//------------------------------//
// Dark Magic 
// Story: The Watchful Eye 
// by Mr Anomalous 
//------------------------------//

Ugly roots and malignant hanging nooses of moss beset the line of armored ponies, and now and then a pile of dank stones or fragments of rotting wall intensified by its hint of morbid habitation, a depression which every malfored free and every bit of fungus combined to create.
Everyone was silent.  They got a guide, and they glided through the forest, everyone feeling rather uneasy.  Something was most definitely wrong.  Even in the Everfree forest, this new, inky darkness was fridged and unnerving.
Only madness could do justice to the sounds and noises, coming up.  Shrieks and calls, chanting, shouting, the crackling of fire, the unharmonic beating of drums.  Soon the cancerous, lingering feeling of fear and met with that of disgust.   
There are vocal qualities peculiar to ponies, and vocal qualities peculiar to other creatures.  It is terrible to hear the one when the source—should be the other.  
As the armored ponies approached, the less organized ululation of the frantic howling began to fade, echoing through those black woods like pestilential tempests from the gulfs of Tartarus.  A chant began:

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh—

Then, Captain Aurora shouted, fear, haste, desperation all in her voice: "Go!"
The armored ponies fell upon the strange ritual, interrupting the deep-voiced call.  Their fear manifested itself as they subdued the mad ponies with belligerent force.
All the while, Wisp felt as if he were going to vomit.
Something was very deeply wrong, something profoundly evil.  And it had all been brought about by that thing.  That masked creature from beyond.


- - -


He set up the stolen ping-pong table and offered the paddle to his companion.  Said companion gruffly shook his head once, his masks's lenses gleaming in the firelight.
The room with the pool had become their main living space.  The water, though calm, actually had an entrance to a underground river just at the very bottom.  It was good for disposing of things.
Other than that, there was a hole in the roof, where the moon and sun could shine through and where the smoke of night fires could escape.  Not to mention the size of it.  Not huge, but nice enough.
The human then offered his paddle to the tied up pony in the corner.  She was crying, and the gag was put on so tight the corners of her lips bled.
The second human shook his head, exapserated, and stood up and took the paddle.  They both got in ping-pong stance.
Then the first human realized that he forgot to steal and ping-pong balls.


- - -


The message came swiftly.  Celestia, of course, had felt that something was wrong.  Tonight, however, it was a profound sense of darkness.  Luna and Twilight came without being called.  
Apparently, there had been some sort of . . . ritual going on in the Everfree Forest.  Bonfires, dancing, chanting, and . . . even the sacraficing of animals, it appeared.
This, of course, was the limit.  That thing had to be caught.  Caught, held, and put into a cell deep below the castle, chained and left to rot.