It was gloomy and grey outside by the time Scootaloo awoke, rain pattering against the window in her room. The sun was hidden behind a thick layer of dark clouds; some pegasus somewhere had evidently decided that today would be the perfect day to schedule a downpour. She pushed herself out of bed and ran a hoof through her unruly mane, turning her gaze to the wall dedicated to Rainbow Dash. Looking at it now, it seemed more like some kind of creepy shrine than anything else, something that a pony obsessed with another would keep. She resolved to do something about it later, which might or might not involve tearing it all down.
Her father was already busy at work out in his shed, leaving Scootaloo to eat breakfast alone, which, all things considered, she did not mind. She was not feeling particularly conversational today, and if she had not needed to go and meet her friends at the clubhouse, she might have decided to crawl back into bed instead.
After giving her father a quick goodbye, she went off on her scooter towards the clubhouse, zigzagging around the puddles of water gathering in the holes on the road. By the time she got to the treetop house, she was soaked to the bone and feeling decidedly grouchy. Apple Bloom was already there, looking almost as wet as Scootaloo felt. Tincoat’s journal was open on the floor before her, a saddlebag tossed aside over in the corner. She looked strangely morose, but quickly brightened up in a smile when she saw Scootaloo.
“Don’t you think it’d have been better to leave that at home? Isn’t it just going to get soaked out here?” Scootaloo asked with a nod towards the book.
“Doesn’t look like it. Look, it’s all dry,” Apple Bloom replied, nudging the book towards her. “See? Ah figure Tincoat’s time spell also protected it from stuff like water.”
“Right. No sign of Sweetie Belle yet?”
Apple Bloom shook her head as Scootaloo sat down next to her, glancing at the journal. “Anything useful in it?”
“Some, yeah. Ah’ll tell ya when Sweetie gets here.”
A couple of minutes later, the last Crusader showed up, wrapped in a yellow raincoat with matching boots. Scootaloo raised an eyebrow.
“Rarity insisted,” Sweetie Belle muttered by way of explanation as she stepped out of the clothes. Scootaloo noted with slight envy that the unicorn filly’s coat was almost completely dry. She shook her head and turned her attention back to Apple Bloom.
“So what did you learn, AB?”
“Well, there’s loads of stuff that don’t make much sense. Ah don’t think this was Tincoat’s first journal, ’cause the first entry’s called ‘Day 19.’ A lot of ’em just say stuff like ‘Made good progress today’ or ‘Foul weather slowed us down.’ One of ’em just says ‘One less’. Only a few of ’em say anythin’ really interestin’.”
“Any hints about where he was going?” Sweetie Belle asked. Apple Bloom shook her head.
“Not many. One of the later entries says somethin’ about a rockslide, though, so Ah guess that’s when he was headin’ up Silverpeak Mountain, that place where his journal was found. Ah looked at the map, an’ Silverpeak’s one of those mountains way off to the east.”
Scootaloo gave the journal a cursory look. “So what do the entries that are actually useful say?”
“Well, there’s this one here…” The earth filly leafed through the journal for a moment. “Listen to this.” She cleared her throat and put on her best storyteller voice, even managing to lose her characteristic farmpony twang.
“Day 29. I feel so very far from home. I miss the sights and sounds of the Royal City. More than that, I miss Amber. I miss her sharp wit, her reassuring voice, her kind compassion, her beautiful smile, her well-meaning, blunt honesty. She was so much more than just an apprentice. If only she were with me now. Why wouldn't she just listen? She was supposed to stand with me. One more mistake to my long list of sins.”
“Sounds like this Amber pony was really dear to Tincoat,” Sweetie Belle commented.
“You think?” Scootaloo made a gagging expression. “Sounds like the kind of stuff you’d find in a sappy romance novel.” Both her friends looked at her.
“Not that I’ve ever read any sappy romance novels,” she hastily added.
“There’s also this one,” Apple Bloom continued, unperturbed. “Day 25. The moon seems to glare at me whenever darkness falls. They say that is where She was imprisoned. Looking at it now, I can believe that. Its glare has the same cold intensity that She had towards the end, every bit as beautiful yet intimidating.”
Scootaloo furrowed her brow. “Wait, who’s the journal talking about here? Who’s ‘she’?”
“Ah guess it must be referrin’ to Nightmare Moon. Princess Celestia banished her to the moon, right?” Apple Bloom ventured.
“What’s meant by ‘towards the end’? Did Tincoat know her?” Sweetie Belle murmured.
“Nightmare Moon or Princess Luna?”
“Both?”
“There ain’t a whole lot else in the journal,” Apple Bloom concluded. “A few bits here and there talkin’ about fixin’ ‘the mistake’, an’ how time is runnin’ out.”
“What was he trying to do?” Sweetie Belle wondered aloud. “What was so important?”
“Well, whatever it is, if he didn’t fix it back then, it’ll be a thousand years too late now,” Scootaloo pointed out.
“Maybe we’ll find out more in the Everfree Forest,” Apple Bloom suggested. “The tablet might tell us somethin’.”
Sweetie Belle glanced out the window at the oppressive skies, her ears drooping a bit. “Perfect day for a walk in the dark, scary forest too.”
A couple of minutes later, the Crusaders were approaching the outskirts of the Everfree Forest. Rain was still falling in a steady drizzle, a cold wind rustling through the trees. Sweetie Belle had offered Scootaloo the yellow raincoat, which she had declined on the grounds of it being “not her style”. Only Apple Bloom seemed undeterred by the weather, leading the trio at a brisk pace towards the looming trees.
“You sure this is the right way, Apple Bloom?” Sweetie Belle asked at the back. “Shouldn’t we be taking the regular path into the forest?”
“Naw. Jitterleaf said he headed straight east from the farm back when he went there, so all we gotta do is go in the same direction,” Apple Bloom replied cheerfully.
Scootaloo brushed a strand of slick mane out of her eyes. “How do you know this is straight east? Do you have a compass or something?”
“The sun always goes up in the east, so we just gotta go in the direction the sun rises in. Simple!”
“There’s no sun to look for right now,” Scootaloo pointed out, glancing meaningfully up at the heavy clouds.
“Well, Ah know in which direction it normally pops up,” Apple Bloom retorted. “Now come on, keep an eye out for marks on the trees. Jitterleaf said they might still be around.”
They entered the wild overgrowth that was the Everfree Forest, picking their way past twisting roots and the occasional brambles. The wide treetops provided a degree of shelter from the rain, for which Scootaloo was quietly grateful. Sweetie Belle seemed less pleased about their off-road route, her raincoat frequently snagging on low-hanging branches or thorns. They walked in silence for a while. The forest was quiet save for the rustle of fallen leaves as the wind occasionally picked up. They passed an old, dead and rotten tree, its twisted trunk gnarled and withered. Before their eyes, it slowly began to change, old bark falling off to reveal a fresh layer beneath, the naked, twisted branches sprouting leaves that grew in seconds, and new roots snaking over brown leaves on the ground, pulling them into the earth. Within moments, the tree stood healthy and rejuvenated.
“Well, that just ain’t right,” Apple Bloom murmured.
Scootaloo let out a little groan. “How are we gonna find seventy-year-old marks on trees if they can change like that in just a few seconds?”
“There’s one,” Sweetie Belle said, pointing at a tree further ahead. A rough X had been scratched into the bark, and although the colour had been mostly worn off, it also had a distinctive streak of blue paint left on it.
“Oh,” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo muttered in unison.
“All right, let’s spread out a bit here so we’ll have a bigger chance of spottin’ the next markin’, but let’s keep in sight of each other all the time, a’right? Ah’ll keep goin’ straight. Scootaloo, on mah right. Sweetie Belle, on mah left.” The other two Crusaders nodded and moved off to either side of Apple Bloom.
Each tree in the forest seemed different from the others, yet at the same time, it was hard to tell them apart. Most were tall, twisted things; some intertwined with others in ways that made it difficult to tell where one tree ended and another began. Others were stunted, but with large gnarled roots coiling over the ground. Others still were covered in moss and lichen, some of which seemed almost luminescent. Plants of all sorts bloomed on the forest floor, common daisies standing side by side with outlandish flowers that Apple Bloom had no names for.
“Here’s another one!” Scootaloo called out after a few minutes of searching. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle came over to join her. Sure enough, there was another mark scratched into the trunk of a once-mighty oak.
“Right, well, we’re still on the right track,” Apple Bloom said with a smile. “Let’s keep lookin’. A clearin’ with two big rocks in it shouldn’t be too hard to notice.”
Despite Apple Bloom’s confidence, the trees continued to stand densely packed ahead of them, allowing only limited visibility of what lay ahead. Sweetie Belle felt more and more uneasy. The further they went, the stronger the palpable sense of wrongness became. She began to wonder if they would be able to find their way back again. Would they remember which direction to go if they even found what they were looking for? As she looked around, she became uncomfortably aware that she had no inclination of where the way back actually was. Had they unknowingly been veering off to the right or left since they entered?
“Got another mark here!” Apple Bloom’s voice called, pulling Sweetie Belle from the pit of panic she was starting to sink into. Her two friends would know where to go; they had a much better sense of direction than she did. She quickly trotted over to join them, wincing a bit as the precious raincoat Rarity had given her received yet another nick from a thorny shrub.
“We’re definitely goin’ the right way. Can’t be much further now,” Apple Bloom said confidently.
Scootaloo squinted a bit as she looked at the trees. “Hey, do you see something ahead?” She jumped over some twisting roots and disappeared from view for a moment. “Girls, I think we found it!”
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle quickly followed her. The trees quickly began to clear out, and after a few moments, they stood in a small clearing, two crumbling stone pillars rearing up in the center of it. Wildflowers flourished in the open space, and it seemed almost idyllic compared to the rest of the mysterious forest. The Crusaders moved towards the standing stones. There seemed to be nothing remarkable about them, save for their inexplicable placement in the middle of a forest.
Apple Bloom looked around the clearing, a look of satisfaction on her face. “Well, Ah suppose we better get messy. Jitterleaf said he buried the tablet somewhere around here.”
The three fillies began digging with their hooves near the stones, the rain making the ground muddy and easy to clear away. They were all covered in a good dose of dirt and mud when Apple Bloom’s hooves struck something hard beneath the soil. Excited, she redoubled her efforts, sending dirt and pebbles flying.
“Hey, girls, I think I found the tablet! Look,” Scootaloo’s voice said. Apple Bloom paused and looked up from her work. Scootaloo was clearing dirt away from something square and stony poking out of the ground. The farmfilly glanced down at her own find in puzzlement. If that was the tablet over there, then what was it she had found here?
Sweetie Belle trotted over to join the pegasus. “Can you make out what it says?”
Scootaloo wiped away some of the dirt and squinted a bit. “I think… hold on, there’s a lot of mud on this…”
Apple Bloom left her own dig site to join her friends.
“It says, uh… Tincoat and Amber Gleam. Royal Artisans. And there’s this fancy symbol below the title,” Scootaloo said. She looked up at Apple Bloom. “I guess that old coot was right. Looks like Tincoat really had been here.”
“But that sounds like the name of a shop or something,” Sweetie Belle pointed out. “Why would that just be lying in the middle of the Everfree Forest?”
“Well, the forest wasn’t always here, right? There’s the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters somewhere deep within it. Applejack told me she and the others went there back when Nightmare Moon returned,” Apple Bloom said.
“I guess,” Sweetie Belle replied hesitantly.
“Ah also found somethin’, but Ah ain’t sure what it is. Might be another tablet or somethin’. Gimme a hoof with it.” Apple Bloom gestured for her friends to follow and headed back to where she had been digging. Between the three of them, they managed to clear away enough soil to reveal a large stone slab, cracked and worn. For a moment, Apple Bloom thought it was another tablet, but this one was unmarked except for the splintered lines criss-crossing it.
“What is that?” Scootaloo asked, frowning. “I don’t think normal stones are as square as this.”
“Ah think it’s—Hold on…” Apple Bloom murmured. She began to clear away some of the soil surrounding the stone slab. All of them were positively caked in mud at this point, but none of them cared much about it. The thrill of discovery was too strong.
Sweetie Belle’s eyes widened a bit. “It looks like… there’s a floor beneath all this dirt?”
Apple Bloom looked around. “Y’know, Ah think we’re standin’ in the remains of a house. Look; them stone pillars must be what’s left of the supportin’ frame.”
“But where are the rest of the ruins? Don’t houses usually have more than one wall?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“This is the Everfree Forest, remember? You saw that tree earlier? For all we know, the remains of the house could’ve come to life and decided to walk off,” Scootaloo pointed out.
“I don’t think—” Sweetie Belle began, but stopped and shook her head instead. “So what do you suppose this is? A door to a cellar?”
“If it is, there’s no hatch,” Apple Bloom replied. “There must be some other way to open it. Look around, see if ya can find anythin’!”
They scrambled through the mud, uncovering nothing except more of the floor, much of it splintered from where plant roots had slowly burrowed through it over time.
“Maybe the pillars? A hidden switch or something?” Sweetie Belle suggested.
They all rushed over to the crumbling stone pillars. After a few minutes of intense scrutiny, it became clear that the stones were disappointingly void of hidden switches, symbols or similar.
“I don’t think we’re going to find anything here,” Scootaloo said dejectedly. “And the stone looks too heavy for us to move, even together.”
“But we’re so close! There’s somethin’ down there, there’s gotta be!” Apple Bloom snapped in frustration. She walked over to the defiant stone slab, glaring at it as if it was personally taunting her. “Just open, dang it!” she yelled, stomping her front hooves down hard on it. The stone slab, weakened by untold years of wear and tear from the strange forest, crumbled away under the impact, sending Apple Bloom tumbling down a set of stairs into the darkness below.
“Apple Bloom!” Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle cried out in unison, rushing over to the revealed hole and running down the stairs.
“Ah’m okay! Ow! Sorta…” Apple Bloom’s voice responded below them. In the sparse illumination provided by the light seeping down the tunnel from above, they could make out their friend lying atop the crumbled remains of the stone slab at the foot of the stairs. She stood up groggily and shook her head.
“Ah think Ah found a way to open it,” she said sheepishly. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle looked at each other, before they started to giggle, more out of relief than amusement.
“Uh… are you sure this place is safe, though?” Sweetie Belle asked when the laughter died down, glancing at the walls of the tunnel surrounding them. It was made of what looked to be bricks, but dirt and plant roots were slipping through cracks in the walls in countless places. “I mean, this doesn’t look all that stable.”
“Well, it’s stood for a thousand years,” Apple Bloom pointed out.
“True, but you also just destroyed the trapdoor in two seconds,” the unicorn filly retorted.
“Are you two going to argue all day, or are you actually coming along?” Scootaloo asked, quickly moving down the stairs and past Apple Bloom. The yellow filly turned and followed her.
“Wait for me!” Sweetie Belle squeaked, rushing down to join her friends. They soon found themselves walking in pitch darkness, the light from above no longer able to reach them this far into the tunnel.
“Sure is dark in here,” Sweetie Belle murmured, somewhat unnecessarily.
“You think?” Scootaloo sneered in response.
“Hey, do ya see light ahead?” Apple Bloom asked. A small sliver of light shone out on the floor against the blackness surrounding them. They stopped in front of the light, their way blocked by something solid.
Scootaloo put a hoof against the surface. “Is that a door?”
“Ah reckon so. Help me get it open,” Apple Bloom said. With a heavy grinding sound, the three fillies managed to push the door open slowly, revealing a large circular room. It was in noticeably better condition than what they had seen before. The room was illuminated by several glowing orbs along the walls, revealing tables and shelves untouched by the decay that had claimed the rest of the ruins. Even so, most of the tables were flipped over and broken. Books that had presumably stood on the shelves were scattered across the floor, most of them scorched and blackened. At the opposite side of the room from where the Crusaders had entered was another door, this one made of golden metal. Its surface was wrought in a pattern depicting a radiant sun with a crescent moon below it. Something had dented the door, making it stand slightly ajar. It was framed by a large, circular scorch mark.
“What is this place? What happened here?” Apple Bloom muttered.
Scootaloo looked at the third Crusader in alarm. “And what’s happening with Sweetie Belle’s horn?”
Sweetie Belle was staring straight at the bent metal door and the encircling scorch mark. Her horn was glowing brightly at the tip with a white light. She began to move slowly towards the door, and as she did, the glow in her horn intensified. Wispy tendrils began to dance from it towards the door.
“Sweetie Belle? What are ya doin’?” Apple Bloom exclaimed. She and Scootaloo moved over to try and grab a hold of their friend. Before they could reach her, there was a flash from Sweetie Belle’s horn, making them all cringe. When they looked again, it was as if the light in the room had been turned down a notch, taking on a more subdued, oily tone.
“Uhm… Sweetie Belle? What did ya do?” Apple Bloom asked nervously.
“I… I don’t know! That’s never happened before!” Sweetie Belle whimpered, her voice teetering on the edge of panic. A strangled noise from Scootaloo drew the attention of them both. The pegasus filly was looking behind them, her face gone sickly pale.
“L-l-look!” she stammered almost breathlessly. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle turned around, their expressions mimicking that of their friend when they saw the figure standing in the doorway behind them. It had the ghostly shape of a pony, though the swirling mists it seemed to consist of robbed it of all features except for the horn protruding from its head. A unicorn.
The three fillies stood paralyzed with fear as the phantom came closer, making no sound. It moved past the Crusaders, seemingly not noticing them, heading straight for the door.
“Stop!” a female voice echoed through the room, making the three fillies let out little squeaks of fright, too terrified to scream. A second ghost appeared at the entrance of the room. It had no horn, nor any wings. An earth pony.
“Tincoat, stop!” the newcomer repeated, walking towards the first apparition. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“What I have to,” the ghost-unicorn replied in a distinctly feminine voice. “Amber, please. Walk away.”
The spectral Amber moved in front of Tincoat, interposing herself between the unicorn and the door.
“Walk away? Are you insane? Don’t you remember what you said earlier? You were the one who said we must never make another!”
“I know what I said!” Tincoat replied. “But it's the only way for me to set this right. Please, move. Don’t involve yourself in this. This burden is mine to bear.”
“Would you listen to yourself?!” the voice of the ghostly Amber yelled, causing the three fillies to flinch from the unearthly sound. “This is wrong, Tincoat! We swore never to do it again! Does that mean nothing to you?”
“Please, Amber!” Tincoat’s ethereal voice took on a pleading tone. “I have to do this! Don't you understand? I have to! It's my fault!”
“No, I don’t understand!” Amber replied fiercely. “I only know you are about to make a terrible mistake, and I won’t let you do it! I won’t let you past this door! Tincoat, it wasn't our fault! It wasn't your fault! If you won't back down, I'm going to have to inform the Royal Guard. You're not thinking straight!”
“Amber—”
“No, I won’t let you do this to yourself! You’ll have to go through me first!” The voice of Amber was adamant, the faceless specter glaring at the equally faceless ghost-unicorn. The silence lasted for several moments.
“I’m sorry,” Tincoat’s voice whispered with infinite sadness. The ghost-unicorn’s horn began to shine with an almost unbearably bright glow. There was a blinding flash, and when the fillies tentatively opened their eyes again, the room had returned to normal. The apparitions of Tincoat and Amber had vanished, no trace of either of them left behind.
Apple Bloom swallowed and looked around, the chaotic setting of the room suddenly making awful sense.
“Ah think… Ah think what we just saw was what happened here,” she said timidly. “Tincoat… she…” Apple Bloom looked over at the scorched metal door and swallowed again.
“Yeah…” Scootaloo murmured. She glanced at Sweetie Belle, who looked to be on the verge of tears, and gently brushed her muzzle against the unicorn’s neck. “You okay, Sweetie Belle?” she asked softly.
“No,” the white filly sniffled. “I’m really not.”
“Maybe we should head back?” Scootaloo suggested carefully, looking at Apple Bloom.
Apple Bloom bit her lip, looking towards the doorway leading up to the forest again. Part of her wanted nothing more than to get as far away as possible from the cellar as possible. But another, stronger part wanted, needed to know what lay behind the metal door. What had been so important that it had driven Tincoat to do the most abhorrent of deeds? It was not simple curiosity tugging at her anymore, it was something else now. Something stronger.
“We came this far,” she said at length. “We gotta go through to the end with this. We gotta see what’s behind that door.” She half expected her friends to protest. Part of her wanted to object to her own words, too. To her surprise, both her friends nodded slowly.
“We’re right behind you, AB,” Scootaloo said firmly.
Sweetie Belle wiped her eyes and swallowed. “Cutie Mark Crusader Ghost Hunters, yay,” she murmured in what was undoubtedly the most unconvincing rallying cry any of them had ever heard. It also made Apple Bloom smile and realize just how much she loved her friends.
“Right, Crusaders,” she said with more confidence than she felt, walking over to the metal door. “Let’s do this, together.” She pressed a hoof to the twisted metal and pushed the door open on creaking hinges.