet, and all the shadows vanished.
"YYEEESSSSS!!!"
I came to an abrupt halt and looked around. That hadn't been me, and it didn't sound like anyone I knew. Whatever It was, it was big, and it was scary, and the voice echoed through the halls from somewhere deep within the complex.
I had a feeling the situation down here just got a lot worse.