Hufgrund, Germaneny, has been a bit off the radar for many years. It mostly served as the castle to the governor, who lived southeast of the town in Marelin. After all of these years, the castle has remained untouched, until now. The weeds and vines of the castle had been swept away for its new occupants, the Cult of Luna. These new owners of this once great castle shall hide from society. They shall plot. They shall gain new members. They shall take over Equestria...all from the comfort of their new home.
"It's here!" Patient Care calls to his followers as a group of ten ponies, all bearing Luna's symbol, her cutie mark, somewhere on their clothing, (some had even branded it on themselves) trekked along behind him.
"Me and a few others will go ahead, if you don't mind." Starlight Shadow offered, nodding to a few other pegasi, who flew ahead and were gone in a few minutes.
"The rest of you, come with me. It's time for the ceremony." Patient enunciated to the remaining six ponies, the lot of which bow their heads and follow.
After walking through the darkness of the castle, which surrounded them and penetrated their eye sockets like tentacles of pure void, the group finally reached where they need to be: a balcony at the edge of the main hall. The group of scouts had been taking down vines and assorted other plant life when they spotted the rest of the group.
"It's perfect. There's an old library and a nice square in the middle, look!" Starlight pointed over the edge of the balcony.
"After we're done here, we can go establish our headquarters in there." Patient Care tells the High Priestess, who nodded and stood back, along with the Neophytes they've acquired.
Patient grabbed a bag hanging off of his saddle-bag holder and places it on the ground. Its contents leak onto the smooth, cracked stone like a bag leaves that sombody had left open to the mercy of the wind. Inside of the bag is a series of stones, each of which are about a few centimeters long and bear the mark of their cult: Luna's Cutie Mark. He grabbed the stones with magic and aligned them along the ground in a crecent shaped pattern, with the curved edge pointing outwards, towards the star splattered sky and the milky blackness of the forest below the castle.
"Dearest Moon Mother, we bestow our gratitude to you and ask that you grace us with your presence!" Patient clearly called to Luna via the incantation as he, and his followers, bowed their heads in respect.
Suddenly, a portal opened; its black, starry interior is highlighted by purple tendrils of energy surrounding the actual entrance. Within seconds, a very familiar alicorn strolled through the portal, standing in the cresent of stones.
"Princess Luna. We are honored by your presence." Patient smiles and moves his head back to its original position; his followers mimicked his movements.
"Tis no trouble, you wish for thy blessing to continue establishing thy home here?" The Moon Princess calmly and kindly bestowed her worshippers with her approval.
"Yes, my princess. We would like to establish our base of operations and recruitment center here as well." Patient let her royal magesty in on the cult's plans.
"I see that you have decided to make this place thy headquarters. I approve of this place. A castle, similar to the one me and thy sister shared, as thy commoners say it, 'back in the day.' I shall grant thee my blessing."
Princess Luna spread her wings and rose into the night, her wings powerfully flapping until her outline blocked out part of her moon. Her eyes then glowed white, and the Cult had to block their eyes as the Moon Mother cast her blessing upon the old palace.
Vines, weeds, and stray plants and mold that had sprouted through the cracks of the castle have accumulated over the centuries suddenly started to turn to ashes and vanish in a tiny stack of smoke. The cult watched in awe as Luna stared back at the de-weeded castle, smiling at her handiwork.
The cult breaks their gaze from their goddess's visage and turns their gaze towards the castle, admiring the now ornate stained glass windows new repaired, the cracks now rendered nonexistent. All around the castle was being repaired before their eyes, the cracks in the stone healing like day-old scratches, fires starting in long forgotten fireplaces. Books of all volumes, creeds, and series were wiped free of cobwebs and dust mites and were given an ink-job on all pages to restore the fading text.
"My work here is done." Luna stated to her followers, who bowed their heads in respect.
As she realigned herself on the castle grounds once again, a shadow in the corner darkened and from it steps a tall bipedal figure, who was covered in a black cloak that hides his features. He stood to the right of the moon princess before bowing down on one knee before her.
"My Queen, you have been gone for some time, how is it that as your servant the wind, does he serve you as well as I always have?"
"Yes, he has served me just fine, Nightshade." Princess Luna replied, somewhat stiffly. "Need not you worry."
"I worry only for my mistress, surely you have better things to do than bless a silly cult?"
"They believe in me, Nightshade. As few nowadays do."
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The group of ponies and humanoids casually strolled through the castle as they admired the newly placed decorations, heat, and light sources throughout the ancient home.
"And over there will be the armory. It's got enough space for lances, mortars, and bombs, and it is perfectly protected within the castle walls." Patient pointed to his left in an open, vacant room; which was vacant par for an ornate rug featuring a cresent moon inside of a black heart shape.
"Patient! This is the old library I mentioned! Look! Look at it!" Starlight flew into an enormous circular room only a few meters away the armory door filled with bookshelves, and complete with a magical index to find whatever volume you were looking for. Starlight swiped a random book of a shelf and hugged it to her chest, then put it back and flew over to another shelf, scanning the spines of each one.
"This library has books on everything, some of these were lost years ago, but thanks to the Moon Mother's blessing, they've all been restored!" She let out a squee worthy of the most vapid of fanfillies, and continued sifting through the ancient literature.
"Moon Mother's Mercy...there's gotta be thousands of tomes in here! This is perfect!" Patient happily told Starlight as he and the Neophytes following him gazed up towards the stupidly high shelves in awe.
Starlight was like a hummingbird, first one place, then the next so fast you'd think she teleported, or had been drinking a Red Buffalo every hour of every day for her whole life. She then abruptly stopped.
"Where are we sleeping? We still haven't gotten dormitories sorted out."
"We could take up the servant's quarters for tonight." Patient suggested.
"Okay, I'll take the Neophytes and Shining." Starlight set to her task of herding the younger members of the Cult to the servant's quarters, with no shortage of whining from them.
"Come, now. We're only going to be staying in there for one night. We'll make accomidations in other rooms of the castle tomorrow...if you are willing to work for it." Patient paternally scolded the younger members, who grumbled and shut up.
Starlight managed to get her own corner, with a bit of shoving. Only the Lunarseer got his own cot at the end of the room, with no shoving involved. On the bright side, she got a window. She peered out of said window, looking out at the grounds.
"That will make the perfect training ground." she murmured quietly. She curled up on the nest of blankets and flipped through a book she had taken from the library to read. 'The Mysteries Of Princess Luna.' "There is only one group of ponies who know these secrets, or will ever know them. And that group is the Cult of Luna."
Patient, on the other hand, squirmed and tossed thoughout the night and began to become caked in dry sweat. He woke up frequently through the night in wide awake gazes towards the ceiling. That was one of the longest nights Patient had ever experienced.