A Ghost Story for Equestria - The Treasure of Princess Luna

by Hereward

Part 3: In Shadow and Slime

"I overheard them discussing your treasure," Diamond Tiara began, "And I was disturbed by the idea that a bunch of blank flanks should uncover the property of a Princess; indeed Twilight's encouragement of their involvement was almost inconceivable." Luna frowned at this but did not interject, wishing to hear the full story first. "Anyway I saw the opportunity to ensure that a more fitting pony would recover the treasure when those three bedded down in their tuppenny treehouse, so I managed to retrieve the materials that would've led them to the treasure and got Silver Spoon here out without too much trouble and we immediately set off to bring your things back to their rightful owner."

"I don't remember anything about that." Silver Spoon interrupted. "You dragged me away from my beauty sleep to carry all those paper and we agreed that you'd get all the diamonds, platinum, gold, emeralds, sapphires, rubies and pearls while I could keep the silver, crystal, iron, steel, tin, copper and bronze." She gave a distressful glance at Princess Luna, wondering what this confession would lead to.

"Well I had to offer you something or you'd never have come." Diamond Tiara moaned. "Anyway we made our way to the ancient castle under cover of darkness."

"Through the Everfree Forest?!?" Twilight ejaculated. "Did you have anything to defend yourselves with?"

"We had a shovel, a hammer, a chisel, a lantern and a length of rope." Silver Spoon answered. "To be honest I almost wish we never made it."

"Well," Diamond Tiara continued, "It must've been about midnight by the time we found a carving on the outside wall that looked anything like Nightmare Moon." She paused as the events in her recounting were about to catch up with the greatest horror she'd ever experienced. "It so happened that it looked straight down into a well as expected. It seemed rather convenient that there was a spiral staircase within it, so we made our way down, down, down into the pitch darkness with all that wet moss..." She trailed off as the impact began to get to her.

"We went all the way down to the bottom," Silver Spoon followed on, "Where the water went up to our knees, and then went back up again, looking over every stone until we got to the top without seeing anything. Doing a double-check I noticed that the cryptogram consisted of a hundred and eighty-four letters for each figure and mentioned as much to Diamond."

"Indeed I was most impressed that you finally worked that out." Diamond Tiara bragged. "So I went back down by 184 steps and still found no clue, so I did the opposite but found Silver Spoon standing on the 184th step up."

"Yes," Silver Spoon continued before she could spin the events any further into her ego, "And I showed you that the wall was more like cement there than the rest and, upon chipping away at it, found that the layer was in fact composed of surprisingly dry clay. Underneath we saw six eyes aligned like the corners of a hexagon and thusly Diamond initially wanted me to remove the stone slab but took over quite suddenly after I had done one half. I moved up to recover the shovel just in case, since we had left it next to the outside wall of the well, and I was just on the last few steps when I heard a significant scraping and a clunk as the slab was pulled away." Diamond Tiara did not interrupt as she may have done for she was visibly sweating by this point. "Looking down I saw the light of the lantern flicker upon Diamond's face as she looked inside, crying with joy that she'd found a great quantity of sacks but also moaning about the stench of the old alcove. At any rate..." She struggled now as she recalled just what she saw at the time, "She reached in and pulled the sack you see there out of its hiding place and, just as she got it between her teeth and reached out again for another sack, what looked like a particularly large bag slipped out onto her chest... and wrapped its tentacles right round her; the cry she made was blood-curdling and the lantern fell into the bottom of the well as the thing finally exited from its hiding place. I immediately grabbed the shovel and hurled it down, making it release her and let out a terrible watery groan as she scrambled up the steps and we both dashed off with the treasure, leaving everything else except the rope behind."

"Well," Diamond Tiara finally gasped out, "We galloped all the way back to my place and barricaded ourselves in my bedroom. I suppose I should've considered about how to get a bath without anyone asking how I got so dirty and slimy." She shuddered, clearly Silver Spoon was the only one with any real control of her faculties.

"It hardly seemed like five minutes when this thick dark slime began to seep under the door," Silver Spoon mentioned, "And this dreadful clawing came from the corridor outside along with an appalling sound of a heavy something shifting about; every now and then the doorknob would twist but never did it enter. When dawn arrived the sounds ceased and more familiar ones came in from outdoors. It wasn't until somepony hammered vigorously and asked about getting us breakfast that I dared open the door. And every night we would wait in that room, listening to the same dreadful noises that harkened back to that time in the well, so that I could not leave until the sun was up but Diamond just wouldn't move from the room for all the jewels in a dragon's nest. I do believe you know the rest."

"While the two of thee hath received enough punishment for thy acts of theft," Princess Luna spoke, "'Tis quite clear that thou needs to better understand the true meaning of Equestrian harmony. Indeed, young Tiara, thy arrogance is most distasteful to be exhibited and so we shalt decree a new system of profiling for foals so we may see the disciplining and reformation of troublesome children while also providing us with a way to identify and cure situations of nepotism within local government circles. But for now I shall return to the well and relieve the guardian of its role, returning it where it hath come from." She made her farewells and shooed off the two fillies before taking to the skies.

---

The following day Twilight appeared to be a tad sleep-deprived to Spike. He could guess the reason and so attempted to console her.

"Come on. You know the Princess went to banish that thing and even if She hadn't She's got the treasure so it's only gonna bother Her, and She was the one who put it there in the first place." Twilight looked at him as though he'd undergone a significant growth spurt before replying.

"I know, Spike. It's just I wanted to make sure nothing was gonna disturb the nights around here anymore. Frankly I don't think I'm gonna leave the downstairs doors and windows unlocked for many days yet. And besides I just can't get over the fact that I've no idea what it would've looked like; I know I'd probably be better off never having seen it but the curiosity keeps grinding away in my mind." After a moment's thought he made a suggestion.

"Perhaps we could ask the Princess? I mean I do have a connection to Her as well as Celestia now." Accepting this idea Twilight began to prepare a message.

Interestingly enough, after a few minutes a sharp blue flash filled the room and Princess Luna stood there, curiously clad in a pair of pyjamas.

"You just got through to me in time." She told them. "I was just about to turn in for the day." Twilight gave a nervous smile, especially from the evidence of Luna's improvement in modern elocution. "I was surprised by your choice in inquiry, Twilight Sparkle, but to best put you in the picture without causing any major fright I'll offer you a comparative description. Imagine a slug the size of a bear crossed with a squid and coated in a runny tar and then add the dreaded aura that filled any room that the real Nightmare Moon occupied." Twilight bit her lip and gulped. "Just remember merely seeing it would've led to many a sleepless night." She made a quick farewell and returned to Her Canterlot quarters in the same kind of flash that She arrived with.

Author's Note:

This chapter turned out a fair amount shorter than I anticipated. But this did motivate me to have it done before Halloween's out.

Comments

[Hereward]

5210566 That's the point. Twilight would expect to find a stained glass window with each of the leaders of the tribes or one with each of their subordinates but not one where there are only two leaders and one subordinate. The idea is that window is unique in showing those three and nopony else.