Log 3

Our recent delving offers a range of mysteries.

We’ve discovered a set of tablets, made of the same greasy black stone as the summit itself, each one about thirty-six inches high and about twenty-five inches wide. They were resting in a pile before a pillar depicting a crude carving of what seems to be a pony with its head bowed holding out a smaller pony.

Perhaps meant to symbolise a parent? We can’t be sure.

We’ve sent up the tablets to the campsite. Professor Meinnight is going to work on finding some way to translate. Good luck to him. The language is completely unfamiliar. Trying to read these tablets gave me a headache. At least hieroglyphs have nice pictures.

My four friends and I led the expedition into the site ahead of the rest since Lord Casterly insisted on stopping every half-foot to have his photo taken.

The depletion of light is becoming very worrying but we’re pressing on regardless. The place shows signs of being a tomb of sorts. There is the definite scent of incense scattered about here and there and unmistakable signs of putrefaction upon most of the things we find, mostly just frayed parchment and rags.

But no bodies.

If the parchment survived, so too would signs of any corpses around.

But none can be seen.

What we have found however, are more of these effigies.

The most prominent of which are placed in two opposite rows down an expanding stairway to a great, wide door so that anypony coming up the stairs may see each one looking at each other going up. They bare some similarities to ponies but...

Their expressions!

They were snarling. Huge fanged grimaces that spanned across the entirety of their faces, dividing their heads in two. Their eyes are pale-yellow, pearl-like stones, looking more like pustules than anything else. They’re deep-set in the oily black stone with no way to remove them.

Doctor Eton Mess proposes this is some sort of line of kings or chieftains. A strange proposition. I don’t believe ponies ever had fangs even in those days.

Then again, depictions always vary. Frankly, they’re some of the ugliest creatures I’ve ever seen so whichever artists made these clearly weren’t fans of the local government.

There are other effigies too, though these are more ambiguous.

Huge collections of statues. These ones are made of a different material of varying shades of grey. The feel is oak-like, slightly spongy, and the statues themselves don’t weigh more than the average cart. The material has degraded over time and if the statues once had features, they’ve since lost them over millennia.

But what I find most off about them is how they’re placed. It just seems random. They all seemed to be clustered in random areas, some are bunched into the corners, others scattered across the stairway, facing the way we came and some are even blocking doorways.

Perhaps they just ran out of space.

Madame Daubentone is still mustering up the courage to venture in. She says she’s been trying to find the crying foals.

She says they’re trapped in the ruin.

How can spirits be trapped? There’s no detectable magic.

We’re bringing up the equipment to get the doors open in a few hours.

When next we begin, we’ll really get exploring.

Note: I’ve received word that Fortissimo is staying in the camp. The injury he took attempting to open the door is causing him great pain which the doctors are doing their best to treat but the infection’s driving him berserk and he keeps attacking anypony who draws near the wound.

Log 4

Well. This is where it gets creepy.

More so.

This morning we broke open the main door with a battering ram. The door itself was another different material, a dark bottle-green glass that gives the appearance of deep sea water. But it didn’t shatter. It cracked down the middle, almost perfectly ordered, and we were able to push the two halves apart.

We were inside.

We were standing in an immense amphitheatre. The place was as big as a hoofball stadium and the walls were decorated with that strange yellow pearl from the statue eyes that gave some light to the room, emanating from it like dim lamps without much distinct colour.

Gathered within the amphitheatre, arranged in a circle were a hundred and eighty-two corpses.

They were still fresh.

Doctor Eton Mess has performed an incantation that prevents oxygen or lease of pressure interfering with the tombs state of decay so the opening of the tomb won’t cause the specimens to rot any more than they have done already.

But the bodies here only look dead a few months. Some are still bleeding. They are undoubtedly as old as the tomb, we’ve done the checks, yet they only seem to be in the mid-stages of outer-body decomposition

Lord Casterly and his fellows are ordering the place aired out (Clearly none of them have the stomach for death) so we’ll have to examine the bodies quickly before they’re exhumed.

The corpses are in a terrible state, half-flayed and deprived of most exterior organs and extremities, removed while they were alive. They’re joined together in pairs by sets of chains that fix them to the base around the amphitheatre. Each pair has a male and female of relatively similar age. All of them are leaning towards the centre of the amphitheatre, mouths wide open with expressions of absolute pain and horror.

Can’t say I blame them.

None of them are younger than twenty though so Madame Daubentone’s ramblings still seem pretty vague.

The amphitheatre leads ever further downwards. Another sealed door like that of the entrance.

We’ll find out tomorrow.

Note: Just received unfortunate news. Fortissimo is dead. Apparently the infection spread to his lungs and he asphyxiated early last night.

Log 5

Dear Celestia

This place

Why?

Why would anypony do this?

What were they trying to achieve?

The foals

The poor, poor foals

Sounds like they found a mass grave from one of the wars. I doubt that can be good.

6065408
Oh it wasn't war that caused this.

6065413
Whatever created it, can't be good

6065408 6065413
Sacrifice-Room !?

6067149
Looks scary

6067152
That's form Aliens vs Predator
https://www.google.ca/search?q=aliens+vs+predator+sacrifice-rooms&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj2g8HjjNrVAhVh74MKHR5tAG8Q_AUICigB&biw=1172&bih=618#imgdii=nuWe0HsUr4XVpM:&imgrc=0tL-DhV5z_D3VM:

6067155
I see.

Very foreboding, I like how you cut the story. Although this is just my take in it, there are times when I feel like child sacrifices are overdone, no don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on it. it's just that every dark novel I read gets to the point where juvenile slayings has to happen or be mentioned, because the story has to be "bleak."

The fact that this idea conforms to set the mood or shift the story, I tend to guess when or where a child dies, sometimes I'm wrong, but sometimes I'm right, just give it five more chapters or two to three books later. Based on how it's written or presented but, I can tell how cynical a writer is without reading their biography. This is one of the factors why I'm turned off with grimdark fiction, I don't know if I should tell it to you here.

But yeah, it gets old...

6069379
I'll keep that in mind.
Don't worry, I'm working on something that you might not have seen coming.