"I can't take it anymore!", wept Mara. "They are ruining everything, p-putting my friends in danger! Nopony else can see them, I had to keep it a secret and try t-to ignore them while I can do nothing to stop them!"
Twilight and Priest exchanged helpless gazes as Mara wetted Spirit Rez's shoulder with her tears. The alicorn had suspicously misty eyes as well and she seemed to be lost for words.
Priest rubbed his itching side, unsure what to say either. He felt terribly awkward with that crying pony in front of him. Granted, it wasn't as bad as the moment Fluttershy had asked him to leave but it was close enough.
"Mara", said Twilight finally, "I'm really sorry you had to bear this burden all by yourself. But you won't have to anymore. I... we will help you because we are your friends... and we believe you."
The undead nodded slowly. "Yeah, cause we know ghosts are real. So we can try and find it and then get rid of it for good."
What have I gotten myself into?, he thought. Don't I have enough problems already? And Mara wanted to help me? What a laugh, she's a total mess herself.
"Thanks", whispered Mara, hope making the corners of her mouth turn upwards.
On the other hand, I've got nothing to lose - but she does. That pony is still alive so she deserves a chance to live in peace... I guess. And I'll need to keep an eye on the other one, what's-her-face? Right, Derpy. That ghost might come back after all.
Still holding Mara close, Spirit said, "Thank you for your kindness, Prin- Twilight. But can we do that another time? I think we all need a bit of rest after this. How about we meet here again tomorrow afternoon?"
Mara nodded. "Sounds okay to me", she mumbled.
Twilight smiled and stood up swiftly, determined to solve the problem. Her eagerness reminded Priest of a huntress who had found her new prey – which seemed weird to him because last time he checked, ponies were herbivores. "All right. Priest and I can think of a way to deal with the ghost until then."
"We can?", asked Priest.
"Yes, we can", emphasized Twilight, shutting him up with a stern look that said, 'Don't make this anymore awkward than it already is.'
Mara and Spirit got up as well and slowly walked to the door. Mara wiped her wet cheeks and cleared her throat. Turning her head back to Twilight and Priest again, she said, "Thanks again. I don't know what - just - thank you."
"Come on, let's go", said Spirit, nodding a goodbye to Twilight and Priest as he led Mara out the door.
- - -
Just as Priest had expected, Twilight started her research immediately after Mara and Spirit had left. She asked Spike for all kinds of books concerning ghosts, apparitions and auras. The poor dragon had to climb and re-climb the ladder so often that Priest eventually helped him, unable to stand the exhausted panting and wheezing anymore.
When the pile of books beside Twilight had become taller than Priest, he decided to say something.
"Twilight?"
"Hm...", muttered the alicorn.
"Twilight."
"Uh-huh."
"Twilight!!"
"Sorry, did you say something?"
"Not yet", Priest rolled his eyes.
"Sorry." Twilight grinned sheepishly. "What is it?"
"Are you sure this is the best way to gather information?", asked Priest. "These books are fictional at best! How is there supposed to be a guide to vanquishing ghosts in them?"
Twilight put a post-it note into the book she was currently skimming through and closed it with a sigh.
"I don't know", she admitted. "This kind of approach is new to me, I've always thought that ghosts weren't real."
Priest grinned and crossed his arms. "Because up to now, you had no proof. Is that it?"
She nodded. "But", she continued, "now that we have witnessed a real ghost's attack first-hoof, I just have to try. These books may be... mostly fictional, but they are all that I've got."
"Yeah, about that 'first-hoof' thing...", said Priest.
Twilight and Spike looked at him expectantly.
"I was telling you the truth, you know. I've seen my share of ghosts. I actually know how to deal with those fu-, er, entities."
"You do? Why didn't you say so before I started all that research?", demanded Twilight, her left eye twitching.
"Yeah, I'd like to know that, too", Spike piped in.
Priest shrugged. "I thought you had reliable sources so I just waited until proven otherwise."
Twilight's mouth opened, then closed again. "Um -"
"I hate to admit it, but that actually makes sense", commented Spike. He tapped his claw on the pile, making it shake dangerously. "Twilight's books usually have the answers to all kinds of problems." He quickly withdrew the claw before the pile could collapse from the shaking, a guilty expression on his face. "It's a rare occasion when they don't."
"But it happens", Twilight forced herself to say. "Well, if you know what to do... would you care to share it?"
Priest frowned. "It's not really that complicated. First, you have to determine what kind of ghost it is."
Twilight quickly grabbed a quill and parchment with her magic and started scribbling notes.
"Then... uh, it depends on what type of ghost it is, really", Priest said slowly. "I mean, they usually only appear because they died very suddenly and still have unresolved issues... or because some nutty necromancer thought raising the dead was a clever idea", he added with a sneer.
Twilight's eyes widened with shock. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, pretty much", he confirmed. "But I don't think it's the latter – except if there's pony necromancers in Equestria."
Twilight shook her head. "I don't know of any. There haven't been any mentions in my books anyway."
"Thought so. 'Kay then, so it's most likely one of the unresolved issue ghosts." He started pacing around the library, trying hard to remember. "There's two types: peaceful and poltergeist. A poltergeist is a ghost that-"
"I know, they demolish things and make noise", interrupted Twilight.
"Right, the name gives it away", admitted Priest.*
"Ghosts always haunt something. They never exist without some kind of anchor that binds them to the realm of the living. It can be a person – or, in your case, a pony, I suppose -, a place, an event or an object. The reason that many cursed objects are so dangerous is because there is some kind of soul attached to it..."
Or souls, plural, he added in his thoughts, but let's not scare her to much. It's not important anyway... now where was I?
"How do you know all this?", asked Twilight.
He hesitated. "I've... met my share of, er, evil ghosts."
- - -
Priest scrambled down the stairs, trying to keep up with his group. A high-pitched screech drove them to heighten their pace.
"What are those things?", shouted Gardok, his guttural words hard to understand between the clanking of the orc's armor and his heavy breathing.
"Banshees", said Priest, barely raising his voice. "If you want to live, you better shut up and keep running." He had no problem with his breathing the way Gardok did. Priest chanted a prayer to give his teammate a boost of energy and to shield his mind against the piercing screams from behind.
"Better", grunted Gardok and dared to look behind them. "Thank the ancestors, they're falling back!"
They kept running for another mile, dashing through the giant purple-leaved trees and dodging enormous dark grey rocks and ruins. They belonged to the remnants of Zul'Drak, the temple complex of another ancient civilization that had fallen prey to the clutches of the Lich King. The sky was grey and heavy with clouds and fumes, a foul odor filling the air around them. That, of course, wasn't exactly helping Gardok and Vol'Shalai with the breathing. If you stayed in these lands for too long, you could kiss your heartbeat goodbye. If you still had one.
Vol'Shalai sighed and collapsed on the ground.
"Dat's it, I'm not gonna run no more", the troll declared. He pulled out a fist-sized flask containing something that resembled a very dark red wine and downed it within two seconds. "Nevah again! Dose Banshees are frickin' crazy, mon! Almos' screamed my soul into da void!"
Priest and Gardok sat down on a rotten tree trunk. It was still cleaner than the ground itself.
"That's the point", said Priest, throwing an annoyed glance at the troll. Vol'Shalai was a good shaman, granted, but the way he kept pointing out the obvious was starting to get on his nerves. "Their screams detach the soul from the body, causing you to split into a lifeless corpse, ready to become a zombie, and a ghost."
"Shut up, bonehead, I don't wanna know the details", snarled Gardok. "If not for the ridiculous amount of gold they promised us for investigating, I'd never had set a foot here or teamed up with a Forsaken in the first place. Fucking Scourge!" He spat on the ground and took his own bottle out of his backpack.
"Good news is, now we know how many there are. And we found the necromancer."
Vol'Shalai nodded sagely. "Yea, we gonna tell'em da numbers an' we gonna get reinforcements. I can't wait ta get ma revenge. Der soul essences are gonna make sum great voodoo ingredients..."
"Yeah, whatever", said Priest.
"Why do you even care?", asked Gardok, raising an eyebrow. "You're dead anyway."
"Well, duh, that's the Scourge's fault. And the Banshees are obeying that Scourge necromancer so I'm gonna vanquish as many of them as possible", said Priest. "The money is just the cherry on top of the revenge cake."
"You don't eat", pointed Gardok out.
"Shut up, you know what I mean", groaned Priest.
- - -
"Priest? Are you okay?", asked Twilight.
The undead blinked. "Uh, yes, sorry, I was just remembering something... anyway, we need to figure out what the anchor is. Once we find it, we can get rid of it and send the ghost 'on its way'."
"What does that mean? I mean, how do you destroy an event? And what if the ghost is mad at a pony? We can't hurt the pony! It wouldn't be right!"
Priest rolled his eyes. "Calm down, Twilight, that's not what I meant. I meant destroying the, er, grudge of the ghost. Um... an example: The ghost died without finding something important he had been looking for. We find it and give it to him, the ghost vanishes."
Twilight looked up. "It is that easy?"
"I never said what the object could be", said Priest. "It might be something that has been destroyed or lost for ages. Get it?"
The alicorn nodded. "Wow, this is so... strange and new", she said.
Priest shrugged. "You get used to it. To a certain point."
"I see", she mumbled.
"Anyway, there's more; but I guess details only make sense once we've found out more about the ghost", concluded Priest. He stretched and yawned.
Twilight blinked slowly. "Priest..."
"What?" He froze with his arms still in midair.
"You yawned."
He frowned, lowering his arms again. "Huh. You're right. Didn't know I can still do that. Weird."
"Well, I don't know about you but I can hear my bed calling me", said Spike, a tired smile on his face.
Twilight threw a glance at the clock hanging above the kitchen door. "Dear Celestia, it's that late already?! I'm sorry, Spike, I could have asked Owliscious to help me with this!"
The dragon waved lazily. "Nah, it's okay. It was interesting – a bit scary, though", he said.
"Well, have a good night, Spike", said Twilight. "Don't forget to brush your teeth!"
"G'night", mumbled Spike. His entire body relaxed as he dragged himself upstairs. It seemed he had been hiding his exhaustion for Twilight's sake.
She must mean a lot to him, thought Priest.
Twilight put the quill and ink aside and rose from her chair. "I think I'm going to call it a night, too", she said. "I'll just leave the table like this... We might need the books tomorrow."
Priest grinned, amused by Twilight's excuse. It seemed to be her way of saying, 'please excuse the mess; make yourself at home', and she probably needed a reason for herself to justify leaving the books unsorted overnight.
"Good night, Priest."
"Night."
The alicorn went upstairs, leaving Priest and the book pile behind. There was some noise upstairs, then silence.
He sighed and looked around. What should he read tonight? He had finished The Crystal Heart today so it was time for something new.
"Let's see... 'Tabletop Games for Beginners'... 'How to Raise a Griffin', urgh, not really... 'The Mystery of Cutie Marks'?"
Priest remembered what Twilight had told him about those strange tattoos on the ponies' flanks. She had said it symbolized a pony's special talent and that every adult pony had it. He frowned. There was no reasonable explanation for this. Why for Light's sake would you need a picture on your butt to know what you're good at? Maybe it was the other way around, though, and it magically appeared once you found out your main talent.
Which means that Sweetie Belle and her friends haven't discovered their talents yet, concluded Priest. And Mara hasn't either. Now that he thought about it, she was the only adult pony without a mark he had met so far.
This book could be interesting. Might as well have a look.
He took it from the shelf, closed the curtains and made himself comfortable on the sofa.
About half an hour later, the book fell to the carpet with a muffled thud.