A branching story with interactive gameplay, multiple endings, and more secrets than Pinkie's basement!
It's Nightmare Night in Ponyville (and presumably everywhere else as well) and Starlight and Trixie have teamed up to host a haunted house attraction. Spooks and frights and guaranteed in this one-of-a-kind experience orchestrated by two mares who, between them, barely make up a single functioning member of society.
What could go wrong in this pandormare's box of horror designed by a former villainous megalomaniac with boundary issues and a compatriot whose worldview is heavily tinted by a lens of narcissism?
Take on the role of Rainbow Dash, fearless seeker of frights, in this branching CYOA experience. Explore different paths to victory, collect items, solve puzzles, and try to find all the hidden endings!
Content warnings: More thriller than horror, with the occasional dip into psychological terror. Some medium-tier body horror, mostly transformation based. Odd snippets of comedy to lighten the mood. Mild spoilers for various horror movies, but nothing recent.
Note: Some artists are credited by name only because their only linkable contact is on nsfw-heavy websites. Special thanks to SparklingTwilight and Panem et Circenses for helping work out the gameplay kinks and pointing out mistakes that slipped past me.
The house looms before you, a monster in itself, much like those contained within. Only instead of eyes that pierce the darkness it has windows with flickering lanterns, and in place of vicious teeth that can gnash and tear it has splintered porch beams. A few kitschy decorations are taped around the edges, smiling paper pumpkins and grinning ghosts made of grocery bags, but the colorful additions do little to defang its natural presence. There is something to be said about rotted boards, walls of climbing ivy, and shattered windows that give a building a weighty presence like nothing else. Even if this wasn't Nightmare Night, this is the sort of house any normal pony would go out of their way to avoid.
Which is probably why it feels so unnatural to walk right up to it.
Then again, you are Rainbow Dash. You eat fear for breakfast.
There's a pony standing out front like a sentinel at the gates of Tartarus. Her costume is simple, but effective. A fancy vest with gold epaulets and a long flared red cape. A Master of Ceremonies. Fitting, given the circumstances. She squints through her pince-nez and smiles as she recognizes you.
"Happy Nightmare Night, Rainbow Dash! You're here for the challenge?"
You nod. "Yeah, I saw your flyer. 'Spookiest haunted house in Equestria.' That's a pretty big claim."
Starlight chuckles. "We've got a pretty big production going. Trixie and I have been planning this for months. Twilight could probably write a paper on all the innovations we've made in illusion magic." She leans to the left to try and see behind you. "Are the others coming?"
"Later," you assure her. "They're all running attractions or stands in town. I figured I'd come early and scope it out. Preview it for Fluttershy, you know."
She nods knowingly, a sly little grin on her face. "And maybe set a record in the process?"
You pause, caught off guard, yet captured by one of your trigger words. "A record? How do you set a record for a haunted house?"
"Because this... is no ordinary haunted house." Starlight steps back and rears up to gesture dramatically, her cape flaring out in a practiced swirl. "What you see before you is an innovation in Nightmare Night attractions. Part haunted house, part escape room, part dungeon crawl. An interactive experience like no other! Where illusion—" You blink as a second Starlight, identical save for her costume being blue, steps into view from behind the first. Had she been hiding there all along?
"—and reality blur together," Blue Starlight finishes.
"No guides!"
"No rules!"
"Each room offers its own unique flavors of spooks and specters to be faced in whatever order you like!" Red Starlight lights her horn and shimmering illusions of ghosts and monsters fill the air.
"Conquer your fears and you'll receive helpful tools and tips that will aid you on your quest." Blue Starlight gestures and the illusory monsters poof into bags of loot. "Turn tail and flee if you must, but be warned that the later frights will be only more difficult."
The Starlights move in a perfect mirror of each other in a strange dance of gestures that ends with them poised dramatically towards the doors. "Will you accept the challenge and face your fears, or run home shrieking like a schoolfilly?" they chant in unison. "The choices are yours and yours alone!"
You can't help but get more and more excited as they continue. "This. Sounds. Awesome! How do I play?"
Red Starlight tips her hat down over one eye, grinning. "Just head on in and try not to get too scared. When you think you've had enough and figured everything out, you can make your way to the exit, or if you want to give up, back out the entrance."
Blue Starlight quickly drops her Trixie-like showmare demeanor and adopts a serious expression. "First though, a few rules and warnings."
You groan. Of course. No way it could be as awesome as you were imagining. There just had to be a bunch of rules to make it lame, just like every other haunted house you've been to. No going outside the marked areas. No punching the monsters. Take only one piece of candy at the end.
She steps aside to reveal a small posterboard covered in seasonal doodles and a few lines of text. "Rule number one," Blue Starlight says. "You can tackle the rooms in any order you like. There is an optimal route based around the tools you may pick up as a reward for clearing rooms, but there are many paths to success."
Red Starlight moves her hoof to the second bullet point. "Rule two: Reasonable reactions. There are no actors here. Everything inside is props, magic, and illusions. So if your first instinct is to knock a skeleton's block off, have at it."
Your appraisal of the event, and to a certain extent Starlight, skyrockets back up. "What? You mean I can fight the monsters?"
"If you want. But—and this is a genuine warning—these high-level illusions are nothing to scoff at. Everything that happens will seem entirely authentic. You may even start to forget what's really real. No matter what you think you feel or see, no harm will come to you."
Blue Starlight smirks. "This is some of Trixie's and my best work. Not even Twilight will be able to tell what's real and what's an illus—" She cuts off as you stick your hoof through her muzzle. With a look of total surprise that's mirrored on her red counterpart, Blue Starlight bursts into sparkles.
"Wha..." she stammers, her mouth hanging open. "How... how did you know she was the fake? My spellwork was pristine!"
You shrug. "If she was the real one, my hoof wouldn't have gone through and I'd have just booped your muzzle."
She grumbles something about 'adding a tactile matrix next time' but doesn't really seem all that upset. She quickly shakes herself out of the funk and gets back into character. "Anyway, where was I? Right, rule two. Lots of illusions inside—ones you won't be able to pop since they're tied to keystones—so feel free to fight if you want, but don't come crying the first time you buck a zombie and get your hooves stuck in its gooey organs."
A flash of movement catches your attention and your eyes snap up to a second story window. It's empty. Even the curtain is still. You could have sworn there'd been a pony standing there a split second earlier. Must have been a trick of the light. You put it out of your mind.
You roll your eyes. "It can't be that scary."
"Don't underestimate it," she warns. Her eyes narrow as the beginning of a smile starts to creep across your lips. "I'm serious, Dash. We actually have a waiver you need to sign."
"Seriously? I thought you said it was safe."
"It is; physically. The waiver is for mental scarring and trauma. As I said, it's very realistic."
Despite her warnings, this only makes you more excited. The best things in life always require a wavier or at least the hint that one should be needed. It's like a certification that something's gonna be awesome. You manage to reign in your anticipation behind a veil of coolness and sign her wavier, if only to conform to the letter of the rules.
"And finally, rule three: It's okay to give up. It's not just scary, this is made to be a challenge. We fully expect it'll take some ponies multiple tries to successfully make it to the end. If you get too scared you can always come back out the way you came in and take a breather before trying again. Though, if you do, everything inside will reset and you'll have to start over."
You almost feel insulted before you realize that this is probably a heavily practiced speech that she has to give to everypony, including ponies who are a lot less brave and fearless than you. It's nice that she thought of them, though you're not going to need it. "Psh, really? I'll be fine. I'm not some little filly going in without her big brother, I can handle it."
Starlight shrugs. "Don't say I didn't warn you." A sharp breeze punctuates her words, making the house's shutters rattle and a gnarled old tree groan in protest. "Now, are you ready to begin your adventure?"
You grin in eager anticipation. "Oh you know I am!" You start to head for the door.
"Oh, wait!" Starlight announces, pulling you up short. "I almost forgot. You're going to need this." She presents you with a plastic foal's candy bucket.
"Uh, thanks? I was just planning on eating any candy I got as I go though."
"It's part of the experience," she explains. "This is your Inventory Bucket. It'll hold any items you pick up along the way, even ones that are too big to fit in it."
"Oh. Okay, thanks." You take the bucket, still feeling slightly silly. You haven't used one of these since you were a preteen.
"You might also find it helpful to use a piece of IRL paper."
"A what?" you ask.
She pulls out a thin strip of paper that looks like a blank receipt and sticks it to your bucket. "An Inventory Registry List. To help keep track of everything you have on hoof."
"Now you're ready to begin!" With a wave of her hoof, the double doors creak open, the void inside beckoning you in like the mouth of Tartarus itself. "May the strength of your spirit and the fortitude of your mind guide you through the dark road ahead!"
You barely hear her as a few swift wingbeats send you sailing through the door, hungry for adventure and thrills.
The foyer of the old Bristlebark manor is just as dilapidated and crumbing as its exterior. You remember that it was built about sixty years ago during the big construction boom when a bunch of Canterlot elites got the idea that Ponyville would be perfect place for all their summer retreats. This was one of the few manors that was completed before they realized that local farmers weren't too keen on selling their fields and giving up their livelihoods to a bunch of yuppie tourist snobs.
The once plush carpet is dried and matted down, torn and ripped where teenagers have broken in to race and cause mischief. The splintered remains of a double staircase lead up to a balcony that wraps the room's second floor, though all the doors on that level have been boarded shut.
A brisk October breeze cuts through the night, worming its way through the many holes in the walls to send a chill down the back of your neck.
A chandelier lies on the floor, shattered and rusted, but pushed to the side of the room. A pony-sized hole in the ceiling, black as pitch, marks where it once hung.
It's dark. The only light comes from the scant beams of moonlight that pass through the hole-riddled walls and low-burning jack-o-lanterns set every few paces along the walls. Their meager flickering light seems to only add more shadows to the room.
You're alone. Completely and totally alone.
"What's this that the Great and Vampiric Trixie sees before her?"
If only.
You follow the sound of the voice to a figure up on the balcony. She may have traded out her star-spangled cape for one of red and black velvet (spangled with tiny bats), but Trixie's enormous ego is still big enough to be identified from across the room.
"Have we our first challenger come to attempt to conquer our most magical of mansions, our spookiest of chateaus? Whom is it who thinks they have the might and mettle to face their fears and return unscathed?" Her gaze lowers to meet yours and her posture shifts immediately. "Oh. It's you."
To this, you do take insult. No one should be disappointed when Rainbow Dash walks into a room. "Gee, thanks for the warm welcome." Honestly you don't know what her problem is with you. All she has to do is acknowledge that you're a better performer than she is and everything would be cool.
"Well I was hoping it might be somepony who could actually offer a challenge to my myriad of illusions, my hosts of ghosts, and my phalanx of frights. But if all I have is you, well..." She shrugs. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to do a trial run on the lowest setting to work out any final kinks in the spellwork."
You shoot her a scowl. 'Lowest setting' your right flank! "Hey! Don't look down on me! I can take your strongest illusions and throw them right back at ya!"
Trixie grins. "Is that a challenge?"
"Yeah! I want your best, your strongest stuff!"
Her grin widens from merely cheeky to downright vulpine. "You asked for it!" Igniting her horn in a sizzling azure corona, she quickly draws a series of sigils in the air, her horn leaving a trail of light behind as it bobs and weaves through the air. Each new symbol floats away from her, adding to what quickly becomes a giant ring that spans the full two-story height of the room. As the last symbol slots into place, the whole spell matrix flashes once, twice, three times before exploding into a silent firework the soaks into the walls and floor like dew on dry sand.
"Impressive," you remark, and it is. You've picked up enough rudimentary magic fundamentals just from hanging out with Twilight to know that whatever she did was actually something of a respectable feat. Something that really should have taken a lot more preparation than it looked like it did.
Her smile hasn't gone anyway, but she rests her weight on a solid piece of railing. "Thanks. Now go have fun. Trixie will be here to supply a little helpful advice and color commentary when you get turned around and frightened. Oh, and don't be surprised if some of the scares know your name. I've made a few... custom adjustments for you."
She's confident. It radiates out from her like a beacon, outshone only by the twin brightness of her smugness. It's enough that a thought starts to form in the back of your mind. A niggling doubt that maybe goading her to up the ante wasn't the smartest decision.
You squash that thought with prejudice. No. You are Rainbow "Danger" Miriam Freaking Dash and you refuse to be beaten by a corpse of a building and a souped-up version of one of Trixie's performances!
Your resolve hardened, you soldier on.
There doesn't seem to be anything (or anypony) of note to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
"Whoa," Rainbow Dash exclaims as the world around her is replaced by an endless white void. Nothing exists in any direction. There's also a strange sense of disconnection, like a guiding force behind her has suddenly been ripped away. "What happened? Is this the first challenge?"
"No, you featherbrain." She jumps as Trixie suddenly appears from nowhere, looking none too pleased. "There's nothing here because nobody was supposed to ever come here. This is a void. An absence. There's nothing here because it's not part of the story."
"Oh... kay?" Rainbow Dash offers hesitantly, though the explanation has done nothing to clarify things. "So if this place isn't supposed to exist... why are we here?"
Trixie snorts derisively. "We're here because because somebody couldn't follow the rules."
"What, me? But I haven't even started yet!"
"No, not you. Them. Hey!" she yells out into the void. "What do you think you're doing here?"
"I thought you said—"
"Still wasn't talking to you. I'm talking to them." She points out at nothing, her eyes searching. "To the reader. Aha!" With a sudden and decisive movement she turns to glare directly at the fourth wall. "Found you!"
Her gaze is intense as her eyes bore into you, steely and accusatory. "What did the author just say? 'Don't use the next chapter button'. And what was the first thing you did? Went and clicked it."
"Maybe it was an accident?" Rainbow Dash offers, eager to move past this and get back to her adventuring. "If they've been on the site long enough then clicking Next Chapter is probably a reflex. Muscle memory, or whatever they call it."
"Pft." Trixie is unmoved by her rationalization. "A likely excuse. I bet they didn't even read the author's note. Just scrolled right on by like the EULA on some suspiciously free software. You know, if the BBcode would let me, I'd definitely be going full Monika right now and call you out by name, [Print.string(get.Username)]!"
"Geez, you maybe wanna take a chill pill, Trix? Don't be so hard on them." Dash brightens as an idea comes to her. "Maybe they already played to the end and now they're just going back and looking for secrets and Easter eggs."
Trixie huffs once more and gives the reader a glare. "Fine. Whatever. You want an Easter egg? Well here's an Easter egg for you!"
Rather than wallpaper, this hallway is lined with expensive wood paneling. Or at least it once was. Now the rich mahogany is so thoroughly dry rotted that it crumbles at your touch. Moth-eaten curtains with faded gold tassels frame each door as if to hide one at a moment's notice.
Chandeliers, small ones, hang from the ceiling, unlit. Thick cobwebs have grown lampshades around the crystal and glass ornamentation.
Once, this was a place designed to be shown off. Now, barely a fraction of its former glory remains.
The air is dusty and tickles your nose with an urge to sneeze.
There are FOUR DOORS in the hallway, two set on your left-hoof side and two on your right. Beyond them, the hallway splits, taking both a hard LEFT TURN and CONTINUING FORWARD and out of sight.
The tiled floor of this hallway is cold underhoof. Each step seems to suck the warmth from you like strange ghostly leeches.
You move along carefully, keenly aware of the unnatural stillness of the air. It it a spell? One of Starlight's effects? Or is there just something different about this section of the house? Either way, the total stillness is making all your pegasus instincts throw up warning bells.
You try to ignore them, though it leaves you jumpy. Starlight said you'd be safe.
Right?
There are THREE DOORS in the hallway, all set on your left-hoof side. Ahead, the hallway takes a hard LEFT TURN and continues out of sight.
Broken tiles crunch underhoof like early frost. Wary of shards and splinters, you begin to fly instead.
The still air is unsettling and makes flying a little harder than it should be, but its still better than getting shattered ceramic stuck in your frog.
As with the stillness of the air, this hallway is unnaturally silent. You can no longer hear the house groaning, the bugs gnawing, not even the wind moving outside. Everything is as perfectly still and silent as the grave.
Save for you.
There are THREE DOORS in the hallway, all set on your right-hoof side. Ahead, the hallway CONTINUES FORWARD.
Portraits line this hall, their dead eyes looking down at you with an eternal judgmental glare.
There's furniture too. End tables and bookshelves. Vases and busts. All of it knocked to the ground and scattered like a category five hurricane just blew through. There's barely a walkable path through the wreckage, and even then you fly over a few tricky sections.
You try to ignore the red smears and hoofprints that cover everything. Probably just catsup, right?
There are THREE DOORS in the hallway, all set on your right-hoof side. Ahead, the hallway takes a hard RIGHT TURN and continues out of sight.
The eyes of the dead weigh heavy upon you as you traverse the portrait-filled corridor. Their cracked and faded gazes seem to follow you as you quickly pass them by.
The pathway is a wreckage. Shattered furniture and broken decorations fill the space like collateral damage after a brutal war. You fly more than walk through the mess.
When you land, you feel a cold wetness on your hoof. It drips red when you check it.
Paint? Ketchup?
...Blood?
You wipe it off and try to remember that everything's staged here.
Yet you can't think of any paint that glistens in the moonlight or stains your hooves quite like this does.
There are THREE DOORS in the hallway, all set on your left-hoof side. Ahead, the hallway takes a hard LEFT TURN and continues out of sight.
Light from the jack-o-lanterns reflects of what was once expensive wood paneling. Old velvet curtains catch the light and trap it in their rigid folds, casting strange and unearthly shadows along the walls.
A few chandeliers flicker above you, not enough to see by, but making just enough light to make new shadows flicker and twist at the edge of your vision. There's a faint acrid scent of burning every time an unfortunate bug collides with one of the antique bulbs.
You constantly have to resist the urge to sneeze, as doing so would raise a cloud that would leave you completely blinded.
You have reached a T-junction.
The LEFT hallway leads into a darkness that your eyes cannot penetrate.
The RIGHT hallway contains FOUR DOORS, two set on your side and two on the opposite. It then CONTINUES FORWARD past them.
The pressing darkness begins to lessen as you can once again see the soft glow of pumpkins lining the walls illuminating the path. After another minute of careful walking you reach a hallway that seems fancier than the others.
It looks like part of the house that would have been shown off to guests. The decorations reek of money, and also musty decay. Dust covers everything like a coat of fur, so much so that you briefly mistake a suit of armor for another living pony. The flickering light above only enhances the effect, the dancing shadows giving the illusion of movement where there is none.
There are FOUR DOORS in the hallway, two set on your left-hoof side and two on your right. The hallway splits and branches off to the RIGHT before the doors and also CONTINUES FORWARD past them.
On the bright side, this hallway is a lot better lit than the others.
On the not-so-bright side, it's because there's not much hallway left.
This whole side of the house is destroyed, the entire wall ripped away like it was sideswiped by a giant hoof. A few lengths of chain are bolted to the remaining wall, but the metal is wrenched apart a few foreleg-thick links in.
The hallway is still traversable, but barely. A few planks of wood form a rickety gangplank across the gaping hole in the floor and a hanging tarp blocks most of the outside. Still, it's a picture of devastation right out of a monster movie.
There's TWO DOORS in this area, both on the left and with a large gap between them. The hallway dead ends just after the second door with a large portrait of a screaming mare.
The air here is thick with the earthy smell of mold and rot, like you've been buried alive in the leaves of an old forest. The walls are damp, slightly squishy to the touch behind the peeling curling strips of tacky wallpaper that was trendy a couple generations ago. There's a few cabinets and shelves shattered along its length, covered it creepy tchotchkes yet in surprisingly decent condition.
Actually, you've been looking for one of those, haven't you? A new cabinet to replace the old one with the bad door you procured from your parent's house when you moved out. The house is abandoned, right? Would Starlight mind if you did a little shopping while you're here?
Probably not, so long as you don't take anything during the event. She's cool like that. Less wound up than Twilight.
You pull open a drawer to check for any goodies inside before reeling back and instinctively launching yourself at the ceiling.
Bugs.
Millions of them.
Pouring out of the broken bottom of the drawer like a burst pipe.
Bugs of every shape and size and color all squirming and wriggling around each other, their buzzing and clicking loud enough to fill the hall.
You aren't scared of bugs. Not little harmless bugs. Definitely not. That'd be like... a Fluttershy thing. Actually, no she loves bugs, doesn't she? As much as she does every other animal. But you're also not scared of them. Definitely not scared of something that even Fluttershy is cool with.
You just... don't want to get them squished in your hooves. Yeah, that's it. Cause that'd feel disgusting and you'd have to keep walking in bug guts through the rest of the haunted house.
Probably better just to keep flying in this whole hallway. Just to be safe.
There's a SINGLE DOOR in this hallway, on the wall opposite the growing bug pile. The door and most of the wall on either side is made of glass, but it's been frosted so you can't see through it. The hallway also CONTINUES FORWARD past the buggy avalanche.
The air in this hallway is practically choking with the smell of decay. Like mushrooms and old compost.
You stop and lean against a wall, only to reel back as it sags at your touch. You prod it the spot until till your hoof goes in deeper than you're comfortable with. The whole wall is rotted through. You could probably jump through it to the outside without much difficulty, but definitely with much disgust.
There's a few cabinets and shelves you can see as well, but from this angle you see where they're rotted as well, so you leave then be. Shame. You were actually looking for a new cabinet.
What's more interesting is the wall on your left. Most of it is made with frosted glass and, save for a few cracks, it's almost entirely intact. At the center is a door more ornamental than most you've seen so far: a latticework of worked metal set with crystal panes. Even the handle is shaped like a blooming rose.
There's a SINGLE DOOR in this hallway, which continues until it makes a hard LEFT TURN.
The lights have been getting dimmer as you walked, but at some point without realizing it, you crossed a threshold into perfect darkness. You can still see your hoof though—and bits of your mane that bob into your line of sight—in perfectly lit clarity. Like there's a light somewhere that only falls on you.
The long rug beneath you helps you stay on the straight and narrow path. Any time you feel wood instead of fabric you make a slight course correction.
You don't dare fly in here.
Night flying is dangerous enough even with the stars and moon to help. Flying in darkness like this? It's unthinkable. You like your muzzle's current shape thank-you-very-much.
The groundedness... weighs on you. Moreso than you thought it would. The idea that flying isn't an option is so... anathema to what it means to be Rainbow Dash that you find it pulling you into a strange paradoxical state.
You want to fly. To get up and move and reach the end of this corridor of darkness already. But you can't. And knowing that you can't is somehow making you want it all the more. Your wings twitch at your sides involuntarily, eager and ready to send you soaring into the air... and no doubt smack into a wall. You've never felt this kind of tension before. This... internal conflict within yourself.
Luckily, just when you're starting to think you can't take it any more, there's a light. A pinprick on the horizon. Horizon? Could it be that far? Was the house that large? Or maybe the light was just small. Your latter guess proves right as you reach it. There are two doors here, one at the end of the hall and one set to your right side. The two of them could not be more different.
The first is overly wide and ornamental. An arch made of wide blackish rock that cradles a thick and sturdy door made of heavy timber and barred with iron. The second is a pair of double doors covered in delicate filigree. Much of it has rusted away, but you can tell it must have been impressive when it was new.
You notice a note attached to the door at the end of the hall. It reads:
Past This Door Lies The Exit To The Haunted House, But Not Before A Final Challenge. Enter Only If You Are Absolutely Prepared.
You quickly shut the door and step back into the hall. That was a close one. Even now you can hear the whirring and buzzing of machinery in the room behind you doing Celestia-knows-what to the space that you had very nearly occupied.
"Sweet Celestia..." you breathe, realizing for a moment just how harried and ragged your breath is. You try to wrest is back under your control, going through the same breathing exercises the Wonderbolts recommend after a near collision. "What kind of pony even thinks up a room like that?"
Still, it's over now. Hopefully that room didn't have something important inside it, cause you have no interest whatsoever in going back into that deathtrap.
The hallway is much as you left it, a long bank of windows through which you can make out the glow of Ponyville beyond the crest of a hill, and a lot of stained wallpaper where pictures used to hang. There are four possible exits, TWO DOORS to your left, and the hallway leading both LEFT and RIGHT.
You shut the door and step back into the hall. That was a close one. You're not sure what was in that room, but you trust your instincts a lot more than whatever madness Starlight and Trixie may have cooked up. Better safe than sorry.
Hopefully that room didn't have anything important inside it, cause you have no interest in pushing your luck in a room that sets of all your alarm bells.
The hallway is much as you left it, a long bank of windows through which you can make out the glow of Ponyville beyond the crest of a hill, and a lot of stained wallpaper where pictures used to hang. There are four possible exits, TWO DOORS to your left, and the hallway leading both LEFT and RIGHT.
You close the door behind you with a soft click, leaving the now much cleaner room behind. That hadn't been too bad, actually. The fight was good, and if it wasn't for its hugeness and aggressiveness, the dust bunny might have actually been a little cute. In a weird, dirty sort of way. You'll have to check later if they're a real creature or just something Starlight made up. Fluttershy would probably love one to bits.
Speaking of Starlight's creations, you eye the bunny ears still clutched under your wing. They don't seem particularly special, but nothing in this house ever is what it seems. You start to put them in your Inventory Bucket before a thought strikes you. Why not wear them? Sure, maybe they're a little foalish, but it's not like anypony's watching. And it might make them easier to access if you need them later. On the other hoof, they could get knocked off and lost without you noticing.
Either way, it's time to move on to the next part of your adventure!
...and maybe find a working faucet to clean up a little.
The floorboards creak underhoof as you examine your options. There are four paths to chose from, TWO DOORS, and TWO HALLWAY directions.
You leave the zombie-free room behind feeling pretty satisfied. It's nice every now and again to get an enemy that you can just totally whale on. Used to be changelings filled that role, but not so much nowadays since Thorax took over and they all made friends. Zombies make for great fodder though.
Especially when they don't look like ponies you know and there isn't a bunch of evidence implying that it was your prank that caused their zombification. You shudder at the memory and push it back under.
Despite the magic clean-up, you swear you can still feel a little blood behind your ear.
You decide that's enough woolgathering for now, time to move on to the next challenge.
There are four paths to chose from, TWO DOORS, and TWO HALLWAY directions.
You leave the kitchen behind, feeling full, but otherwise confused. Was that supposed to be scary? It's not like the cake was bad or anything, in fact it was pretty good. Not like a Pinkie Pie cake or anything, but good for a store-bought one.
Maybe it was a long term effect? A curse? Are all other cakes going to taste bad now? Will you start seeing cakes in place of other foods?
Still kinda weak sauce, and really not that scary. You shrug and set it aside. Maybe Starlight and Trixie just didn't have enough time to finish this room and had to throw something together last minute. Or it could be a rest area. A reward for doing a good job so far.
Either way, it's time to move on.
There are four paths to chose from, TWO DOORS on your left, and TWO HALLWAY directions.
As you step into the hallway, a fog you hadn't noticed begins to clear from your mind. Oh. Right. It wasn't real. You were never in any real danger, were you? How could you have forgotten that? You chalk it up to one of Starlight's spells trying to make the fright more immersive.
Still, even being fully aware now that it was fake doesn't change how freaky it was. A drowned filly living in a book? Well, at least you only have to go through it once. A second or third time probably wouldn't leave nearly as much of an impact now that you know the gimmick.
You shudder as the memory plays back in full sensory detail. Her jerky inequine movement, her frightful speed, that harsh static that seemed to block out other noise.
Thank goodness you had the zombie support on hoof to distract her.
A thought strikes you as you reconsider their interaction.
"Wait... did that count as a friendship victory?"
The silent hall offers no answer.
There are four paths to chose from, TWO DOORS (one on either side of you), and TWO HALLWAY directions.
Spider goo squishes into the frog of your hoof as you step back out into the tiled hallway. You scrape it off with a broken bit of ceramic. Gross.
Spiders were... you don't want to think about them.
These were big enough that you're able to group them as 'monsters' instead of 'bugs', but its a flimsy argument and you know it. But so long as you keep thinking about them only as monsters and not... anything else, you should be able to keep your cool.
Maybe it'd be better to stop thinking about them altogether.
At least now you have this handy boot if you ever come across any of their smaller brethren.
Aaaand now you're thinking about them again and the idea that there might be more ahead.
Great.
There are four paths to chose from, TWO DOORS on your right, and TWO HALLWAY directions.
"Nope!" you announce to the gathered horde of giant spiders. "Nope nope nope nope nope nope!"
Tucking in your legs you jump into the air, letting a quick and powerful flap of your wings send you barreling back the way you came. The moment you clear the threshold, a roundhouse kick sends the door slamming shut. "Nope!" you declare once more as you push a table in front of it for good measure.
An ignoble retreat, but a necessary one. Doesn't matter what kind of reward you would have gotten, it can't possibly be worth spending a single second more in that nightmare chamber.
You take a few deep breaths to steady your nerves. Right. It's in the past now, time to move on and continue forward. You better make a choice quickly so you can get your mind off it.
Ugh. So many legs.
There are four paths to chose from, TWO DOORS on your right, and TWO HALLWAY directions.
You slam the door and retreat into the hall. You can still hear the machines going behind the metal, illusions or otherwise, chopping your prize to bits. A fate you nearly shared.
"Scary monsters are one thing," you comment, "but how the heck am I supposed to deal with that?"
Eh, you'll come back to it later. Or not. Maybe its a double bluff and there's nothing useful or important in there at all and it's just meant to distract you and waste time.
The tall portraits that line this hall stare down at you with their haughty gazes, as though judging you for your choice to retreat. There are four possible exits, TWO DOORS to your right, and the hallway leading both LEFT and RIGHT.
You step back and shut the door. You can always come back later, right? Just like taking a test at school. Do the easy questions first then leave the hard ones for the end. Or just skip them entirely and hope the easy ones were enough to get a passing grade, as was often your style.
The decrepit paintings loom over you, judging, so you stick your tongue out at them. That'll show those dead ponies who's boss.
There are four possible exits, TWO DOORS to your right, and the hallway leading both LEFT and RIGHT.
"Thanks, but I'm good, really. Let him enjoy them or save them for whoever comes by next."
"Oh! Right! I almost forgot we'll probably be having more guests after you leave." She glances back at the table. Between the four of you you'd made a bit more of a dent than mere sampling. "I'd better get back to my ovens then."
"Before you go, two last things. First, a bit of advice. Skip the room to the left of this one. It's a nasty trap and nothing good comes from it. Second." She passes you a golden key with a skull-shaped handle and a ruby in one eye. "If you ever feel like dropping back in for a visit, this'll help you find your way."
"Cool, thanks!" You make a note of her advice and slip the key into your Inventory. "I'll see you all later then."
"So long, Dash! Good luck with your adventure!"
"Farewell, dear friend. May fortune smile upon you until such time that fate deigns us to meet again. And—"
"And remember, so long as you keep the spirit of Halloween in your heart, you can always find your way back."
With a smile and a wave, you step back out into the dreary hallway and close the door behind you.
[It's important to take breaks and let your mind heal. Subtract three (-3) from your Fear Meter.]
You leave the rest area with a lighter step than you entered with.
The tall portraits on the walls don't feel nearly as sinister now. In fact, they look a little silly with their old-timey clothes and expressions like they just got stuck with a pin. You laugh a little at one, remembering Pinkie's old policy of giggling at ghosties.
Your new friends certainly are some oddball characters, but you can't help but like them for their sheer genuineness. It makes you sad as you remember that they're just magical projections and not real ponies. You'll have to ask Starlight if they're based on ponies she actually knows; if so, you'd like to meet the real ones.
...then again, all you have is Starlight's word that there are "no actors" and that it's "all illusions". They ate, they drank, they had long and complicated histories. Maybe Starlight lied. Wouldn't that be a clever way to catch you off guard?
But it'd be rude to go back now and ask them to break character for you.
As you leave and reflect on their final words, a question bubbles to the surface of your thoughts. "Wait a minute. 'Keep the spirit of Halloween in my heart'? What the heck is Halloween?"
There are four possible exits, TWO DOORS (one on either side), and the hallway leading both LEFT and RIGHT.
You stumble back into the hall, frazzled and just a little slobbery, but victorious and with a new pendant tied around your neck.
That was a tough one, but you're certainly glad you chose to take the coins from the rest area. Silver, now that you think of it, is supposed to be a werewolf's weakness. Then again, chocolate's bad for dogs, so maybe that had something to do with it.
Either way, it probably doesn't matter, right? You got the reward; a golden locket.
Don't lockets usually have a picture in them? You tap the clasp, letting it pop open on silky hinges and...
...
...
...
You blink. You feel like you zoned out for a minute there. Weird. The locket sits closed in your hoof. Weren't you about to open it? Whatever. Doesn't matter. It'll probably be useful at some point.
There are four possible exits, TWO DOORS to your left, and the hallway leading both LEFT and RIGHT.
You push open the glass doors as you shake out loose leaves from your mane. Most come away freely but a few stubborn ones seem to wriggle in ever deeper in an attempt to stick around. Alas, with as much experience you have with picking stuff out of your mane after less-than-successful stunts, they don't stand a chance.
The stick you got as a reward also proves surprisingly helpful. The pointy ends parts right through your mane like a fancy comb, rooting out the stubborn leaves no matter how deeply they try to hide. Already it looks to be tremendously useful. After all, hitting something with a stick is a step up from hitting it with your hooves.
"I'm expecting big things from you," you say to the stick before realizing what a weird thing to do that is. Good thing no one's around to hear you. You slip it into your carrying bucket, marveling as it keeps going further and further in despite being many times the bucket's length. More magic. If there's a spell that useful, why isn't Starlight doing it all the time? Save everypony a lot of trouble whenever Rarity comes along on a trip.
There are no more doors on this hallway, only the hallway itself which extends both LEFT and RIGHT.
You really don't want to think about it any more than necessary.
The vision of your twisted face keeps lingering on the edge of your thoughts like a shadow in the corner of your eye, eager to make itself known the moment you start to lose focus on your objective.
There are six paths open to you from this point. There's a DOOR next to you and also two across the hall. The hallway itself continues both to the LEFT and RIGHT and also has a secondary path splitting off to your LEFT.
You exit the room feeling both full of cheese and proud of yourself. The latter feeling fades slightly as you remember that your great speech was just given to an illusion and not the actual Wonderbolt High Commission Board. In fact, upon reconsideration, you're pretty sure no such board exists. It's a frustrating feeling. Like pulling off a magnificent stunt only to see Princess Luna there and realize that you're actually asleep and the accomplishment means nothing.
Still, you got free food, and that's a pretty great reward in its own right, even if it came with a side of annoying trivia.
You hack as some cheese gets caught up in your throat, then hawk a cheesy loogie out into a dark corner. Hey, it's a rotting old building and even if other ponies come after you, no one's going to wedge themselves up against the side anyway.
There are six paths open to you from this point. There's a DOOR next to you and also two across the hall. The hallway itself continues both to the LEFT and RIGHT and also has a secondary path splitting off to your RIGHT.
Not just from the fight, that hadn't been too bad as far as fights go, but more from your encounter with the strange hybrid scientist. A fusion of your two friends is weird enough, but what's more unsettling is how both sides seemed to bring out the worst in each other. Twilight's occasional manic single-minded research combined with Pinkie's hyperactivity bred an abomination of unstoppable science. A genius who always puts "can I do this?" over "should I?"
At least she went down pretty easy. You can only hope you don't have to come across any other unsettling hybrid versions of your friends.
The door slams shut behind you of its own accord, the hinges sounding for all the world like demented giggles as they squeak shut. You try not to flinch.
There are six paths open to you from this point. There's a DOOR next to you and also two across the hall. The hallway itself continues both to the LEFT and RIGHT and also has a secondary path splitting off to your RIGHT.
You can still hear the strange duo of ponies chanting away until the door finally clicks shut behind you. What a weird pair. For all their mysticism and cultiness and intent to sacrifice you on an altar, they seemed like decent guys. Too bad they're not real. You were rather hoping to get a better look at the one in black, sans robe. Muscles aren't usually what do it for you, nor are cultists, but a mare's gotta appreciate quality beefcake.
Also, two rewards! How awesome is that?
Totally awesome, is the answer. The fire seems especially useful. You can think of a lot of ways a healthy application of fire could get a job done. Even more if you include unhealthy applications.
There are TWO options you can see. A DOOR to your LEFT just before the hall dead-ends and following the hallway back around a corner to your RIGHT.
The double doors swing open and you quickly take your leave.
That was... weird. And uncomfortable. Kind of scary, but in a way that feels like it needs a different word to describe it. If only Daring Do had more scenes infiltrating high society parties and a few less swinging on vines through the jungle.
Still, it's over now and you don't have to think about that sleazy stallion any longer. Just let him fade away into memories like the magical projection he was. Seems like anything goes in this crazy haunted house.
Speaking of anything going, it seems the wall of this hallway got a head start. The whole thing looks like it's been ripped away. A few traces of old tree sap along the splintered edges give you a good idea who's responsible, but the damage looks plenty old so you're sure the guilty parties have long since been appropriately punished. And it does add a really nice and spooky atmosphere to this part of the house. Like there was some great beast chained up that's broken free.
Maybe you'll encounter it later on.
The hallway continues on to your LEFT until it rounds a corner, but there's also a DOOR before you reach it.
The double doors open before you and you leave the ballroom feeling... not scared, but thoroughly creeped out. And also uncomfortable in a way you've never felt before. There's a weird feeling of helplessness that lingers in the back of your mind that you're finding hard to shake. Magic is probably to blame for everything. Why you acted the way you did. Why you felt so... small.
You try to put it out of your mind and focus on the task ahead and choosing a new direction.
This is made trickier by the fact that you just walked into total darkness.
Not perfect darkness though. The ground and walls are so black they're invisible, but you can see yourself just fine. Also a large door that doesn't match the rest of the décor. It looks more like it belong in an old castle rather than a semi-modern mansion, what with its iron crossbeams and wide planks.
There's a small placard on it which reads:
Past This Door Lies The Exit To The Haunted House, But Not Before A Final Challenge. Enter Only If You Are Absolutely Prepared.
You also sense a faint breeze coming from the darkness to your left. You can't see anything, but your pegasus instincts insist that there's a path to follow in that direction.
You start to push open the door, only to realize that it's a lot heavier than you expected. You lean your shoulder into it, flapping your wings for extra push.
Slowly, inexorably slowly, it begins to open. Despite its wooden façade, the door feels like it's made of solid stone.
You don't bother to push it all the way open, instead slipping through once the gap is only just wide enough to allow it. The door booms behind you as it falls shut once more, sending an echo that resounds throughout the large torch-lit room.
You weren't wrong, the door is made of stone on this side, as is everything else. The walls and floor are a solid grey rock, smooth and uninterrupted, like a pale lake. A row of pillars run down the walls, alternating between marble and obsidian. Or maybe chalk and jet. You're no geologist. The most you can tell is that half the pillars are bone white and the other half are pitch black.
At the center of the room is a raised platform, a sort of four-tier stair-step pyramid that looks like somepony pulled it straight out of a Daring Do novel. Alternating cubes of black and white stone give it a chessboard-like appearance.
The room is silent as the grave, save for the clopping of your own hooves against the floor, which echo and reverberate like peals of a great bell tolling out doom.
"Creepy," you acknowledge just before something surges forward from your blind spot. It hits your head like a freight train, rendering you unconscious.
---
You awaken to the uncomfortable feeling of ropes lashed tightly across your body. You only wish it was the first time you'd woken up like this.
Your legs? Immobile.
Your wings? Tied back.
Your mouth? Surprisingly ungagged, a pleasant change from the old trope.
You can still turn your head at least. Though limited, your field of view is just wide enough to confirm that you're still in the same room, bound in the center of the raised area.
You'd be more scared if you didn't feel like you could almost name the page of the book they were ripping off. Seriously, if Ahuizotl comes out in the next few seconds with the Scepter of the Broken Moon...
Much to your surprise, instead of an adventurer-pony-obsessed ape-like weirdo, your vision is suddenly filled with a pair of pony weirdos. It's easy enough to decide that they're weirdos since no normal ponies walk around in full-body robes and masks made to look like painted skulls.
Both of them lean in, staring at you in oppressive silence.
"Uh, hey?" you offer lamely. "What's, uh, what's up?"
They continue to stare at you in silence, not so much as twitching to show that they've even heard you. You're just about to try a different line when one finally speaks.
"One by one we bite the dust," says the figure whose cloak-like robes are white and whose skull is black. His voice is rich, deep. The kind of voice Rarity would call 'chocolatey'.
"What?"
"Kick the bucket, begin to rust," says the second, who wears a black robe and white skull. His voice is higher—younger maybe?—with a slightly scratchy quality.
"What are you—" you start to question, but they steamroll right over you.
"Give up the ghost when our number's up."
"We all fall down."
Clearly, neither of them has any interest in actually answering any of your questions. They're too caught up in their weird rhythmic back-and-forth rhyme talking. You'd be much better off spending the time trying to loosen your bonds than trying to communicate.
"Ashes to ashes,"
"Bones to paste."
Your wings are roped to your back, but each hoof is tied to its own corner of the table. Maybe with a bit of wiggling you could...
"You wither away in your resting place."
"Eternity in a wooden case."
"We all fall down," they finish in eerie unison before falling back into silence.
The white cloaked one leans in close, uncomfortably close, so close you can see the brushstrokes on his mask. He whispers, "Today... is a very special day for you."
A cold shudder runs down your spine at his words. "I-it is?"
"It is," he agrees. "For in this life you can only die once." He stands back up before you can respond. "Everyone only has so much time to spend in this life."
"A finite number of days, minutes, seconds," adds Black Robe.
"And yet ponies constantly let those precious seconds of time slip through their hooves."
"A shame."
"A loss."
"Regretful."
"So... what?" You test, pushing for more time. "You guys are trying to achieve immortality or something? Cause if you want a pair of wings this is not going to cut it it. I'd know. I know the princesses."
White Cloak chuckles. "Immortality? Foolish. No, just the opposite. Death is inevitable. It is the goal of all life."
"We've accepted that, and now we work to guide others down the path of our enlightenment."
White Cloak reaches into a hidden pocket and pulls out a dagger, long and cruel and sharp enough to cut the light. "Death is no stranger. He is an old friend with whom we all must meet."
"We are but gatekeepers. Guiding to him those who would flee or squander the time they've been given."
The icy chill of the altar creeps into your back, drawing out your energy and making your wings go numb. You shimmy a little to try and shift your weight off them, only to feel something bump into your hip. Recognition comes in a flash. The bucket filled with all your items! They hadn't taken it. If you can get a hoof free, you might have a weapon!
White Cloak traces the blade along your chin, letting it part fur but not skin. "Tonight, you, our dear guest, have been chosen to achieve the pinnacle in spiritual enlightenment."
Black Robe draws his own identical dagger and lets the point lazily graze along your vulnerable belly. "The clock is always ticking... until it stops. May your sacrifice bring us ever closer to our own. Remember Death."
"And remember we too, shall die."
They raise their knives high above their heads, light glinting off the blades like diamonds.
You figure you have about five seconds to decide one last action.
The ropes don't feel as tight as they could be. Maybe a strong enough pull could break them and let you FIGHT back. You also feel a slight weight at your hip. They didn't take your ITEMS! You even think you can see something poking out of the top. With some luck, you might be able to get a weapon to defend yourself with.
Then again, maybe violence isn't the answer. You could always try TALKING your way out. You're no Twilight, but you can be pretty convincing when you want to be.
On the other hoof, maybe this is all just to much for you, and you can't help but PANIC.
You pull and strain and twist like you've never done so before. The cultists watch you impassively. Amused by your struggle? Maybe. Whatever buys you a few extra seconds to fight the ropes.
Suddenly, it happens. One rope (whose knot wasn't quite as tight as the others) comes loose and just like that you've got a free hoof.
Two seconds later it's crashing into White Cloak's face.
"Checkmark!" the other cultist cries. Forgetting you entirely, he leaps over the table to aid his comrade, losing his knife in the process. It slips from his grasp into a lazy parabolic arc that sends it spinning slowly before it starts to descend all too quickly towards your face.
Pegasus instincts screaming, you watch it fall in practically slow motion, turning over end to end as it drops.
You twist your head into your neck at an awkward angle. You only get one shot at this.
The falling blade comes close and closer until, with a sudden striking blow worthy of a cobra, you jerk forward and catch it by the unsharpened side of blade.
Passing it from mouth to hoof, you make short work of the other ropes. Without preamble you pounce, launching yourself at the downed cultist before he can regain his bearings.
Hooves fly in a rain of blows, chops, kicks, bucks and every karate move you can remember, both real and imagined. You snarl and growl in animalistic fury as channel all your fear and fright into the one who'd do you wrong.
Black Robe stands back in shock or horror or maybe just a desire so stay out of your range as you rain terror upon his partner.
An White Cloak just... stands there. And takes it.
"Yes!" he shouts with a bellowing laugh. "Yes! Fight! Struggle against the inevitable! Prove to the world you existed by the force of your hooves! Show me your dance of death!"
Your anger boils over. He's enjoying it! You double your attack. Yet, for all your fire and fury, you can't seem to do a thing to the rock-like build hiding under the cloak. He weathers yours blows like a cliff weathers the sea.
An ancient stalemate. The immovable earth pony against the unstoppable pegasus.
If only you weren't outnumbered.
Coming out of the spin of a roundhouse, you notice Black Robe has retrieved his knife. "Don't worry! I got her! Just stay still and I'll—"
"No, Crank Shaft!" White Cloak nearly throws you off as he raises his foreleg in a halting gesture. There's a slight tremor to his voice, small guttural sounds like he's holding back pained grunts from your attack. "Wait just... just let her keep going for a minute."
Lowering his weapon with a groan of repressed exasperation, Black Robe holds back. "Seriously? Do you have to do this now? During the ceremony?"
"Hey I am not a masochist!" White Cloak declares even as he grunts from you continuing to lay the smack down on him. "I just want to see what my body can take. To push myself to go even further beyond."
...You suddenly feel decidedly weird about continuing to beat this guy. Were those really grunts of pain or something a lot more... skeevy? You hesitate before striking, just for a second.
"Got her."
But a second is all they need. A pair of forelegs like iron bars clamp around you in the world's least wanted bear hug. You struggle, of course, but it has even less of an impact than striking him did. The shapeless fabric hides it, but you can clearly feel that beneath everything White Cloak is absolutely ripped.
Between his strength and Black Robe's magic, they quickly get you tied down once again, the ropes retied with twice as many knots and even less slack.
"Now then, where were we?" White Robe muses.
"Just about at the stabby bit, I think."
"Of course." All the previous joviality flees his voice, leaving it cold and merciless. He raises a knife in mirror of his partner. "My favorite part."
[It seems you've managed to make your situation even worse than it was before. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
The situation seems grim, but you're not out of options yet. You could try to use an ITEM... only you're bound far too tightly now to be able to reach your bag. Perhaps, maybe you could TRY AND REASON WITH THEM? Even crazy has to have a limit, right?
Or maybe this is all too much and all you can do is PANIC.
Stretching your neck so far it feels like your head's about to pop off, you bend over and stick it into your item bucket. With no seconds to spare before the knives come down, you grab the first thing that fits in your teeth and pull it out. With a whip-like strike you send it flying at Black Robe.
"Ow!" he cries, stumbling back as the heavy boot smacks into his muzzle.
You get to struggling, twisting the ropes that bind you while they recover.
Unfortunately, White Cloak has not moved. Your plan was for him to go over and help his fellow cultist. Instead he remains standing at your side, dagger raised.
"Walk it off. Pain builds character."
Black Robe groans as he sits up. "Ugh... easy for you to say Mister Masochist." A small red patch is growing through the holes of his mask. "I think she broke my nose."
"No, you just have a very low pain threshold."
"It's bleeding!"
"It's psychosomatic."
Meanwhile, all your struggling seems to be doing nothing but make the ropes tighter. Maybe if you had more time you could wrench a hoof free, but already Black Robe is retaking his spot and drawing his knife.
"Now then, where were we?" White Cloak muses.
"Just about at the stabby bit, I think."
"Of course." All the previous joviality flees his voice, leaving it cold and merciless. He raises a knife in mirror of his partner. "My favorite part."
Well, that failed, but you're not beat yet! You still have plenty of options. These ropes aren't too tough, with a bit of struggling maybe you could snap them and FIGHT like Tartarus to survive? Perhaps, maybe you could TRY AND REASON WITH THEM? Even crazy has to have a limit, right?
Or perhaps this is all too much and all you can do is PANIC.
You struggle and thrash against your bonds, but it's no use. The ropes are too tight and you're too panicked to mount any sort of strategy of plan of attack.
"No!" you cry. "No, it can't end like this!."
"Denial," the cultists say in unison.
You thrash even harder, so hard the ropes burn and pull at your fur. The cultists stand watching, blades frozen and ready to fall at a moment's notice. What are they waiting for?
They're... they're enjoying this, aren't they? They like watching you struggle against the inevitable.
No! Not 'inevitable'! You can't let yourself give up!
"Untie me, you sick freaks!" Your words fly harsh and fast against their impassive masks. "Cowards! Can't even take me fair and square! You know I can take you both with one wing tied behind my back!" You arch your back against the cold table, desperate to loosen something far enough to get your wing free. "Argh! Don't just stand there, FIGHT ME!"
"Anger," they intone.
Panic settles even deeper into your bones. They are cowards; cowards of the worst kind. No amount of taunts against their strength or their pride as stallions is going to get them to let you go so you can have a fair fight and escape. Desperately, you try switching tactics.
"Look, just... just let me go, alright? We can go our separate ways and nopony has to know. Just forget this whole thing ever happened."
"Bargaining," their voices ring like the keeling of a bell.
…It's no use, isn't it? These freaks are going to gut you like a cream-filled cupcake and there's nothing you or anypony else can do about it. The ropes start to slacken as your thrashing slows, all the fight raining out as dark thoughts cloud your mind. Your whole bright and shining future, cut short by these maniacs.
"Acceptance." The blades sing their song of steel as they flash down with incomparable speed.
[Your life flashes before your eyes. It's so... short. +1 Fear]
"You've met a terrible fate, haven't you?"
You come to your senses to the sound of a smug voice. The blur that is reality quickly resolves itself into a familiar setting. Torn carpets, broken chandelier. The foyer.
The foyer. Of the haunted house.
You groan as realization hits. You got caught up in the effects of the magic and forgot that it's all fake. Fake knives. Fake cultists. Fake sacrifice. And you swallowed the bait like the catch-of-the-day special at Café Kingfisher.
Rising to your hooves, you look up to where a still-chuckling figure resides.
Trixie changed her costume. She now wears a long black wig and an expressionless green mask. One hoof holds a gavel, the other, a paintbrush. Her cape has been traded out for a white jacket. You have no idea who she's supposed to be.
"You know," she says languidly, drawing out the sound with an oddly mechanical buzz like she's speaking through a radio, "Trixie was expecting a show. Trixie expected to be thoroughly entertained by your efforts. But she did not expect to see you back here so soon."
"Yeah, yeah," you scoff, trying not to let her words affect you. "Maybe for next time though, for whoever does this after me, tell your cultist actors to take it down a notch. That was way too real."
You march off down a hallway, eager to try again to prove yourself (and get away from Trixie's snide commentary on your performance).
Trixie blinks in confusion as she watches you go. "Cultist actors? There's no cult in this attraction."
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
As much as you hate it, it looks like your only option is to try and talk your way out of this. It's not nearly as straightforward or direct as using your hooves to beat the message into their bodies, but it's your only choice.
Think about it. You're tied up, hoof to wing. You can't use your items, you can barely wiggle let alone fight! Clearly, the only solution is to talk them down. And the only way to talk to a crazy... is to speak crazy.
"Wait!" Much to your surprise, they do. Both cultists freeze then lower their daggers from stabbing height to a more casual stance.
"Yes?"
"Don't I get a chance to argue my case?" you blurt out.
White Cloak and Black Robe share a look. "What's there to argue? Death is—"
"—inevitable. Right, got that. So since you're gonna kill me anyway—" hopefully not "—does it matter if I take a few seconds to try and convince you otherwise?"
"You won't," White Cloak says coldly. But in a hairpin turn his tone brightens again. "But you have a point." He slides the dagger back into its hidden sheath. "Make your case. You have one minute."
Right. So you've bought yourself a little time. Now to formulate a convincing argument as to why their philosophy is wrong and they shouldn't kill you.
...
...
You've got nothing. The problem lies in that they're right, strictly speaking. Death is inevitable. Even the princesses will die someday, even if not just from old age like everypony else. They're not truly immortal, just really good at putting it off.
Suddenly, it's like a lightbulb goes off. That's a loophole. One you've already made use of. Now you just need to expand it. Good thing crazy ponies accept crazy logic.
"You know, one minute might not be enough. If I'm going to die anyway, does it really matter if happens immediately or five minutes from now?
"I... guess not." Black Robe sounds unsure of himself as he replies.
You press the advantage. "So if five minutes doesn't really mean anything, why not push it to ten?"
"So long as you still die at the end of it?"
"Of course."
"Alright then."
A wide grin starts to creep across your face. Who knew outsmarting ponies could be this fun? Is this what Twilight feels like all the time?
"And compared to how long forever is, is there really any difference between ten minutes and an hour?"
Black Robe hesitates before looking to his partner for guidance. After a moment of deep contemplation, he nods. "Forever is a long time."
Feeling confident by your string of successes, you decide to push your luck. "And hey, just putting this out there, maybe you could untie my ropes in the meantime?"
You realize your mistake as the both of them suddenly tense back up and reach for their daggers. "I'm not going to run away or anything!" you say quickly, "I mean, where would I go? Death is inevitable, right?"
"True enough." White Cloak steps closer and cuts your bonds. Sharp prickly needles dance across your hooves and wings and full bloodflow returns.
"Thanks." You swing your legs around so you're sitting on the edge of the altar.
"No problem. Need a drink?"
You shrug. "Sure." Reaching into the recesses of his cloak, he pulls out a water bottle and hands it to you. You give it a sniff before drinking. Doesn't smell like poison. The first sip doesn't taste like poison either. It's weirdly thick for water, but tastes fine. You gulp down half of it then pour the rest over your head, cleaning out your mane where the dust of the mansion had merged with the sweat formed by thrashing against the ropes into a gross tan goo.
"Thanks again," you say as you pass the empty bottle back. "You know, you guys are alright when you're not trying to kill me."
"We are still trying to kill you." Black Robe's voice is as calm as though he's talking about the weather. "Death is inevitable. Yours is just pushed back for—" he turns away for a moment, staring at nothing "—fifty-seven minutes and forty-three seconds."
"Cool, cool." Cryptic commentary aside, it's hard to take them seriously as threats anymore. "Actually, you know I think I have plans to meet up with some friends in an hour. Mind if we pick this up in a day or two?"
White Cloak raises an eyebrow. How he conveys that through a mask so clearly you have no idea. "You'll still die?"
"Of course. Death is in every table."
He nods at your great wisdom.
As you walk towards the door, your thoughts begin to become clearer. Most importantly, you remember that this is a haunted house and that you were never actually in danger. You're slightly ticked off at Starlight for misleading you about there not being any actors, but you can forgive her in turn for the element of realism the surprise added.
Reaching the door, you turn back to face your two new... friends? Cultbuddies? Thespianmates?
"You two are really good at this whole thing. You got any plans later?"
"I plan to return to the earth so that my body may become nourishment for a new generation of insects."
You nod. "Hm. Ambitious." You have to give him credit for not breaking character. You can always ask Starlight about them later.
"So uhhh... bye."
"Before you go," you turn back to find both of them right behind you instead of back where they had been on the platform. Did they teleport? "A gift, for one who understands our philosophy so fully."
White Cloak reaches into his pockets and pulls out a simple brass Alarm Clock. "A timepiece. That you may always remember exactly how much time is left and how fleeting it is. May it aid you when time seems meaningless."
Black Robe reaches into his own robe and someone pulls out a lit Lantern. The flame dances inside the glass housing despite the perfectly still air. "And the Sacred Flame. A powerful aid against those who refuse to accept that their time has expired."
You accept both with a word of thanks and place them into your bag. As ominous as the warning was, you're not sure how a clock is going to be useful. The flame though sounds very handy to have around in case any zombies or ghosts show up in future rooms.
You pry open the door and step out, sticking your head back in for one final goodbye. "This was kinda fun. I'll see you guys around. And uh... Remember Death."
"Remember Death," they intone as one.
You let the door slide closed.
The two cultists stand alone in their silent chamber, staring intently at where you just were. Slowly, the torches begin to flicker and dim. Shadows grow from every corner, gnawing and twisting. Square-edged stones seem to curve and bend in the strange light, a spiral growing from the gridwork.
Light continues to seep away, till naught is left but the utter darkness of the void. From it comes two voices, sourceless and indistinct.
The door opens easily into a room that seems better preserved than the rest of the mansion. It's not large, little more than a glorified walk-in closet or pantry, but the walls are dry and clean and not riddled with the holes of burrowing insects. That aside, it's also rather unadorned.
The walls are bare, without either defect or feature, and the only furniture is a single table in the center of the room atop which sits a silver tureen.
Nothing immediately presents itself as threatening (though you suppose the table might be one. Or there could be a pitfall. Or something invisible could spring from the walls) but you keep your guard up anyway.
You approach the table warily, ears up and eyes alert. There are no sounds save for your own breathing as you examine the silver platter and cover like you're Daring Do and it's an ancient idol on a suspiciously isolated pedestal.
It looks fancy—not Canterlot fancy but still save-it-for-special-occasions fancy—but beyond that you can't detect anything special or strange about it. The silver is clean and unvarnished, and a warped version of yourself looks back from the polished metal like a funhouse mirror You lift the lid.
Below it... is a cake.
A chocolate cake, by the looks of it, with a rich purple buttercream frosting that tickles your nose with its sweetness. There's a hint of... pumpkin... and spices as well. The surface is dotted with little jack-o-lanterns and ghosts and bones made of sugar and fondant. It's a bit smaller than an average cake, more like an oversized cupcake made to be shared with one or two friends.
It looks delicious.
You can feel your defenses lowering as the intoxicating aroma envelops you. A cake? That's all there was? And to think you'd been so worried about it being some kind of horrible jumpscare. How could cake be scary?
There's a small note tucked underneath by a corner. The elegant silver script is hard to read at first, but after a minute it resolves itself as the message "To Be Enjoyed To The Fullest".
And is that good luck or what? Not only is there nothing scary here, but you've found some kind of prize room! You decide to congratulate yourself with some delicious cake. After all, it's free food isn't it?
You could EAT JUST ONE SLICE, or, since it's Nightmare Night, why not splurge and EAT THE WHOLE THING?
Then again, perhaps you find this whole setup a little suspicious. You can always fall back on your trusty option to FIGHT, or, if all else fails, you can try to NEGOTIATE.
"Ooooohohoho no you don't," you say, not taking your eyes off the suspicious cake. As appetizing as it looks, you're no dummy. This is a haunted house. There's no such thing as a Room With Free Cake.
You circle it, looking for clues. "Alright, trick cake. I can work with this. Come on Dash, puzzle it out. Just like Daring Do."
You observe the cake from all sides and learn that it looks equally delicious from all angles. The rich aroma of chocolate and pumpkin is starting to get to you, making you wonder if there really is any danger and what the harm would be in just a small bite.
You clamp down on that thought the moment you notice it. That's exactly what the cake wants you to think! But you're too smart to fall for its trap.
You slam a hoof onto the table, making the platter jump and quiver. "So what's your gimmick? Filled with hot sauce? One of Pinkie's mini-party cannons in the center? Going to turn into worms in my mouth? Tell me your secrets."
You narrow your eyes as that last thought metastasizes. "Yeah, I bet that's it. You're not even a cake, are you? Just some kind of monster mimicking one." Your assuredness grows as you nod along with your own deduction. "That's why there's no knife and fork. I bet the minute my mouth or hoof got close you'd spring to life and try to bite me back."
The cake, for its part, says nothing. It only continues to sit there deliciously.
"Is that it?" You raise your voice for the benefit of any observing ponies that might be listening. "Did I solve this room?" There's no reply.
"No," you decide. "It's not enough to just call out a monster. Monsters have to be defeated."
On one hoof, you could probably spend hours poking and prodding at the "cake" to figure out exactly what it really is and what the best way to attack it would be. On the other hoof, that sounds incredibly boring and more like something Twilight would do. But you're not Twilight, you're Rainbow Dash. So you do a very Rainbow Dash thing.
You smash the cake.
Frosting goes flying with he force of your blow, coating the top of the table and peppering your face. As you're wiping down your tongue of any monster cake specks, you hear a small 'pomf', like a pillow hitting the ground.
On the table, placed awkwardly among the wreckage of its predecessor, is a new cake.
"Aha! I knew there was something fishy about this!" You smash this one as well, sweeping to the side and splattering it across the wall.
'Pomf!'
A third cake appears even more quickly than before. With a wing assisted jump kick, you send it sailing into the far wall.
And thus, you fall into a peculiar rhythm. For each cake you smash, buck, or kick to smithereens, a new one appears in its place. Each tries to tempt you to give up your crusade and taste it, but your will is like iron and you destroy them just the same.
It doesn't take long for the gooey sugary remains of countless cakes to start piling up. After a barely a minute the floor is decently carpeted in confections. Within five, most of the walls are covered as well. After fifteen minutes of near continuous cake-smashing, the mess has built up so high and so thick that it's hard to walk. Undeterred, you take short hovering hops, each one placing you higher and higher on a platform of compressed cake.
Your pride yourself on your stalwartness, your dedication to not giving in to your cakey foe. This lasts right up until you land on a particularly soft and deep patch of cake.
The instant you close your wings and try to get new footing, you plunge into the cake like it's water. The shock snaps out out of your smashing trance. When had the old cakes built up this much? How did the mash tower high enough that you could sink so deep that there was only a tunnel above you?
You try to move your wings but they're encased in cake, pressed down from all sides. Your legs are equally stuck, the compressed cake as firm as concrete.
A quiet 'pomf' drags your attention away from your rising panic... as the light suddenly vanishes from the top of your tunnel.
You look up just in time to get a face full of raspberry cheesecake. The cold sludge of it presses into your nostrils, your ears, your mouth. You try to breathe but only get a mouthful of cake. Each struggled gasp brings less and less sweet oxygen.
Colorful spots dance at the edge of your vision briefly before they too fade into the all-encompassing darkness, leaving you with nothing but the intense pressure across your body, and the pervasive smell and taste of cake.
[Death by chocolate was never more apt. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
"You interrogated the cake." It wasn't a question, but an accusation. "And then you attacked it. Why in Luna's name would you attack a cake?"
Your senses return to you in a nauseating swim of colors. When they finally settle, you recognize the shape and furnishing of the foyer, back where you started.
"It worked, didn't it?" you shoot back as full recollection of the nature of your experience returns to you. The fact that it's hard to remember that you're in the middle of a staged event really changes your perspective at the time.
"No. It didn't." Trixie remains a constant in your adventure, though her costume does not. Since the last time you saw her she's changed it out for a pair of white overalls with oversized buttons. Her mane peeks out from under the green wig, and you can make out patches where she's applied the orange fur powder too thinly to hide her natural color. "The cakes duplicated to the point where there was no more room for air and you suffocated."
"I died?"
"Figuratively. Starlight put in too many safeties for you to get really hurt. Still, you lost the room."
She sighs and gives you a look laced with irritation. "You know I had a whole song ready? Choreographed dance number with illusion duplicates and everything. But you managed to fail so ridiculously that I can't even be asked to bother."
Deciding to ignore her theatrics, you decide to take that as the end of the conversation and get back on track. But before that, there's something that's been bugging you.
"Why was that even in a haunted house? Seriously, who's afraid of cake?"
"You'd be surprised. It came up pretty high on our survey. Fun fact: Did you know the average Equestrian will eat eight times their weight in cake every year?"
That sounds... not really that unbelievable, now that you think about it. "What about—"
"Pinkie Pie is obviously not an average anything," she responds before you can even finish the question.
You give Trixie a look that shows exactly what you think of her before continuing on your adventure.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
On second thought, 'free cake' is kinda sus, isn't it?
After all, if the cake was any good they'd be charging for it (unless Pinkie is involved, but you're pretty sure this is a Trix-Light only show), so therefore it's gotta be either really cheap or some kind of trap.
Realizing you're going to have to puzzle this one out rather than just punch the problem (how would you punch a cake?) you settle down in front of it.
It smells delicious.
Obviously it must not taste delicious then. Just like the Pony-Eating Plants in Daring Do and the Staff of Broken Moon, it lures ponies in with a sweet scent then kills them with poison. But you're too smart for that.
So... what now then? If the cake is clearly a trap that you have no intention of tripping, and there's nothing else in the room worthy of your attention, what else is there to do here?
Shrugging, you turn and exit the room, leaving the cake behind for whatever poor sap might come through next to fall prey to whatever its gimmick is.
There are four paths to chose from, TWO DOORS on your left, and TWO HALLWAY directions.
After a moment's deliberation, you decide to just stick with a single slice. Just a taste, really. It's Nightmare Night, after all, so you can allow a small cheat on your usually strict meal plan.
Besides, you an only imagine what Icy Hot from the Wonderbolt Heath and Fitness Advisory Board would do if she ever caught word of you eating a whole cake.
You lean in and take a bite, getting a fair share of both cake and frosting and snagging a fondant skull as well. Flavor explodes across your tongue. The smooth taste of chocolate merges with the unexpected depth of pumpkin into a new combination like nothing you've ever tasted. Hints of spice dance on the tip of your tongue, just subtle enough to add ornamentation to the flavor without overpowering it.
The cake is light and fluffy, countered well by the thick cloyingness of the icing and the odd crunch from a sprinkle. You take another bite, bigger this time, but still keeping in mind your limits.
Did they call in Pinkie Pie for this? It's definitely in her league, though not as sweet as she usually makes them. Maybe one of Celestia's personal chefs? Or, maybe, was Starlight secretly a gourmet chef? You continue to chew in bliss as you ponder.
A small voice in the back of your mind, the part that usually keeps an eye out for obstacles and incoming projectiles while flying, can't quite settle down though. This is supposed to be a haunted house. It doesn't make sense for one room to have a delicious cake and nothing else. With each new bite that voice becomes ever more tense, constantly expecting something to happen. For the cake to have a hot chili pepper core. For it to turn into something gross mid-bite. For a monster with a camera to jump from a hidden door and catch you in an embarrassing spit-take.
Yet, everything still seems fine. Having eaten a good third of the cake, you push the rest away. It was a fun break, but you'd rather get back to exploring what other, more frightening kinds of rooms have been set up.
Just as you turn away, you hear a quiet 'pomf'. Like the noise of a pillow hitting the ground after a two story fall.
On the table, a new cake has appeared.
"...Huh," you remark as you return.
The new cake sits just to then side of the old one, iced in white with a string of carrots detailed in frosting around the edges.
It also smells heavenly.
"I guess I could give this one a taste," you reason. "Just a taste though."
You bite into the new cake. A sweet tang of carrot coats your tongue, playing divinely off the vanilla of the homemade icing. You chew longer than the soft cake needs it, letting your tongue swim in the flavor, but eventually you do swallow.
"Alright, that was really good but I really should—"
Before you even finish, another cake appears, its plate pushing the others aside as it manifests. This one's a wide and flat cheesecake, sprinkled liberally with candied lemon peel and shavings of white chocolate.
Something in the back of your mind throws an alarm, but it's just as quickly squashed by the tantalizing aroma of sugar and lemon. "Okay, just one more slice. And I'll do a extra lap around town tomorrow."
You take a scooping bite, digging your jaw through the cold creaminess like a backhoe breaking ground. As you chew, you push the plate away so you won't be tempted for more. It falls off the edge, taking the original cake with it as it goes.
That was it. Definitely. No more cake. You harden your resolve... but it crumbles away as a massive cake appears, nearly too big for the table. A Black Forest chocolate so dark the light seems to bend towards it. Before you even make a decision you find your mouth is stuffed with it, the rich chocolate blotting out those niggling doubts and concerns.
You were already planning to have a big workout tomorrow to work of all the candy anyway. You can always just make it longer to deal with the extra calories.
Then again, if you were to stop now, you'll never know what kind of cake might have come next.
Having dug a furrow through the middle (and thoroughly coated your face) you push the massive cake off the table. There's a moment of guilt at the mess you're making, but that feeling too is squashed by the appearance of yet another gorgeously decadent cake.
And so it goes. One by one, one cake after another. Each one sampled and then pushed aside to make room for the next. Every cake unique and better than the last. Marbled, angels food, devil's food. Chiffon, pound, and spice.
Your thoughts fall into a cycle as you shovel one in after another.
'It's just one bite. I can work that off. Just one bite.'
One bite and one bite and one bite add up as the room starts to fill with discarded cake. At some point you sit down, your legs feeling strangely strained. Soon after you lie on your belly fully, optimizing the position of your forelegs and face for maximally efficient grabbing, biting, and shoving.
You don't consciously think about these actions. Any and all thoughts are clouded away by the constant barrage of luxurious high-class confectionaries, leaving barely room for your justifying mantra.
Time loses its meaning. There is only the cycle of chewing and the brief moment before the next cake arrives.
Until it doesn't.
You blink through a thick mask of icing, briefly lucid by the break in the cycle.
There is no new cake. Primarily because the old one is still on the table. You give it a harder push, using both hooves. They sink into the pillowey dessert but it remains unmoved.
As more time passes since your last bite, you mind slowly clears. You look behind it to see what's in the way.
It's cake. More cake. A mountain of discarded cakes reaching so high that they've formed walls around the table.
But that's no problem. You just need to stand up and kick the pile over to make more room. You lower your hooves back to the floor...
...and find them dangling, still suspended, against something rounded and pliable.
Confused, but with your thoughts still clouded, you flap your wings to try and take off. There's a slight breeze on the nape of your neck, but not an ounce of lift. It's like you're glued to the floor.
The sheer shock of not bein able to fly at a moment's notice is enough to snap you back to full awareness. You crane your neck—finding the motion oddly difficult—to see what's wrong with your wings.
But as you see your body... you scream.
Gone is the lithe and athletic form you're so used to seeing posing in front of the mirror. every muscle, every carefully toned feature is buried under mounds and mounds of fat.
Rolls and rolls of soft and pillowy fat. You've never seen a pony as fat as you. Your belly extends so far your legs are little more than blobby stumps dangling in the air.
With this comes the realization of just how hard you're breathing. Turning your head—even just flailing your limbs in a panicked confirmation that they are in fact yours—has left you as tired as you'd normally be after one of Spitfire's suicide training regimes.
"Oh buck, Spitfire." You can feel your heart rate surging at the thought. You can't be a Wonderbolt like this! You can't even walk let alone fly! Can you even call yourself a pegasus anymore when you're just a ball with wings as decoration?
All your dreams pass before you as though in a vision. Flying with the Wonderbolts, signing autographs in history books and world record catalogues, finding a hot young stallion and raising a pair of fillies who'll one day grow up to beat your records.
"No!" you cry at they all fade away, as desperately out of reach as the next piece of cake.
Something clenches in your throat and chest. The edges of your vision start to go black and hazy. Vision and sensation quietly drift away as...
[...You're left with nothing at all but a crushing weight of guilt and regret. Add two (+2) to your Fear Meter]
"Greed is certainly on of the worst vices, second only to sloth."
A voice drifts into your foggy mind as you wake up from your blackout. The first thing you notice is the lightness. Your body feels like it weighs practically nothing. You flap your wings and rise into the air as easily as anything.
You sigh in relief as you settle back down on the torn carpet of the building's foyer. That had been traumatic.
"Feeling full yet?" A voice comes from above you. You glance up to see Trixie on her perch with a self-satisfied smirk on her muzzle and a plated slice of chocolate cake on her hoof. "Or do you still have room for more?"
The sight of the cake makes you a little sick to your stomach. You really hope not too many other ponies fall for that same trap, if only for the sake of Pinkie and the Cakes and their businesses.
You notice Trixie's costume has changed. Gone is every element of her old one, as she now sports a black woolen jacket with matching pencil skirt, cinched in by a wide belt. Both her mane and tail are pulled back in blisteringly tight buns. The image is somewhere between 'headmistress' and 'military dictator' (though the riding crop in her hoof sends the whole ensemble spiraling down a rabbit hole you'd rather not investigate). A patch sewn on her shoulder displays five interlocking rings and the number 1972, though its significance is lost on you.
You want to get angry at her. Really just let loose with rage for putting you through that. But... it is a haunted house. It's meant to be scary, even if Trixie has a twisted and warped idea of what's acceptable or normal for this kind of thing.
Plus, you've also been restored back to normal, no worse for wear. So you bottle up the anger. Hopefully there'll be a monster or something in one of the other rooms you can take out your aggression on.
Still, you are left wondering...
"How did you do all that to me?"
"Illusions, duh." Trixie rolls her eyes before shifting back to a vulpine grin. "Pretty scary, wasn't it? Fun fact: did you know the average Equestrian will eat eight times their weight in cake every year?"
"Y-yeah... scary." It was more than scary. Something far deeper that you don't have a word for. Even now you can still feel the lingering sensation of all that fat, pulling you down to earth like lead weights. But that's something to bury deep in your psyche, not admit to Trixie of all ponies.
Determined to face the next challenge without falling into any more traps, you soldier on.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
After a moment's deliberation, you decide to treat yourself with the whole thing. And why not? It's Nightmare Night after all. Gorging yourself on unhealthy sugary snacks isn't just tradition, it's basically required.
So long as Icy Hot on the Wonderbolt Heath and Fitness Advisory Board never catches word of it. Two hundred laps around the compound isn't hard, but you'll still catch flak from your team about it. Maybe even a new nickname if they decide on one catchier than 'Rainbow Crash'.
You lean in and take a bite, getting a fair share of both cake and frosting and snagging a fondant skull as well. Flavor explodes across your tongue. The smooth taste of chocolate merges with the unexpected depth of pumpkin into a new combination like nothing you've ever tasted. Hints of spice dance on the tip of your tongue, just subtle enough to add ornamentation to the flavor without overpowering it.
The cake is light and fluffy, countered well by the thick cloyingness of the icing and the odd crunch from a sprinkle. You take another bite, bigger this time now that you know what to expect, and refresh the flavors.
Did they call in Pinkie Pie for this? It's definitely in her league, though not as sweet as she usually makes them. Maybe one of Celestia's personal chefs? Or, maybe, was Trixie secretly a gourmet chef? No, impossible. She didn't have the attention span. You continue to chew in bliss as you ponder.
A small voice in the back of your mind, the part that usually keeps an eye out for obstacles and incoming projectiles while flying, can't quite settle down though. This is supposed to be a haunted house. It doesn't make sense for one room to have a delicious cake and nothing else. With each new bite that voice becomes ever more tense, constantly expecting something to happen. For the cake to have a hot chili pepper core. For it to turn into something gross mid-bite. For a monster with a camera to jump from a hidden door and catch you in an embarrassing spit-take.
And yet... nothing happens. Despite that portion of your brain having a freak out, you polish off the rest of the cake with a few more eager bites, leaving nothing but a few crumbs and a icing-smudged doily on the platter. The doily also makes an excellent napkin. As you wipe the crumbs away, you notice a something written on the back. It reads:
Fun fact: Did you know the average Equestrian will eat eight times their weight in cake every year?
You shrug and make a note to remember that for later. It might be important. Or maybe Starlight just used some store-bought doilies that already came with trivia on them. Still, nothing of note seems to happen even after you've read and discarded it.
Nothing happens as you replace the lid on the platter. Nothing happens as you walk back towards the door. Nothing happens as you close it behind you with a click.
You shrug. Maybe there was some joke you didn't get. Maybe it was a scare designed specifically for Rarity about calories or something.
...maybe Starlight and Trixie just aren't quite as good at designing scares as they claimed.
But hey, it's not like you're complaining! Free delicious cake is free delicious cake!
[Sated with sugar, you feel yourself calm down. Remove one (-1) from your Fear Meter]
You open the door and it swings out on well oiled hinges— a bit too quickly as you'd expected it to be rustier and stiff. It bumps against the wall with a slight crunch of old wood breaking.
The room inside is black as pitch save for the narrow band where moonlight shines in from behind you. Thankfully, your time spent walking in the half-light of the halls has given ample time for your eyes to start adjusting to the dim and it's not as dark as it could be. You can just barely make out vague shapes in the shadow. Lines of bars and surfaces that clutter the space and make it hard to tell where one thing ends and another begins. After a few seconds of determined thought the shapes slot together in your mind. Shelves and racks- an old storeroom?
You move further in, but not before wedging a piece of broken wood under the door to hold it open. Even with your supreme confidence in your ability to handle any kind of scare this room might throw at you, you've read enough Daring Do to know that you never let a door shut itself behind you. Not unless you're trying to spring the obvious trap.
The light from the door casts a faintly lit path within, just enough to show off that the tiled floor here is in much better shape than that in the hallway.
"Hello?" you call out. Starlight said there were no actors in this haunted house, but that could have been a lie. Easy way to trick you into letting your guard down. Not that you'd fall for such an easy scheme. And even if there aren't any ponies around, whatever spells she's cast might be sound activated.
A minute passes as you wait silently on the threshold for something to happen. But there's nothing. No monsters, no jumpscares, no mysterious fog. The door hasn't even tried to force itself shut.
You're starting to wonder if maybe this isn't even part of the event at all. It could genuinely be just an old larder. And wouldn't that be great? Out of all the spooky rooms you just happened to wander into the one that doesn't have any extra frights in it.
Feeling a little braver, you step to the side, into the darkness so your shadow no longer blocks the meager light.
Something crunches underhoof.
You hesitate and slowly put your hoof down again. No crunch, but there is a slight squishiness. More curious than afraid—after all, what could be in an old storeroom?—you raise your hoof and give it a cautious lick.
You recoil away almost instantly, spitting and sputtering. It's bitter, acrid. Just your luck to go and step on a jar of forty year old rancid jam. You're going to need a gallon of spiced holiday cider to wash the taste out.
Without you to stand in the way, the little light from the door traces all the way onto the far wall where, at last, you see something that looks intentional.
On the wall farthest from the door, perfectly captured by the light, is a small pedestal. If the rubber Nightmare Night decorations wrapped around it aren't evidence enough that it's part of the event, then the lantern on top with a big red arrow pointing to it certainly is.
You relax and let out a breath you didn't realize you were holding. "There's nothing scary in here at all, is there?" You feel more comfortable talking out loud now, now that you know you're alone and nothing's going to jump out at you. You don't even feel embarrassed to voice your thoughts from a fear of looking silly. "I guess the lantern is, like, a reward for solving some puzzle in another room, but I just got to it out of order."
Feeling relieved, you easily trot the rest of the way over to it. Sensing no traps, you reach down, grab the handle with your teeth, and pull.
Much to your surprise, not only is the lantern bolted down, but the handle still gives way. It comes off the main body, held on only by a thin yet strong cord. Instantly, the room is flooded with light as the apparently enchanted lantern is activated at full strength.
You wince, squinting as you let the handle go in surprise and fall back. So much for your night vision.
Everything is bright, too bright, far too bright to see.
But you can hear.
You can hear so much.
From above, from below. From behind you and the front. From every side comes a horrible hissing noise. Loud and jarring and dissonant, like a thousand angry cats. You spend your few blind seconds frozen in place and when your vision returns, you really wish it hadn't.
Spiders.
Spiders the size of housecats scattered across every surface, every wall, everything the light failed to touch. Nimble black bodies with dark purple bands and fangs dripping like melting icicles. The sight of a glob of black and green goo by the door makes you suddenly feel quite ill.
That was not rancid jam.
A sudden ticking noise breaks you from your shocked stupor. The handle you pulled from the lantern is retracting. Tick, tick, tick. The string gets a little shorter with each demarcation, and the light a little dimmer.
A timer.
That part of your brain that registers important information while flying estimates that you have about a minute before you're back in total darkness with more spiders than there are ponies on the weather team.
Dread courses through your veins like ice water. Less than a minute before you're back in the darkness with this army of legs. Only this time, they're not going to be kind enough to keep to the shadows. Already a few brave ones are advancing on your position, blocking the path out.
There's a small tickle on your tail and you lash out instinctively, catching one cheeky spider with a powerful single-hoof buck that'd make Applejack praise your technique. Its exoskeleton cracks and crunches like an eggshell, releasing a wave of green goo. The legs twitch for a second, bereft of a brain, before curling up and going still.
Cold dread slowly gives way to fiery determination as understanding dawns on you. The spiders may be huge and hairy and have fangs and too many legs, but they're also fragile. Unless that one was just particularly weak.
Another spider jumps at you from a shelf and you catch it midair with a swipe of your hoof. It too shatters into goo. Yes! They are all that weak. If all it takes is a casual kick to defeat one, you might just have a chance.
The death of their comrades seems to have triggered something in the rest of the horde, and they begin to advance on you en masse. A grin crawls across your face as your confidence returns, banishing away all doubt with the balm of cocky assurance.
"All right you eight-legged freaks," you announce to the gathered horde. "You can come at me all at once or form a nice, orderly line to get your share of flank-kicking in turn. Either way—" you crack you hoof-knuckles "—only one of us is leaving this room.
To a bug, they leap at you, and you return equal fury. Kicks and chops and punches and all manner of half-remembered karate moves rain down upon the the swarm like a torrential downpour. Legs go flying and guts burst in miniature fireworks of green and black gore, with every hit punctuated by a witty one-liner that helps keep your underlying fear (and your urge to barf) in check.
Punch. Squish! "Take that!"
Kick. Squelch! "Have some more!"
Smash. Goosh! "Your mama's gonna feel that one in her egg sac!"
Okay, maybe they aren't all super witty, but they help keep you in the right berserker mindset all the same.
The light of the lantern fades and you keep fighting, relying more and more on your sense of sound and feeling the moving currents of air to dodge their jumps and ensure that your blows land. Minutes blur into each other, just as one spider's guts blurs into another. Tendrils of dread start to wrap themselves around your buoying sense of confidence. Why do they keep coming? Surely there weren't this many when you started. Was fighting them the wrong move and now you're trapped, unable to either beat this room or leave it for your poor decisions? Doomed to keep fighting until you finally collapse from exhaustion and the spiders take you?
[A sense of dawning horror fills you. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
Then, just as quickly as it started, the spiders stop. With one final stomp of your hoof, you realize that there's no longer any sounds in the room other than your own ragged breathing.
You've won.
With a little musical chime, sourceless light fills the room, illuminating every corner without shadow and unveiling the true level of arthropodal carnage you've wreaked. You stand in the center of a hill of death, gooey carapaces piled nearly barrel high all around. You'd thought the ones near the end had been jumping at you from above more often: turns out that was out of necessity. They no longer could reach you from the sides.
As you start to worry about having to dig yourself out, the bodies all begin to glow and fade away into magical sparkles. A relief twofold, as you were starting to feel a little concerned over how much killing you'd just done. Good thing it doesn't count if they're just magical projections.
As the bodies fade, you notice that they've left something behind. A boot. A bit weathered and worn, but with a thick rubber sole and a long forward bit to accommodate a dragon's claws.
"Geez," you mutter as you pick it up and put it in your bag. "Sure could have used that a few minutes ago."
The irony is not lost on you that you received a Squishing Boot as a reward for killing spiders.
A spider, airborne, hangs in the air before you, frozen in time. No, not frozen. Even now in your adrenaline-fueled state of hyper-awareness it's inching forward, inexorably descending towards your face. Fangs dripping, legs splayed, webbing leaking from its back end, white and sticky and ready to tie down your wings—
Before you even realize what's happening you lash out, striking the beast so hard it splits down the middle, coating the end of your stick in green viscera.
Your stick. The one you got from that angry tree. Somehow you've managed to pull it from your bag and arm yourself. It makes sense, after all, what better to defeat spiders with than a big whacking stick?
As if the death of the first was a signal, the rest begin to make their move. You grimace in grim determination. You've got your weapon and you're more than ready to take them on.
The battle is short but brutal. With the extra reach offered by your stick (and its sharpened end), you're able to smash, slash, and stab you way through the insect horde before any of them can get close enough to so much as touch you. The stick cuts through them like butter, turning even clumsy flailing into devastating strikes. There's still a little light left in the lantern when the last one falls and curls up in defeat.
With a little musical chime, the light quickly surges back to full brightness. Before you can mourn too much for your foes, their bodies start to vanish, twinkling and dissolving away into little more than motes of light.
Motes of light and an old rubber boot.
It appears directly in your path, such that you can't miss it while leaving. It's a bit weathered and worn, but with a thick sole and a long forward bit. Dragon-sized maybe?
Whatever. It'll probably be good for something eventually. You pick it up and put it in your bag.
The irony is not lost on you that you received a Squishing Boot as a reward for killing spiders.
Your heart leaps into your throat as the implications dawn on you.
A minute—even less now—to fight your way out before you're trapped in the dark with Celestia knows how many spiders and their dripping fangs and grabby legs and sticky webbing bits already dripping and ready to tie you down just like the changelings did leaving you weak and totally helpless and—
No.
No, not again. These aren't changelings, they're just spiders. And spiders don't have a seat at the Council of Creatures if you start squishing them.
You reach into your bag for a weapon. Anything will do. Anything to give you an edge. Your hoof clenches around a long wooden shaft. The broom? Why not? It's a stick with more sticks at the end. In fact, it sounds perfect for spiders.
You brandish the broom before you like a fencer, hovering in place to give yourself the fullest range of motion. Spiders throw themselves at you like moths to a flame, yet none stick their landing. All are knocked from the sky by your mighty broom and squished by its dense bristles. You thank your lucky stars that their shells aren't made of stronger stuff.
The battle is short but brutal. With the extra reach you make short work of them without so much as getting your hooves dirty. The broom bats them aside with surprising force, turning even glancing blows into a useful knockback. There's still a little light left in the lantern when the last one falls and curls up in defeat.
With a little musical chime, the light quickly surges back to full brightness. Before you can mourn too much for your foes, their bodies start to vanish, twinkling and dissolving away into little more than motes of light.
Motes of light and an old rubber boot.
It appears directly in your path, such that you can't miss it while leaving. It's a bit weathered and worn, but with a thick sole and a long forward bit. Dragon-sized maybe?
Whatever. It'll probably be good for something eventually. You pick it up and put it in your bag.
The irony is not lost on you that you received a Squishing Boot as a reward for killing spiders.
Time seems to move in slow motion. The spiders are everywhere and the sheer shock of it makes you freeze up in panic, leaving no thoughts other than the alarm bells screaming out in panic. A terrible memory rises to the surface of your mind and forces itself to play out in full and vivid detail.
You're young, fresh out of flight camp and eager to show off all the new tricks you learned there. You go for a triple loop, one that'll take you dangerously close to skimming the ground, but you practiced it a million times at camp. There's no way you'll mess it up. You burn into the descent of the second loop when suddenly you feel a tickle on your face. You take your eyes off the target for just a moment, crossing them to see your own muzzle.
Your muzzle, and a spider! The biggest, hairiest, nastiest spider you've ever seen. Clutching on to your muzzle and stuck to your mane by a strand of web. You scream and go into a dive, twisting and spinning out of control.
The memory gets fuzzy after that, but you remember the aftermath all too well. Waking up in the hospital, wings in a cast. The doctor saying how lucky you were that you hit the lake instead of the cliff. Not being able to fly for almost three months before the bones set and muscles healed. And the spider. The image of it is burned into your memory like staring at the sun. The spider that almost cost you your wings.
You pull yourself out of the memory with a herculean effort, centering yourself in the here and now. These spiders aren't those spiders, and you're not the filly you were then. The situation is totally different. Today, you are in control. These spiders would drown, just like the one that tried to cut your illustrious life short. And you have just the tool to do it.
"Take this, you hairy freaks!" you shout as you pull the bucket of water out from your bag. The water flies forth, thick and greasy, in a beautiful arc that drenches several ranks of the opposing forces.
Your manic grin fades as the spiders start to stand back up, wet, but otherwise unhurt. You consider that maybe trying to drown something with a splash wasn't the best idea, and that you might have some issues you need to work out.
But there is no more time to think on such things as the spiders descend upon you. You try to fight, to punch, to kick, to smash them to pieces, but you can't. The weird water has made them slick and slippery and all your attacks just slide off. In your haste and anger, you've doomed yourself.
It doesn't take long for the spiders to overpower you as your body is covered by dozens of burning pinpricks that quickly fade into numbness. You can feel yourself being rotated by a hundred cooperating legs as something thin and sticky is wrapped around you. It gets tighter and tighter with every pass, like you're being squeezed in a vice. Your sight begins to fade as the wrappings cover your eyes and the lantern returns to its dull unlit state. There's a faint burning sensation in your lungs and heart before everything fades to black.
[Caught in a web of your own undoing. Add two (+2) to your Fear Meter]
"Welcome to my parlor," Trixie announces once you reawaken in the foyer, spreading her forelegs wide. She's changed out of her old costume for some kind of strange hoodie with an extra pair of legs sewn on. If the markings weren't clear enough, the fangs sitting either side of her face make it obvious she's supposed to be some kind of spider. Or maybe being eaten by one, since her face is kinda in its mouth. "Don't feel like you need to stop on my account. Your decisions thus far have been most entertaining." She grins. "How exactly were you expecting that to go? Honestly, I'm curious. Did you think they were enchanted sugar that would melt in water?"
"...I don't want to talk about it," you grunt. Which is totally within your right. She doesn't need to know about... everything from before. You're fine with no one knowing about it outside your family. Although... maybe you should talk with somepony. Fluttershy, at least. It's not good to have something that can make you lose your cool that quickly. If it happened again...
You shake the thought from your head. It's not something you need to decide right now anyway. There's still a haunted house to conquer! Hopefully one without any more spider-based rooms.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
You push the door open. It sticks a little, but you muscle your way in.
Inside is some kind of sitting room. A cracked but unbroken skylight lets in enough moonlight to see by. There's a few overstuffed armchairs, a sofa, even a fainting couch. Paintings on the wall depict calm nature scenes. The kind of room you'd invite your friends to rest in for a while when they show up before dinner's ready.
But this room also looks like it survived a wild animal attack.
Large gashes are torn through the paintings. Stuffing is scattered everywhere like an early snow. Even the carpet is shredded.
You also take note that you are not alone.
There's a pony on the fainting couch, stretched out as casually as if this was her own bedroom. Her eye snaps open under its curtain of orange curls and focuses on you the moment you enter.
"Oi," she growls, "I thought I made it clear to you wads, no trespassers!"
You start slightly at her scratchy voice. It sounds wrong, coming from a mare so petite. "Oh, sorry, I'll just—" You reach for the doorknob but find it's locked behind you.
She sighs dramatically. "Criminy. The things I gotta do to get a little shuteye." Without so much as a word of warning, she begins to grow.
The sound of bones snapping and stretching fills the room as she starts to jerk and shake, odd bumps distending her fur. She rises to stand on her back legs, posture hunched over, wickedly sharp claws burst from her hooves. Her muzzle extends, growing out long and slender just as quickly as it fills with knives.
You stand there, transfixed, the whole transformation running its course in under ten seconds. As her spine snaps into its final place, the mare lets loose a blood-curling howl, leaving no doubt as to what she's become.
A Werepony.
"I was feeling a mite peckish anyhow."
You step back until you feel the cold wood of the door pressing up against your back as you consider your options. You can't fight her, there's no way! High and lauded though your opinion of yourself may be, you know better than to try and fight a timberwolf alone in an enclosed space where you can't use flight to its full advantage. And this is like a timberwolf with a pony's intelligence behind it. Fighting's a no go. At least, not without a weapon to better your odds. Maybe something among your ITEMS could do the trick?
On the other hoof, since you don't think you're strong enough to take down a slobbering werepony, you could always try to NEGOTIATE.
The werewolf leaps at you, snarling, her claws bared and ready to strike. You fumble back a half-step in panic, but your hoof finds your bag nonetheless and quickly whips out your stick. It may not be much, but any weapon's better than nothing.
You brace yourself like you're part of a phalanx in ancient Pegasoppoli, legs bent, wings flared, back arched and makeshift spear held out before you ready to receive its grim shish kebab. But the hit never comes. In fact, even the snarling has stopped. Instead there's a sound like heavy breathing.
You sneak one eye open. The werewolf is sitting. Sitting back on its haunches like a dog, tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth as it pants. The fury is gone and there's no mistaking the glee in its eye.
What happened? Five seconds ago it was ready to rip and tear into you like a Hearth's Warming present!
You lower your spear and the werewolf's head follows it down. That could be something. You try moving it to the right. Again, her head follows it. You spin it in a circle and the werewolf does a decent impression of a windmill.
You're no scientist, but you know how to draw a conclusion from evidence. All that's left is to prove the theory.
"You want the stick?"
The werewolf nods eagerly, her tail thumping back and forth on the floor. It'd be almost cute if she wasn't still three times your size with teeth and claws like farm tools. Even with that it's hard to take her quite as seriously when she's acting like a puppy.
"Is this what you want?" you tease, and waggle your weapon. "This stick right here? This one? You want it? You want the stick? You want—"
"Yes!" she roars, her voice tearing through the air like thunder and spritzing you with slobber and foam. "Yes, by Winnie, I want it! Give it to me!"
You'd slightly forgotten that there was still a pony-level intelligence behind the shaggy coat and eyes that burned like coals. You reel back a foreleg and give the stick a hefty throw worthy of an Equestrian Games champion. It hits the far wall, of course, but if it hadn't it'd definitely have gone for miles! "Then fetch!"
The werewolf turns on a dime, her claws skidding across the already heavily scraped-up floor before she lopes off to retrieve her prize. You let out a sigh of relief now that her presence isn't looming over you quite so menacingly. Still, it's not a permanent solution. Throwing a stick is only the first part of the game; the second involves her coming back. Who knows how long the game might keep her entertained before she gets bored and decides to return to sampling her new chew toy? You rather like having all your organs in their current internal arrangement.
You glance down and notice that the door, which you previously had thought locked, has something stuck under its lip. Maybe you could escape. Since you're not sure how you're supposed to beat this challenge, it might be the best option. You glance at your foe. Your throw managed to lodge the stick pretty solidly in the rotting wall and she's having a tough time digging it out. There's time.
You wiggle out the blockage and find it's half a ripped up book. With it removed, the door opens easily. You sneak out while the werewolf is still distracted. You've lost a tool, but escaped with your life. All in all, not a bad trade.
The hallway is still as cluttered as ever, with enough debris spilled around that it's hard to move without flying. There are four possible exits, TWO DOORS to your left, and the hallway leading both LEFT and RIGHT.
You dodge to the side, barely in the nick of time to avoid getting hit by two tons of fur, fang, and claw. You scramble back as you try to put as much distance as you can between you and the beast. It turns quickly, looking none worse the wear for having hit the wall headfirst, and lunges again.
Again you nimbly dodge as the werewolf goes sailing past to crash into a sofa. Dodging alone isn't going to solve anything. You need a plan. Or at the very least an idea. 'Cause currently you've got nothing.
Fight it? Impossible. Karate moves won't do a thing against razor sharp claws and you don't have room to try anything too acrobatic. Your best chance is going to be using a tool, but what?
You dodge again, down this time as the werewolf makes a high jump. It's learning, getting wise to your tactics. You can only dodge so many times until it figures out how to corner you and then no more Rainbow Dash.
You reach into your bag to grab whatever comes to hoof first and throw it!
You can only watch in dismay as a trio of chocolate coins go flying through the air. Well, that was a waste. Maybe if you dig deeper you'll find something actually useful like—
Your get cut off by a sudden yowling. It's the werewolf. Rather than bounce off its muzzle like expected, the coins seem to have passed through it, leaving behind three perfectly circular tunnels through its body. Like someone poking a straw through an apple. Golden light escapes the wounds, turning wispy and leaving behind a trail of dust as she moves.
It's weird, but you're not one to look a gift wolf in the mouth. You reach into your bag and grab some more chocolate coins. Whatever works, works.
"You like that?" you taunt. "Well have some more!"
The coins go sailing through the air like enchanted arrows, quickly turning the werewolf into were-swiss-cheese. It yowls again in agony as more golden light begins to escape. The holes start to widen, smaller ones connecting together until the entire beast is nothing but a beacon of light so bright it forces you to cover your eyes and look away. You fold your ears back as well as a high-pitched whine fills the room.
The noise stops for a moment—just long enough for one quiet 'arf?' to slip through—before the figure detonates in an explosion of sparkles. When the light clears and you can safely look back, the werewolf is gone. In its place is a small, wispy figure that looks an awful lot like the pony you saw before the transformation. Except she has no back legs.
She rubs the back of her head as she gives you an embarrassed look. "Well, uhhh... that was a pretty nasty curse, huh? So thanks for breaking it and junk. Sorry about trying to... you know. Here." She reaches up and removes something from her neck before tossing it to you. "Take this. It might help you on your way."
You catch her gift as she begins to fade away. It's a small golden Locket on a chain. "Laters," the spirit says as she fades away entirely, leaving you alone in the destroyed room.
You stand for a moment in silent contemplation—
"Alright. Works for me!"
—before exiting triumphantly. Any landing you can walk away from is a victory.
"Take this!" With adrenaline-fueled accuracy, you throw the bucket of well water at your attacker.
It hits her dead on, the lip of the bucket catching her in the snout and perfectly upending its brackish contents over her.
The effect is immediate.
"Ahhh! Oh, ew, ew, ew, ew, ick!" She shakes her head like, well, like a wet dog. Water and bits of weed go flying. "Augh, that's disgusting! Why would you do that?"
As you're about to answer, the smell finally hits you. The stagnant water is bad enough on its own; cloying and earthy like wet and rotting mushrooms. Adding to it the smell of wet dog does not improve matters.
You dry heave as a new wave of the stench hits you.
"Oh you are so dead now," the dripping dog-pony promises, her voice thick with malice. "I was just gonna scare you off, but now you've gone and made it personal."
She rocks back onto her haunches before shooting forward, all fangs and fury. Even your keen pegasus reaction times only allow you to properly appreciate the true terror of her toothy maw as it descends on you.
[Never poke the angry dog with a stick unless you have a rock ready in your other hoof. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
Your senses return to you in the dilapidated foyer. You take a moment to collect your bearings before you shoot a glance to Trixie. She's still dressed the same as when you last saw her, although she looks surprised. Alarmed, even.
"What? Not gonna say anything?"
"...No," she replies after a moment. She shrugs. "I've got nothing. That was such an unexpected failure that I genuinely don't have anything prepared for it. No witty repartee, no related costume, nothing. How did you possibly think that would work?"
"Just trying all my options," you mutter before moving off to try your luck again.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
"Can't we talk about this?" you manage to shout as you juke to the left. Seeing how you don't think you can take down a monster like that, the friendship route is looking pretty promising. Or at least the best of a bad set of options.
You get no response other than a growl and another scythe-like swipe to your face.
"C'mon! I didn't mean to wake you up. Look I'll leave if you want, just let—" you duck a spinning swipe "—me—" fly over a low kick "—get to—" backpedal to avoid another wild charge "—the door!"
Alas, the art of diplomacy seems ineffective against your hairy foe. No matter what you try to say, offer, or beg all you get in response is more grunts and growls and roars. And attacks. The attacks never let up until even you, prime athlete that you are, start to get tired. It's not just the flying and dodging—you could do that all day—but it's constantly having to be on your guard and ready to move in a split second's notice that wears your mental focus down to the wire.
But when you're fighting for your life, all it takes is one mistake and eventually, given enough time and fatigue, even you make a one. A wild uppercut catches you off guard, coming in from your blind spot as you try to roll away. There's a flash of pain as you hit the ground hard, skidding among the wrecked furniture. In seconds the beast is upon you, slavering jaws descending like the gaping maw of Tartarus itself. In your last moments before darkness consumes you, you wonder if Twilight would have had better luck trying to friendship the problem away.
[Talk is only good if you have the strength to back it up. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
"An interesting strategy," Trixie muses once you return to the realm of consciousness back in the mansion's foyer. "I didn't expect you to try and talk things out with a monster."
She's changed her costume, you notice. Some kind of weird buckball uniform in what looks like Buckton Hills colors with the number 42. It might even look good if it wasn't for her insufferable grin ruining it.
"What'd you expect me to do? Pull off a sonic rainboom in that tiny room?" What does she know, anyway? She never had to fight for her life against an angry monster. You did the best you could with what you had.
"Whatever," Trixie dismisses you with a wave of her hoof. "By the way, did you know werewolves only went extinct in the last two hundred years? That's when Princess Celestia cleared out the last pack."
You stop just before you left the sound of her voice behind. "Wait, really?" Werewolves were real?
She nods. "That, or they suddenly got a lot better at blending in with ponies. Worked for the changelings. Who knows?" She grins and you can see a set of plastic pointy teeth in her mouth. "Maybe you know one already."
You roll your eyes and make yourself scarce. Yeah right. As if somepony you know was actually a secret werewolf.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
It's a standoff between you and the spiders. On one side, you, tense, taut, and ready for action but stilled by indecision. On the other, a metric ton of spiders crouching aggressively. And perching menacingly. And looming ominously.
They may have caught you off guard (and briefly triggered a traumatic memory), but now that you can see where they are the tables have turned. A spider you can see is better than one you can't.
You take a deep breath. In. Out. Now's not the time to lose your head. As much as you'd love to go into a berserk rage and smash them all into little tiny pieces, they do have numbers on their side. Too weak to face you one on one so they try and gang up on you. Cowards.
As if to prove you wrong, a single spider steps forth from the horde. It's a big one, hefty dog sized, and it stands smack in the middle of the path, blocking your way to the exit. Something gooey drips from its weird mouth parts as it stares you down with what you swear is gleeful anticipation.
"S-so, that's how you wanna do this?" Cool. Calm. Collected. That's you. A paragon of rational decision-making, and definitely not a mare barely holding it together. "Well fine by me!"
That's right! You're Rainbow Dash! Monster fighter! Adventure seeker! Element of Awesome! No spiders are gonna get the best of you, no matter how many hairy legs and glistening eyeballs and drooling maws they have!
You reach into your bag and feel around for the potion you got off that mad scientist. You aren't totally sure what it'll do, but no doubt something nasty. Perfect for spiders.
As if sensing your intention, the gigaspider crouches down before suddenly leaping towards you!
Quick as a flash you draw the potion and fling it at the beast. Your aim strikes true and you smirk as you can immediately see the spider's body start to hiss and bubble in some alchemical reaction. But the smile doesn't last long as, despite your perfect throw, the spider is still hurtling through the air towards you at much the same speed. Before you can even think to dodge, it hits you with less of a thwack and more of a squelchy splat.
You don't scream. You definitely do not scream like a frightened filly her first day jumping off a cloud. Just because you've been hit in the face with a melting spider and it's melting off your skin, oh dear Faust the equinity!
...Actually, you realize upon a moment of reflection, it doesn't hurt. It's oozy and sticky and really really gross, but it doesn't actually hurt.
"Huh. That worked better than expected." Of course, you don't forget that you had only one potion and there's a lot more spiders left, but for the moment they don't seem eager to fight you. Maybe the defeat of the big one scared them into submission.
Blind in one eye by the ooze, you rub your hoof against your face to try and scrape some of the spider goop off. It's sticky, like caramel only way worse, and only seems to get your hoof just as filthy. The light's starting to fade as the lantern runs out of charge, and you reach out to pull the handle again to reset it. As you do, you feel something twitch on the back of your neck.
You freeze.
There it is again! A slight twitch, right near the center of your shoulder blades. It's not a spot you can see, not with your eye covered, but a carefully angled wing should reach the spot. You twist and reach around with a pinion, searching for that same spot of sensation. As you find it, you feel something clamp down on your feather. Something that feels an awful lot like spider jaws.
That's when it chooses to strike.
This time you do scream. Loud and long until you're hoarse. The thing is still alive, despite being half dissolved and spread across your body like an oil spill! You thrash at it with every ounce of energy you have, desperate to get the liquid spider off. Now that it's not playing dead, you can feel every bit of it moving, legs twitching and scrabbling at odd angles. You pull and twist but it just won't come off! It just gets spread across more and more of you!
Suddenly you feel a terrible gut wrenching twist in your stomach. You collapse as it feels like someone's putting all your organs in a salad mixer. You can still feel the spider goo moving across your body, but it feels less frantic now. Less like an attack. More intentional.
With a gasp and a sharp stinging sensation, you can feel the exact moment the line starts to blur where the potion-warped spider ends and you begin. It coats you utterly, sinking into your fur, your muscles, your bones, like slime soaking into a towel. And it changes you.
Every little change burns itself into your senses in acute detail, sharper and more defined than anything you've ever felt outside the most intense dives. Each strand of fur tugging and pulling away at your skin with a million needle pricks till they flatten into hardened sheets of armor-like shell. Every organ groaning in protest as they're squashed and birthed into new and twisted purpose. The meager light of the lantern feels like piercing rays of a cruel sun to each new eye as they blister from your forehead. A noise like splitting logs fills the room as your hind legs crack and split then split again, thinning and hardening into six spindly shards of night. You scream, or try to, as your jaw divides into two massive vice-like pincers, leaking poison that sizzles where it meets the floor.
But above the noise of your body being broken and reforged, is the relentless torrent of noise from the other spiders. But what was once maddening noise begins to twist, developing strange patterns and harmonies that your mind can nearly grasp yet slip away like sand. But the more you listen, the more the chittering and hissing starts to sound like words.
It's all too much. Your pedipalps writhe as you shriek in a tongue that can no longer form equestrian speech, legs lashing the shelves apart like scythes, and poison spraying like a fountain of blood.
The spiders continue to sing in worshipful praise as darkness takes you into blissful void.
[Part of the web, part of the crew. Add three (+3) to your Fear Meter]
You awake to the sound of a mare vocalizing. It's not the same sound as the spiders, but the tune is hauntingly familiar. You snap to full alertness, jumping up to your hooves. It takes a quick moment to realize that, yes, once again you do have hooves. And two eyes and a full coat of fur and all the proper pony parts. Not a trace of anything spidery to be found. Already the sensations seem to be fading from your memory. Your brief moment of dysphoria aside, you quickly gather your wits and recognize the foyer from which you started. You look upward to the source of the song, finding, much to your regret, Trixie. She's changed her costume, now wearing a crown and some kind of weird armor, but the most noticeable thing about her is her backside. Or really, the spider-like body's that's replaced it. From her waist down it's all green armored carapace.
You breath stills for a second before you look closer and see how obviously fake it is. The legs are clearly glued on and some of the stitching is visible. You take a deep breath to recover form the shock and wipe any traces of being scared of Trixie out of your system.
"Praise, praise, the Spider Queen!" she sings, though the words don't perfectly fit the tune. "She lobs us all and we are agog at her glory. May her web be infinite and her thread involatile. Praise, praise!"
"You done?"
She gazes down at you, her look radiating imperial disdain. "I suppose. I had a couple more verses, actually, but they don't really work here since I wrote them with Twilight in mind."
You shake your head. "That was messed up. Something's wrong with you, Trixie. There's something dark in your head and the fact that you can't see it honestly scares me more than that last room did. You were going to let foals go through that?"
"Foals?" she scoffs. "Of course not! They'd get a much shorter cocoon-based transformation. Maybe have to fight their friends if they're in a group. You're the one who told me you could handle this at the highest settings." She grins maliciously, her wide smile accentuated by fangs. "Or is it too much for you? Need me to tone it down? Bring it back to a more foal-appropriate level?"
You return the scowl but say nothing, choosing instead to stomp back off down a hallway and continue your trek. You try to put the memory of the transformation out of your mind, and ignore how the moths flitting about the light look strangely appetizing.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
Rather than wallpaper, this hallway is lined with expensive wood paneling. Or at least it once was. Now the rich mahogany is so thoroughly dry rotted that it crumbles at your touch. Moth-eaten curtains with faded gold tassels frame each door as if to hide one at a moment's notice.
Chandeliers, small ones, hang from the ceiling, unlit. Thick cobwebs have grown lampshades around the crystal and glass ornamentation.
Once, this was a place designed to be shown off. Now, barely a fraction of its former glory remains.
The air is dusty and tickles your nose with an urge to sneeze.
There are FOUR DOORS in the hallway, two set on your left-hoof side and two on your right. Beyond them, the hallway splits, taking both a hard LEFT TURN and CONTINUING FORWARD and out of sight.
The lights have been getting dimmer as you walked, but at some point without realizing it, you crossed a threshold into perfect darkness. You can still see your hoof though—and bits of your mane that bob into your line of sight—in perfectly lit clarity. Like there's a light somewhere that only falls on you.
The long rug beneath you helps you stay on the straight and narrow path. Any time you feel wood instead of fabric you make a slight course correction.
You don't dare fly in here.
Night flying is dangerous enough even with the stars and moon to help. Flying in darkness like this? It's unthinkable. You like your muzzle's current shape thank-you-very-much.
The groundedness... weighs on you. Moreso than you thought it would. The idea that flying isn't an option is so... anathema to what it means to be Rainbow Dash that you find it pulling you into a strange paradoxical state.
You want to fly. To get up and move and reach the end of this corridor of darkness already. But you can't. And knowing that you can't is somehow making you want it all the more. Your wings twitch at your sides involuntarily, eager and ready to send you soaring into the air... and no doubt smack into a wall. You've never felt this kind of tension before. This... internal conflict within yourself.
Luckily, just when you're starting to think you can't take it any more, there's a light. A pinprick on the horizon. Horizon? Could it be that far? Was the house that large? Or maybe the light was just small. Your latter guess proves right as you reach it. There are two doors here, one at the end of the hall and one set to your right side. The two of them could not be more different.
The first is overly wide and ornamental. An arch made of wide blackish rock that cradles a thick and sturdy door made of heavy timber and barred with iron. The second is a pair of double doors covered in delicate filigree. Much of it has rusted away, but you can tell it must have been impressive when it was new.
You notice a note attached to the door at the end of the hall. It reads:
Past This Door Lies The Exit To The Haunted House, But Not Before A Final Challenge. Enter Only If You Are Absolutely Prepared.
The massive door swings open at your touch, far easier than its size suggests it should have. Fog like a corpse's breath spills out from behind it, curling around your hooves in wispy tendrils. You step through and find yourself on the landing of a spiral staircase. The steps and wall are both alike made of the same rough stone, dark but without the luster of obsidian. Ghostly red flames hanging in the air give off just enough light to see where one step ends and the next begins.
Compared to the modern-but-dated look of the rest of the mansion, this section feels like it was torn off an old castle and stuck on to the backdoor. Knowing the kind of magic Starlight can wield you wouldn't put it past her, and you can't deny that the oppressive atmosphere it gives off really lends itself to a sense of finality.
You begin to ascend the stairs, wings flapping slowly as the landing swiftly disappears behind and your path curves ever upward, ever out of sight just beyond the next bend.
And you climb. And climb. And climb.
The air feels thick and heavy between your feathers, like you're trying to fly through syrup. Every stroke feels like it takes ten times the effort it should. Already you're starting to tire and it hasn't even been that long!
How long has is been though? Five minutes? Ten? No way the tower can be this high; you'd have seen it from the outside. It's so hard to get your bearings, like there's a pressure in the back of your skull whenever you try to focus too hard on any single direction.
You brake in the air and and hover down slowly until your hooves rest back on solid stone. The moment you touch down, the feeling in the back of your head vanishes. Your sense of up, down, and forward come back into agreement with what your eyes can see. Despite that relief there's still an uncomfortable texture to the air, like you've been descending into a deep cave rather than rising.
You trot a few steps back down and almost immediately see the edge of the landing.
"Oh," you say as realization dawns. A trick staircase. Or space warping magic. Or some other weird magic. Whatever the cause, the rule it enforces it plainly obvious. "Fine. No flying."
With your hooves firmly on the ground, once again you begin your ascent, grumbling under your breath about unfairness against pegasi. This time you barely have to circle the central pillar twice before you encounter something new. An azure magical barrier bars the way. It stretches from wall to wall and ceiling to step, creating a haze curtain inside which drift swirls and eddies of magic. As you approach, a few lines of glowing text appear at eye level, surrounded by a constellation of little silhouetted shapes.
The message reads:
You've used many tools to fight your fears and aid you on you way. Some were easier to acquire than others. But which of them were freely given? Choose wisely.
You recognize the shapes now as various things you have in your Inventory Bucket. It seems that in order to pass, you need to select the one that correctly answers the question. That's easy enough. All your items were acquired through winning, and you remember everything you've ever won.
You tap the number you vaguely think you may have heard earlier. You're not super confident about it, but what's life without a little risk? Besides, it's a one in four chance. Those are better odds than you're used to.
The swirling colors of the barrier go still suddenly and your breath catches in your throat. On second thought, you also don't know what will happen when you get one wrong and you're not super excited to find out.
Much to your relief, this wall chimes as well and falls away, leaving the path clear. You're two for two, which is the kind of solid average a winner like you deserves to have. You practically saunter up the stairs. Nothing can stop you now! You hardly even notice as the black stone starts to shift, becoming smoother and more polished the higher you climb. Within a few laps of the tower, every surface is polished to practically a mirror finish. Or they would be, if the reflections weren't distorted by a repeating pattern etched across the stone in minute detail.
But that's not important to finishing the challenge, so you ignore it. The end is close now! You can almost taste it!
After a few more steps you find yourself at the final landing. Before you is a grand set of double doors like the ones at the bottom of the stairs. But while those were plain and study, these are anything but. The left door is intricately carved with depictions of snarling monsters, savage beasts, and raging ponies locked in a violent struggle. The right is a near mirror of the left, though the monsters there are smiling and the ponies happy.
At the center where you'd expect to find a doorknob or lock is instead an ornate dial large enough to be used on a bank vault. Etched into the metal are a series of Illuminated numbers and at the center rests a single large arrow which currently rests pointing at zero.
As you approach, a final glowing message appears between you and the door.
This is it. Your final challenge. You've come a long way to get here and faced many spooks and specters on the way. But just how far have you come? Are you sure, in your test of courage, that you've faced everything this challenge has to offer? If you believe so, then the answer should be simple. How many unique rooms are in this house?
"Oh come on!" you complain to the impassive stones, the sound deadening quickly as the tiny ridges trap the sound. "No one said I was supposed to be paying attention to that!"
When this fails to yield any sort of shortcut, hint, or free pass, you sit down with a grumble. Of course there had to be a memorization quiz in your action-packed adventure thriller. Starlight is a card-carrying, note-taking egghead after all, even if she has Trixie's absolute insanity to balance things out. Well, time to start backtracking through your memories and taking note of every awesome victory you scored. Huh, maybe it's not such a bad idea after all.
"Obviously it's this one," you say as you tap the image you know to be correct.
The swirls of magic sparkles that make up the barrier freeze for an instant before turning a delightful green and popping like a soap bubble with the sound of a chime.
"Awesome!" One down, two to go.
You continue to ascend the stairs, emboldened by your previous success. Not that it had really been all that difficult. Maybe it would have been hard for somepony else who hadn't collected as many items, but for you it was a breeze! Whoever said keeping everything you find was a bad idea obviously never did a dungeon crawl.
In no time at all you reach a second barrier, identical to the first. Once again, floating words appear as you approach, but this time instead of little spinning pictures, numbers drift back and forth on gossamer wings.
The text pulses slightly as you read it.
To face a fear and overcome it is a great triumph. But what good is a victory if you don't learn anything from it? Knowledge is a power all its own. How many times their body weight does the average Equestrian eat in cake per year?
"What the hay kind of question is that?" you demand. It doesn't even have anything to do with Nightmare Night! Well, except for eating sugar. But candy and cakes are totally different things! That's why Bon Bon and the Cakes are rivals and not partners.
Still, you feel like you know the answer to this somehow. All you have to do is concentrate and remember it.
The massive door swings open at your touch, far easier than its size suggests it should have. Fog like a corpse's breath spills out from behind it, curling around your hooves in wispy tendrils. You step through and find yourself on the landing of a spiral staircase. The steps and wall are both alike made of the same rough stone, dark but without the luster of obsidian. Ghostly red flames hanging in the air give off just enough light to see where one step ends and the next begins.
Compared to the modern-but-dated look of the rest of the mansion, this section feels like it was torn off an old castle and stuck on to the backdoor. Knowing the kind of magic Starlight can wield you wouldn't put it past her, and you can't deny that the oppressive atmosphere it gives off really lends itself to a sense of finality.
You begin to ascend the stairs, wings flapping slowly as the landing swiftly disappears behind and your path curves ever upward, ever out of sight just beyond the next bend.
And you climb. And climb. And climb.
The air feels thick and heavy between your feathers, like you're trying to fly through syrup. Every stroke feels like it takes ten times the effort it should. Already you're starting to tire and it hasn't even been that long!
How long has is been though? Five minutes? Ten? No way the tower can be this high; you'd have seen it from the outside. It's so hard to get your bearings, like there's a pressure in the back of your skull whenever you try to focus too hard on any single direction.
You brake in the air and and hover down slowly until your hooves rest back on solid stone. The moment you touch down, the feeling in the back of your head vanishes. Your sense of up, down, and forward come back into agreement with what your eyes can see. Despite that relief there's still an uncomfortable texture to the air, like you've been descending into a deep cave rather than rising.
You trot a few steps back down and almost immediately see the edge of the landing.
"Oh," you say as realization dawns. A trick staircase. Or space warping magic. Or some other weird magic. Whatever the cause, the rule it enforces it plainly obvious. "Fine. No flying."
With your hooves firmly on the ground, once again you begin your ascent, grumbling under your breath about unfairness against pegasi. This time you barely have to circle the central pillar twice before you encounter something new. An azure magical barrier bars the way. It stretches from wall to wall and ceiling to step, creating a haze curtain inside which drift swirls and eddies of magic. As you approach, a few lines of glowing text appear at eye level, surrounded by a constellation of little silhouetted shapes.
The message reads:
You've used many tools to fight your fears and aid you on you way. Some were easier to acquire than others. But which of them were freely given? Choose wisely.
You recognize the shapes now as various things you have in your Inventory Bucket. It seems that in order to pass, you need to select the one that correctly answers the question. That's easy enough. All your items were acquired through winning, and you remember everything you've ever won.
"Obviously it's this one," you say as you tap the image you know to be correct.
The swirls of magic sparkles that make up the barrier freeze for an instant before turning a delightful green and popping like a soap bubble with the sound of a chime.
"Awesome!" One down, two to go.
You continue to ascend the stairs, emboldened by your previous success. Not that it had really been all that difficult. Maybe it would have been hard for somepony else who hadn't collected as many items, but for you it was a breeze! Whoever said keeping everything you find was a bad idea obviously never did a dungeon crawl.
In no time at all you reach a second barrier, identical to the first. Once again, floating words appear as you approach, but this time instead of little spinning pictures, numbers drift back and forth on gossamer wings.
The text pulses slightly as you read it.
To face a fear and overcome it is a great triumph. But what good is a victory if you don't learn anything from it? Knowledge is a power all its own. How many times their body weight does the average Equestrian eat in cake per year?
"What the hay kind of question is that?" you demand. It doesn't even have anything to do with Nightmare Night! Well, except for eating sugar. But candy and cakes are totally different things! That's why Bon Bon and the Cakes are rivals and not partners.
Still, you feel like you know the answer to this somehow. All you have to do is concentrate and remember it.
You tap the number you vaguely think you may have heard earlier. You're not super confident about it, but what's life without a little risk? Besides, it's a one in four chance. Those are better odds than you're used to.
The swirling colors of the barrier go still suddenly and your breath catches in your throat. On second thought, you also don't know what will happen when you get one wrong and you're not super excited to find out.
Much to your relief, this wall chimes as well and falls away, leaving the path clear. You're two for two, which is the kind of solid average a winner like you deserves to have. You practically saunter up the stairs. Nothing can stop you now! You hardly even notice as the black stone starts to shift, becoming smoother and more polished the higher you climb. Within a few laps of the tower, every surface is polished to practically a mirror finish. Or they would be, if the reflections weren't distorted by a repeating pattern etched across the stone in minute detail.
But that's not important to finishing the challenge, so you ignore it. The end is close now! You can almost taste it!
After a few more steps you find yourself at the final landing. Before you is a grand set of double doors like the ones at the bottom of the stairs. But while those were plain and study, these are anything but. The left door is intricately carved with depictions of snarling monsters, savage beasts, and raging ponies locked in a violent struggle. The right is a near mirror of the left, though the monsters there are smiling and the ponies happy.
At the center where you'd expect to find a doorknob or lock is instead an ornate dial large enough to be used on a bank vault. Etched into the metal are a series of Illuminated numbers and at the center rests a single large arrow which currently rests pointing at zero.
As you approach, a final glowing message appears between you and the door.
This is it. Your final challenge. You've come a long way to get here and faced many spooks and specters on the way. But just how far have you come? Are you sure, in your test of courage, that you've faced everything this challenge has to offer? If you believe so, then the answer should be simple. How many unique rooms are in this house?
"Oh come on!" you complain to the impassive stones, the sound deadening quickly as the tiny ridges trap the sound. "No one said I was supposed to be paying attention to that!"
When this fails to yield any sort of shortcut, hint, or free pass, you sit down with a grumble. Of course there had to be a memorization quiz in your action-packed adventure thriller. Starlight is an card-carrying, note-taking egghead after all, even if she has Trixie's absolute insanity to balance things out. Well, time to start backtracking through your memories and taking note of every awesome victory you scored. Huh, maybe it's not such a bad idea after all.
The door opens into a run-down old study. No doubt it was quite a showpiece once, with bookshelves full of thick tomes no one had ever read and a rug that cost a small fortune. But those days are long past.
Now what bookshelves remain are toppled or empty, and the rug is more bare than thread. Leftovers from a moth's feast hang in tatters, partially obscuring the view of a dead garden through cracked glass. The elements have long since snuck in and invading plants have consumed the once beautiful desk and chair.
You move carefully through the wreckage, wing-assisted hops carrying you over the worst of it.
It's strange; it feels like something should have jumped out or tried to scare you by now. The room itself isn't even that scary, just old and overgrown. But if you've learned anything from Daring Do and the odd O&O session with Spike, it's that the things that look the least suspicious are often the trickiest.
That's why you don't trust gazebos anymore.
The big desk and chair are the only things reasonably intact, so you investigate them first. The wood is completely devastated by lichen, while a thick coat of moss has claimed the chair. You try the drawers but they're all rusted shut.
"Well this is lame," you declare as you crash down into the seat. A plume of spores blasts off the moss as you do, but you hardly notice in the poor light. Besides, it's actually pretty soft and comfy. "This isn't scary at all. Maybe Starlight's spells broke?"
You sit and ponder as a strange haze settles over your mind. The chair really is comfy. So comfy. Maybe you'll just take a quick little break. Rest your hooves. You take one deep breath after another as you relax, never noticing how your eyes start to droop or how the room starts ton darken into shapelessness.
"Son of a-! Copy!"
The sound of a crash and swearing jolts you awake. Your eyes dart in confused panic for a moment before you remember where you are. As your heart rate settles down, you focus on the source of the commotion.
Looks like the intern tripped again, but today he had the bad luck to also crash into Paper Pusher. And Pusher looks as livid as his tie is coffee-soaked. Too bad. Photo Copy was a good worker. You'll miss him.
You yawn as you shake your head and try to collect your thoughts. What were you just doing again? You must've zoned out for a minute and lost your train of thought. That's not a good sign. There's too much work to be done to risk getting caught slacking. It's not even lunch yet and your inbox still dwarfs its outbound cousin.
With this sudden clarity returns your awareness of the low thrum of office activity. Ponies murmuring into their headsets, quills scratching away at reports, the ancient ventilation system rattling and rumbling as it runs another cycle. A familiar symphony.
You check the clock on the far wall above the break area. The time is... blurry. Very blurry.
You squint and rub your eyes before rifling through your desk for a bottle of eye drops. Once you find and apply them, the clock is still unreadably blurry. It might be time to get a stronger prescription again. Which means another sick day wasted visiting Dr. Retina and another fight with the company's insurance provider over coverage and whether he's in network or not. Just what you need.
Since you seem to be taking a break anyway, you decide to stand up for a quick stretch. The cubicle isn't exactly large, but there's just enough space to stand and stretch without knocking anything over. Which isn't to say that your knees, back, and neck don't protest the action all the same.
The squeaky old swivel chair squeals in protest as you sit back down. Dr. Alignment's note clearly said that you need ergonomic support, but Finance has been dragging their hooves to order anything new for your department for the past few years and you doubt they'll loosen their purse-strings any time soon.
You pop a painkiller and smooth out the hem of your skirt where it's starting to pull against your hose again. Don't want to risk getting a run. Honestly, if Primp and her secretary posse weren't such busybodies whose sole passion was writing up everybody and anybody for the smallest of dress code violations, you wouldn't bother with the darn things at all.
But, needs must.
Inking your quill, you get back to your task of transcribing order forms to a spreadsheet... just in time for a sudden barking laugh to startle you and send a jagged smear of ink across the page. You look up and scowl at its source.
Of course, it was the usual suspect, making no effort to disguise his guilt since a stallion from upper management was laughing alongside him. Rising Star, the wonder kid.
Honestly he wouldn't be so bad a colt if he wasn't so insufferably productive and successful. And maybe a tenth as smug about it. Not even three years on the job and he's already in line for a promotion over you. Meanwhile here you are, ten times his seniority and still doing basically the same data entry you started thirty years ago.
Thirty years? Was that right? No, wasn't it twenty? No, you remember the little ceremony they gave you for twenty years of service. There was sheet cake. You got a mug with the company logo and an extra vacation day. Has it really been that long...?
"Good. Just the mare I was looking for."
You're startled out of your thoughts by the sudden presence of coffee, sweat, and cheap aftershave. "M-Mr. Bottom Line. Good morning."
Like always, he ignores your greeting and carries on talking. "I just got off the phone with Corporate. They've been running their own numbers against these figures our department put out and they're finding some major discrepancies."
The bottom drops out of your stomach at the dreaded word. "Discrepancies?"
He nods, wafting across another wave of Eau De Overwork. "Either half a million bits' worth of product has evaporated into thin air, or somepony can't do basic math. I need you to crosscheck these against every goods receipt to come out of the manufacturing floor in the past three months and figure out where somepony screwed up." He slaps an overstuffed manila folder onto your inbox pile, making the whole stack wobble precariously.
Forget professionalism, you can't help but gape. The file's easily a half a hoof thick. Just finding all the relevant paperwork is going to take hours! And that's not even considering you still have your normal tasks to do!
You open the packet and scan the first few pages. As you do, you recognize the name on the cover page. Of course that stallion would have custom headers on his paper. "Sir, unless someone's stolen his stationery, I think this was Rising Star's work."
"Oh I know," he says, bringing all your hopes crashing down. "But Corporate wants a new set of eyes to go over it. Besides, we need this done pronto and he's taking a big potential new client out to dinner with the Branch Manager tonight. You understand, right?"
"Oh. Of course." You swear you can hear a snicker coming from the direction of the water cooler. "But if this is priority, what about my norm—"
"Oh and I still need those weekly expense reports on my desk by the end of the day. I don't want to be here a minute after five."
How can he possibly say that with a straight face? That's the kind of work that needs a team. not one mare! You'll be here for hours! And what about Stormtiger and Bramblepelt? Someone has to feed them or they'll throw a fit and wreck the apartment! Worse if that little hellion next door blocks their cat door with his toys again.
But... that's what you're here for, right? To do the work, get the job done, support the company. Just like you've done for years now. You've given up weekends and evenings to unpaid overtime before, so why this time does it stir such... discontent in your heart?
"Anyway, I have a meeting in a few minutes. You're good to take care of this, right?"
"Good." He walks off, turning back for just a moment to add, "Remember! My desk! End of day!"
You nod again and keep watch until he turns around a corner. Only then do you let out a sigh and slump back down into your chair. So much for your weekend plans. Not that they were much in the way of plans, but sitting at home with your cats and doing some grocery shopping were plans all the same.
A brief glance at the break area lets you catch Rising Star looking at you. Your eyes meet and he smirks, giving you a little half-shrug as if to say, "Tough to be you, but it's not my problem." And you know that's probably the last time you're going to cross his mind. Not when he's off at a corporate dinner wining and dining a new client.
But what can you do? He's just so much better at playing office politics than you. Sometimes it feels like everyone is. They get promotions and transfers and raises, while you get everyone else's busywork, year after year after year.
Sometimes you wonder what happened. You had plans when you were younger. Dreams, ambitions. You were going to be a Wonderbolt, or start your own company, or make great art, or invent some world-changing gadget. Now your biggest dreams involve long weekends and compounding coupon deals. This was supposed to be a temp job. A few months, a year at most to get some bits in the bank and pad out your resume. How did it become your life? When did cancelling the odd meetup with friends turn into regular overtime? When did dating become a distraction? When was the last time you used a vacation day to do something other than just run errands or clean house?
And in the end... does it even matter how it happened? It's all in the past anyhow and there's nothing you can do change it. Maybe if you'd made different choices when you were younger, seized opportunity when it knocked and took more risks then things would have turned out differently, but there's no value in dwelling on the past.
This is your life, for better or for worse, and there are spreadsheets to fill out.
You dip your quill in the inkpot and begin to work.
Ink flows across the page like blood from a wound. Numbers and figures spelled out in your lifeblood, each stroke of the quill another passing tick of the clock. Seconds flow into minutes, and minutes into hours, yet no matter how many times you check the clock, quitting time never seems to come. It's always still a few more minutes to the hour, a few more hours to the day, a few more days to the new quarter, a few more quarters till retirement. Time and ink and numbers blend together into meaningless nonsense, draining you dry of everything essential until there's nothing left but a dry husk still scratching away at your spreadsheets with a bone-dry quill. Yet you continue. Line after line, moment after moment.
But even as you work there's a sadness in your heart- a heaviness that weighs down on your features behind the smiling mask. A strange longingness, like you've forgotten something important but can't remember what.
Even as everything—sight, sound, sensation, your very body—fades into the same mundane greyness that stretches out into eternity through both your past and future. And you work. Because you have nothing else.
[A horror most existential shakes you to your core. Add two (+2) to your Fear Meter].
You wake up in a cold sweat on the dusty floor of the foyer. Memories return hazily as you sift apart what is real and what is false. Your name is... Rainbow Dash. Right. That's important to be sure of. And you're a Wonderbolt. Best in a generation. A racer, a record-breaker, a savior of Equestria. Not some fat middle-aged mare who never accomplished more than Employee of the Month and Tidiest Cubicle awards.
"Yeah..." A drawling voice from your false memory snaps you to attention. Atop the second story landing is Trixie, dressed in pristine office chic, wearing thick glasses and despicable smirk. "So if you wouldn't mind coming in this weekend to finish up those TPS reports, that's be just greeeaaat."
You shoot her a withering glare, but hold your tongue. It's better to give her as little ammunition as possible. Starlight however... "I know it's counts as quitting if I leave, but what if I just stick my head out to ask Starlight something?"
Trixie shrugs. "I'll have to check the manual, but you should be fine. Unless corporate has a problem with it."
You give her one last glare before turning around and trotting back to the door. You stick your head out, careful to keep your hooves fully inside (you don't trust Trixie that much). "Hey! Starlight!"
The mare in question jumps slightly at your call, dropping a book she'd been holding in her magic. She cranes her neck back and gives you a genial, if startled smile. "Hey Dash. Everything going well? Having fun?"
"I thought this was supposed to be a horror show! What the heck's up with all this psycho mumbo jumbo?"
She fully turns to you and frowns. "Psycho mumbo jumbo? There wasn't supposed to be any of that." A flash of a teleport puts her right in front of you, her head sticking through the doorway in an inverse of yours. "Trixie! I thought we agreed we weren't going to put in the shower scene?"
"I didn't!" comes a whining retort.
You poke Starlight to regain her attention. "No, I mean like psychologic mess-with-your-head stuff."
"Ah." Her eyes widen in understanding. "In that case you're going to have to be more specific. There's a couple of rooms that probe psychological fears."
You stomp your hoof in irritation. "The one where I was in an office! I was working in a cubicle and doing math for a living and I was this fat old grey mare with cats and no ambition and my joints didn't work. Sweet Celestia, I felt so old! Like at least forty! Why was I old and fat and forty?!"
"Ah, that room." She sighs and puts on a resigned smile. "Well I was hoping to wait till everyone was here before revealing this secret but... surprise! We added a couple of rooms tailored specifically to you and Twilight and the rest of the girls."
"You... what?" you ask, your anger dulling as it gets mixed with confusion.
"Trixie and I—well to be honest mostly me—wanted to make it extra special, so the surveys that you and the rest filled out were a bit different from the simpler ones we had other ponies in town do. Also Luna was a great help pinning down your exact fears."
You're still not sure exactly how to respond to this revelation. "So... I'm afraid of office work?"
"Close. That was your fear of a future of banal mediocrity." She smiles as if breaking down your psyche (and admitting to getting help from a mind reader to do it) is a totally normal thing to be discussing. "Fun side note; that was one of Pinkie's big fears as well. Isn't that neat? Not Twilight's, though, which I thought was strange before I remembered that she pretty much had a future of greatness set in stone ever since Princess Celestia took her on as her student."
But apparently pulling off a Sonic Rainboom wasn't enough to earn you the same kind of self-assuredness. This is definitely something you're going to have to unpack later. Probably with Fluttershy. And maybe some hard cider.
But until then you've still got a challenge to complete. So with a few words of thanks to Starlight for the explanation, you return to your exploration of the haunted house.
...though you take special care to remember exactly which room it was that contained the office. You don't want to experience that again.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
"Wait a moment." He squints, making his eyes look for once normal sized behind his glasses. "Are you... wearing fake rabbit ears?"
The question is so random, so completely out of left field that you don't know how to respond at first. The obvious answer is of course 'no', but if it were that obvious why would he have asked?
You probably just misheard him. "Come again?"
"Rabbit. Ears." He repeats himself, pointing this time at somewhere just above your head.
This has to be a joke. It's too ridiculous. You lift your hoof, just to humor him, but there's no way or reason you'd possibly be wearing...
Something brushes your hoof. Soft, but synthetic, with a rigid wire inside.
You grab a framed picture of your cats from your desk and tilt the glass until it shows your reflection. Sure enough, there on the top of your head, nestled between your own, are a pair of fluffy bunny ears.
There's no clear strap or way they're attached, but they still look fake. Almost like some kind of foal's... Nightmare Night... costume.
Why does that thought strike such an odd chord with you? A strange almost-nostalgia, like a memory you can't quite grasp. An uneasiness rises in the back of your thoughts, lingering on your awareness like a felt-but-unseen observer.
"...ash. Miss Dash!"
You break from your uncanny thoughts as you realize he's been calling your name for a while now. "Sorry, could you repeat that?"
There's a glare in his eyes that wasn't there a minute ago. You must have been distracted longer than you thought, and in front of the one manager whose pet peeve is being ignored. "I said," he practically snarls. "Take those ridiculous things off! They're a total violation of the dress code!"
You instinctively reach up to obey when when—
—you hesitate. You hoof stayed by some peculiar sense of wrongness.
You hesitate of the precipice of a decision that feel so much weightier than it has any reason to be. Just remove them. Your boss has told you to, it takes you no effort, and they're totally inappropriate for the workplace.
…And yet something deep within you keeps screaming at you to stop. To not make this one concession. That the bunny ears are somehow terribly important. If only you could remember why.
Where did you even get them, anyways? You rack your brain, struggling against some mental block for the memory. You recognize them as definitely yours, but since when? And from who?
No... not who. What. It was a rabbit. A giant rabbit made of dust. That's where you got them! And you fought it! Or... maybe made friends with it? The memory still isn't totally clear.
But with that revelation it's like a crack has formed in your mental block. Bits and pieces begin to drift through. There was something to do with a house, an old run-down one. Why had you been in such an unsafe place? Wouldn't someone have warned you about the dangers?
They did. Starlight Glimmer! She warned you before you went in about the potential dangers of the... of the...
The memory struggles to come forth, pushing and thrashing against its shackles like an angry bull! It hurts, like your head is tearing and tearing and splitting open and—
Haunted house!
With a final push the memory bursts free and with it comes an avalanche of context. It was a haunted house! So many questions are suddenly answered and the path before you, once murky, becomes clear as day.
"Rainbow Dash!!" You're snapped from your deep well of introspection and revelation by your manager's incensed holler. Your turn to the stallion you know so well, finally realizing that this is your first time meeting. He's absolutely livid. Face red like a cherry tomato, practically frothing at the mouth, and so many veins bulging on his forehead you can count them. "I demand that you take those ridiculous ears off immediately and give them to me to be disposed of! This is your last warning before this this insubordination goes in your permanent record!!"
Calm as a cucumber, you survey the room. Everyone's eyes are on you, all those ponies you know, yet don't. You're the center of attention.
Just like you like it.
"Nah, I think I'll keep 'em on. I make 'em look cool."
Bottom Line's face goes blank, like he has no idea how to process this turn of events.
"You can take these though." With the strength of hooves no longer crippled by carpal tunnel, you rip off your pantyhose in one clean motion and toss them in his general direction. They drape themselves delicately over his poleaxed expression.
"You know what?" you ask rhetorically as you stand, familiar strength returning to your body. "Not only do I not feel like redoing all of that brownnoser's work." You gesture to Rising Star, who can't decide whether to look nervous or scowl at you. "I don't feel like doing any work at all."
With a sweep of your foreleg you throw everything on your desk to the floor. Quills, inkpots, notepads, even the Leaning Tower of Inbox all scatter like dry leaves set before an incoming storm.
"M-Miss Dash!" It seems that was enough to knock Bottom Line out of his stupor. "This is highly inappropriate workplace behavior!"
"Inappropriate?" you ask, voice high and innocent. "How terrible! Then I'd better be much more careful in the future." You shoot him a smile as your back hoof slams into the cubicle wall with a textbook-perfect applebucking kick. The cheap material collapses easily and takes the next two walls down with it. "Whoops!"
A hip check sends a second wall tumbling, ponies without names scrambling to get out of the way. "Clumsy me!"
"S-stop this at once!" the impotent sad sack of a stallion demands. "That's company property you're damaging!"
"Is it?" you muse as a third wall falls to you striking it. "I guess the company should have invested more in its support staff and infrastructure. I mean, just look at this!" You fly over to the break area, grab the coffee machine and chuck it at the photocopier. Both explode to bits in a miniature mushroom cloud. "Wow. One mare decides she's not going to play by the rules anymore and your whole house of cards just comes crumbling down. Sounds like poor management is to blame."
Bottom Line follows your path of destruction at a gallop, slowing when he gets near and wincing every time you smash another fixture to the ground. "Is this about the report? I can hand that off to somepony else if it's too much for you. One of the interns? Rising Star?"
"Nope." You punt the water cooler across the room.
"The overtime? I know we've been pushing you hard lately, but I can talk to corporate about—"
"Not that either~!"
"How about—" he swallows hard and grimaces "—a promotion? You've been a very loyal employee, today notwithstanding, and I'm sure I could sweet talk the regional manager into creating a new position for you. Think about it! Better hours, a corner office. You can even have one of my interns!"
You glance away from where you're currently dual-wielding a pair of long florescent bulbs against the plastic potted tree to give your former boss an easygoing smile. "Still not happening! Face it, there's nothing you can say, nothing you can offer me 'cause you're not even real!"
"I... what?"
"I never left the haunted house! This is all an illusion! And the only way out..." You laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all. "Is to shatter it."
"Please, Miss Da- Rainbow. Just calm down. You're having a psychotic break."
You stand atop a pile of desks and shattered chairs, bunny ears proudly on your head and freedom in your heart. "There's nothing you can do to me anymore! I'm not some old grey mare who wasted her life. I am Rainbow! Freaking! Dash! And ponies are gonna remember my name for generations!"
"You're mad!"
"Oh yeah? Well would a mad pony do this?"
You leap from your castle and, with illusory decades worth of built up resentment behind you, you sucker punch your manager right in the jaw.
It shatters into pieces on impact. Along with the rest of his body, the walls, and everything else.
When the glittering haze of magic particles from the broken illusion finally settles, you find yourself back where you started. Behind the lichen-covered desk in the dilapidated study of Starlight and Trixie's haunted house.
You ease up and shake your head a few times to clear out the lingering fog of fake memories. Your job? Wonderbolt and Hero. Your pet? Tank, the most awesome tortoise in the world. Your age? Still young and in your prime.
Everything is as it should be once again.
You shake your head again, ruefully this time, and chuckle. "Phew. Now that was a headtrip. Points to Starlight, I totally believed it. Up until the ears." You reach up and feel them still there. You decide to leave them, even if you see your friends later. They've earned the right to compliment your awesomeness.
As you stand to leave, you notice a clean stack of Paperwork on the desk that wasn't there before. A closer inspection reveals a familiar header. It's the report that drove you to the breaking point. You glance at the first page and find that the text is all nonsense gibberish, the letters shifting and changing when you stop focusing on them. You shrug and put it in your Inventory anyway. Might come in handy at some point.
You step back into the fancy hallway and close the door behind you. That was certainly a crazy experience, but not it's time to move on to the next one.
There are six paths open to you from this point. There's a DOOR next to you and also two across the hall. The hallway itself continues both to the LEFT and RIGHT and also has a secondary path splitting off to your RIGHT.
"Of course, Mr. Line," you say as you snatch the offending ears from your head. Honestly, what were you thinking? Silly accessories? It's amazing no else has written you up on it yet. There's at least five ponies you can think of who'd love the opportunity to step over you as they play the game of office politics.
"Thank you," he mutters, his anger simmering down to a low frustration. A shiver of dread runs down your spine as he removes his glasses and starts to clean them with his tie. A sure sign he's about to deliver bad news. "Normally I'd be willing to look the other way on such a flagrant disregard for the rules for an employee who has been here as long as you." He wouldn't. You still clearly remember the time Speedy Delivery was let go less than six months from retirement. "However, Rising Star was just talking to me earlier about some of your other infractions. And I'm afraid that with this being your third violation—" he stops polishing his glasses and perches them back on his muzzle "—we're going to have to let you go,"
"...What?"
The word barely squeaks out, starved of energy by disbelief.
"It's company policy," he continues conversationally as if he hasn't just shattered your life in one sentence. "Three strike rule. Rising's idea to help clear out the loafers and the layabouts."
Emotions without names swirl through your head, leaving you confused and nauseous. "But... I've given my life to this company. I have nothing else."
"That's not my problem, I'm afraid." He stands up straight, cracks his back from where it's gotten stiff looming over the edge of your cubicle, and grabs an empty box from a nearby pile of recycling. "For your things."
"I— now?" This is all happening so fast. "No notice? No warnings? Just like that?"
"Just like that. I suggest you pack quickly. Security should be making their rounds in ten minutes or so and it'd be for the best if they didn't find some non-employee loitering in restricted space. Best of luck to you." And with that he leaves. Trots away without so much as glimmer of sympathy or concern.
The next few minutes pass in a blur and before you know it you're standing outside your cubicle, the prefab walls stripped bare, a box of photos, knickknacks, and anniversary plaques in your hooves. Just like that it's gone. Everything you've worked towards for years now, washed away in an instant. Weekends, holidays, friends, dating, family reunions. All sacrificed for nothing but a few 'Awards for Excellent Work', barely enough bits to cover expenses, and posture like a mare twice your age.
The walk to the door feels like a march to the gallows. Ponies, your former coworkers, stare as you pass, not even trying to be discreet. Some look sympathetic to your plight, most just look bored. Primp and her gossipy friends are already whispering up a storm. No doubt by the end of the day the story will be that you were caught embezzling funds, or stealing secrets for a competitor, or trying to blackmail upper management. Not that it matters. What can they do? Fire you again?
The door looms before you, uncertainly ahead you, everything you knew behind. But you have no say in the matter. No choice, no options. It's all been decided and done with. Company policy.
Taking one last breath of the dust and ink stained air, you leave the company, the leaden weight of your failure dragging behind you.
[Your soul quakes as it contemplates the wasted years. Add +1 to your Fear Meter].
Peace.
Peace and blissful silence.
You sigh in the darkness as you let your body relax. You might have been fired, but at least now you don't have to deal with any upper-level managers belittling you anymore.
"Hem, hem."
The familiar sound of a passive aggressive 'I'm waiting for you to give me proper attention' rouses you and you open your eyes.
You're confused for a moment. This isn't your apartment. Where are you? Then it all comes rushing back. The haunted house. Nightmare Night. Ponyville.
You hop to your hooves, amazed to feel your body move so fluidly and without a single ache or sting of protesting pain. In fact it's... hard to remember not feeling like that's normal. You try to think back to your time in the office. You did... paperwork? Something with numbers? For years... or maybe just a few minutes? It's all so hazy, like a half-remembered dream that fades away even as you try and focus on it.
But you can't forget how it felt. How crushed your spirit was without you even knowing. How you accepted your dull grey existence as a simple fact of life. Like it was normal to be boring. You shudder and force the memory to the back of your mind, vowing silently to never fall into such a trap again.
"Ahem, hem."
The fake cough catches your attention again and you follow the sound to its source on the balcony. There you spy Trixie, wearing what might just be the most garish thing you've ever seen. Until this very moment, you don't think you ever truly understood the meaning of the word. If Rarity were here she'd probably keel over on the spot.
"Discipline in the workplace is of utmost importance," Trixie states imperiously, using the kind of tone saved for very dimwitted foals. "We live in a society built upon a foundation of rules. Following rules earns one rewards and the respect of their peers. Rule-breaking merits punishment and the loss of status." She smiles at you, sickeningly sweet.
"Didn't I just fail by following the rules, though?" you point out.
Her smile falters, and you press on. "And if I had disobeyed him and kept the bunny ears on, would I have won instead?"
If her smile was faltering before, now it's only barely fixed in place by nervousness. "Well... You see... One thing I should... Excuse me for a second."
You nod as she fishes around in her hideous pink purse before pulling out a roll of paper. She mutters under her breath as her eyes dart about the page, searching for the perfect comeback or whatever else it is she has planned. Might as well humor her. Besides, you could use a quick break to sort out your real memories from the fakes ones. Like whether you own a cat or not.
After a few minutes Trixie finally throws the whole sheaf of paper to the ground like a buckball in the point zone. "Curses! I had such a speech planned but then you went and ruined it!"
"Hey, not my fault. Maybe come up with a scarier room next time."
"It was scary! That was the existential fear of mediocrity! Of a life wasted! You scored really high on Starlight's survey analysis for being weak to that category."
"Well I guess I'm just made of tougher stuff than you thought." These days, at least. You don't mention how the fear of a life like that used to linger at the edge of your thoughts like a specter in a shadowed closet. But you put it to rest when you finally became a Wonderbolt, an Element of Harmony, a Hero. Definitely.
She slumps over the railing and takes off her weird little hat. "Whatever. Just... get on then. You've ruined the moment."
With that dismissal, you take the remaining dark thoughts and grey memories and shove them to the back of your mind to deal with later (probably with the help of some cider and maybe Fluttershy), and turn your attention to your available options.
You also decide to buy a can of cat food on the way home. Just in case.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
It's too much! There's not enough hours in the day, not enough days in the week. If only you had more time.
"A timepiece. That you may always remember exactly how much time is left and how fleeting it is. May it aid you when time seems meaningless."
A passage from something drifts through your mind out of nowhere. Was it a quote? It feels like someone said that to you once, but you can't quite remember.
You hoof drifts to your side, guided by some unknown impulse. When it rises again, you find you're clutching a simple brass alarm clock.
Where did that come from? You don't have a bag or anything. But it does seem... strangely familiar.
How did that quote go? There was more to it. Something about time being precious and not wasting it on things that aren't important. Though it feels like you've been doing that all your life. How many of the hundreds of reports you've written have actually meant anything? How many thousand of hours spent working here have actually accomplished anything of value?
If only you could just... skip by all the time-wasting nonsense and jump to when things matter.
The tip of your hoof slides forward and idly give the clock hands a spin. A few minutes forward. An hour. Two hours. You spin it faster. Past morning break, past lunch, all the way to—
Bing bong ding dong! Dong ding, bong bing!
The office clock chimes out the end of the day. Bottom Dollar glances up at it in surprise before checking his watch. "Five o'clock already? Pillars preserve us, the day just flew by." He sighs. "Well Miss Dash, I suppose it's too late to bother now. I'll just have one of the temps on second handle it. You have a good weekend."
"Um, yes. You too."
You gather your things into your purse, still unsure of what exactly just happened. In the time it takes you to square everything away, you're the last pony left in the office. You make haste for the door as you organize your plan for you unexpected free evening. You still need to feed Bramblepelt and Stormtiger, but that's not for a few hours. You could do a little shopping on the way home, maybe pick up some new records since you're finally off before the shop closes. Maybe celebrate your good luck with dinner out? See if anyone you know is available. You step across the office threshold—
—and step into the hallway of the haunted house.
You blink several times as memories conflict.
You look down and see your young, fit body not yet ravaged by decades of poor posture. You look up and see your mane, still vibrant and not starting to grey.
"Huh," you remark to nobody. "Well what the heck was that?"
You receive no immediate answer, but you do notice a weight under one wing. You pass it to your hoof and recognize it as the Paperwork your boss, no, the illusion gave you. The words no longer make sense, but if you still have it then it must be important, so you slip it into your Inventory.
The luxurious hall, even in its decrepit state, feels positively opulent compared to the beige walls that cloud your memory. There are six paths open to you from this point. There's a DOOR next to you and also two across the hall. The hallway itself continues both to the LEFT and RIGHT and also has a secondary path splitting off to your RIGHT.
The first thing that strikes you is how different the door to this room looks from all the others you've encountered so far.
Every other door has looked, basically, like a normal door. Fancy and neglected, but otherwise your standard wood with a handle on one side. Not this door.
This one looks like it was stolen from inside a submarine. It's solid metal, covered in rivets, and has a big wheel in the middle like... well, like the kind they use on submarines. They probably use them in other places too, but you've only ever seen them on pictures of submarines. Rust and age have set into every rivet and join, darkening the shadows harshening the edges.
Turning it proves a minor challenge, not because it's stuck or locked, merely because it's really heavy. But with a bit of effort and using your wings for extra pull, you manage to heave the thing open. Once fully open, it rests easily against the wall.
You wince as you try to peer inside. The room is very brightly lit, so much so that your dark-adjusted eyes have a hard time making anything out except for the odd gleam of metal. You take a cautious step into the room and—
"Whoa!"
—flap your wings hard enough to launch yourself onto your backside as your hoof lands on empty air. You sit up, slightly rattled, and take a moment for your eyes to adjust properly.
As your vision clears, the nature of your trip becomes clear. Just inside the door, the floor drops away almost fifteen feet. No lip, no transition or warning, just a sheer drop to the bottom. Not that that'd usually be a problem for a pegasus, but you can't take anything for granted in this madhouse.
Slowly peeking your head in gives you a better idea of the room's interior. Your door is placed in the middle of the wall, with a high ceiling above and a dangerous-to-anyone-without-wings dropped floor below. The walls, floor, and ceiling all match the door: metal, rivets, and a few twisting pipes peppered with valves. Some kind of mechanical or boiler room? Though as you scour it for details, you notice an odd element of similarity. Not just similarity, all of the walls looks perfectly identical to one another. Even the floor and ceiling match and have door-hatches just like the one you came through.
Beyond that, the room is totally empty.
You are immediately suspicious. If the couple of O&O games you've been to have taught you anything, it's that a brightly lit yet empty room is far more dangerous than it appears. The only thing that might make it more suspect would be a glittering-yet-unguarded chest in the middle. That was a trap you only fell for once.
Still, even with the certainty that something's up, that still doesn't leave you with any plan of action. If you had a rogue with you it'd be a different story, but at the moment there's just you who has to make a decision.
You could always THROW SOMETHING IN to test the waters. But if you're not careful or unlucky you might just lose that item for good, and who knows what lost item might be important later. You could also RETREAT and come back later better prepared.
Or, hey, you could always just JUMP IN? Take the fear head on and face it like a mare!
The first thing that strikes you is how different the door to this room looks from all the others you've encountered so far.
Every other door has looked, basically, like a normal door. Fancy and neglected, but otherwise your standard wood with a handle on one side. Not this door.
This one looks like it was stolen from inside a submarine. It's solid metal, covered in rivets, and has a big wheel in the middle like... well, like the kind they use on submarines. They probably use them in other places too, but you've only ever seen them on pictures of submarines. Rust and age have sent into every rivet and join, darkening the shadows harshening the edges.
Turning it proves a minor challenge, not because it's stuck or locked, merely because it's really heavy. But with bit of effort and using your wings for extra pull, you manage to heave the thing open. Once fully open, it rests easily against the wall.
You wince as you try to peer inside. The room is very brightly lit, so much so that your dark-adjusted eyes have a hard time making anything out except for the odd gleam of metal. You take a cautious step into the room and—
"Whoa!"
—flap your wings hard enough to launch yourself onto your backside as your hoof lands on empty air. You sit up, slightly rattled, and take a moment for your eyes to adjust properly.
As your vision clears, the nature of your trip becomes clear. Just inside the door, the floor drops away almost fifteen feet. No lip, no transition or warning, just a sheer drop to the bottom. Not that that'd usually be a problem for a pegasus, but you can't take anything for granted in this madhouse.
Slowly peeking your head in gives you a better idea of the room's interior. Your door is placed in the middle of the wall, with a high ceiling above and a dangerous-to-anyone-without-wings dropped floor below. The walls, floor, and ceiling all match the door; metal, rivets, and a few twisting pipes peppered with valves. Some kind of mechanical or boiler room? Though as you scour it for details, you notice an odd element of similarity. Not just similarity, all of the walls looks perfectly identical to one another. Even the floor and ceiling match and have door-hatches just like the one you came through.
Beyond that, the room is totally empty.
You are immediately suspicious. If the couple of O&O games you've been to have taught you anything, it's that a brightly lit yet empty room is far more dangerous than it appears. The only thing that might make it more suspect would be a glittering-yet-unguarded chest in the middle. That was a trap you only fell for once.
Still, even with the certainty that something's up, that still doesn't leave you with any plan of action. If you had a rogue with you it'd be a different story, but at the moment there's just you who has to make a decision.
You could always THROW SOMETHING IN to test the waters. But if you're not careful or unlucky you might just lose that item for good, and who knows what lost item might be important later. You could also RETREAT and come back later better prepared.
Or, hey, you could always just JUMP IN? Take the fear head on and face it like a mare!
You hold your item out into the room, wielding it like you're trying to pin down a venomous snake. Nothing happens when you wiggle it side to side. Up and down also yields no results. Feeling confident, you give it a good toss into the center of the room.
Something flashes by your vision too fast to track. As you watch, your test dummy breaks apart, still airborne. It splits into a dozen perfectly portioned pieces, all cut at the same angle, like slices of bread fresh out of the factory. You blink, and barely catch a second flash of something moving incredibly quick. The dozen pieces become a hundred or more, still falling. One more flash and you barely catch a glimpse of something stretched across the wall darting from on side to the other. A scattering of cubes fall to the floor, all perfectly diced, all that remains of your hard-fought prize.
You hold your item out into the room, wielding it like you're trying to pin down a venomous snake. Nothing happens when you wiggle it side to side. Up and down also yields no results. Feeling confident, you give it a good toss into the center of the room.
Something flashes by your vision too fast to track. As you watch, your test dummy breaks apart, still airborne. It splits into a dozen perfectly portioned pieces, all cut at the same angle, like slices of bread fresh out of the factory. You blink, and barely catch a second flash of something moving incredibly quick. The dozen pieces become a hundred or more, still falling. One more flash and you barely catch a glimpse of something stretched across the wall darting from on side to the other. A scattering of cubes fall to the floor, all perfectly diced, all that remains of your hard-fought prize.
Taking your chosen item, you test its weight with a small toss. Finding it satisfactory—and praying that it's sturdy enough to not break—you wind up a throw and send it sailing into the room.
The bright lights gleam off its surfaces as it flies, twisting and turning in the air. Before it can get far, a nozzle descends from the ceiling and starts spraying the room with green liquid. You take a hasty step back before any can land on you. Your metallic mine canary isn't so lucky.
The moment the liquid touches it, the metal begins to smoke and hiss. Corrosion happens so fast that the metal warps hard enough to shatter the glass.
Just as the acid spray cuts off, a gout of fire bursts from one wall and consumes it, rendering what remained to little more than charred dust.
"Nope," you declare. "Not even going to risk messing with that kind of crazy." You step back and shut the door, even as your can hear sound kind of mechanical grinders whirring to life.
Taking your chosen item, you test its weight with a small toss. Finding it satisfactory—and praying that it's sturdy enough to not break—you wind up a throw and send it sailing into the room.
The bright lights gleam off its surfaces as it flies, twisting and turning in the air. Before it can get far, a nozzle descends from the ceiling and starts spraying the room with green liquid. You take a hasty step back before any can land on you. Your metallic mine canary isn't so lucky.
The moment the liquid touches it, the metal begins to smoke and hiss. Corrosion happens so fast that the metal warps hard enough to shatter the glass.
Just as the acid spray cuts off, a gout of fire bursts from one wall and consumes it, rendering what remained to little more than charred dust.
"Nope," you declare. "Not even going to risk messing with that kind of crazy." You step back and shut the door, even as your can hear sound kind of mechanical grinders whirring to life.
Whoever said 'look before you leap' obviously never tried it. That's the best way to encounter new surprises!
You take a running leap into the room, finally glad to have somewhere wide and tall enough to stretch your wings. Walking everywhere was getting boring. You make a circuit of the room's interior and confirm that all six surfaces are pretty much identical. There's also many more small components worked into the walls than you could see at first. Nozzles and wires, pinprick holes and geared armatures, even bits of chain and hooks.
What it's all for, you can't possibly imagine.
Just then, the door you came in from slams shut above you. You hurry back up only to find that there's no handle to open it with on this side. You're trapped. Like a rat in a cage.
You fly to the center of the room to maximize your view. There has to be something. Some trick, some gimmick. A puzzle to be solved or a monster to be defeated. A room like this wouldn't exist merely for the point of existing; it has to have a purpose.
A noise like a spool of chain unrolling catches your attention, but it's hard to pinpoint the source. Out of the corner of your eye you see it. A long length of metal spooling out from the corner of the room. All eight corners, actually.
Just as you start to move to investigate, the lights go out, leaving you in utter darkness.
A thunderous crack like from a giant whip fills the air, accompanied by a terrible buzzing noise and a brief flash of pain before you suddenly know no more.
[Sometimes not knowing what happens in the dark is even worse. Add +1 to your Fear Meter].
You blink a few times as light returns, finding yourself standing in the foyer of the mansion as if nothing had happened. But what did happen? It all went by so quickly you don't even know what the scare was supposed to be. Claustrophobia? Things in the dark? Fear of mechanical maintenance?
"I'm sure you must be absolutely terrified right now." You look upwards to where Trixie gloats from her balcony. She's wearing that looks like a cross between a noir detective's raincoat and something from the private backroom of Rarity's shop. Her face is also an advertisement for freestyle acupuncture. That or she just finished a losing encounter with a porcupine wielding a nail gun. "I think that may have been my best piece of work on this project. No room is scarier nor in so many ways."
"Ugh, sure." You're not sure how to tell her you can't figure out what it was supposed to be. It feels like it'd be mean to knock her down when she looks so pleased with herself. Even if it is Trixie.
Safest bet is probably to ignore the issue entirely and hope she doesn't come asking for details afterward. With that in mind, you turn your attention to picking a new direction to explore.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
You know you need to come to a decision, but you hesitate.
This haunted house has already thrown so many weird and scary things at you already that it's got you sitting on tenterhooks. Too many more and you'll reach peak Fluttershy: jumping at every shifting shadow and groaning wood. You need to be absolutely sure of your decision.
And so you wait. You hesitate on the precipice and consider your options over and over. Risk one of your items? It's the safest for you right now, but what if later you have to face down something even worse without it? Jump in? You could, but you pride yourself on being brave, not suicidally reckless!
You become so wrapped up in your swirling maelstrom of thought that you fail to notice the door starting to close. But it becomes hard not to notice once the solid metal picks up speed to slam into your backside and boot you into the room. You scream, wings and legs flailing in surprise as you struggle to right yourself in the air. But between the suddenness of it and your own mounting fear, even basic flight is hard to manage.
A clunking sound fills the room. Heavy and staccato like the steps of some great steel giant. You gasp as a sudden sharp pain covers your body, like every hair being plucked out at once. Suddenly there's a great pressure all around you, like you've been teleported to the bottom of the ocean. As you start to pass out from the sudden shift, the last thing you notice is dark shapes approaching you at high speed from all four walls.
[This ghastly fright rattles your soul. Add +1 to your Fear Meter].
You blink a few times as light returns, finding yourself standing in the foyer of the mansion as if nothing had happened. But what did happen? It all went by so quickly you don't even know what the scare was supposed to be. Drowning? Things in the dark? Fear of mechanical maintenance?
"Did you enjoy playing my game?" You look upwards to where Trixie gloats from her balcony. She's wearing what looks like a fancy suit, but her face is all painted up like a creepy doll with spiral cheeks. "That may have been my best piece of work on this project. The kind of fright that really makes you appreciate being alive."
"Ugh, sure." You're not sure how to tell her you can't figure out what it was supposed to be. It feels like it'd be mean to knock her down when she looks so pleased with herself. Even if it is Trixie.
Safest bet is probably to ignore the issue entirely and hope she doesn't come asking for details afterward. With that in mind, you turn your attention to picking a new direction to explore.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
Nodding in determination, you select the answer you know is correct.
Probably. Like eighty percent sure.
Solid seventy-five.
You wait with bated breath as the swirling sparkles that compose the barrier come to a halt. And you wait.
And wait.
And wait.
After what feels like an eternity, the barrier turns a burning crimson with the sound of a blaring klaxon. Before you can even process this, the stairs beneath you vanish leaving a perfectly circular hole leading to a pitch black abyss. You try to fly, but it's like gravity has suddenly increased tenfold and you're pulled down into the hole.
Several disorientating moments later, you exit through the hole in the ceiling of the foyer and land with a crash by the old chandelier.
"Oh, trying the final puzzles already?" Trixie asks from her perch. "I was wondering when you'd get around to it. You've certainly been taking your time. I thought you were trying to do a speedrun?"
You grumble as you get to your hooves, slightly sore but none the worse for wear. "I knew the right answer," you say, totally not defensively, "I just clicked the wrong one."
"Sure you did." Her tone is perfectly neutral, but the smirk gives away her real feelings.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
The foyer is just as you remember it when you saw it not long ago. A testament to the wasteful lifestyle of the Canterlot elite and a commentary on the impermanence of wealth.
Gold paint flecks off the gilded banisters like dandruff, leaving bare unvarnished wood behind. The once beautiful red carpet is now a reddish brown, like old dried blood, ripped and torn to shreds by the elements, wild animals, and unruly teens. A chandelier lies cast to one side, a sad memory made of rusted metal and shattered crystal.
The only light comes from the rows of jack-o-lanterns that line the walls and what traces of the silver moon can seep in through the holes in the walls. You shiver as a chilly October breeze slips in along with the moonlight.
"Hold," declares an all-too-familiar voice. "Who is it that doth treadth before mineself?"
Your gaze rises to the balcony, where you're greeted by the sight of Trixie, but not as you last saw her. Gone is her cheap costume and in its place is a set or armor. Black as night with midnight blue accents. It's armor you've only seen once before, but a set you'll never forget.
"You know that's totally offensive, right?" You only hope that Princess Luna never catches wind of it, if not for Trixie's sake then any nearby uninsured property by proxy. "Where did you even get Nightmare Moon's armor?"
"Our most glorious and royal self madeth it, of course," she preens, completely unapologetic and fearless about dredging up a dark and painful part of a ruling princess' history. "Twas molded and shapedeth through arcane means out of the very fabric of... hey! Where are you— I mean where art thou going?"
Anywhere but here. You may be willing to go through a lot of stuff for the sake of a haunted house, but potentially upsetting Princess Luna? That's a punch above your weight class. Seeing a fully grown princess tear up is almost as bad as watching Scootaloo or one of her friends cry. You'll have no part in it.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
You enter a bedroom designed for a young filly. That, or Pinkie Pie.
Pink is the predominant color. Pink painted furniture with heart shaped cutouts. Pink furred dolls that stare down at you with dead glassy eyes from atop a high shelf. Pink shag carpet so old and stiff it crackles beneath your hooves like the icy crust atop a fresh snowfall.
The middle is taken up by a huge four poster bed complete with gauzy curtains and glitter painted carvings of flowers on the head and hoof board. At some point two of the pillars failed, collapsing it into more of a two poster lean-to.
A small round window in the back provides a view into a dead garden, though it's half obscured by equally dead ivy.
But the most obvious thing above everything else, is that the room is dusty. Dust so thick the flat surfaces are tan instead of pink. It coats the room like a blanket, leaving the air painfully dry.
You step in cautiously, planting each hoof with care so as to disturb as little as possible. Suffering from a fit of unending sneezing would be a torture in itself, apart from whatever is planned for this room already.
A few paces in and you notice movement.
The dust has begun to shift, slowly at first, like there's a faint breeze only it can feel, but it's rapidly getting faster as more and more dust starts to collect in the center of the room. It builds up into a mound growing taller by the second. You jump as something brushes against your ankle and hold back a shriek as you realize it's a skull.
Not a pony skull, it's completely the wrong shape for that, but the long teeth at the front aren't making you feel that much better about it. It scuttles along, riding the wave of dust until it too is pulled into the shuddering mass. A moment later it emerges at the top, two glowing pinpoints of yellow light in its sockets that look directly at you.
With the skull in place, the rest of the dust seems to form into shape in double time, creating legs, a tail, and a massive pair of ears.
The creature stands on its back legs, practically looming over you at twice your height. It opens its dusty maw—tan and grey and run through with pink threads like veins—and roars like a banshee.
How does one face a beast? You FIGHT it, of course! Teach it who's boss with your awesome skills! Maybe using an ITEM could help. On the other hoof, maybe you don't have to fight. Maybe you could find some common ground and TALK out your differences? Either way, you'd better come to a decision soon. It's not going to wait long.
"Eat hoof, dustbucket!" is your battle cry of choice as you launch yourself at the beast. Your first punch connects, a solid hit that knocks a whole chunk out of its chest. If it's that weak then they'll be a piece of cake!
You attack with a flurry of blows, trading technique and discipline for sheer volume. A little bit of its body gets knocked off with each hit, slowly but surely carving a hole into its chest. You strike and strike and strike and strike! The monster’s clumsy counterattacks are ineffective and barely bat you to the side.
You grab onto it as you dig deeper into its body, clawing and tearing away the material by the hoofful. There has to be a core or a heart or something in the middle keeping it all together! With more dust being thrown into the air every second, it gets harder and harder to see. Eventually you slow down; not even you can keep the frantic pace up forever.
That’s when you notice how hard it’s getting to move.
Your back legs are stuck fast in place and you can’t lift your wings at all. You crane your neck to look behind, only for your eyes to widen in horror.
The dust is returning.
All the damage you’ve done, all the dust you’ve ripped off and thrown about the room is slowly pulling itself back to the main body, just like when it first formed.
Only now you’re half inside it, and the dust has started to reform the body around you, cinching against your wings and lower legs.
As if keen to your sudden awareness, the thick coat of dust you’ve accumulated on your body tightens like a vice, squeezing you from every angle and pulling you deeper. Darkness quickly consumes your vision, as a heavy pressure compresses you from all sides. You take one last desperate gasp for air—and get only dust—before blacking out.
[Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter].
Air!
Sweet, sweet air!
You breathe as deeply as your dust-free lungs will allow, letting that precious air flow in and fill your body. Each inhale is bliss, each exhale a sad sorrow. You never realized how much you appreciated something as simple as air until this very moment.
If only the moment wasn’t destined to be ruined.
“Oi, oi, Madam Dazh!” The sound of an incredibly fake accent drags you kicking and screaming out of your moment of reverie. “Zuch un incrédíblé mezz you be making! Und who do you tink iz going to be cleaning it up? Not moi!”
Trixie stands atop her podium, expression comically aghast. You may not be the most knowledgeable pony when it comes to languages of the world, but you’ve heard Rarity talk in Prench often enough that you know that Trixie is doing it badly. And that no one in Prance actually wears that kind of maid outfit.
“But, alaz, it zeems the mezz haz cleaned up you, haz it not? Oi, hon hon hon, hon hon, hon!” She laughs into the side of her hoof, like the villainess on the cover of some of Rarity’s trashy novels.
You could call her out on it, but she might be expecting that and have a comeback ready. No, what you need is a zinger of your own to catch her off guard. Luckily, she’s practically lined one up for you.
“Y’know, I thought the giant bunny was bad enough, but I never thought I’d have to face big ham as well.”
Trixie freezes as her face slowly goes through several shades of purple until the crimson red finally wins out and overpowers her coat’s blue. Whether it’s from embarrassment or anger, you have no idea, so either way you beat a hasty retreat before you’re forced to endure another tirade of badly accented Prench.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
Digging deep into your mind and pulling forth every possibly relevant memory, you focus on channeling Fluttershy so hard that this giant monster has no choice but to make friends with you.
You flick your mane, making it lose its spiky style and drape down over one eye. It blocks half your vision, but works wonders getting you into character. You crouch in on yourself, making your body as small as possible as if all the frightening things in the world are a physical pressure on your body. Your eyes become wide and watery (not a hard feat with all the dust), as if they exist at all times on the precipice of bursting into tears.
Persona set, you turn to face the beast.
"H-hello Mister R-Rabbit," you stutter, suffusing your voice with honey and nervousness.
The giant monster steps closer and looms over you. With you huddled down, he towers over you like you're little more than a filly. You swallow hard and fight back your instinctive urge to use this advantageous position to launch a sneak attack. "D-did I disturb your territory? I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to." The beast leans down, its skull practically pressing into your muzzle. The urge to headbutt is overwhelming, but instead you force a small smile. "B-but that doesn't mean we can't be friends? Right? I'm sure you're a really nice... giant... dust bunny thing?"
Your eyes, burning and itching, squeeze shut of their own accord as the massive dust beast huffs a cloud of itself at you. Is this it? The end of Rainbow Dash? Eaten by a dust monster thanks to a poor impersonation? You can see the words on your headstone now: "She lived as Rainbow Dash, but died as Fluttershy. Rip in Peace." What an ignoble end for a mare like you.
Just as you start to imagine who'd give the best speech at your funeral, you feel something rough and crumbly caress your cheek.
It does it again, and you risk a peek.
The giant dust bunny is licking you.
But it's not the pre-tasting of a beast, either. The creature's whole body language has changed. It's much more docile, more calm. It almost looks kinda... cute. When it's not rearing up, at least.
"Hey! That tickles!" you laugh as you playfully push the surprisingly light monster aside. It actually itches more than it tickles, but that's what Fluttershy always says and you're still very deep in character. The creature takes a few loping hops back and, after a moment, starts digging for something in the dark remains of the closet. It soon returns with something in its mouth.
"What's that?" you ask. "Do you have something for me?"
The creature nods and dry-spits it into your waiting hooves. Much to your surprise, it's a pair of bunny ears. A costume pair, that is. Made of cheap fabric and wire and attached to a headband. "Ah, thank you?" The dust bunny lowers its head and you oblige by giving him some scritches behind the ear. His joyously thumping leg stirs up a cloud of dust (though it's quickly sucked back into the dust bunny's body).
"I have to go now," you tell your new friend, who looks saddened in response. As sad as a glowing skull covered in animate dust can look. "But that doesn't mean we're not friends. Maybe I'll be able to come back later."
The dust bunny smiles at you and, without another word, crumbles back into a pile of dust and a normal inanimate skull.
You step back carefully to disturb its remains as little as possible, and close the door after you pass into the hall.
With a flick of your head, your mane returns to its usual style as does the courage return to your posture. Twilight would be proud of you, winning the day through friendship rather than violence. Though a small part of you regrets missing out on what would no doubt have been an epic fight.
You can't wait to show Fluttershy this room when she finally arrives. No doubt she'll try to adopt the thing and take it home. Though that'll depend on whether he's a real creature that Starlight and Trixie lured into participating, or just another magical creation.
Speaking of magical creations, you eye the Bunny Ears still clutched in your hoof. They don't seem particularly special, but nothing in this house ever is what it seems. You start to put them in your Inventory Bucket before a thought strikes you. Why not wear them? Sure, maybe they're a little foalish, but it's not like anypony's watching. And it might make them easier to access if you need them later. On the other hoof, they could get knocked off and lost without you noticing.
Either way, it's time to move on to the next part of your adventure!
The floorboards creak underhoof as you examine your options. There are four paths to chose from, TWO DOORS, and TWO HALLWAY directions.
If your opponent is dust, then obviously the solution is fire!
You whip out your lantern and brandish it like a shield between you and the beast. It cowers back, just like you predicted! Though it growls in protest, you drive it back towards the closet with short jabbing motions. Each time you do, the metal body of the lantern squeaks and swings on the hinges of its handle.
Just as you're about to declare victory over the monster—
*crea—SNAP!*
—the handle breaks off your lantern, sending it sailing forward into the dusty body of the beast.
You propel yourself back as far as possible as the monster bursts into flames. Luckily there's not enough dust left in the rest of the room for it to spread, or else you'd be really worried. Still, the victory is yours!
Admittedly it's a lot more violent of one than your original plan of forcing the monster into a closet and barricading it in, but if it works it works!
That train of thought holds up for about five more seconds, which is just enough time for the dust monster to stand back up. Its body is little more than roaring flames now, with a screaming skull still glowing away at the center.
With a demonic bellow, it charges you.
"Oh bu—!"
[A fiery end to a fiery soul. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
"I think that may have been your worst plan yet."
"I know."
"I mean, honestly, who doesn't know that you should never set a lapin particulus on fire?"
"I didn't."
"They are a magical cousin of the Timberwolves. Even as their material components burn, their magical essence will allow them to keep moving."
"Yeah. I noticed."
"I didn't even prepare anything special. I never even imagined that somepony would try that!"
"Well I did and it's done and can we move on already?!"
"Oh certainly. Feel free to leave whenever you like. I'm just amusing myself. There's nothing keeping you from continuing on. Though do try not to get too much soot over all my decorations."
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in the foyer, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
You'll admit to not being the cleanest pony in the world. Maybe your house is on the messy side of lived-in. But even you know that the solution to a giant monster made of dust is obviously a giant broom. Or maybe a giant feather duster.
But you don't have one of those, so a broom it is!
You brace it between your wing and foreleg, brandishing it like a spear held by an ancient Pegasopolli warrior. They, however, had years of training to use spears, halberds, and poleaxes, meanwhile all the experience you have to draw on is your time spent jousting at the Crystal Fair. And Fluttershy hardly made a challenging adversary.
Still you strike at the beast, short stabs to deter its approach and wide sweeping slashes to knock aside its massive arms.
And it's effective. Way more effective that you planned. Every swipe you land not only dislodges a layer of dust, but disappears it as well. Magic? Probably, but that's neither here nor there.
You knock aside another hit, but overextend and leave yourself open. The beast takes quick advantage and throws a haymaker at you from above. You dodge, turning what would have been a knockout into merely a glancing blow, but even that is enough to send you spinning into the other corner of the room.
You realize your mistake now. As the creature gets smaller, it also gets faster.
You narrow your eyes and grin. Speed, of course, is your area of expertise.
The battle that follows is as epic as you could hope for. A deft game of speeding strike between you and an ever faster opponent. By the time its body is reduced to pony sized, it's fast enough to rival you in close quarters. But the battle was already decided. While it could hop across the room at lightning speed, you have unrivaled superiority in the air. Even when it became fast and small enough to dodge your broom, its hits were so weak as to barely shift you in the air.
A couple of lucky strikes more and the monster is reduced to a perfectly clean skull in a totally dust-free room.
The battle won, you set the broom back in your Inventory and wipe some sweat from your brow. Your hoof comes back grimy and grey.
"Oh, gross!" Apparently the creature couldn't control dust wetted by sweat, meaning all that remains is what's turning into a gross paste amid your fur and feathers.
Before you can get too worked up, the inanimate skull begins to glow. With a soft chime, it vanishes in a lavender light, leaving behind a small present box wrapped in orange and black paper.
You open the box and find inside a pair of costume Bunny Ears. They're made of cheap fabric stretched over a wire and attached to a headband, but they to seem to be in adult size.
Shrugging, you tuck them under one wing and head for the door.
Finally, after much recounting and reliving your moments of awesomeness, you arrive at what you're pretty confident is the right answer. Probably. Assuming you didn't miss any secret passageways or a set of stairs to a whole extra basement level.
You spin the dial to the number you've settled on and press the button in the center before you can get any less sure. It sinks into the door at your touch. Something starts to click as hidden gears begin to move and make the decorations across the door spin and contract. Monsters on either side of the center divide pull their claws back from the seam.
The clicking stops, the movement freezes, and...
...the doors swing open wide! The sudden light and noise blaring through strikes you blind and deaf. As your senses slowly adjust, you realize what the noise is.
Applause. Thunderous applause.
You stride into the highest room of the tower and finally see what awaits you. The room is set up like the red carpet walkway at the royal palace, but with a decidedly Nightmare Night style flair. The black and orange carpet is surrounded by more carved pumpkins than you can count, all of them enchanted to whistle and whoop and holler as you pass like you're some kind of Bridlewood celebrity.
Floating alongside the path are a dozen fancy mirrors, each one showing a familiar face. A werewolf mare. A giant rabbit. A fat, balding stallion in a mask. A grizzled pegasus in uniform. And more besides. They all cheer you on and applaud your victory as you strut down the aisle.
The path leads you to a massive hole in the wall. The view from here is fantastic. The whole of the haunted house is spread out below you; you can practically trace the path you took! Beyond it you can see Ponyville, shining like a star just over the next hill. The wind ruffles your mane as you gaze down upon it all.
It's... peaceful.
Now how do you get down?
"So do I just fly back or— oh!"
Before you can finish asking, a sheet of rainbow light appears beneath your hooves. It grows quickly, curving around the tower and out of sight.
Eh, why not? With a whoop you take a running start and hop onto the magical slide. It circles the tower three times, always forming more just ahead of you, then takes two lazy circuits of the whole building before depositing you outside the front door, right back where you started.
"Congratulations, Rainbow Dash!" Starlight applauds as you land. It's double the applause, as she's split back into Red and Blue versions. "You're the first pony to finish a full run of our haunted house!"
"Strictly speaking, our first participant too." Blue Starlight adds. "So, were you scared?""
"What, me? Scared? Pft! It was a piece of cake." You're not about to admit just how many times you came close to breaking. "But to anypony else, that'll scare the wings off of them! It was awesome! You must have worked like crazy to pull this all together."
Red Starlight blushes slightly while Blue Starlight scuffs a hoof on the ground. "I mean, I did my best. It was a group effort. I couldn't have done it without Trixie's help with the illusions."
You push through Blue Starlight (who pops into nothingness) and drape your foreleg around her withers. "Come on Starlight! Take some credit for your hard work! Those were some intense illusions. I thought I was actually going to die a few times."
Starlight merely blinks at the space her double used to occupy. "How did you still know she wasn't real?" She turns to you suddenly, alarm painted across her features. "Wait, you thought you were going to die?"
"She didn't have a shadow," you explain.
"No, no, forget that. Why did you think you might actually die? It shouldn't have been that scary!"
"Well all those spells that make you forget you're doing a haunted house and think it's real kinda amps it up. Especially the ones that put fake memories in your head."
Starlight's face goes as white as a sheet. "That sounds like confundus and memory spells. But I didn't put in any..." Her face flips from white to red as quick as if someone hit a switch. "Oh no she didn't. Excuse me, Dash. I need to go have a little chat with my cohost."
She lights her horn and vanishes in a sparkle of magic. Though she doesn't go very far, as you can very clearly her shout of "Trixiiiiiiie!!!" from inside the house. Though that kinda leaves you in the lurch as to what to do now.
"Hey Rainbow Dash!"
As if summoned, at just that moment your friends arrive over the crest of the hill, all decked out in full Nightmare Night regalia.
Rarity you're pretty sure is a princess, though it's hard to figure out which when the only clue is a big carmine line running through her dress. Pinkie's come as some kind of plant pony with a large flower growing out of her back and vines twined around her legs. AJ is clearly a changeling... but in a snow parka? It feels like there's a pun or something there that's going over your head. Fluttershy, who's really putting her bravest hoof forward this year, has gone with a classic sheet ghost. Probably to make it that much easier to hide at a moment's notice.
And Twilight...
"Uh, hey, Twilight? Did you... turn your back legs into swords?"
She groans at this even as her incredibly pointy-looking hooves prick the ground. "Why does everypony think they're swords? They're scissors. See the screw over my cutie mark? I'm Edith Scissorhooves, from the novel of the same name. But the way ponies have been reacting tonight, you'd think nopony has read the greatest piece of neo-gothic literature to come out in the past twenty years!" She kicks at the ground, accidentally slicing through a few sticks. "It could be my fault though since my costume's not strictly canon-accurate."
"She had to turn her front legs back inta normal hooves," Applejack explains. "Couldn't keep her balance."
"Well book-accurate or not, I think it's a lovely costume."
"Thanks, Rarity." Her feelings reassured, Twilight turns to you. "No costume for you this year?"
"No I got one, I just didn't want to put it on before I tried Starlight's haunted house." Which, as it turned out, was an astounding bit of foresight. You probably wouldn't have been able to pull off half as much fighting if you'd worn your cyborg-pony soldier-from-the-future costume.
"Oh my," says the sheet with holes. "So you've already explored the whole house? Is it-is it really scary?" Her voice keys up to a high squeak as she finishes the question.
You reflect on all your recent escapades. Fighting monsters. Running from insane ponies. Facing almost as many social and mental situations as genuine horror ones. Then you imagine Fluttershy in your place and wince. "Yeah... this is probably gonna be too much for you, Flutters. That's why I went ahead to check it out."
"Thank you. I think I'll wait outside until you all finish then."
"Don't count yourself out yet." As much as you know she needs to be kept away from the worst rooms, you don't want her to miss out entirely. "I know Trixie has a way to turn the fear factor higher or lower. I had it set pretty high, but I'm sure she has a low setting for foals and, y'know, the easily scared. Plus, now I know all the rooms that are safe enough for you. Like the bunny room."
Her eyes light up at the magic words. "There's a bunny room?"
"Now you've done it!" Pinkie giggles. She jumps in place, making her leaves rustle. "Guess we're all going in then! It's an adventuring party! I call being the druid!"
"Are you sure you want to go back in?" Twilight asks. "If you just finished it then it probably won't be nearly as scary the second time."
A slow smile works its way onto your face. Sure, you know what's coming, but who's to say that every exploration will be the same? They might make different choices than you did. Choose to befriend where you attacked, or use items you didn't have yet. And especially important: for the rooms where you do know what's coming, you get to watch their reactions to it!
A stray thought stops your mental train in its tracks. Is... is this what it feels like to be Trixie? Watching someone explore from above and giggling where they fall into the same mistakes you did? Huh. Kinda casts her in a different light.
But you've been stalling long enough. Twilight and the rest are still waiting for an answer.
"Absolutely. Let's go! You guys are gonna have an awesome time. I guarantee it!"
There's no telling what purpose this room originally served, as Starlight and Trixie have clearly gone to town remodeling it for the haunted house.
It's been totally gutted, the walls stripped down to the raw brickwork beneath. They even took out the floor, leaving nothing but cold and damp dirt. A few standing stones—about as tall as a pony each—are scattered here and there in a rough circle but that's all that stands for furniture. A thin layer of mist covers the ground, still as a pool of water.
The damp smell of rot permeates the air. Not the rich earthy smell of farms and tilled soil, more a swampy dankness. The smell of half-rotted logs and stagnant puddles. An unnatural chill seeps into your bones, as though someone's standing on your grave.
What grabs your attention is a small flat-topped rock in the room's center. Atop it, sealed under a glass dome, there sits some kind of wand with a star-shaped gemstone on the end. Whatever it is, it looks both important and magical.
You make your way towards the wand and pass through the outer ring of stones. The moment your hoof crosses that invisible threshold, the door slams shut behind you!
You whirl around on the spot, but it's too late. The standing stones begin to glow a demonic red and the sound of groaning fills the air. It's a warbling, yet unsettlingly breathy noise; like somepony trying to communicate in whalesong with a mouth full of sand. Your muscles tense as you try to pinpoint where it's coming from. An invisible monster? Something in the walls? No, if anything the noise sounds like it's coming from all around you.
The dirt to your left buckles and bulges as something pushes its way out from underneath. You step away from it, only to hop back into the middle as more patches of ground start to crack on all sides.
The groaning reaches a new level as a hoof bursts through the ground. The fur is matted and half gone, peppered with open and sickly-looking wounds, but with still a hint of yellow luster. Another bursts out to your right, red and thick, little more than a skeleton at the hoof.
A third, a fourth, a fifth. Five zombies claw their way out of the ground, trapping you between them. Their bodies are the stuff of nightmares. What flesh they still have is either dried or gangrenous, clutching to exposed bones like dead ivy on an old fence. Random portions of their bodies are outright missing—a jaw, a wing, half a leg—the sight of which sets your stomach turning.
Their voices moan in hideous symphony—not words, not with no tongues nor lips to speak of—but something close enough your mind stumbles over itself failing to ascribe meaning.
Their eyes glow with menacing intent, curtailing any thoughts of negotiation or friendship.
You're taut as a bowstring, every muscle ready for someone to make the first move.
Zombies. The classic filler monster in any adventure story taking place in a ruin, ancient temple, or swamp. Even Daring Do fought them a few times so you have some idea of what to do. You can FIGHT, but maybe using an ITEM would make things easier.
Or, perhaps, does the sight of these zombies stir up some uncomfortable memories of that one incident, ones which you never properly dealt with?
"Take this!" you shout as you throw the Carousel Boutique Voucher at the nearest zombie with all the force that one can throw an uncrumpled piece of paper.
Contrary to logic, the voucher flies straight and true, sticking itself to the zombie's face right between the eyes. Yes! You knew it had to be a magic item! Otherwise, why the heck would they have given you a normal coupon in the middle of a bunch of magic tools? Clearly it was secretly a powerful weapon, one which would—
With little preamble, the voucher explodes, obscuring the zombie behind a cloud of purple and white smoke. What emerges after a few seconds is absolutely fabulous.
Its mane is coiffed and radiant, its make-up flawlessly applied. The scent of honey and vanilla drifts lightly on the breeze. Its floor length gown is a dusty rose with gold accents that perfectly complement its necrotic green flesh.
It's also very much still a zombie, though its hungry gaze seems ever-so-slightly tinged with confusion, but that's probably just thanks to the heels.
"Huh," you remark eloquently in the presence of such refinement. "You know, I'm not sure what I expected. Least I didn't use it on me."
Though your opening attack was less than successful, it has bought you a few seconds' distraction to plan your next move.
You launch he first strike, hollering out a battle cry as you charge the horde with your weapon drawn. You bring it down on a formerly blue mare's head, which deforms and then pops like a rotten pumpkin thrown off a roof. You grin as once again, a lesson from the best book series of all time proves true in real life.
'Aim for the head. That's their weak spot.'
You'll have to send Daring a thank you card later.
The rest of the zombies prove barely a challenge with your superior tactics and extended reach. When a skull is too thick, usually there's a fleshy part nearby that's still vulnerable.
The song of battle thrums in your veins as you somehow slice and dice with a blunt object, limbs and organs alike going flying as you strike, smack, and shatter the resistance into many, many squishy chunks.
By the time you're done, the room looks like a charnel house, which is a word you only know thanks to the word-a-day calendar Twilight got you last Hearth's Warming. There's not an identifiable body part left save the odd scrap of fur.
Your eye takes it all in. The blood-spattered stones, the gore-soaked dirt, the brain-splattered ceiling.
"Maaaaybe that was a bit of an overkill." Not that that's your fault. How were you supposed to know whether they were squishy trash mob zombies or brute-enhanced juggernaut zombies? Better safe than sorry and better overkill than be killed.
...Not that you would have been killed. This being a haunted hose and all.
As if to rub your nose in it, a chime rings through the room and all the blood and viscera evaporates into a field of sparkling lights. Once again reminding you that you were never in any real danger.
On a positive note, the glass case containing your prize also disappears, leaving it free for you to claim.
Finding yourself suddenly clean (and isn't that a relief) you go over to inspect it. Just like you guessed, it's a magic wand. A long rod colored with a red and white candy stripe, topped with a glowing yellow gem.
As you grab it, a series of words spelled out in light appear in the air before you.
Wand of Summoning [Rank A] >Summons five (5) loyal zombie allies who will fight for you In the darkest days, sometimes it helps to call on a friend.
You have just enough time to read it before the letters pop into tiny fireworks and disappear.
"Zombie allies, huh?" You wonder if it'll bring back the same ones you just fought against or create five random new zombies from scratch. Hopefully if its the former they won't hold a grudge. Either way, it's a handy tool to have in a pinch. You store the Wand of Summoning in your Inventory.
The zombies make the first move, a former purple pegasus lurching in from your left. You dodge to the side and reply with a kick to its side, sending it stumbling into red earth pony.
That acts as the signal for all Tartarus to break loose.
You met a green stallion's charge with a body slam of your own, equal forces keeping you both in place while a blind buck sends a blue mare's neck spinning the wrong way with a sickening crunch. Not that that deters her from standing right back up again.
You take to the air before diving back down and slamming into the spine of a furless earth pony, hopefully taking her out of the fight.
The song of battle thrums in your veins, a symphony of adrenaline and electricity that guides your hooves in an intricate ballet of carnage. It's been so long since you've been free to let loose like this. Not since all your villains turned into sneaky mastermind types. Sure, friendship is usually the best approach in the long run, but sometimes it just feels really good to punch something silly. A strange pleasure in executing the skills needed to hold one zombie's snapping jaws in a headlock while using its own flailing body to deflect sneak attacks. A strange, almost meditative calm in the heat of combat.
No-fur manages to crawl back into the fight with a broken back, but even she gives up after you suplex the big red stallion into her. You're not sure what happened to blue-fur-no-ribs, except that you apparently hit some sweet spot that made her completely fall to pieces.
And so the fight is reduced to three combatants. The purple mare missing a wing (now both), the green stallion without a jaw or eyeball, and you, filthy with dirt and viscera but still with all your parts.
Purple snarls and charges, her wing stumps wiggling uselessly, and Green responds in kind from your other side. You wait... wait... then step back at the last second, letting both of them crash into one another in a mess of tangled limbs and organs. After a minute of struggling and damaging each other further, they lie still like the rest.
A cheerful chime announces your victory. The bodies quickly dissolve into motes of light that rise to the ceiling and disappear, as does the glass case around your prize and, thankfully, all the blood and guts on your coat. Thank Celestia for magic and illusions.
You go over to insect your prize. Just like you guessed, it's a magic wand. A long rod with a spiraling groove like a unicorn's horn carved into it that divides it into red and white halves. It's capped with a star-shaped gem that glows with a warm yellow light like the midday sun.
As you grab it, a series of words spelled out in light appear in the air before you.
Wand of Summoning [Rank A] >Summons five (5) loyal zombie allies who will fight for you In the darkest days, sometimes it helps to call on a friend.
You have just enough time to read it before the letters pop into tiny fireworks and disappear.
"Zombie allies, huh?" You wonder if it'll bring back the same ones you just fought against or create five random new zombies from scratch. Either way, it's a handy tool to have in a pinch. You store the Wand of Summoning in your Inventory.
Your heart seizes in your chest as your mind is suddenly assaulted by memories you thought you'd locked away.
A town, deserted. Homes, abandoned. Streets, empty.
On the outskirts, ponies shambling. Dull coats. Glassy eyes.
Putrid rainbows dripping from their mouths.
You're in the barn again. Trapped, surrounded. Monsters on every side. Monsters with the faces of friends and neighbors.
Monsters you created.
Memory and reality overlay like colored lenses as the faces of the five generic zombies around you distort into ones you know painfully well.
Big Macintosh. Lyra. Minuette. Octavia. Twilight.
Their bodies rot on the bone, dirty rainbows dribbling from every wound.
'You did this,' their moans seem to say
"No! No, I—"
'Your fault,' they groan.
"It wasn't! It was a mistake!"
Their voices merge together, theirs and a hundred others crying out in pain and accusations.
It hurts! Why? Your fault. My baby! I can't feel my... Make it stop! Please! Why? Why did you— You did... Your fault. Your fault. Your fault! Your fault! Your fault!!
"No!!" you scream as they descend upon you. Frozen by guilt and pain as your victims extract their pound of flesh. Each bite is a penance, each scratch a flagellation.
For you are the creator of monsters, and the worst of them all.
[It's memories that can haunt us worse than any ghost. Add two (+2) to your Fear Meter]
"Honestly, that was pretty pathetic."
You slowly return to the land of the living, legs asleep and mind foggy. It takes several seconds for you to recognize your dimly lit surroundings. Even if the crashed chandelier and torn up red carpet weren't enough clues, there's no mistaking Trixie's particular brand of snide commentary.
You rise to your hooves as you try to shake the cobwebs off your recent memories. "What happened?"
"What happened? What happened was you went in, triggered the trap, then just stood there muttering for a minute before suddenly screaming and letting the zombies take you."
Your breath hitches as the z-word brings back all the memories in crystal clarity. They... hadn't actually looked like your friends, had they? That was all you. All in your mind.
Trixie shakes her head, making her mane ornaments jingle. "I was expecting much better entertainment. Fighting, panicking, something more than you just standing there and taking it. I thought you were supposed to be some kind of big hero. Well? Where were the big heroics?"
In all honesty, you don't know. The zombies came out and then the memories... all those raw emotions came flooding back. All that guilt and self-hatred you pushed aside and never dealt with in the wake of finding out it was all a prank. But in those few minutes locked in the barn, you'd thought it was real. And those emotions, even ignored until now, are still very real.
But Trixie's not the kind of pony you're going to have a big heart-to-heart therapy session with. At best she'd probably just mock you more. So for now, you put on a brave face go on the attack. "Oh yeah? Well what would you have done?"
"Cast Turn Undead, obviously." She waves her long spear-like staff around, whipping up a wind that sets the bows and skirt on her outfit fluttering dramatically. "Or maybe Purification, or Create Sacred Water. There's lots of ways to deal with zombies."
You flinch at the word but push past it. "Yeah, but what about without spells?" You point to the space where you'd have a horn if you had one (though you don't). "Not a unicorn, remember?"
Her smile falters. "Uh, well then I'd cast- no, can't do that. So I'd summon- no, also magic. I'd create a div- blast it all!" She slams her staff into the ground, only for it to slide out of her grip and bonk her in the face. "Ow! Curse this cheap prop and all its miserable manufacturers!"
You snigger. Just a bit. It helps take the edge of those raw emotions from earlier. Emotions you're definitely going to have to deal with. Tomorrow though. With all the girls. And maybe some strong cider.
But until then, you need a better distraction to take your mind off things. Lucky you there's still plenty of haunted house to explore.
...So long a you avoid that one room.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
Who does he think he is, thinking he can tell you what to do! Luckily Rarity once told you exactly what to do if a stallion ever gets too hoovsey.
You swing back and launch a wing-assisted kick straight up and into his family jewels.
That was the plan, anyway. Instead your kick carries right on up and through, his body wavering like mist where your leg passes but remaining uninjured.
He smirks down at you. "How juvenile."
The jab only hardens your resolve. Though your forelegs are quite tightly held captive, that still leaves the full rest of your body to use as a weapon! You thrash and strike with everything you have. Headbutts, hip checks, low sweeps, double bucks, wing strikes. Any part of you that can get in range takes its shot.
But it's all for naught. Everything passes right through him like he's not even there and earning you nothing more than belittling smirks for your effort. It takes three songs for you to give up that avenue of attack.
But what even can you do in this situation? You can't fight, his ghostly hooves hold you in place like steel manacles and your kicks phase right through. You can't try any of the magical items from your Inventory since you need your hooves to access them.
All you can do is hang there in his control, like a sad puppet on its strings flailing around as the puppeteer wishes.
You dance for what feels like hours. Rather, you are danced, as you have little say in the manner. Waltzes, tangos, dances you don't know the names of. One after another in an endless cascade of movement.
The sheer loss of control leaves you jittery and high-strung as your body tries to enter panic mode but finds itself unable to either fight or flee. All it succeeds in doing is ramping up all your senses to eleven. Every minute facet of your situation you experience in exacting detail.
The roughness of his insubstantial hooves as they shift their grip. The coppery blood in your mouth when you bite your tongue after an unexpected dip. The hot moistness of his heavy breathing on your neck, punctuated by his deep sniffs of your mane.
But worst of all is the powerlessness. How you know you can struggle and scream all you want but it won't make a difference to him nor the ghosts around you. For a mare who values her freedom and independence so much, it feels like weighted shackles.
Eventually, after what could have been hours or even days dancing, you are allowed to slump to the floor. The horde of ghosts stare at you, before one-by-one winking out of existence. Leaving only him.
He hovers over you, bending down just enough his goatee tickles your ear. "That was almost satisfactory. You may go, but I expect a better performance next time." As he rises he takes your mask with him, frowning at you for a moment before clicking his tongue. "Tch. I should have known. What a disappointment."
His evaluation given, he too vanishes in a swirl of light.
You slowly pull yourself off the floor, hooves aching from being dragged around, and quietly make your way to the nearest door.
[Your soul and sense of self-determination have taken a heavy blow. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
On the other side of her remote viewing spell, Trixie frowns at the sight of her test subject stumbling away. Dipping her quill in ink, she jots down a note for Starlight.
"Double-check spellwork in 'Social Anxiety' room. Antagonist projection went off script due to unforeseen player behavior, leading to 'Awkward Dance' sequence looping and becoming locked until admin intervention. Fix before next players!"
You try to reach for your Inventory Bucket, but you can't! Not with your forelegs trapped in his vice-like grip. And you've done enough running. jumping, and tumbling to know there's no chance of anything falling out on its own for you to grab.
Actually, you do have one more item. One that you decided not to keep in your Inventory. The locket you got from that werewolf mare.
Now that you remember it, it's hard not to notice the little metal disc bouncing up and down on your chest as you're danced around. How is a locket supposed to help you defeat a skeevy ghost who's forcing you to dance with him? You don't know.
But it's the best plan you've got.
The problem that remains is that you still can't use your hooves. But unlike your Inventory Bucket, the locket has the advantage of being a lot closer to your mouth. All you have to do is be patient and wait for a good bounce.
Luck seems to be on your side as the current song winds to a close and the sound of castanets and guitar clues you in that next up is a tango.
You let out an 'oof' as he pulls you close and the air is knocked from your lungs. One hoof leads you forward like the prow of a ship, the other reaches around to the small of your back, squeezing you in close against his ghostly form. This also traps the locket between your bodies.
Frustrated, you shoot him a glare but he only smiles back, misty-eyed, as if he's not even seeing your anger.
You stride across the dance floor, the two of you cutting through the other dancers without a moment's concern for their presence. He stops on a bit, and suddenly throws you into a dip.
There it is! Your chance!
The locket rises in the air in a moment of suspended gravity and you dart your head forward like a snake, successfully catching it in your mouth just before he pulls you close again.
It's the work of a moment to flip the clasp open with your tongue then move it back to the edge of your mouth to grip it in your lips. Thank goodness for all those hours spent practicing mouth-writing your autograph.
He pulls you close again and you prepare to hawk it at him. Maybe if you're lucky it'll be cursed, or ghost-repellent, or at least it'll blind him for a moment. But before you can, you're suddenly jerked to a stop.
He's frozen, as have the rest of the dancers and the music. His eyes are fixated on the locket, no, inside the locket.
"Mi... mi Carina?"
A plume of black smoke bursts from the locket, forcing it out of his hooves and onto the floor. It skids along the polished wood, propelled by the ever increasing cloud of escaping miasma.
You scramble back and into a corner, as far away as you can get from whatever monster you just unleashed. Curiously, your dance partner seems to have had the same idea in the opposite corner.
The smoke rises but rather than spreading out it condenses into a roiling mass in the center of the room, still tethered to the locket by a thin wisp. Something moves inside it, bulging against the sides like an animal trapped in a sack. With a noise of screeching violins, the top shreds open releasing the biggest mare you've ever seen. Even with her lower body still inside the cloud, just the part you can see is large enough to make Princess Celestia seem a doll in comparison. Her coat is like a cloudy night and her mane like crashing waves. She wears a dress that's as much smoke as she is, shifting and reforming with every slight motion. And she does not arrive quietly.
"HIGH LORD PHANTOM MUD!" The walls quake as she roars, loosening a storm of dust from the rafters. The stallion squeaks as she narrows in on him.
"There you are! What have you been up to? Nothing good I'm sure. Sneaking away to the living realm to host another of your parties? Ha! I should have expected as much!" The giant mare rears up to scan the room. "Where is she?"
It's incredible to watch the suave stallion from earlier collapse into a stuttering wreck. "W-w-where is h-who, dearest?"
Her eyes flash with infernal fire. "Don't 'w-w-where' me! You know who! Whatever wretched living soul you've roped into your little roleplay. Ah ha!" She dematerializes into smoke only to reform an instant later, facing the other way. Right. At. You.
You try not to move as the monolith of a mare stares into your soul. A long moment passes before she turns away suddenly to slap her husband across the room. "Phantom! You scoundrel! She's barely older than your daughter! Have you no shame?"
As she continues to berate him, a pony-sized tendril of smoke extends from the back of the cloud and snakes its way towards you as it shifts into a more normal-sized version of the same mare.
"You poor thing, just look at you." She speaks gently to you as she takes your face in her hooves and turns it side to side. You remain too shocked to react. "Not even out of your first century yet. I am terribly sorry for my husband's behavior. I try to keep him on a short leash but, stallions. You're not hurt, I hope?"
You shake your head slowly.
"Small mercies. Here." She reaches into her dress and pulls out a slip of paper the size of a receipt, pressing it into your hooves. You also feel most of your fatigue from the forced dance fade away. "For your troubles. I know the owner. She does good work."
Her head snaps around and she darts across the room, picking up the verbal massacre where her larger counterpart cut off. "And take off that guise, you look ridiculous."
"Y-yes dear." Like a melting candle Phantom's figure slumps away. His muscular chest dropping into a pot belly. His razor sharp mustache bursting into a frizzy, untamed mess. Even his hairline recedes halfway up his scalp. In moments he transitions from a cover model to a used cart salespony.
"Much better," his wife comments. "Now. Home. Before I become cross."
He nods silently as he dissolves into a white mist that circles the room before, almost reluctantly, spiraling down into the locket and vanishing. Once he is gone the black smoke as well begins to recede, pulled back inside. Lady Mud turns to you one last time before she too vanishes.
"Sorry again for all the trouble, dearie."
The last bit of smoke vanishes and the ballroom is finally empty. No dancers, no tables, just you and a lot of disturbed dust. Despite that, you still wait for a minute before risking moving.
Once you manage to convince yourself that the coast is clear, you rise and pick up the locket from where it dropped. Inside are two pictures. On the left, a mare with her head held high and a regal smile. On the right, a stallion cringing in on himself, angled so even the photo looks like it's shying away from its counterpoint. You snap it shut and tuck it away into your Inventory. Something tells you its purpose has been served.
That dealt with, you take a moment to check out the paper the giant spirit mare gave you. It's a thick white card, decorated with intricate purple swirls and containing a message encoded in some strange untranslatable glyphs.
A closer squint reveals the glyphs to just be overly loopy cursive. You eventually translate the message to read:
This voucher entitles the bearer to either fifty percent (50%) off one outfit OR one (1) free fashion consultation by Rarity Belle. Valid only at Carousel Boutique, Ponyville location. Expires first day of Winter Roll-out.
You stare at it incredulously. "Seriously? What am I supposed to do with this?" It's not that you don't appreciate Rarity's work, it's just that for the few occasions you've actually needed to dress up, she's always insisted on a generous friends-and-family discount. You tuck the Boutique Voucher away in your Inventory anyway with the hope it'll somehow be useful later. Maybe if you need a bookmark or find a room where you have to solve some maths and need scratch paper.
With everything squared away, you exit the ballroom.
The silver door swings open with barely a touch, revealing a grand ballroom. Not as grand as the ones in Canterlot—the house isn't nearly that large—but easily big enough to fit thirty or forty pairs of dancers with room on the side for tables.
You know this because that's exactly what the room is filled with.
Almost a hundred ponies occupy the space, all of them dressed to the nines in ballgowns and waistcoats, and all of them dead. They dance and twirl a few inches above the ground, their pale and translucent bodies sometimes intersecting without reaction. A few who don't dance sit at the tables where they murmur and laugh in small groups. A sense of joviality fills the air along with the sound of a string quartet.
Aside from their fancy clothes, every ghost is wearing a decorative mask that covers their eyes. Venison masks, you think they're called, or something close enough.
Ghostly party-goers aside, there's not much else of interest in the room. It's not even really scary. Maybe it would be for ponies afraid of ghosts or parties or crowds, but you are weak to none of these. If they all turned and attacked you, that'd be a different story. Through their bodies you can see a golden door on the opposite wall and decide to make that your goal. If it's a bad room, you might as well move on.
As you cross the threshold, you feel a tingle of magic dance over your fur like static electricity. The room suddenly gains a rosy tint as a mask like the others' materializes on your face.
You reach up to take it off... but... wait... why would you want to do that? It's a masquerade ball, and it'd be terribly rude to remove your mask prematurely. You shake your head to dislodge the odd compulsion to remove it. You'd better keep wary, there might be magic interfering with your thoughts.
The dancers part before you as you enter their midst, shifting their spins and dips to allow you clear passage. Only once you reach the center of the room do you spy... him. A stallion off the cover of a romance novel. Broad shouldered, shirt unbuttoned, mane like an inky waterfall with a pencil thin moustache and goatee. He smiles at you with gleaming teeth, though his eyes remain hidden behind the golden mask that marks him as the host of tonight's soiree.
"My dear, you look absolutely ravishing." He kisses your hoof, then continues to work his way up your foreleg. "I never dreamed you could clean up so nicely."
You stutter and fail to form a response, caught off guard by his forwardness. He leans in closer, nearly wrapping his neck around yours, and takes a long, deep sniff of your mane. "Mm. Divine."
He straightens again before you can react. None of the other guests seem to have noticed or cared. "Very brave of you to choose to attend a party of this caliber without a suitable dress, most would worry about the rumors." He chuckles. "An amusing attempt to garner my attention, but I'll accept your interest."
He leans into a shallow bow. "Shall I give you the honor of a dance? I'm sure you can manage a simple waltz."
You don't really want to, and in fact the whole one-sided conversation is making you feel weirdly uncomfortable. But even as you move to sidestep around him, suddenly you're in his hooves all the same as the music changes to a three-step melody. He pulls you along into the dance.
You start to protest, but then have a thought. Maybe this is this room's challenge. You have to beat him at dancing. You're not sure how it connects to Nightmare Night or a haunted house, but let it never be said that Rainbow Dash backs down from any challenge!
You stride forward to the beat, practically pulling your partner along into the next step. Strictly speaking you have no idea how to waltz, but there's a pattern to it that helps you predict his steps and beat him to them.
"Stop trying to lead," he growls as his grip tightens, "you're not suited for it."
Trash talk? Fine by you! That's a field you know how to navigate. "Well one of us has to."
His brow furrows into something ugly as he resists your attempts to spin him. "Stop this. You're making a scene," he hisses.
"Good! I work best in the spotlight." You shoot him a grin. "Feel free to step off if it's too much for you to handle."
In an instant the room goes perfectly silent and his grip turns to iron. Every ghost stops where they are and turn to you in eerie synchronization. A low growl rumbles through the hall and you realize it's coming from your partner. His genial smile is gone, replaced by a furious scowl that warps his handsome features into something cruel and ugly. "No!" he barks, "This is my party! My night! My mare. I am in control for once and I won't have everything ruined by some upstart tart thinking above her station. Orchestra! Start again!"
The music returns, playing twice, maybe three times as fast as before. The ghost dancers swirl about at high speed without difficulty while you find yourself dragged along by your partner's vice-like grip, barely able to keep from falling as you're walked, dipped, and spun against your will.
The gold door swings open with barely a touch, revealing a grand ballroom. Not as grand as the ones in Canterlot—the house isn't nearly that large—but easily big enough to fit thirty or forty pairs of dancers with room on the side for tables.
You know this because that's exactly what the room is filled with.
Almost a hundred ponies occupy the space, all of them dressed to the nines in ballgowns and waistcoats, and all of them dead. They dance and twirl a few inches above the ground, their pale and translucent bodies sometimes intersecting without reaction. A few who don't dance sit at the tables where they murmur and laugh in small groups. A sense of joviality fills the air along with the sound of a string quartet.
Aside from their fancy clothes, every ghost is wearing a decorative mask that covers their eyes. Venison masks, you think they're called, or something close enough.
Ghostly party-goers aside, there's not much else of interest in the room. It's not even really scary. Maybe it would be for ponies afraid of ghosts or parties or crowds, but you are weak to none of these. If they all turned and attacked you, that'd be a different story. Through their bodies you can see a silver door on the opposite wall and decide to make that your goal. If it's a bad room, you might as well move on.
As you cross the threshold, you feel a tingle of magic dance over your fur like static electricity. The room suddenly gains a rosy tint as a mask like the others' materializes on your face.
You reach up to take it off... but... wait... why would you want to do that? It's a masquerade ball, and it'd be terribly rude to remove your mask prematurely. You shake your head to dislodge the odd compulsion to remove it. You'd better keep wary, there might be magic interfering with your thoughts.
The dancers part before you as you enter their midst, shifting their spins and dips to allow you clear passage. Only once you reach the center of the room do you spy... him. A stallion off the cover of a romance novel. Broad shouldered, shirt unbuttoned, mane like an inky waterfall with a pencil thin moustache and goatee. He smiles at you with gleaming teeth, though his eyes remain hidden behind the golden mask that marks him as the host of tonight's soiree.
"My dear, you look absolutely ravishing." He kisses your hoof, then continues to work his way up your foreleg. "I never dreamed you could clean up so nicely."
You stutter and fail to form a response, caught off guard by his forwardness. He leans in closer, nearly wrapping his neck around yours, and takes a long, deep sniff of your mane. "Mm. Divine."
He straightens again before you can react. None of the other guests seem to have noticed or cared. "Very brave of you to choose to attend a party of this caliber without a suitable dress, most would worry about the rumors." He chuckles. "An amusing attempt to garner my attention, but I'll accept your interest."
He leans into a shallow bow. "Shall I give you the honor of a dance? I'm sure you can manage a simple waltz."
You don't really want to, and in fact the whole one-sided conversation is making you feel weirdly uncomfortable. But even as you move to sidestep around him, suddenly you're in his hooves all the same as the music changes to a three-step melody. He pulls you along into the dance.
You start to protest, but then have a thought. Maybe this is this room's challenge. You have to beat him at dancing. You're not sure how it connects to Nightmare Night or a haunted house, but let it never be said that Rainbow Dash backs down from any challenge!
You stride forward to the beat, practically pulling your partner along into the next step. Strictly speaking you have no idea how to waltz, but there's a pattern to it that helps you predict his steps and beat him to them.
"Stop trying to lead," he growls as his grip tightens, "you're not suited for it."
Trash talk? Fine by you! That's a field you know how to navigate. "Well one of us has to."
His brow furrows into something ugly as he resists your attempts to spin him. "Stop this. You're making a scene," he hisses.
"Good! I work best in the spotlight." You shoot him a grin. "Feel free to step off if it's too much for you to handle."
In an instant the room goes perfectly silent and his grip turns to iron. Every ghost stops where they are and turn to you in eerie synchronization. A low growl rumbles through the hall and you realize it's coming from your partner. His genial smile is gone, replaced by a furious scowl that warps his handsome features into something cruel and ugly. "No!" he barks, "This is my party! My night! My mare. I am in control for once and I won't have everything ruined by some upstart tart thinking above her station. Orchestra! Start again!"
The music returns, playing twice, maybe three times as fast as before. The ghost dancers swirl about at high speed without difficulty while you find yourself dragged along by your partner's vice-like grip, barely able to keep from falling as you're walked, dipped, and spun against your will.
You approach the next door with a grim determination. What manner of monster or mental madness will be behind it? A mummy whose creeping bandages you'll have to escape from? A series of underwater puzzles you'll have to solve before running out of air? Maybe a mare made of candy who jumps between dreams and tries to feed you to her cannibalistic foals.
Maybe you'd be better off actually opening the door before you psych yourself out completely.
You nudge it open and are immediately hit with the smell of... baking cookies?
You open the door the rest of the way and find yourself in a surprisingly well-lit and cozy room. It's a combined space with a kitchen on one side and a living room on the other, outfitted with completely normal-looking ovens, cupboards, sofas and tables. You could easily believe you'd stepped into any random family home in Ponyville.
It's even decorated for the season. Garlands of paper bats and ghosts in orange and black drape across the walls while every table has some kind of ceramic pumpkin, black cat, or skull with a cheery smile and a candle inside. Paper lanterns with silly expressions fill the ceiling. The dining table, complete with spiderweb tablecloth, is weighed down with plates upon plates of snacks and treats (all in suitably spooky shapes) as well as a massive punch bowl.
But all the decorations and food are little more than accessories to the mare currently pulling a tray of spider-shaped cookies out of the oven. The first thing you notice is how skinny she is. You've met slender mares and models before, but this mare makes them all look fat. It's like she's made of wires- undoubtedly the skinniest pony you've ever seen. Yet despite this she manages to pull it off, looking fit and limber instead of starvingly anorexic.
The second thing you notice is her mane. If her body looks like wires, then her mane looks like a copper scrubbing brush. Every bristling strand of frizzy orange mane stands on end like she just got electrocuted. Yet, again, she makes it work.
Tray in hoof, she darts through the air with surprising nimbleness, giving you a clear view of her small yet rapidly pumping featherless wings. A batpony? You're confused for a moment before you realize that obviously not every thestral works for Princess Luna.
She turns as you enter, greeting you with a warm smile on her pointed features. "Why hello! I wasn't expecting guests this early but do come in!" She sets the tray down and moves to slide a fresh one into the oven. "Pardon my mess, I thought I still time left to prepare. How time flies when you're having fun, hoohahahoo!"
This not at all what you've come to expect. A totally (mostly) normal pony instead of an immediate trap or monster attack? It doesn't make sense. And while dread anticipation puts you a little on edge, it's hard to be worried in such a cozy atmosphere. Though the creeping sensation of wondering-if-you've-somehow-wandered-somewhere-you-are-not-supposed-to-be also worries away in your stomach.
"Am I... in the right place?"
The skinny thestral titters at that. "I couldn't say. That all depends on where you want to be. If you were hoping for Halloweentown, Ghost Zone, or the Nightosphere, then I'm afraid you've made a wrong turn somewhere."
You shake your head at the unfamiliar names. "No, I mean, is this still part of the haunted house?"
"All my houses are haunted," she replies mysteriously. "But don't worry, I think you're exactly where you need to be." She waves her hooves about at the food and decoration.
"Okay, so..." You glance around for a trapdoor or other obvious trap. "Is something going to jump out and try to scare me?"
"Oh almost certainly, but don't worry! Nothing spooky here but us spooks!" She waves her hooves around at the food and decorations. "Think of this place as a sort of rest area. Not everyone can handle constant scares all the time."
That's actually a pretty good idea. Especially for groups that have foals or Fluttershy with them. It still seems a little unusual to you, but who are you to question Starlight's plan for her own attraction? And you certainly won't turn down a couple minutes' break from having monsters pop out at you.
"Huh. Alright. Cool. Name's Rainbow Dash."
She bumps your hoof and does and elaborate bow. "Scary Godmother. It's a pleasure to meet you."
"That's quite a name you've got."
She shrugs. "It's from my broommates. There's actually quite a funny story behind it. You see, back when I was—"
"Ugh, did you have to store these on such a high shelf, SG? I practically tore my arms out of their sockets trying to reach them! Oh? And who's this?"
You turn around at the sound of a new voice and find yourself suddenly muzzle to muzzle with a horrifically grinning skeleton.
Instinct takes over as you scream, flip, and buck his head right off his bony shoulders.
"Skully!" Scary Godmother cries out. She darts over to where his head landed. "Oh my pumpkins! Are you okay?!"
"I've been better," his muffled voice replies from where he's wedged between the sofa cushions.
You hurry over as well, his headless body hot on your heels. "I'm sorry! I thought you were a skeleton monster."
"Well A-plus for observation." He plucks his skull out of the sofa and pops it back onto his neck. "But an F for friendly fire. You scared me outta my skin! Is that how you greet everybony you meet or am I just special?"
You cringe back at the chastisement. "Sorry. Every other door I've opened so far has had a monster behind it ready to fight me."
"Honey, then maybe you should try opening different doors."
Still, you feel terrible. There were plenty of clues he wasn't a mindless monster. Like his dapper top hat and bow tie. And the fact that he talks like Rarity when she's in a dramatic mood.
He claps his bone hooves together. "But! No harm, no foul! Water under the bridge! Let's take it from the top, shall we?" He removes his top hat and rolls it into an impressive bow. "Skully Pettibone the Third, esquire. At your service."
"Rainbow Dash," you reply with a smaller and much less impressive bow of your own. "And sorry again for the kick. This haunted house has got me on edge."
"None of that! The fault is mine as well. I didn't mean to startle you, I just came out of the closet, you see."
"..."
"That closet." He points behind you to a pantry you hadn't noticed before, the floor around it littered with dropped paper plates and cups. You quickly move to help gather them up. It was your fault, after all, that he dropped them. By the time you're done, Scary Godmother has returned to her baking and Skully is peering intently around the room, behind furniture and under decorations.
"Did you lose something?"
"More like someone. Could you be a dear and help me look? You can't miss him. Big as a haystack. Deadfully tacky fashion sense. Smells of wet dog."
"Slander! Lies and slander I say!"
You're lucky that meeting a friendly skeleton has helped tamp down the urge to respond to the appearance of any monster with a buck to the face, otherwise the werepony larger than Big Mac springing up from behind the couch might have pushed you over the edge.
"Ah ha!" Skully declares. "And what, exactly, were you doing back there?"
"Oh. Ah... here? I was... ah... searching for something."
Skully pulls off an impressive implication of a raised eyebrow, despite not having any.
"I was! A... ah! A decoration fell off the wall and I took it upon myself to do a service to the party and retrieve it."
"Liar! You were sleeping on the job again."
"I was not!"
"You've got a pillow under your arm!"
He tucks said pillow behind his back with an affronted huff. "I don't see how that's relevant. My decision to carry an emergency aid in case of sudden onset somnolence has no bearing on your accusations of sloth. You believe me, don't you, fair maiden?"
It takes a hot second to realize he's addressing you now. "Well, you are wearing PJs," you admit. Maybe it's just weird fashion, but it's hard to imagine a silk shirt covered in pictures of sheep is meant for anything other than sleeping. You compare his bulk against the narrow space behind the couch. "But on the other hoof, it doesn't look like you'd actually fit back there." Nor does it look like there's anything else in the room big enough he could have been hiding behind. "Were you in the closet too?"
"He better not have been!" Scary Godmother warns from the kitchen, "Harry knows he's not allowed in the closet or the pantry anymore after last time."
You almost don't want to know but curiosity gets the better of you, "What happened last—"
"He ate—" Skully starts.
"I turned my back for two minutes and he scarfed all my ingredients down to the last bag of flour!"
Harry harrumphs and crosses his forelegs with a diffident and snooty flair. "Can I help it if my passionate soul is fueled by an equally passionate appetite?"
"Absolutely," Skully replies. "I'm no lazybones myself and I haven't put on a pound in fifty years!"
Scary Godmother flutters into the room, brushing some flour off her hooves and voluminous skirt. "Boys, just let it rest. Remember we have a guest." That catches both of their attentions. They glance at you then turn back and offer each other sheepish but apologetic shrugs. Scary Godmother nods in approval. "Great! Now that that's settled... Rainbow Dash. I know I said you're a little early, but all the decorations are up and I don't have anything coming out of the oven for another twenty minutes or so. The party's not officially started, but I could always use a taste-tester for the snacks and punch." She gives Harry a slight side-eye. "Someone who'll actually taste them and not just scarf the whole plate."
He rolls his eyes but doesn't offer a counter. "And I wouldn't turn away a fresh set of ears to render their opinion of my monologue. I'm trying out for the role of headmaster in a play about a school of wizard vampires. It's a biting deconstruction of the modern melodrama. Very subversive and very underground."
"Oh for goodness—Harry, we're trying to welcome her, not scare her off."
"My performances are a treat to behold. I'll have you know I've received glowing reviews in several local publications."
"Mhm. I remember. They all loved the same part: the fact it ended."
"Feh, philistine!"
"Ham!"
"Boys!" Scary Godmother scolds. "Again. Guest." They have the decency to look ashamed. "So, Rainbow, would you like to stay for a bit?"
You barely even need to consider it. These three are some of the most entertaining ponies you've ever seen! Of course you want to stick around! There's no time limit on getting back to the haunted part of the haunted house, and besides, you started it early to try and kill some time before your friends showed up anyway. "Absolutely! You guys are awesome!"
"Fright-tastic!" she declares, "Then let's get this pre-party started!"
The pre-party, as Scary Godmother insists on calling it, is a good as promised. The four of you spend the next twenty minutes getting to know one another and sampling all the many prepared snacks (though Harry requires constant supervision).
There's cobweb cakes and black cat cookies and swampwater fudge and candied scorpions and I-Scream floats and poison spinach puffs and ladyfinger sandwiches (though no one would tell you what a 'finger' is) and a dozen other amusingly named treats, with a delicious concoction called 'bloodbath punch' to wash it down. They tell you about some of their friends that couldn't make it this year and you regale them with a few of your adventures saving the world.
Skully rattles off one bone pun after another, most of them groaners, but a few are genuinely clever. Harry even convinces the rest to let him read a portion of his monologue (though they mostly agree in order to keep his mouth occupied with something other than eating), and it's better than advertised. He's actually really good once he gets into character. Though the script was way more raunchy and vulgar than you expected.
But, eventually, you realize it's time to get back on your journey. You bid each other fond farewells, but Scary Godmother stops you just before you leave.
"Before you go, would you like a doggie bag? Some snacks for later?"
"Indeed! Why, I—"
"Not you, Harry."
You shake your head. "No thanks, I'm stuffed. Your baking is amazing. My friend Pinkie Pie's gonna love you when she gets here."
She titters. "Well I do try my scary best. Here, at least take a couple of these." She holds out a small bowl of silver wrapped chocolate coins. "Chocolate's very good for restoring the soul and overcoming fright. Besides, we always have these left over since they're the only thing Harry won't eat."
That gives you pause. "Really?"
"Quite true," the werepony responds from across the room, "I never touch the stuff."
"A food Harry won't eat?" Skully feigns a swoon. "Be still, my beating heart. Oh. Too late!"
"It's not the chocolate, it's the silver, you see." He thumps his chest. "Gives me terrible heartburn."
"So... take the silver wrapper off before you eat it?" you suggest.
With those ten words, his eyes light up like a jack-o lantern. "Capital idea, my dear! I cannot fathom how I'd been flummoxed so over such a simple solution!"
"There he goes again," the thestral sighs. "If you want some, now's the time before they disappear into his black hole of a stomach."
"Sure, I'll take a couple. Thanks." Even if you're full now you can always enjoy or share them later. You grab a hoofful of Silver Coins and put them in your Inventory.
"Before you go, two last things. First, a bit of advice. Skip the room to the left of this one. It's a nasty trap and nothing good comes from it. Second." She passes you a golden key with a skull-shaped handle and a ruby in one eye. "If you ever feel like dropping back in for a visit, this'll help you find your way."
"Cool, thanks!" You make a note of her advice and slip the key into your Inventory. "I'll see you all later then."
"So long, Dash! Good luck with your adventure!"
"Farewell, dear friend. May fortune smile upon you until such time that fate deigns us to meet again. And—"
"And remember, so long as you keep the spirit of Halloween in your heart, you can always find your way back."
With a smile and a wave, you step back out into the dreary hallway and close the door behind you.
[It's important to take breaks and let your mind heal. Subtract three (-3) from your Fear Meter.]
You leave the rest area with a lighter step than you entered with.
The tall portraits on the walls don't feel nearly as sinister now. In fact, they look a little silly with their old-timey clothes and expressions like they just got stuck with a pin. You laugh a little at one, remembering Pinkie's old policy of giggling at ghosties.
Your new friends certainly are some oddball characters, but you can't help but like them for their sheer genuineness. It makes you sad as you remember that they're just magical projections and not real ponies. You'll have to ask Starlight if they're based on ponies she actually knows; if so, you'd like to meet the real ones.
...Then again, all you have is Starlight's word that there are "no actors" and that it's "all illusions". They ate, they drank, they had long and complicated histories. Maybe Starlight lied. Wouldn't that be a clever way to catch you off guard?
But it'd be rude to go back now and ask them to break character for you.
As you leave and reflect on their final words, a question bubbles to the surface of your thoughts. "Wait a minute. 'Keep the spirit of Halloween in my heart'? What the heck is Halloween?"
The room, empty as it is, fails to reply. It seems to be a library, though not a very impressive one. That being said, the only other library you've ever been in was Golden Oaks and that place set a pretty high bar for libraries in general. Compared to that, three bookshelves and a single podium with a locked tome is hardly impressive.
There's something... wrong with the air though. It slides through your feathers like oil, leaving you feeling nasty all over. It's permeated with the scent of mold and algae though you can't see any growing anywhere.
"Alright, creepy library, I can dig it," you comment as you look around, buoying your confidence with bravado. "What frights have you got in store for me? Damaged books? Overdue fees? Death by a thousand paper cuts?" That last one actually sounds pretty bad and you hope there's nothing listening that takes suggestions.
When nothing immediately jumps out at you, you take the initiative to inspect the book set out on the reading pulpit.
It's a battered old thing, smaller than the huge tomes the stand was clearly made for with a thick black cover covered in animalistic scratches. The pages are in worse shape, yellowed and wrinkled like old skin from water damage and age. Centered on the cover, almost lost among the damage are two barely legible words.
"Help Her."
The air gets worse the closer you come to the book. Right in front of it the air is so thick it feels like you're trying to breathe through a straw. Your heartbeat thuds in your ears like the footsteps of a giant building up to a sprint.
You dart your hoof out and flip it open.
Nothing happens. It's fallen open to a natural crease in the spine, but the pages are blank. You lean in, just in case there's some hidden message in the water damage.
Without so much as a warning the book bursts into flames!
"Whoa!" You reel back in surprise, but quickly compose yourself once you see that the fire's contained to the book and neither chasing you nor spreading. Looking closer, you realize the book itself doesn't even seem to be burning, just... on fire.
"Okay. I admit that one got me. Good jump scare. A+ for execution." Though you can only give it a C for concept. After the initial scare, a burning book's not exactly scary. If you were Twilight or they made it look like one of your autographed Daring Do first editions, maybe, but just a random book? Your only fear is the breakdown Twilight would have if she ever found out.
As you ruminate on all the ways Starlight could have made this room scarier, you fail to pay proper attention to the book as the fire goes out. As such, only your peripheral vision notices the ink as it starts to leech out from between the pages, running down the lectern and pooling on the floor like authorial blood.
The ink puddle grows wider with every passing second, running along the seams between the floorboards and swallowing the whole of the pulpit's base in absolute darkness.
You jump out of your skin as an inequine screech shatters the quiet of the library, shaking the books off the shelves forcing you into the air to not fall over as a sickening wave of nausea and dizziness passes over you.
A hoof reaches out of the puddle, dripping with something clear and viscous. You fight back the instinct to go and help, aided by a sense of urgency screaming at you to flee as far and as fast as possible. A second hoof joins the first, scrabbling at the edge, the shoe black and rusted beyond recognition.
With inexorable slowness, something that's almost a filly pulls itself from the puddle.
It's like someone took a crude drawing, brought it to life, and then murdered it in shame and anger. The parts of a filly are all there, just wrong. The legs are too long and too thin, the body pale and unfurred, the hair as thick as yarn. Her body flickers and stutters like she's not wholly in the same reality as you.
She screams again, blowing back her hair and giving you a brief glimpse of a wet and bloated face with pitch black eyes filled with hatred.
You need a plan and fast.
Mutated or cursed or whatever, it's still mostly a foal. You can FIGHT a foal and win, easy. Then again, if she is cursed, maybe you're should try and help her like the book said? You could try and TALK her down. Or maybe you'd be better off safe than sorry and SUMMON some backup? The answer could also be something unexpected. You haven't used that LOCKET yet, have you?
The book said 'help her', right? Obviously she's under some kind of curse and to defeat her you need to cure her of it. Then she'll turn back into a normal child, or an unpossessed doll, or a free spirit or whatever she is under her creepy transformation.
The only question is how. How are you supposed to help her? You don't know anything about breaking curses. Aside from blasting them with the Elements of Harmony but that's not something you can pull off alone.
Maybe it's not magic though, maybe it's literal. Starlight is Twilight's student, after all. Maybe just offering friendship is the easiest answer. Some lesson or other about not judging ponies for looking different than you?
It's worth a shot.
You put on as friendly a face as you can manage and give her a smile. No clue how she takes it since you can't see her face behind her really long bangs. Still, in for a bit, in for a bullion. "Hey there... you. I really like your... mane?" Admittedly not the best start but it's not easy to find something to compliment her on.
You take a few steps forward, slowly as to avoid looking like a threat. "Would you, uh, like a friend?" Geez, Twilight and Fluttershy make reforming creepy non-ponies look easy. They'd probably have her eating out of their hoof by now. Close enough now that you can feel the hard-to-breathe aura coming off her, you offer her a hoof of friendship.
She flickers, her body shifting in random patches between white, black, and grey for fractions of a second. She reaches out a hoof as well, mirroring your motion.
The tips touch. Hers is cold and damp, even the keratin of the hoof is unsettlingly squishy. But you give her a smile anyway. Maybe this will work after all?
She shrieks and lunges at you like a viper, and the last thing you see is a horrifying face, bloated and distorted in a rictus of animalistic fury.
[Not all poisonous animals have bright colors. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
"What the hay, Trixie?!"
She glances down at you from her balcony, idly picking something out of her hoof with a wooden stick. "What?"
"The book said 'help her' and she attacked me!"
She shrugs, shifting the fabric of her black robe. "You shouldn't believe everything you read. Especially in mysterious cursed-looking books. That's, like, just common sense. Third-grade magic school stuff, Rainbow."
"Yeah, well... whatever. What are you supposed to be anyway?"
She picks at her green and silver tie as if that's supposed to be some kind of clue. "If you knew, then you'd know better than to trust books that can give instructions."
"Fine, don't tell me then." It's not like you care anyway. How many costumes does she have stored away anyway? Feels like she has a different one ready every time you end up back here. That could be a fun challenge, actually. Do the haunted house so poorly that you find out just how many she has. Maybe next time, after you finish this first run.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
You thrust your locket at the monster, hoping beyond logic that it for some reason works. You tap the clasp, letting it pop open on silky hinges. A dark miasma of smoke bursts out, quickly snuffing the light and shrouding the room in darkness. There's a distorted scream, but the noise is broken like it's skipping and overlapping itself and then... and then...
...
...
...
You blink. You feel like you zoned out for a minute there. Weird. The locket sits closed in your hoof. Were you about to open it? Why? What good would a locket do you in this totally empty and boring library that Starlight forgot to install a scare in? Whatever. It doesn't matter.
You turn around and leave the way you came. Hopefully the next room will have something more interesting.
[Though you can't remember what, a part of you feels you saw something not meant for mortal eyes. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
There are four paths to chose from, TWO DOORS (one on either side of you), and TWO HALLWAY directions.
You break for the door as fast as your wings can carry you.
A book strikes your leg but you don't look back.
Her shriek resounds painfully through your ears but you still don't look back.
The glitchy wavering noise of her teleport starts popping quicker and quicker, and you definitely do not look back!
You shoot through the doorway like a rocket, bounce off the far wall, and slam into the door. A hair tentacle sneaks around the edge but you strike the door, forcing it to try and close over and over until the force of it finally shears the hair off. She screams in protest but you cut her off as the door finally shuts and latches.
You made it.
The severed tentacle flops and writhes for several seconds before going limp and dissolving into black mist that quickly disperses.
You take a deep breath. That was... intense. Really though, what kind of sick pony thinks up the idea of fighting a mutated filly with hair tentacles and and gross water breath? Your bits say it was Trixie. That mare was never quite right. One too many times being fired out of a cannon.
A part of you hopes that you won't need to go back and complete that room in order to finish the challenge. Another part relishes the idea of getting revenge and a comeback victory once you figure out what her weakness is.
Until then, you'll have to try the rest of the rooms.
There are four paths to chose from, TWO DOORS (one on either side of you), and TWO HALLWAY directions.
The monster filly shrieks at you again, her body flicking and stuttering like the reflection of a candle flame.
You can handle her. Even with her freaky long legs she's barely your size and you're mostly muscle compared to her skin and bones and whatever other horrors she's got under the surface.
"Alright kid," you say as you crack your hoof knuckles. "I think that's enough scary stories for one night. Time to put you to bed. We came do this the easy way or the hard way. What's it gonna be?"
In response, she unhinges her jaw and vomits a blast of something at you like a broken fire hose.
Now soaked through and liberally embellished with pond weeds, you thank your quick reflexes for shutting your mouth in the nick of time. It's only water, thankfully, but gross bog water that stinks of decay. It takes a lot of your mental fortitude to not heave at the smell or at he sensation of slick plant bits sliding off your back and neck.
"Alright, hard way it is!"
You charge at her, pumping your wings for extra speed. If you're lucky, one swift blow to the head will be enough to knock her lights out and end the fight quick and easy. You don't doubt that the squirt gun impression is the only freaky trick up her sleeve and you'd rather not draw it out to see how she escalates.
She flickers more harshly than usual, then suddenly vanishes completely and reappears a few feet to the side. You whiff right by, missing her entirely. Just perfect. She's a teleporter too.
You reach the back wall, brace against it and use that to give yourself a burst of airborne speed heading back. It's tight quarters to fly in, but being in the air will let you change direction much faster if she dodges again. She shoots another blast of water, following your afterimage as you evade her path of fire. It's not strong enough to hurt, but it'll knock you out of the air and leave you dangerously vulnerable for several seconds.
You strafe past, hitting her in the gut with a side kick that sends her flying back into the bookcase. Half-buried, she growls like an animal and starts throwing books at you. She must be stronger than she looks because those books are hefty enough to do damage and she's throwing them one-hoofed without effort.
You spin and dodge her projectiles with relative ease as you look for an opening to strike. Suddenly you're forced to dive as her pattern changes and the book fusillade triples.
Just like you were worried about, she's pulled out another trick.
Her thick hair has clumped together to form a set of clawed tentacles, each strong enough to grab and throw books on their own, with two lifting her up in replacement for her bony legs.
As much as you hate to admit it, this isn't looking good for you. She has you outgunned and has at least two ranged attacks to your none. No obvious weaknesses either. On the other hoof, at this moment she's about as far away from the door as she can get. If you're quick enough, then maybe it's time to call a tactical retreat.
No way! She may have started this fight, but you're going to finish it!
Sensing a pause as the filly runs out of book in range, you decide the time to end this is now! With one powerful strike!
Muscles tensing like coiled springs, you push off the wall, flying like a guided missile. At this speed, she'll barely have time to see you, let alone teleport!
Wings pumping like a bellow, you pile on even more speed. Closer and closer, each fraction of a second stretching out in your hyper-focused awareness. Ten lengths out. Five. One—
Her bangs part, revealing a glimpse of a dark smile as her mane moves even faster than you can comprehend. One instant you're flying at breakneck speed, the next your whole body aches from jerking to a sudden stop as she catches you in her hairy tentacles. One wraps around each limb and a fifth encircles around your stomach to clamp down your wings.
You are well and truly caught. Exactly, as her toothy grin indicates, to her plan
"Uh oh."
Like a cat that's finally grown tired of playing with its mouse, her tense posture loosens. She turns and begins to drift back towards the inky puddle from which she rose, only with you still firmly in her grasp.
"Hey! Wait! Can't we talk about th—urk!" Your desperate attempt at diplomacy is cut short as another length of mane wraps around your mouth, silencing you with the horrible taste of unwashed mane.
She enters the pool without so much as a ripple, sinking in painfully slowly. The substance clings to your fur as your hooves breach the surface, so icy cold you immediately lose all feeling. As her mocking grin submerges and the not-ink, not-blood, not-tar creeps up your legs, up your barrel, up your neck, you have only a moment to regret your hubris of not-retreating when you had the chance. And thus, the greatest hero of your generation is brought down by a filly-sized monster.
[The icy depths chill your soul. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
You awaken with a gasp as sensation returns to your body all at once.
Your limbs are free, your fur dry, and there's no trace of the library or that monster save for the lingering bitter taste of mane in your mouth. You're back in the foyer, perfectly safe from harm.
"A fair attempt, but a futile one."
Physical harm, anyway. You follow Trixie's voice to the balcony where she stands cloaked in a new costume. It's simple, yet not one you recognize, a long black cloak worn over a collared shirt, vest, and a silver and green tie. She's also twirling around a short stick in her magic. "I'm surprised you kept going so long after it became obvious you were out of your depth. Little Sammy's quite a hoofful."
"I don't back down from a challenge," you say defensively, even though you know it's not true. Part of being a competent flier who spends more of their time outside a hospital replies on knowing your limits and how far it's safe to push them. Not that you're going to say that to Trixie. "What kind of crazy specific fear was that supposed to be anyway?"
Trixie rolls her eyes. "It was a reference. One I'm sure Twilight will understand and appreciate far more than you did. Though that does explain why you didn't know the correct solution. The reference was a clue."
Finally, a useful clue from her taunts. Not that it matters since you're probably not going back. Maybe. Unless you figure out some key weakness that'll save you a repeat of your failed performance.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
Your Wand of Summoning leaves a sparkling trail in the air as its gentle tug guides you through a complex sweeping gesture. You slam it into the ground for the big finish, scattering motes of yellow light from the impact.
Almost immediately the wooden floorboards around you rupture and five zombies claw their way out of the ground. You recognize them immediately, but not as the same zombies you fought before. No, these look like zombified versions of ponies you know from around town. Zecora, Derpy, Thunderlane, Granny Smith, and Bulk Biceps (recognizable even without his head).
They're less rotted than the ones you fought, mostly they're just green with a few big wounds but even those look less gory.
They launch themselves at the filly-monster the moment they're free, charging in with snarls and growls like a pack of attack dogs. You move to follow, but Zombie Granny Smith gestures for you to stay back. The monster lashes out with her hair, the strands clumping together into clawed tentacles. Zombie Thunderlane goes down to a direct hit the the face, but the rest receive only glancing blows.
Since they're undead and don't need to breathe, the oppressive atmosphere isn't affecting them. Not being able to feel fear probably plays a part in their mad charge as well.
Zombie Bulk hits her with a full-body tackle, sending the hovering creature to the floor. She thrashes against him, but for the moment, his size trumps her strength. Half her hair tentacles turn from engaging the others to trying to pry him off. Zombie Derpy and Zecora leap at her distraction, dogpiling the returning tentacles to keep them occupied.
She shrieks again, her jaw making an awful cracking sound as it breaks and unhinges before loosing a torrent of foul goo like a broken fountain. It drenches herself, the zombies, and the edge of the splash zone even manages to reach you all the way in the back. It's water, but dirty and brackish, smelling of death and filled with bits of pond weed.
While you cough and gag from the bit that went in your mouth, the zombies fight on, wholly unaffected.
For all the monster-filly's inequine strength and extra limbs, pound for pound she's clearly outmatched. The zombies think nothing of a snapped limb, a drowning deluge, or even a broken neck. She screams and screams, but step by step your allies begin to push her back towards the inky puddle and then into it. They clutch tight to her legs and hair, dragging her down into the ink now thick as tar.
Soon they vanish beneath the surface, as does she quickly after with one final blood-curdling shriek that's cut off as black fills her mouth.
The puddle bubbles for a moment before bursting into flames, flash-drying your fur and charring the bookshelves, and swiftly burning down to nothing.
A cheery chime confirms your victory over this room, those you're not quite as happy as you could be. A strange melancholy fills your heart as you look at the spot where your zombie allies descended, now solid floor once more. You didn't know them very long and they were probably just magical projections anyway, but they still wore the faces of your friends and they sacrificed themselves to help you. You only wish you had a hat to take off as you honor them with a moment of silence.
Your quiet contemplation is soon broken by the arrival of your reward. A metal bucket, similar to what you'd find in a well, filled with more of that dirty water you were doused with earlier. You almost consider leaving it behind, if only so it doesn't spill and stink up the rest of you items, but in the end you decide to trust in Starlight's spells to prevent that from happening. The Bucket of Well Water fits into your Inventory easily, despite initially looking too big.
The glass and iron doors struggle open with a squeal of rusted metal. The hinges have weathered poorly and look more rust than metal.
You find yourself in a garden. Or the corpse of one.
The walls of the house box in this courtyard like the sides of a coffin, rising so high as to block the sky before being sealed off entirely by a glass ceiling now so filthy it's hard to believe it ever let through enough light to grow a garden. But grow it had, once.
The space is filled with memories of greener days. Tiered flower beds divided by a cascading water feature. Trestles and trellises placed on the path to form tunnels of vines and flowers. A trio of pony-sized hedges, lovingly trimmed into artistic shapes.
Every piece of it dead and dry. The flower beds empty, the archways collapsed, the topiary little more than brittle skeletons. What few plants remain are weeds, and what few weeds there are are dead. Every step you take is a cacophony as corpses of bushes and flowers crunch underhoof like old and brittle bones.
"Wow. Cheery."
In all the garden, only one thing sustains any signs of life. At the very center, prominently displayed in its own private patio, is a tree unlike any you've seen before. The branches are wide and grow out more than up, casting near half the garden in gloom, with a strange bark of alternating light and dark stripes.
You only know it's alive at all from the fact that it's in full bloom, though completely out of season. Small flowers the color of dried blood tip every branch.
You notice a small pedestal with a brass plaque installed near the edge of its reach and move to investigate. It reads:
Loomis Elm A rare specimen obtained from the far western continent. Blooms rarely, and only under exacting conditions. Most well-known for the potent nectar of its flowers, the quality of its wood in magic staves, and its marked aggressiveness towards ponies. Considered by many to be distantly related to the now-extinct Whomping Willow.
"Aggressive to ponies?" you repeat as a few loose leaves drift down from above. "How can a tree be aggressive?"
Your question is answered for you as a branch as thick as your foreleg slams to the ground, barely missing you. You hop back, but that branch was not the only one. The entire tree is thrashing about like an enraged octopus, wood groaning as its branches crash into the remaining landscaping and reduce it to rubble.
"Whoa!" you call as you backpedal away from another lashing strike. "I guess that answers that! Can't say I ever fought a tree before, but first time for everything!"
You've known ponies who cared for trees, ponies who lived in trees, and even ponies who wanted to be a tree, but surprisingly, you've never faced a monster that actually was a tree before. Except timberwolves, but those are pretty wildly different. Although... the same techniques might be effective. A little fire from your LANTERN could do the job. Or maybe it'd help to SUMMON some support? On the other hoof, maybe the answer to a mysterious magical tree is a EXPERIMENTAL FORMULA Or, if you don't think you have anything that can take it on, you can always RETREAT.
You duck as another swinging branch threatens to turn you into Rainbow Mash. The garden is a living obstacle course of rapidly moving threats, forcing you to constantly jump, run, and dodge.
You know you can't keep this up. You only need to make one mistake then it's game over. No more Rainbow Dash. You're sure you have something in your Inventory that would be perfect for this situation, but the branches strike so often you don't have any chances to stop and fish for it.
A low sweep forces you into a jump that you carry into a combat roll. Flying is totally out of the question. It's dangerous enough on the ground!
Through the branches you spot an opportunity. A cobblestone bridge crossing over where a water feature intersected the path. There's not much room underneath, but you saw it survive several hits from the branches which is better than anything else is faring.
Getting there is another matter. A series of close calls (one so close you swear your mane is an inch shorter at the top) makes you thankful the tree is only lashing out at random and not specifically trying to target you. You doubt you'd last a minute if it was. The journey was difficult, but you finally manage to scramble into the relative safety of the underbridge.
It's filthy. Full of dirt and sticks, yet you seem to be safe. Now all you need is a plan of attack. You use the momentary relief to search your Inventory Bucket for something helpful, and eventually settle on the lantern you got from the cultists. Even after being tossed around in your bag, the flame within the glass enclosure is going strong as ever.
You wait for a moment of relative peace between the thrashing branches. When it comes, you wind up your foreleg and throw the lantern as hard as you can before ducking back under the bridge and covering your face.
You hear a crashing sound, accompanied by shattering glass. Almost immediately follows a near-thunderous *woosh* as an entire garden full of bone-dry tinder goes up like a powder keg. The heat rolls over you in waves, but your stone shelter protects you from the worst of it,
Above the sound of crackling flames comes a horrible wail, a scream like a thousand ponies crying out in anguish.
You risk a peek.
Most of the garden seems to have burned down to ashes very quickly, save for a few scattered pockets. The Loomis Elm, however, is still engulfed in fire. Smoke, thick and tar-like, billows off of it and escapes through the one broken section of the glass ceiling. You swear you can see faces in it, melting and merging as the tree continues to burn.
It ends sooner than you expected.
The all that remains of the garden is a field of white ash. With the walls blacked out by soot, you can almost imagine you're in a winter field in the dead of night.
A chiming tone confirms your victory and something starts manifesting in front of you out of teal magic. The light vanishes to reveal... a Stick.
A walking stick, really. Maybe a staff if you're feeling generous. It's made of the same white and black wood of the Loomis Elm, but sanded down for a better grip. One end is rounded off while the other comes to a decently sharp point. You grab it and use it to sift through the ash as you walk back towards the doors. The last thing you want after such a great victory is to trip over some ledge and get a face full of ash and soot. 'Chimneysweep' is pretty low down on your list of Nightmare Night costumes.
You duck and dodge madly as the tree tries to knock you out of the sky like a pesky mosquito at a summer picnic.
You can't fight this thing! It's a tree! You might as well try and fight a boulder. Only boulders don't usually hit back.
You don't have any items that seem like they would help, and trying to punch a tree just sounds like a great way to hurt your hooves. As much as you hate to admit it... it might be time to make a tactical retreat.
Evading the branches to get to the exit takes some doing, but after a few close calls you eventually manage it. With your hoof on the threshold of the glass and iron door, you turn to take one last look at the still thrashing tree.
No one makes Rainbow Dash run away, not even a tree. You'll be back. Definitely.
...Once you figure out how exactly you're going to take down such a leafy behemoth.
But then it's lumbering time!
The hallway outside is much as you left it, even as you can still hear the sounds of angry tree behind you.
There are no more doors on this hallway, only the hallway itself which extends both LEFT and RIGHT.
You hop over another low-swinging as you consider your options. It's lucky enough that, for all the branches the tree has, they're pretty slow. Not slow enough that they won't severely hurt, but slow enough that you can see them coming. The hard part's keeping track of all of them at once.
What's effective against a tree? That's the million-bit question. An axe? That'd be great... if only you had one. Same with any other bladed tool; you're fresh out. A pony with less foresight might try fire, the natural weakness of trees, but given that you're trapped inside what's basically a giant tinder box and have no interest in becoming Rainbow Flambe, that's another idea to scratch off the list.
But what does that leave? Pretty much your bare hooves and the couple of oddball items in your Inventory that don't have a super clear and obvious purpose. Like the experimental formula you got from your twisted doppelganger. Who knows what kind of nasty stuff she put in there? It might even be poison!
...poison which could be useful against an angry tree.
Well, it's the best plan you've got at the moment. You sidestep another branch and take the vial from your Bucket, testing its weight in your grip. Ideally you want to hit the trunk itself.
You wait for an opening, bobbing and weaving around the branches that swing by too close for comfort, until you finally see your chance and throw it! The vial flies true, slipping between the branches and shattering against the main body of the trunk! The branches freeze in place as the tree seems to shiver, the fluid rapidly absorbing into the bark.
As you watch, a wave of color starts to spread from the point of contact, coloring in the white of the bark with a pale blue. It travels quickly along the branches until it reaches the blossoms, making the crimson petals pop into new rainbow shades.
And then it starts to move again. So so much faster.
It's like the tree's been kicked into overdrive as it forces you to jump, dodge, and twist. Worst of all, it was definitely just flailing randomly before, but now the tree is clearly targeting you specifically. Not just that, but you could swear it's toying with you. Four branches converge on your position, one lagging behind just far enough to give you an opening to squeeze through. Another branch chases you down as the rest try to guide your flight towards a rats nest of a wooden net. One near-failure after another, each one forcing you into greater and greater complex flight maneuvers to keep ahead. Until finally...
You feel a terrible pressure as something hits you in the stomach and back at the same time, clamping down like a vise. You struggle, but their grip is so strong you can't even feel your back legs. The branches pull you towards the trunk, to a large gash in the side you thought was a weird shadow. It's not. It's a deep chasm-like mouth, filled with millions of needle teeth. You close your eyes as you're forced inside and feel countless pinpricks across your body.
You last thought before darkness takes you is that maybe it was foolish to trust your fate to the creation of a crazy pony.
[Drained and dried, you will make excellent fertilizer. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
The sound of slow clapping rouses you from the embrace of Morponyeus. You look around in confusion briefly before recognizing the foyer of the haunted house. Again.
You groan as you realize that, once again, you let Starlight's magic influence your mind and make you forget that you were never in any real danger. On one hoof, it's really frustrating looking back on your foolish actions. On the other... holy moly does it make things seem real at the time! Who needs fights with actual monsters when you can get the same rush from spelling yourself to think an illusion is real? A mare could get used to that kind of thing.
Speak of getting used to things, you notice that Trixie hasn't started her usual critique of your choices. You glance up to the balcony and... yep, she's there. Dressed in a ratty old jacket, some kind of collar with a chain, and a beat-up hockey mask that looks older than you are. She says nothing as she meets your gaze (probably, it's hard to tell through the mask) only twirling a machete in her magical grip.
"Are you supposed to be some kind of homeless pony?" you quip. "Or would that just be your normal look?"
"I—what? Why you—!" She drops the knife (which clatters against the railing with the sound of plastic) and lifts up her mask to reveal a scowl. "First of all, I'm Mason Jar."
She pauses as if this is supposed to be significant. You shrug.
"Really? The famous Crystal Empire Smasher? Mute scourge of their lakeside community until Sombra recruited him as a general? Geez, pick up a book sometime. Secondly." She makes a rude gesture with her hoof. "I am not homeless! I have a very high-end wagon, thank you very much!" She slams her mask back down and resumes leering over you.
History was never your strong suit. Outside of Wonderbolts history, anyway, but that's a special case. So for all you know she might as well just made this Mason pony up and hoped that no one would call her bluff. Either way, it's really not your concern. You have more important things to worry about.
Like choosing new path that doesn't lead to you being eaten by a tree.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
You backpedal until you're out of its range. Lucky it's branches can't reach across the whole courtyard. That gives you a little breathing room to think and plan a response.
You can't fight it yourself, that much is obvious. Your hooves are sore enough already at the thought of trying to punch and kick a tree into submission.
One mare can't fight a tree alone... but six might make a difference.
You pull out your Wand of Summoning and... wonder how the heck you're supposed to use it. It's not like Twilight's magic, she just... lights her horn and stuff happens. Maybe if you stick the wand to your forehead...
No, that's ridiculous. You give it a shake and as you do, feel an odd pull from it to the left. It's a good a sign as any. You move the wand left till you feel it start to pull up. One direction at a time, it guides your hooves through a complex series of motions, loops and swipes and graceful arcs, at one point it even directs you to spin around. All the while the star crystal glows brighter and brighter.
Finally, the wand guides you to slam it into the ground, the impact scattering a burst of yellow sparkles. Where they land, the ground starts to crack and bulge, soon punctured by rising hooves. Five zombies pull themselves up and out of the dirt to stand at attention in loose formation around you. But these aren't the same faceless generic ponies you faced before. No, these ones wear the faces of ponies you know.
Bon Bon and Carrot Top. Sweetie Belle and Cheerilee. Even Soarin from the Wonderbolts. They're all strongly green and missing a few small parts like ears or horns or patches of fur, but they all look much less grossly rotting compared to the ones you fought before. Different enough that you can easily remember that they're magical creations and not the real thing.
"Alright team! We've got an angry tree on our hooves and I don't know about you, but I don't feel like getting turned into fertilizer." Zombie Sweetie Belle raises her hoof, but quickly puts it back down looking sheepish. "I'm the squishiest one here, so I need you all to keep that thing distracted as much as you can while I look for a weak point. Got it?"
Your team nods in understanding and agreement. At least you hope they are. Hard to tell just how functioning their brains are. They split up and charge into the fray from five separate directions. Zom Bon and Carrotten Top take to the left, Zombelle and Zombilee the right, while Zoarin flies in from above. As they enter the tree's range, the branches converge on their positions, reducing the number wildly thrashing through the air by a huge amount.
You take to the sky, thankful for the high ceiling, and start circling the tree. It has to have a weak point somewhere. All giant monsters do, whether it's a big glowing eyeball or old wound they try to armor over. All you have to do is find it, then the battle's half won. You give a glance to your newfound companions. Zom Bon and Carrotten Top are working together well, coordinating their movements so branches end up smacking into each other and getting their smaller branches tangled. Zombelle almost looks like she's having fun, hopping over low swinging blows like it's some kind of extreme jump rope with Zombilee bucking back the bigger threats heedless of the damage it's doing to her legs. Zoarin has taken a couple of hits and lost a foreleg, but his aerial ballet is tangling a lot of of the smaller whippy branches and keeping them off you.
They're doing well for now, but with enough small damage even they'll fall sooner rather than later, so you need to be quick.
You make another pass over the top of the tree, looking intently for any flaw or weakness. A glint of light catches your eye. There! Stabbed deep into the upper boughs of the trunk there's glint of metal.
"Peel it open!" you cry, hoping whatever magic makes them obey will also convey your plan. "I'm going in!" You turn your arc into a dive as Zoarin drags the upper branches' attention to the side. Zombilee and Zom Bon throw their partners into the air, coaxing apart the upper branches until the top looks like a mane of hair parted by a comb, leaving your target exposed.
You pump your wings, pouring on the speed, ignoring the few skinny branches that whip at your legs and barrel. As you approach, you can finally make out your target. It's a sword, made of a scratched black metal, half sticking out of a weird growth on the very top of the tree.
Indecision suddenly strikes you. Should you plunge the sword in deeper or pull it out?
Your hooves meet the sword, and with all the force of your dive behind you, plunge it in up to its hilt.
Green and black ooze spills from the wound as the tree screams. You've never heard a tree scream before and you don't think you'll ever be able to forget it.
You bank around as the branches start to shrivel and wither. Vitality drains from them as though time has been sped up. You land back near the pedestal with the plaque where it first attacked you, the zombies slowly congregating there while you watch the tree die. Branches start to fall as they lose the strength to support their own weight, dropping with crashes and booms as they crush what remains of the garden that their thrashing hadn't already wrecked. Soon there's just the trunk left with the sword still poking out of the top. It continues to shrivel and wizen until—with a resounding *crack!*—the trunk breaks in half and falls over. The sword shakes loose, clattering to the ground at your hooves.
You grasp the sword and thrust it into the sky. "That. Was. Awesome!" Your zombie allies groan approvingly, gap-toothed smiles on their faces.
"And it's all thanks to you guys!" You spread your hooves wide, accidentally severing Zom Bon's head in the process. "Whoops! Are you—" She waves you off with a grunt as she picks it up and places it back on her stump, slightly crooked. "Uh, okay. At least I get a cool sword out of this!"
As if hearing your words, a crisp chime resonates through the room, accompanied by your sword shriveling into a long stick of wood. "Aw. I knew it was too good to be true." Still, it's a very nice stick. Sturdy, good for whacking. A step better than fighting things with your bare hooves.
You turn your attention back to your new zombie friends. "So are you guys going to follow me around now or—oh." They've walked away while you were focused on the sword, back towards the holes they originally climbed out of. Holes they are now climbing back in. Somehow, this saddens you more than you expected. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Wouldn't be fair if I had your help in every single room." Carrotten nods as she shimmies into the hole that was made for her and pulls a pile of dirt over her head.
Something grabs your leg and you look down. It's Zombelle, giving you a hug. She looks up with a smile before letting go and taking a running leap into her own hole like she's some kind of high diver. She too disappears. One by one the rest rebury themselves, each giving you a nod or a smile before they go. Soon you're alone and the ground looks as smooth and undisturbed as any other part.
With an odd sense of melancholy tinting your victory, you take your Stick and make for the door.
Your decision made, you tilt your wings to turn the dive into a sudden rise.
Your hooves meet the sword, grasp it, and with all the force of your dive behind you, rip it from its wooden scabbard.
Green and black ooze bursts from the wound as the tree screams. You've never heard a tree scream before and you don't think you'll ever be able to forget it.
You bank around as the branches start to shrivel and wither. Vitality drains from them as though time has been sped up. You land back near the pedestal with the plaque where it first attacked you, the zombies slowly congregating there while you watch the tree die. Branches start to fall as they lose the strength to support their own weight, dropping with crashes and booms as they crush what remains of the garden that their thrashing hadn't already wrecked. Soon there's just the trunk left still squirting a thin stream of ooze out the top. It continues to shrivel and wizen until—with a resounding *crack!*—the trunk breaks in half and falls over.
You hold your breath for a moment to see if anything else happens. Some boss fights have a second stage, after all. But when a minute passes and it shows no signs of revitalizing, you thrust your sword into the sky. "That. Was. Awesome!" Your zombie allies groan approvingly, gap-toothed smiles on their faces.
"And it's all thanks to you guys!" You spread your hooves wide, accidentally severing Zombilee's head in the process. "Whoops! Are you—" She waves you off with a grunt as she picks it up and places it back on her stump, slightly crooked. "Uh, okay. At least I get a cool sword out of this!"
As if hearing your words, a ringing chime resonates through the room, accompanied by your sword shriveling into a long stick of wood. "Aw. I knew it was too good to be true." Still, it's a very nice stick. Sturdy, good for thwacking. A level up from fighting monsters with your bare hooves.
You turn your attention back to your new zombie friends. "So do you guys, like, join my party now or—oh." You realize they've walked away while you were focused on the sword, back towards the holes they originally climbed out of. Holes they are now climbing back in. Somehow, this saddens you more than you expected. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Wouldn't be fair if I had your help in every single room." Zoarin nods as he shimmies into the hole that was made for him and pulls a pile of dirt over his head.
Something grabs your leg and you look down. It's Zombelle, giving you a hug. She looks up with a smile before letting go and taking a running leap into her own hole like she's some kind of high diver. She too disappears. One by one the rest rebury themselves, each giving you a nod or a smile before they go. Soon you're alone and the ground looks as smooth and undisturbed as any other part.
With an odd sense of melancholy tinting your victory, you take your Stick and make for the door.
Running down the center of the room is a massive and a very expensive-looking table. High-backed chairs run down each side, their velvet backs ripped open in more cases than not. Four chandeliers hang overhead, each with a constellation of dripping candles that have grown both stalactites reaching down and matching stalagmites rising up from the table. It's fully set with plates, cutlery, glasses and all the little odds and ends needed to host a fancy function. All of it is incredibly tarnished and dirty.
All except for the head of the table. The spot closest to where you stand has no chair and actually has a very new and clean-looking set of silverware.
There's even food prepared and you can smell it from where you stand.
The scent of cheese and spices wafts across your nose, beckoning you forward. You obligingly follow the heavenly scent to the table. It awaits you there; a crisp tortilla, oozing with four types of cheese, stuffed with peppers and mushrooms. Next to it is a sign that says "Eat me".
You'd normally be incredibly suspicious of such a delectable-looking treat... if it weren't for the fact that you immediately understand what's going on.
"Okay, so I guess this is a special room just to mess with Twilight, right?" Of course Trixie would resort to pulling such a cheap trick against the mare she used to call her rival, but you're surprised Starlight agreed to go along with it. Someone using a knowledge of a friend's specific fear against them seems kinda un-friendship-y.
But, whatever. You're not Twilight, so for you this is literally a free lunch.
"Don't mind if I do!" It's not exactly Nightmare Night food, but that's no reason to turn it down. All this walking has made you a bit peckish anyway.
You polish off the quesadilla in under two minutes, though almost half of that is extra-slow chewing to savor all the rich flavors. Whoever's doing all the cooking for this event really knows what she's doing. It's supremely cheesy.
"Ahem."
You half-choke, caught mid-swallow by the sudden voice. You look to your left to see Spitfire's piercing gaze.
"Well?" she says, a note of irritation in her voice. "They're all waiting."
You look out across the room. Every seat at the table is filled with ponies in uniform. Grizzled veterans with more medals than free space on their breasts. Rising newcomers whose steely eyes gauge you for weakness. Politicians, financial backers, influential ponies of every stripe.
The entirety of the Wonderbolt High Commission.
You break out in a cold sweat as dread wells in your stomach. What have you done? Eating before everypony else? And just before your big speech? What is wrong with you?!
Spitfire's hot breath tickles you ear as she leans in to whisper. "Just so you know, rookie, I called in a lot of favors to get all these ponies here tonight to listen to your big proposal to completely overhaul the Wonderbolts structure, facilities, and marketing strategy. You screw this up it's my flank on the line just as much as yours. So don't."
Of course. You speech! Your... speech. Which you totally remember and hasn't completely flown from your mind. But you practiced it. Over and over in the mirror. Just... start talking and surely it'll come back to you.
You take a deep breath and begin. "Eshteemed 'aties an' 'entilmn." What was that? You clear your throat with a cough. "Eshtaemed 'agies-" No! Even worse! What is wrong with you? You try to clear you throat again, but why isn't it working?
Horror dawns as you realize. The cheese. The cloying delicious cheese is so thick it's coating your mouth, your tongue, your throat! You can barely speak a word till you get all this cheese out of your mouth.
"E'cuse meh." You reach for your glass, but it's empty. Everyone's is empty! There's nothing to drink!
"Dash," Spitfire says, and the barely concealed anger in her voice is palpable. "We're waiting."
What are you going to do?! You have to clear your throat somehow! Or maybe there's another option?
There's nothing! No water, no cider, no cola. Nothing! Not a single drop of liquid anywhere that you can use.
You try to swallow the lump in your throat, but even your spit is cheesy. You have no choice but to give the speech as you are and hope the High Commission is understanding.
Your speech. The speech you prepared? That you spent ages researching, drafting, practicing?
What was your speech?!?
It's gone! Completely gone from your mind! Like you never even wrote it! Spitfire just told you the topic and you still can't remember a single thing you're supposed to present!
"I—"
Maybe it'll just come to you? Just... start talking and let muscle memory take over.
"Ta bagin..." You cringe at your own voice. It sounds like your tongue's gone numb! You can feel the weight of all their eyes on you, waiting for you to get on with it. Some of them are getting impatient.
Your eyes snap to the movement of one of the accountants leaning over to whisper to her neighbor. Her words don't carry but the second pony frowns and nods. Your stomach sinks into your hooves and you start to sweat. What are they saying?
"Ah, tha prablm ees..." You try to start again but another set of whispers snags your attention, this time along with a badly concealed giggle. It's a pair of young stallions, two of the rising stars, the kind that would absolutely love to use you as a stepping stone in their own advancement. One of them shoots you a grin. He knows. He knows you don't have this.
"Get on with it already!" Spitfire hisses, her anger visceral enough to kill.
No! It's—it's too much! You can't do it! You can't speak, can't think! No words, no voice! You have to get out of here! Yes! That could work! Just run! Run away and then get injured and use that hospital time to relearn your speech then try again.
"E'kuze me!" You turn and bolt for the door, heedless of Spitfire's shouting after you. The door buckles under your push, but refuses to open. You slam your hooves against it, buck it, body slam it, but nothing works!
And then the murmurs from behind reach you.
"...I knew she couldn't handle it..."
"...waste of my time..."
"...embarrassment to the name..."
"...demotion enough? Maybe full expulsion..."
"...such a disappointment..."
Their harsh words circle you like harpies, striking at your weakness and ripping what remains of your pride to shreds. You cry out as a shuddering wave of utter failure rips through you like the claws of a mighty beast, to which you receive naught but more words of condemnation and more laughter from the ponies that'll use your failure to elevate themselves.
This is it. You're finished. The last thing you'll ever do as a Wonderbolt is get yourself thrown out for sheer bald-faced inadequacy.
And it's all your own fault.
[The worst trials are the ones we feel unprepared for. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
You find yourself in the foyer of the haunted house, emotions still in turmoil, but muted. The memory of your utter failure to make a presentation you hadn't heard of five seconds before is still there, but it feels distant now. Less real. Like a nightmare whose details are already beginning to fade. If only there'd been a Princess Luna around to help you out of this one.
"Did you enjoy your entrée? How do you feel about a second course?"
You glance to the balcony where you spy—who else would it be?—Trixie, dressed in a fancy chef's uniform and serving up a sly grin.
You don't want to dignify her with a response. Poking at such a personal fear like that was uncalled for, especially after the fake-out making you think it was just a thing for Twilight. It may be petty, but at least you can nit-pick her right back. "You know, the Wonderbolt High Commission isn't going to be nearly as intimidating to most ponies, especially nonpegasi."
"Is that what you saw?" she muses. "It's designed to change to fit whoever enters. Twilight would probably see Princess Celestia or, I don't know, the department heads from CSGU. I know Starlight sees Twilight and a bunch of ponies from her old village."
"Who do you see?" you ask, honestly a little curious.
"My fa—that's none of your business!" Her face goes red as she turns away so quickly it makes her hat go askew (though it somehow fixes itself a moment later). "Just keep going and stop asking silly questions!"
You shrug and turn away. She answered enough for you to figure out the answer. Though a deep dive into Trixie psyche is not something you have time for. There's more exploring to be done. Hopefully in rooms with less traumatic situations.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
That's right! You came prepared for this! Not for the cheese, but still!
You reach into your Inventory and pull out a thick sheaf of paperwork. "Ah din't kno' hiss 'ould be a 'inner." You struggle to enunciate as clearly as you can through the cheese, taking your time with each word. "Eet's ah written 'lan."
Satisfied that that was a decent delivery, you pass the paperwork to General Ironwings to your right. He accepts it with a small grunt of approval. "Hrm. I see. I wasn't entirely clear myself why we were doing this over dinner. Seems much more befitting a board room."
You nod. That had been your expectation, or so you remember. He flips through the pages, pausing here and there to read a passage or check a chart. After a minute he nods and snaps it shut. "Well then. Seeing how it seems we're not having dinner, I suggest we close this for the night and reconvene at a later date when the whole of the High Commission has had time to read over the proposal. All agreed?"
A wave of 'ayes' choruses through the hall. "All opposed?" Silence. Ironwings rises, as do the rest. "Then it's decided. Miss Dash, I look forward to reading over your work and discussing it with you at a later date.
You nod vigorously and shake his offered hoof. You've done it. You got your proposal in the hooves of those who can actually do something with it. Even unable to speak!
The High Commission files out the door, murmuring quietly to one another. You shake each of their hooves as they pass. The last to go by is Spitfire. "Well kid, I guess you did it." She looks back at the empty table. "A heads-up that it was a written proposal would have been appreciated, but no plan survives contact. Could have saved myself some trouble renting the place. But at least the general seemed interested and the rest'll follow his lead." She affectionately punches your shoulder. "Good job, rookie."
She too then exits, leaving you alone with your victory.
[Your soul fills with a sense of accomplishment. Subtract one (-1) from your Fear Meter]
It's a dangerous decision. Who knows what kind of unnatural, unhealthy, or even poisonous things that madmare might have put in her concoction! It might not even be meant to be drunk! For all you know, it's supposed to be injected into your hooves!
...but it's the only liquid you have, and the High Commission is waiting.
Your hooves leaden with dread, you pull out the vial of experimental formula and pop out the stopper.
The fluid is foul as it glides across your tongue, coating it but also loosening all the cheese. It oozes down your throat, thick as syrup, but bitter and sour like bad grapes.
You cough once, dislodging the last of the cheese. At last, your tongue is free! But your speech... how did it go again? What were you going to say?
Just as you start to panic, a sudden surge of warmth and confidence floods your system. It starts in your stomach and radiates out, filling you with a determination like nothing you've ever felt before.
Your worry fades away as a confident smirk settles onto your face.
You've got this!
"Now then, regarding my proposal for what I've been calling the Wonderbolts Revitalization Project. I've spent a great deal of resources analyzing our current organization, public standing, and practical effectiveness versus comparable groups. From that data I've devised a plan that can be broken down into eight major tenets which, if successfully implemented, will propel our organization to new heights like we've never reached before."
The words pour out of your mouth with barely a thought. Grand plans and designs, innovations and upgrades, reorganizations and rebrands. You've thought of everything and it all comes out so naturally it feels amazing that no one ever thought of such obvious solutions before. You recite facts and figures with perfect recall, citing all your sources when asked. You quote famous ponies and snap back with breakdowns of the expected criticisms. There's not a moment of wavering confidence or flagging energy to be found.
You talk for hours, never stopping, never even taking a break. You don't need to! You're on a roll!
And it's all so easy! You barely even have to think about what to say before you've already said it and supported it with three clever arguments. It's like everything about you, everything that makes you Rainbow Dash has been magnified. Your confidence, your memory, your drive to succeed, even your natural charm. It's like you're twice the mare you were five minutes ago!
When you at last finish, the High Commission responds with a standing ovation! Generals, old money backers, retired Wolderbolts, parliament representatives, everypony stands and applauds at your brilliant presentation! Cheers and accolades come from every direction; you even swear you hear someone say you should get a field promotion on the spot!
They begin to file out of the room in high spirits, already discussing how to implement your ideas as quickly as possible. So many ponies shake your hoof you fear it might just fall off! One of them even passes you a Wonderbolt signet ring! Finally, it's only you and Spitfire left.
"I knew I saw something in you, kid. I've seen the Princess give speeches that weren't half as good!" She claps you on the back so hard it nearly knocks you over. "Ha! Keep this up, and I'm gonna be saluting to you soon!"
She exits as well, leaving you alone to privately whoop and dance in victory!
[Your soul fills with a sense of great accomplishment. Subtract two (-2) from your Fear Meter]
It's a disgusting, horrible decision, but you really have no choice. It's either this, or watch your whole career go down the drain.
Aware that all eyes are on you, you remove the bucket of well water from your Inventory and pour yourself a glass. It's far from clean, tinged beige with whatever nastiness is inside. There's even little bits of algae floating through it.
But it's all you have.
Quashing your disgust as best you can, you bring the glass to your lips and drink.
If anything, it's worse than you imagined. You nearly spit it out the moment it touches your tongue, but you persist, fighting past the gag reflex. It tastes of swamp and mud, of fetid things and long-expired salad. And yet you can feel it taking the cheese with it as you choke it down.
Finally, after an eternity you finish the glass and set it back down, panting at the effort. The assembled High Commission continues to watch, silent in their cold indifference.
You clear your throat once more, feeling it finally clear properly. "Sorry about that, ladies and gentlestallions, I had something in my— *Urgh*."
No. Not again.
"Something in my—*Urfp*."
You cough and gag. There's something caught in your throat. It feels like a leaf or blade of grass didn't make it down. Your throat convulses again, forcibly expelling it back into your mouth. With every stalled second counting, you lift a napkin to hide your mouth with one hoof while the other grasps it off your tongue.
You grab it, but even as you pull you can feel it tickle then back of your throat. You pull it farther, a hooflength out. Two. Still you can feel the end of it hanging down your throat. There's enough out now you can see it.
It's a long black hair.
You continue to pull, dropping the napkin to free your other hoof. One hair becomes two, then three, tangled together into a rough cord.
More and more comes out, scratching up your throat as coils of rope-like hair start to form on your plate, ever getting thicker as you go.
Pull after pull, thicker and thicker, more and more hair.
Finally you tug and it stops. Again, but no more will come out. It's stuck. You breathe through your nose as you wrap the rope around your hooves and put your all into it. No thought is given to the High Commission or your presentation, you need to get this out!
With a herculean pull that knocks you off your hooves, the blockage dislodges, filling your throat and mouth and distending your jaw to a painful degree. Eyes watering, you strain to look down and see what it is you've been choking on.
A familiar pale and bloated face looks back, her skull and shoulders deformed from being forced through your jaw.
You try to scream, but you can't. Your mouth is still full. The monster filly screams instead.
You remember nothing else but a terrible sensation of movement within you.
[Not all monsters stay beaten. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
You cough and choke as you wake up, your body desperate to void itself of a blockage that's no longer there. You dry heave for a few minutes before the sensation of it finally fades into memory. You rise in the foyer, shaken, but whole and unharmed.
"I really—"
"Seriously Trixie, what the buck?"
She seems startled by you cutting her off, but you don't care. You don't care about how she feels, whatever witty little quip she has ready, or why she hasn't got a new costume. All you care about is venting.
"Like, really? Making me cough up a whole pony hair-first? Who thinks up something like that? What if Fluttershy was doing this? Or Pinkie Pie? You think they'd come out okay after something like that? Faust above, I don't know if you need more drugs or less!"
She stares down at you, unimpressed. "You done? Great. First of all, that's not something Starlight or I designed. You did an action we never expected and didn't plan for, so the spells figured out a solution based on the context. Second, duh we wouldn't do that to them! Unlike some ponies, we have common sense! But you told me to put it on the highest scare setting! So of course the spells created the worst possible fate. This is all on you! Who takes a bucket of cursed water and decides that drinking it would be a good idea?!"
"Maybe if you didn't make me think my career was on the line, I'd have been thinking clear enough to come up with something better!"
"Sounds like not my problem!" she fires back. "You made your decision, you face the consequences! Don't start blaming me for your bad judgement!" With that, she turns on her hoof and storms off.
Alone, even angry as you are you can't help but feel she may have had a point. Part of one. But it was her that goaded you into agreeing to the highest setting, so she's not off the hook either!
Still fuming, you turn to the halls to decide your next direction.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
The room is more brightly lit than you expected thanks to the roaring fires.
It's a kitchen, of sorts, though a kind of old-fashioned one like you'd see in castles. The whole back wall is a row of brick ovens, all fully fueled and burning merrily, the fire poking through their openings looking like leering grins. There's a fireplace in the middle, also burning full tilt and keeping a giant cauldron bubbling with a thick goopy mass.
The whole place is a mess. All the tables overflow with flowers and dried plants and strange animal bits preserved in bottles in colored liquid. Across the central island counter are scattered a collection of old looking tools. Mortar and pestles, grinding wheels, odd contraptions of glass and brass heated by tiny fires that puff out steam or drip chemicals from one glass to the next. Everything looks freshly used if not actively in use. A rack by the side holds dozens of rounded glass bottles, each filled with colorful liquid and labeled with small slips of paper.
The air is thick with more competing scents than you can identify. Smoke, spices, sickly sweetness, sweat, and a hundred other. It leaves you lightheaded and slightly dizzy.
Aside from the roar of the flames and the bubbling of the potions, all it quiet.
"Well, well weeeelll! What doooo~ we have here?"
You jump as a figure suddenly bursts out of the pantry.
She's shorter than you, but not by much. A mare with a bushy mane tied back in a loose bunch, a white bathrobe, and the wildest most giddy grin you've ever seen.
Something feels... uncomfortably familiar about her.
"Uh, hi?" you venture.
She doesn't respond, choosing instead to take a running leap over a table full of materials like a cat and land way too close in your personal space. She smells of ammonia and smoke, but those only hide a ranker scent you can't put a name to. Her piercing blue eyes measure you up and down like a fresh veggie at the farmer's market.
"Ooh~! Yes, very nice, yes. Quite something, aren't you, sweet thing? Good build, nice lithe muscles." You can't help but smile and preen a teensy bit under the praise, uncomfortable though it is. "Excellent teeth." You snap your lips shut. That's just a step too weird.
You've had just about enough of the creepy-personal-space-invader room. Time to move on to something actually scary and less... skeevy. "Sooo... I think I'm gonna just... go."
The mare pushes up her thick glasses and fixes you with a piercing stare. Her eyes look like she's frowning but her grin stays fixed in place. Her eyes are so bloodshot it looks like she's infested with stringy red fungus. "Go? You can't go! We haven't even gotten to know each other yet! I haven't shown you any of my potions! I make the best magical potions! There's no one alive who's a better potioneer than me! I made sure of it."
You give the room one more glance. Rack full of magical, no doubt potent potions. Cauldron full of quivering slime. Table full of sharp metal tools stained with who-knows-what. Mad pony with too many teeth in her smile. Yeah, no.
"Yeah, I'm out." It doesn't even look like there's anything here that'd be useful later, just junk. You turn to leave, only to feel an unexpectedly heavy and sticky hoof fall on your shoulders.
"Maybe I wasn't clear enough." She pulls a lever hidden amid the mess and a portcullis slams down in front of the door. At the same time, a platform suspended by chains descends from the ceiling. There's thick leather straps bolted to it, arranged just right to hold down a pony's legs, head, and barrel. Every part of it has red stains of various age. "I'm afraid I must insist." She giggles, high and child-like. "It's not every day a fine source of reagents like you wanders right into my lap! You're not going anywhere."
Trapped with a witch in the seat of her power. It's like the worst of every fairy tale. There's two options you can see: FIGHT, and fight using an ITEM. There might be something you can use to beat her; most witches in stories have some glaring weakness.
You jump back and take to the air before she can get too firm a hold on you. No way are you getting anywhere near that freaky table!
"Aw, come on!" she whines. "You don't have to make this difficult. You imagine all the new potions I'll be able to invent using you as the base!"
"How about no?" All the hot air from the ovens is gathered at the top of the room and it's making flying difficult. Not impossible, but any pegasus less skilled than you would be flapping like crazy just to stay up.
The witch follows you from the ground, hopping over or around obstacles without caring what she knocks over. "Flying potions! Speed potions! Blue potions! Rainbow potions! Potions that make you unable to land! Potions that grow one of your head right next to theirs! You're holding back the advancement of magic. Stop being so greedy!"
She grabs a potion off the rack and chucks it at you. It misses and splatters against the ceiling, but a few drips still splash on your tail. After a second leaves start growing on the spots. The witch's eyes widen as big as dinner plates, her smile following soo after. "On second thought, keep being so greedy! I'd been meaning to dispose of these failures."
Your flight suddenly becomes dodging practice as she starts throwing failed potions as quick as she can grab them. You swerve and shift, rise and dive to throw her off, but even with her bad aim every missed throw makes another toxic patch of ceiling or wall it's no longer safe to go near.
You make a hairpin turn as the wall in front of you suddenly slumps into green jelly, fire from the inside of the oven behind it rapidly bringing it to a boil. A pink potion catches you in the foreleg and you hold back a scream as your flesh warps and twists into a slimy tentacle.
"Ha! Gotcha! More new materials! I bet I can make a flying-fish potion out of that!"
This just went from annoying to outright dangerous. You double your focus, but with her seemingly-endless supply of ammunition, you can't even get close enough to try and fight back.
You gasp as another one catches you in the wings mid-barrel roll, sending an icy chill through your feathers. No! If she takes away your flight, that could definitely be the end! Your pinions groan and crack before suddenly bursting into a fully grown pair of wings on the tips of your existing ones.
"Double pegasus!" she cackles. "Twice the wings, half the control! Get it now while supplies last!" And she's right. Though your wingspan is huge now you have no experience working with them.
You flail through the air, evading most of them through sheer luck, but more and more close calls means you get hit with small splashes of blowback. You squawk in alarm as something drips on your muzzle and it hardens into a long beak. Another catches you in the tail, turning it into seven rainbow snakes that writhe of their own will and throw off your balance. Your ears scrape the ceiling as they grow and split into a mighty rack of antlers.
A dozen more minor changes make you ever slower and less nimble until the killing blow finally comes when a grey potion turns your back legs to stone. The weight is too much and you plummet to the floor, squawking all the way down.
The witch trots over to you, happy as a clam, and inspects your new form. "Oooweee! This is positively absolutely fantastic! So many new ingredients to try, so many new potion ideas!" She musses up your mane, patting your head like some kind of sick pet. "We're going to such good friends, you and I! And to think, once I harvest all this off I'll hit you with a few healing potions and we can start testing the new batch! Endless potions!"
You try to speak, but you can only chirp. You try to move, but your legs hold you in place. You're trapped. Totally and completely at the mercy of a demented madmare who's never so much as heard the word 'ethics'.
She reaches into the pile of tools and pulls out a long and bloodied saw. "Here we go. Now the real fun can begin!”
The last thing you remember as you black out is her ever-widening smile and her maniacal giggling.
[She is ready. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
You awaken to the sound of humming. Some old schoolyard rhyme, but you can't remember the words. The foyer around you looks much as you left it, it's only Trixie that's different.
Up on her balcony, she's changed out her costume for something new. It's a simple dress (though a voice in your head that sounds an awful lot like Rarity reclassifies it as a frock) with an apron. It's so old and tattered that whatever the original color was has faded to a greenish-grey. What's more concerning is the bloodstains around the hem and on her slippers.
Well, it'd be concerning if you weren't acutely aware that this is Nightmare Night and she's wearing a costume and it's all not real. You have to give her credit; Starlight wasn't exaggerating when she said you might forget what's real and what isn't.
"Well, well, well," Trixie titters, "look who's late to the party. Did you have fun on your playdate? Little Twinkie can be such a rascal when she gets excited. Too much sugar, too little oversight, I say. But she's a Good Girl at heart."
"If that's what you call good, I'd hate to see her when she's being bad."
"Oh you would," Trixie agrees, her tone suddenly serious. "You don't want to see the first version of her we made. We had to tone her way way down. We'd probably get arrested if we set that version on anypony."
With the revelation that you just faced the easy version of the witch, you leave Trixie behind to her humming (that's not as unsettling as she probably thinks it is) and decide where to go next.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
All of a sudden, it finally dawns on you why this mare seems so familiar.
She's your friends. Or parts of them.
She's what happens if you mix Pinkie's wild energy and enthusiasm with Twilight's need to learn and passion for magic. You get a hyperactive researcher who's doesn't have the self-control to know when to stop.
Now that you know it, it's easy to see that "mix parts of Twilight and Pinkie" is exactly what Starlight did. The signs are even in her body. Pinkie's pudgier frame with Twilight's long neck. Pinkie's mane tamed into waves and tied back. Twilight's high brow paired with Pinkie's dimples. It's like looking at their daughter.
Their completely mad, bonkers-insane, wants-to-chop-you-up-into-potion-ingredients daughter.
On the other hoof, if she has all the quirks of her... mothers? No, that's a weird road you do not want to wander down. Templates? Good enough. If she has all the quirks of her templates then the tricks you know to handle them might work with her as well.
And when either Pinkie or Twilight starts to fall into one of their super-focused states where they get totally tunnel-vision to anything outside their goal, there's one sure-fire way to knock them out of it.
"Hey look! What's that?" You point behind her.
"Huh? What's what?" The moment she turns away—
"Boot to the head!"
—you whack her upside the head with the Boot from your Inventory.
There's no need for it to be a boot specifically. For Twilight you usually use a book and a baking sheet or frying pan for Pinkie. Either way, a sudden shock usually works just fine to snap them out of it, then they apologize, you apologize and everypony gets on with their day.
Simple as pie.
…Except the witch isn't getting back up. You didn't hit her that hard. Twilight would have walked that right off. Pinkie might not even have noticed. And yet she doesn't look like she'll be getting up anytime soon from where she collapsed bonelessly to the floor.
You sneak a hoof around, wary for sneak attacks, and stick it under her muzzle to check for breathing. Great. She's still alive. No sign of blood either.
You wait, but there's no bell or chime or anything to signify that you've beaten the room. You could just stick around and wait for her to get up... but that sounds incredibly boring. You're here to have fun and get scared (and to make a point to Trixie). None of which is getting done just hanging around.
Finding the hidden lever she pulled before takes a minute, but once you do, pulling it the other way retracts the restraint platform away and also lifts the portcullis on the door.
You check her one last time before quietly making your exit.
There are six paths open to you from this point. There's a DOOR next to you and also two across the hall. The hallway itself continues both to the LEFT and RIGHT and also has a secondary path splitting off to your RIGHT.
While you'll freely admit that you may not be the most well educated in the fine differences between the various fields of magical study (you wouldn't know the difference between an enchanter and an artificer), if you've learned anything from Zercoa it's that potioneering is a subskill of witchcraft (voodoo witchcraft in the zebra's case). And if there's anything you know from fairy tales, it's that witches have two very big weaknesses.
One is being shoved and then locked inside flaming ovens. And while the presence of six massive ovens in the same room might be something of a clue, you're honestly not too comfortable with the idea of throwing a pony into a fire (and then watching them scream and burn like it's the Saddle Witch Trials).
Which is why your plan is option number two.
Before she can to anything terrible to you, you whip out your bucket of well water and fling the contents across her.
"Ha! Why don't you try this potion then!"
The witch looks back at you, very wet and with pond weed draped over her head, but otherwise no worse for wear. She licks her lips. "Mm. Interesting flavor."
It didn't work. Why didn't it work? As you start to panic, she continues her analysis of your failed attack. "I'm getting notes of algae, rot essence, is that a trace of ink I detect?" The short witch sucks on a lock of her mane. "Definitely ink. Strong undertones of fear with a dark magic base. Seems stagnant though." She smacks her lips. "Left it in the alembic too long? Naughty, naughty. No wonder it's gone off."
She looks up at you and fires off another face-splitting smile. "Not bad work, overall! If you trained under me for a few years, I might be able to make a decent potioneer out of you. Buuuut then I wouldn't get to harvest some rare pegasus ingredients. Oh well! I didn't need an apprentice anyway. Now come'ere!"
She lunges at you, only to immediately trip and fall on her face. You lean down to her. "Uh... you okay?"
"Never better!" she replies cheerily as she unsticks most of her face from the floor. "Lemme just check something." She lifts her robe then drops it again. "Ah, thought so. It seems I no longer have any legs. Bother."
That's not all she doesn't have. You've been watching her slowly melt like a candle in the sun even as she acted completely unaware of it. It would have been much grosser if you could see all the bones and blood, but she seems to be the same color all the way through.
"Oh rats," she muses as her face starts to merge with the puddle that's become of the rest of her. "I'm going to leave a terrible stain."
With those final words, the last of her melts away into a pool that's quickly draining away through a crack in the floor.
A bell chimes somewhere above you, signaling your victory. You eye the puddle one last time. It seemed like a cruel way to go, but if she never even noticed, at least it was painless?
Before you can dwell on that too long, a glowing light illuminates a ratty broom resting beside her cauldron.
"I guess that's my prize?" When nothing happens to contradict your theory, you go and take it, stuffing the Broom away into your helpfully expansive Inventory Bucket.
"What a weird pony," you remark as you hop over her remains on your way to the door. "Feels like they took the worst parts of Twilight and Pinkie and fused them together. All the crazy, none of the caring. All the magical study, none of the logic."
You can't wait to find out how the two of them'll react when they encounter her.
You enter a room that looks like it might have once been some kind of fancy bathroom.
The walls and floors are both tiled up in a pleasant pattern of blues and whites, what you can still see beneath the grime. Off to one side is a tub big enough that you could get away calling it a small pool, wide enough to fit half a dozen ponies easily. The sinks have all been ripped out or smashed, leaving the floor littered with broken porcelain. The less said about the toilet the better.
Someone has also clearly made themselves at home and it looks like they raided Twilight's basement lab to do it. Strange machines with buzzing gauges and sparking electrodes are bolted to the walls or haphazardly stacked in piles, stitched together with wires and tubes. Pipes cover the walls like jungle vines, connecting machines to one another or just disappearing into cracked holes in the wall.
What little free space remains is covered in diagrams. Medical sketches of hooves, horns, wings. A Vitruvian Mare with her magic channels illuminated. The anatomy of a wing, with parts crossed out and rewritten.
The whole place reeks of chemicals that sting your nose and make your eyes water.
"So. This is the kind of trash I have to work with these days."
A mare you hadn't noticed slips out of the shadows between the wall and a stack of blinking machines. She blends in so well with the room she's practically invisible. Her once white jacket's dulled to almost the same shade as the machines. Her coat and mane, however, almost look like they have too much color. The shades aren't just dark, they've unevenly oversaturated.
But it's her face that makes your heart stop and your body freeze in place. A face that's so unfathomably familiar, yet one you almost never see.
Except in one place, every day.
The mirror.
"What the fresh hay is this?!" you demand. "Why do you look like me?!"
The other Rainbow Dash looks down on you with a scowl, a cruel and toxic thing made worse by the jagged scar running across her face and through her milky eye. "Don't kid yourself, sunshine. There's a passing resemblance, but you don't have a tenth the chroma I do. Just another washed up filly who thinks she's something special."
You're taken aback, not just by the harshness of her words, but also the vitriol with which she spits them. Maybe in some small part of your mind, you expected a pony who looks like you to also act like you. Clearly, that part is wrong.
"Chroma?"
"Chroma," she agrees and steps out fully into the half-light. "Magic essence. The quiddity of Equestria. That vital quintessence that makes ponies who we are." She strokes the side of her machine, gazing longingly into its blinking lights. "I've spent so long studying Chroma. Learning its secrets. How to measure it, manipulate it," She turns to you with a predatory glint in her eye. "How to extract it."
"Extract—"
"Yes, extract it!" She lurches over to another machine and turns a valve. Sickly-looking blue and pink fluid starts to pour from a faucet on the machine's side, spilling out into a channel cut through the floor. "Look at it! The very lifeblood of magic! Purified! Distilled!" She scowls again and strikes the weak flow with her hoof, sending it splashing across the room. "And still impure! Their Chroma was weak and tainted! That's why it failed! That's why I need more. More Chroma. More experiments." She turns to you. "More research subjects."
A cold sweat runs down your back. "Hold on, you don't mean me?"
"And why not you? You're no different than any other. You look like you might have enough to give me a few cups' worth after it's extracted and purified. Though I'll let my machines handle that process."
At her words, the wall behind the tub opens up, revealing a contraption of monstrous design. An iron cage, shaped to barely fit a pony within, their limbs spread and fixed in place. It's covered with needle-tipped wires and tubes clearly poised to be inserted into the flesh of its unwilling occupant. The lower bars are all stained with a rainbow of noxious sludge. Only now do you notice that the tub beneath it is actually full. What you thought was mere shadow is a thick brownish morass, the result of hundreds of shades of color mixed together. A faint swirl of pink and blue shows where the drainage channels lead.
"Now. Enough of this useless chatter. Are you going to comply with my supremely important work, or are we going to have to do this the hard way?"
Trapped by your mad scientist of a doppelganger who wants to use you for her next experiment. Time to FIGHT for survival. But if she is you, on some deep level, maybe you can TALK her around? If that fails, you can always use an ITEM.
No, no you can't accept that the only option is to fight. She's you! A dark, twisted version of you, but a version all the same. You have to believe that somewhere, deep down beneath the chemicals and anger, there's still some part of her that can relate to you. A part that remembers a time before whatever happened that made her like this.
You just have to reach it.
"You can't do this! It's evil!"
"Evil?" she shakes her head. "Evil is just a word. A word for a means that has yet to be justified by a worthy end. Stopping now? Letting my great work go unfinished? That would be evil. When I finally succeed at perfecting the process, it'll all have been worth it."
"But what about all the ponies you're hurting?" you plead. "What about them? Their dreams?"
"Eggs and omelets. Their sacrifice was for the greater good. Every failed experiment is a step closer to success."
It's not working. Your words just slide right off her. She truly doesn't care about the pain she's causing. It's... is this how ponies see you? The worst parts of you, at least? Magnified to an extreme where they eclipse the good. A single-minded drivenness with no regard for safety. An overbearing confidence that everything she does will work out; that failure isn't even a possibility. Loyalty to a cause, an idea, at the expense of everything else.
She doesn't just share your face, it goes deeper than that. She is you at your absolute worst. A mare condensed down to her most vicious and despicable traits. Pride. Callousness.
There is no reasoning with her. She's so stitched together by her own philosophy that if she were willing to pull the thread, everything that makes her up would collapse.
She has to be stopped. Not just for your own sake, but for all the other victims of her twisted experiments, past and future.
You set this thought in your mind as a focus as you concentrate on the fight ahead.
If this mare really is a version of you—and deep down, you can feel that she is—then there's a chance that despite whatever molded her into this twisted mockery, she might still share some of your most fundamental fears.
Fears that you've been getting very well acquainted with today.
With that in mind, you take the stack of Paperwork out of your Inventory. Jackpot! An almost invisible wince at the sight of it. Now you just need to roll with it.
"Alright, I accept. But if I'm going to be involved in any experimentation then you're going to need to sign a few things."
Her flinch is visible now. "S-sign? No, I don't think—"
"First there's the standard release forms." You lay two sheets atop a nearby machine. "Followed by ones for physical, mental, and spiritual safety." You add more papers to the pile.
"You can't—" she tries to interrupt but you steamroll over her objections.
"If you're going to be using any previously undocumented techniques then you'll need to file forms with the Bureau of Health and Pony Safety, the Department of Science, and the Medical Board. They should get back to you in a few weeks." You step forward and place the new papers on a different machine.
Your double's eyes practically pop out of her head. "Weeks?! We're doing this now!"
You suck air through your teeth. It's amazing how easy it is to slip back into those memories of office life. You never had to deliver this kind of news but you remember many managers who did. Parroting them is as easy and natural as mimicking your friends. "Mmm, yeah... That's not gonna happen. If you want you can file a priority request with the Minister of Efficiency—" another paper on another machine as you start to circle around her to find more space "—but he's on vacation so you really should have filed it last week."
"Last week I didn't—"
Her proud stance is gone, now cowering in on herself as her eyes dart from one pile of papers to the next. Time to really lay it on.
"And while we're at it, when was the last time you had this place inspected? Gonna have to get somepony in for that. Take this service request form. Take three; they like it in triplicate. What about that trotsla coil? That have a permit? That's three forms for local, state, and federal permission. Oh, and another three for registration of it after the permit arrives." You heap papers into her hooves, intentionally letting them slip away from her so she has to scramble to collect them all up.
"Is that an open tub full of mysterious fluids? POSHA's gonna have your flank for that. Better get started on the incident reports now. And look at all these loose wires and pipes! That's an incident report for each one. Is this licensed? Is that cleared? Do you have the certification to operate these? Are—"
"Gah!" Other Rainbow Dash throws the papers into the air and clutches her mane, her body shaking like a frightened animal. "I can't take it! The paperwork! The tedium! The pointless bureaucracy holding back my work at every turn! This is why I left the Factory! Why I struck out on my own! To escape from all this bureaucratic red tape and actually make progress. I won't be sucked back into that world! You can't make me!"
She takes a running leap towards the sludge filled tub. "Better not alive, than nine-to-five!" she screams, laughing madly as she cannonballs into the tub and sinks beneath the surface.
A single bubble rises to the top and pops, but no more.
A ringing chime sounds throughout the room as you finally relax. Coming up with all the nonsense on the spot was not easy. It's a good thing she finally cracked because you were about to run out of plausible sounding things to need paperwork for.
One of the machines beside you rattles then dings before a sliding hatch opens towards you. Inside are two things. The first is a slim glass vial capped with a cork and filled with a rainbow liquid. Even as you give it a shake the colors don't mix and quickly separate back into layers. A small label on it reads 'Warning! Experimental Formula'. The second item is a small card with gilded edges with the inscription:
The inspiration for this room was drawn from the winning entry to the Ponyville Young Horror Writer's Club Nightmare Night short story contest. To read the story in full, come visit us Tuesday and Thursday evenings in the schoolhouse annex from six to eight. Ask for a copy of 'The Rainbow Fracturing' by Scooting Along and Aura Dog.
You have no idea who one of those ponies are, but the pen name of the other is so obvious you kinda wonder why she even bothered. Sometime soon you need to have a long chat with that filly about illegal use of other ponies' image in media.
You tuck both the note and the vial of Experimental Formula into your Inventory.
It's a shame about your counterpart, but there was nothing you could do to help and, in the end, she chose to go out on her terms. You can't fault her for that.
You leave the bathroom-turned-science-lab with a clear conscience, ready to continue your adventure. Though hopefully against less personally targeted frights.
There are six paths open to you from this point. There's a DOOR next to you and also two across the hall. The hallway itself continues both to the LEFT and RIGHT and also has a secondary path splitting off to your LEFT.
If you had a bit for every time you've hit an evil-minded pony with a magical item to make them repent and see the light of friendship, you'd have at least two or three bits. Which isn't a lot, but it's a place to start.
You don't exactly have your Element of Loyalty handy, but you do have a bucket of water that may or may not have traces of some kind of curse in it.
It's a far cry from the kind of purifying energy you'd like, but maybe when curse meets evil, like and like will cancel each other out. It's worth a shot.
"Enough stalling, le—"
You whip the Bucket out from your Inventory and fling the contents over her, catching her full in the face with her mouth open mid-word.
She hacks and sputters as she stumbles at you half-blind. You sidestep and let her crash into the wall. "You imbecile," she says between coughs. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"
Actually no, but you have a hope. "Cancelled out your evil with cursed water?"
The other Rainbow Dash laughs, a dry thing despite her recent drink. "No." She bangs on the wall, opening a secret compartment. Inside are a dozen slim vials of vibrant fluid in the seven colors of the rainbow. She grabs one, pops off the cork, and drinks it. You swear you can actively see the orange part of her mane grow slightly more vibrant. "No, you forced me to waste one of my better samples."
She blinks the water out of her eyes and stands up straight.
"A clever trick." She flicks a piece of pond weed off her shoulder. "But it's going to take more than a piddly little curse to stop me."
"It didn't work?"
"No, you ignorant fool. You can't neutralize a strong acid with a weaker one. The same applies to magic. The spirit in this water still has some Chroma, but it's so weak compared to mine it's like the buzzing of flies to me." She chuckles and smiles. "In fact, I—what's this?"
The tip of the hoof she was about to gesture with has gone white. Not a clean true white either, but a dirty washed-out pale grey. As you watch the greyness starts to spread up her hoof.
"What? No! Stop! You can't do this! You can't!" she screams at her own rapidly greying foreleg. "I'm stronger than you!"
It moves to her barrel, growing faster by the moment like some kind of terrible fungus.
"No! I won't let you ruin my work! I'll burn you out myself if I have to!" She reaches for the rest of the vials and starts tearing out their corks and downing them as quick as she can. With each swallow her colors flare for a moment before the relentless grey reasserts itself.
She runs out of vials before the curse runs out of strength.
Your doppelganger wails in anguish as she pounds at her reflection in the polished side of a machine. Her fur has gone completely grey, a shade that reminds you of corpses and fog. Even her once vibrant mane only runs the spectrum from white to black.
"It can't be, it can't! How? She was barely alive, she should have been crushed by the might of my... of my..." She sinks to the floor as monochrome tears bead on the edges of her eyes. "All my hard work... My ascension! I was so close!" Her sob transforms into a snarl as she turns to you, blind fury in her eyes. "You! This is all your fault! I'll kill you for this!"
You feel as though you took a calculated risk, but Faust are you bad at math.
Like a pair of synchronized swimmers, you both try to jump the other at the same time.
She's a ferocious fighter. While you're in better shape and have quicker reflexes, she knows her territory like the back of her wing.
You're nearly a perfect match for each other. She punches, you block. You kick, she dodges. She's not afraid to use dirty tricks like tripping you up with cables.
What's most worrying of all is how much she seems to be enjoying it.
"Yes, yes! I love the feisty ones!" she cackles. "Get that adrenaline flowing! And the dopamine! The cortisol! I can tell you're going to give me so much data! And who knows?" Her smile turns positively sadistic. "You might be the first to actually live through the tests."
You don't know what kind of spell she's trying to cast with those gibberish magic words, but you don't like the sound of it.
You push her up against the wall but she slips out of her lab coat and escapes. With it gone you can see the scars covering her body. She lands a gut punch in your distraction that leaves you gasping for breath. She starts dragging you towards the tub and her contraption.
Spots dance across your vision. Whatever she punched has made inhaling a terrible trial. Still you struggle to stand back up and free your tail from her grip.
A kick glances off the back of your head and you see stars.
You're still awake though, even if only barely.
"That was a hassle," you can hear her grumble, "I think she threw my shoulder out. Gonna feel that tomorrow. Lousy lookalike better give me some good Chroma for this."
It takes you a second to realize that she's talking to herself. She must think she knocked you out entirely. You can use that. You let your body go extra limp, not that it wasn't already, but now you shift so your legs keep 'accidentally' catching on every loose wire and pipe in your way. Every second she spends detangling you is another you can spend recovering.
Sooner than you'd like she reaches the lip of the tub and hefts you up over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She stomps on a switch and the doors to her mechanical cage rattle open. Inside is a cavity just big enough for a pony, if you don't mind sharing space with countless needle-tipped tubes and wires.
This is your chance!
As she lifts you up you grab her hooves with your own, tighten your core, and pull! She's caught totally off guard and the unexpected shift in weight overbalances her and lifts her off the ground! You're slammed into the porcelain floor with all her weight on top of you.
You tense your back legs and thrust, throwing her off you and right into the mouth of the waiting machine. Restraints snap into place instantly, locking down her legs and barrel.
"What? No!" she cries as she realizes her situation. "It was supposed to be you! Not me!"
"Why don't you give it a spin first, just to make sure it works." You stamp down on the same switch that she had.
The poorly cleaned doors of the cage begin to close, the squealing of metal drowning out most of other Rainbow Dash's screaming protests.
"No! You monster! Do you have any idea what you've done?! My plans! My destiny! You've ruined everything!" You can hear her thrashing against the cage. It rattles like shackles heavy with all the blood on her hooves. "You can't do this to me! I was supposed to ascend! It's my destiny! I just needed a little purer Chroma! This isn't what she promised me! Noooooooo-!"
Her final scream is cut short as the iron doors slam shut and seal.
Meanwhile, all the machines around you are coming to life. Electricity arcs from one electrode to another, hissing and snapping like snakes. Pumps slowly coming to rhythmic speed and start driving fluid through the many pipes.
From deep in the walls, you hear a final piercing scream.
And then the facility shuts down once more.
You take a deep and let it out in a relieved sigh; the only noise among the silent machines.
*Ding!*
You flinch as the ill-fittingly happy chime tweaks your still agitated nerves. But it's over now, You no longer have to fear your evil clone trying to grind you into Rainbow Juice.
As if on cue, one of the machines beside you rattles then dings before opening a sliding hatch. Inside is a slim glass vial capped with a cork and filled with a rainbow liquid. Even as you give it a shake the colors don't mix and quickly separate back into layers. A small label on it reads 'Warning! Experimental Formula'.
You shudder as you try to remind yourself that it's only just a prop made by Starlight. Not the actual liquified magical remains of the pony you just fought with and threw into her own torture device.
You notice on the inside of the opened panel there's a small placard. It reads:
The inspiration for this room was drawn from the winning entry to the Ponyville Young Horror Writer's Club Nightmare Night short story contest. To read the story in full, come visit us Tuesday and Thursday evenings in the schoolhouse annex from six to eight. Ask for a copy of 'The Rainbow Fracturing' by Scooting Along and Aura Dog.
You have no idea who the latter is, but the pen name of the first pony is so obvious you can only wonder why she bothered. Sometime soon you need to have a long chat with that filly about unauthorized use of other ponies' likeness.
You tuck the vial of Experimental Formula into your Inventory and head for the door.
She charges at you before you're ready, snarling like an animal.
She's a ferocious fighter. While you're in better shape and have quicker reflexes, she's driven by blind fury and knows her territory like the back of her wing.
You're nearly a perfect match for each other, but her anger gives her an edge. She punches, you block or dodge. You kick, she takes it and keeps going. The scales slowly start to tip in her favor as she leverages the fact that you have a measure of dignity while she's not above dirty tactics like going for your eyes.
What's most worrying of all is how silent she is. She growls and snarls at you like a feral dog, but gone are her monologues about her noble purpose.
You push her up against the wall but she head-butts you, slips out of her lab coat, and escapes. With it gone you can see the multitude of scars covering her body. As well as the reason she hasn't once taken to the air.
She lands a gut punch in your distraction that leaves you gasping for breath. She follows it up with a vicious kick to the head, and the world starts to go hazy.
You're vaguely aware of being drug across the floor and nearly vomit with vertigo as you're lifted and spun. The next thing you feel in the cold embrace of metal clamping across your body in a dozen places.
"Wakey, wakey." A sharp slap brings you to your senses. Your monochrome clone stands just in front of you with a sickening leer. You try to strike, but your forelegs are firmly held in place. Every part of you is, even your head.
"That's right. There's no escape from this pegasus' device. You're mine now." She steps closer and pats your cheek, then seems to notice her white hoof and scowls. "You are, without doubt, the most troublesome test subject I've ever had the displeasure of meeting. You've set me back so far, you monster, I can scarcely calculate how much Chroma I'll need to infuse just to get back to where I was."
She shakes her head and steps back to the far edge, resting her hoof on a large floor-mounted button. "I was planning on using you as a proof of concept for draining one color of Chroma at a time, but now..." She stamps down on the button. "...now I just want you gone."
The thick metal doors begin to swing shut as your cage starts retracting into the wall. You try to scream but the most you can manage with your muzzle bolted shut is a distressed hum.
As darkness closes around you, the last sight you see is a bone-white reflection of your own face grinning back at you like the Pale Mare herself.
[Self-destructive tendencies can harm others as well. Add one (+1) to your Fear Meter]
Light returns and you find yourself in the foyer again, whole, uninjured, and fully colored. On one hoof, you're thankful to be alive. On the other, you're really starting to hate these 'make you forget it's fake' spells. Seeing an evil version of yourself who still thinks she's a hero is frightening enough.
"Heya, kids! You all havin' a fun time, eh?" asks a familiar but unusually chipper voice. You glance around for the source until you inevitably glance to the upper balcony. There sits Trixie in... not much of a costume. She's powdered her fur to be white, but it looks like she ran out before she finished more than her face. Other than that, all she's wearing is a pair of fake wings tied on with string and an enormous ball-shaped rainbow wig. Tying it all together is a manically wide grin. It's the kind of grin that wouldn't look out of place on Pinkie Pie, but when worn by Trixie instead (and without pairing it with a bouncy manic energy) it just seems off.
"Did you... run out of costume parts?"
It had to be asked.
Almost immediately her smile drops and she sighs. "Not my best work. Look, the book only has a few named characters and I didn't want to be you for obvious reasons so this was the next option."
"That room was from a book?"
Trixie waggles a hoof. "Of a sort. We had to tweak it to make it work, but the design and theme were provided by the winner of the Ponyville Young Horror Writer's Club Nightmare Night short story contest. Some filly and colt duo going by the pen names 'Scooting Along' and 'Aura Dog'. Inspired by a true story, they said."
"They said what?" you squawk in surprise. "I never did anything like that!"
"Well duh." Trixie rolls her eyes. "Obviously not. You couldn't build a machine like that if it came with instructions and a team of engineers. I think they based it on Cozy Glow."
Huh. That... sort of makes sense, if you turn your head and squint at it. In whatever case, you are going to have a serious talk with that filly, followed by an explanation of how pen names work. That's the kind of libel that gets the Wonderbolt PR and legal teams riled up!
But that's something to do later, after you finish the haunted house. For now, it's time to pick another route.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
If your Fear Meter is full, you must select the fourth option.
You've tried your best and you've hung on as long as you could, but this was it! The last straw!
Fear overtakes you like an icy wave. It crashes through your stomach and trickles down your spine. It soaks your brain so thoroughly that the only thought you can muster is run!
But you are Rainbow Dash, and you're better than that!
So you fly.
You fly out of the haunted house like a scared kitten with your tail tucked between your legs. And you scream, oh how you scream. The sound is heard for miles around, even by the ponies partying in town. They may not know what it is, but when you hear them wondering about it tomorrow, you'll know. And you'll know that Starlight knows, and that Trixie knows.
That the brave and courageous Rainbow Dash... lost her nerve to a bunch of illusions and props.
Finally, after much recounting and reliving your moments of awesomeness, you arrive at what you're pretty confident is the right answer. Probably. Assuming you didn't miss any secret passageways or a set of stairs to a whole extra basement level.
You spin the dial to the number you've settled on and press the button in the center before you can get any less sure. It sinks into the door at your touch. Something starts to click as hidden gears begin to move and make the decorations across the door spin and contract. Monsters on either side of the center divide pull their claws back from the seam.
The clicking stops, the movement freezes, and...
...the sound of a blaring klaxon echoes through the stairway as all the carvings shift their now red-glowing eyes to stare at you.
Before you can react, the stones fold away from beneath your hooves and you drop into the pit. You try to fly, but the shuffling stones quickly seal your exit shut. With no other choice in the pitch black darkness, you allow yourself to fall.
Several disorientating moments later, you exit through the hole in the ceiling of the foyer and land with a crash by the old chandelier.
"Oh, on to the last question of the tower already?" Trixie asks from her perch. "Looks like you guessed wrong about how many events there are. Are you sure you've seen and done everything?"
You grumble as you get to your hooves, slightly sore but none the worse for wear. "I knew the right answer," you say, totally not defensively. "My hoof just slipped."
"Sure it did." Her tone is perfectly neutral, but the smirk gives away her real feelings.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
Nodding in determination, you select the answer you know is correct.
Probably. Like eighty percent sure.
Solid seventy-five.
You wait with bated breath as the swirling sparkles that compose the barrier come to a halt. And you wait.
And wait.
And wait.
After what feels like an eternity, the barrier turns a burning crimson with the sound of a blaring klaxon. Before you can even process this, the stairs beneath you vanish leaving a perfectly circular hole leading to a pitch black abyss. You try to fly, but it's like gravity has suddenly increased tenfold and you're pulled down into the hole.
Several disorientating moments later, you exit through the hole in the ceiling of the foyer and land with a crash by the old chandelier.
"Oh, trying the final puzzles already?" Trixie asks from her perch. "I was wondering when you'd get around to it. You've certainly been taking your time. I thought you were trying to do a speedrun?"
You grumble as you get to your hooves, slightly sore but none the worse for wear. "I knew the right answer," you say, totally not defensively, "I just clicked the wrong one."
"Sure you did." Her tone is perfectly neutral, but the smirk gives away her real feelings.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
Finally, after much recounting and reliving your moments of awesomeness, you arrive at what you're pretty confident is the right answer. Probably. Assuming you didn't miss any secret passageways or a set of stairs to a whole extra basement level.
You spin the dial to the number you've settled on and press the button in the center before you can get any less sure. It sinks into the door at your touch. Something starts to click as hidden gears begin to move and make the decorations across the door spin and contract. Monsters on either side of the center divide pull their claws back from the seam.
The clicking stops, the movement freezes, and...
...the sound of a blaring klaxon echoes through the stairway as all the carvings shift their now red-glowing eyes to stare at you.
Before you can react, the stones fold away from beneath your hooves and you drop into the pit. You try to fly, but the shuffling stones quickly seal your exit shut. With no other choice in the pitch black darkness, you allow yourself to fall.
Several disorientating moments later, you exit through the hole in the ceiling of the foyer and land with a crash by the old chandelier.
"Oh, on to the last question of the tower already?" Trixie asks from her perch. "Looks like you guessed wrong about how many events there are. Are you sure you've seen and done everything?"
You grumble as you get to your hooves, slightly sore but none the worse for wear. "I knew the right answer," you say, totally not defensively, "My hoof just slipped."
"Sure it did." Her tone is perfectly neutral, but the smirk gives away her real feelings.
There doesn't seem to be anything to interact with in this room, but there are three hallways that branch off that head LEFT, FORWARD, and RIGHT.
Finally, after much recounting and reliving your moments of awesomeness, you arrive at what you're pretty confident is the right answer. Probably. Assuming you didn't miss any secret passageways or a set of stairs to a whole extra basement level.
You spin the dial to the number you've settled on and press the button in the center before you can get any less sure. It sinks into the door at your touch. Something starts to click as hidden gears begin to move and make the decorations across the door spin and contract. Monsters on either side of the center divide pull their claws back from the seam.
The clicking stops, the movement freezes, and...
...the doors swing open wide!
There's... silence.
The highest room in the tower is empty. No decorations, no applause, nothing. Just a circular room of bare rock and wood without so much as a scrap of decoration. The only feature even worth mentioning it a big hole in the wall with a small exit sign above it.
Is this really it? This is the end? It's kind of... anticlimactic. Maybe there's something wrong with the spells that happened when you ran the course but that Starlight and Trixie missed.
Better go tell them then. You spread your wings and take off, circling around the tower a few times to bleed off height in an easy glide. You come to a landing by the entrance right in front of Starlight, who looks surprised to see you.
"Dash? What are you doing back so soon?"
"I think I found a broken spell or something. One of the rooms is just empty with nothing in it."
She frowns. "That's not good. Which room?"
"The one at the very top of the tower."
"The one at the—that's the winner's room! How did you get there so fast? You can't have done the whole house already!"
That sounds like you may have set a record. "You might not have heard, but I'm very fast."
"Not that fast." She squints at you suspiciously. "I know the optimal route and even then it takes me at least twenty minutes to collect everything to get past the tests."
You shrug. Guess some ponies are just sore losers about having their records broken. You never pegged Starlight as one, though. "Like I said, I'm—"
"A Cheater!"
You spin around to find Trixie standing in the doorway of the mansion, her face set in a glare and her hoof pointing at you accusingly. Gone is her vampire costume, replaced with some kind of Discord-themed suit. Her fake wings made of magic twitch and bounce with very real frustration as she stomps over and pokes you in the chest. "I don't know how you did it, but you cheated!"
You feel your anger rise at the accusation. You? A cheater? The very thought of it is laughable. Sure, you play to win but there's not much point in winning if you cheat. "I did not!"
"Oh yes you did! I was watching from the control room. You went straight from the foyer to the exit. No hesitation, no side trips. You didn't even get stuck by the challenge questions even though there's no possible way you could have known the answer!"
"Maybe I'm just lucky!" Though... how did you know the right answers? You felt confident at the time but...
"Or maybe Trixie's onto something." Starlight's voice is cold and calm. You notice her horn is lit with a spell and there's green flecks of light dancing over you. "So. Rainbow Dash. Care to tell me why I'm detecting traces of time magic on you?"
Time magic? "The hay? I don't know."
"I do!" Trixie declares. " I bet you have an ancient and powerful magical artifact that lets you turn back time and make different decisions. You try every path but we only see the one you want us to see!"
That's ridiculous. "That's ridiculous. Do you see an artifact on me anywhere? I'm not even wearing a costume!"
"Maybe this isn't your frst time being caught and you knew to stash it first."
"There's no artifact!"
"Dash, are you feeling okay?" Why does Starlight sound so concerned suddenly? Wasn't she angry too a second ago? But you feel fine.
"I feel fine."
"No headaches? Strange urges? Random blackouts or moments of forgetfulness?"
No, you haven't felt anything like that. "No, nothing like that." Before you can ask for more detail, Trixie derails the conversation again.
"A silent partner then. Ah ha! Twilight Sparkle! She used Starswirl's time spell to loop Nightmare Night for you so you could make all my hard work on the haunted house look worthless."
You scoff. "Twilight wouldn't do something like that."
"Some other unicorn then! There are many jealous of my magical skills."
"Oh would you just drop it already? I didn't cheat and I don't have any time magic on me!"
"...She's right."
Finally! Validation from Starlight. What is up with her today? First she's angry, then concerned, now she just looks coldly determined.
"Hold her!" she suddenly cries.
You freeze in place as your body is sealed by Trixie's magic. You try to shout and protest, but even your jaw is solid as a rock. Starlight walks around so your frozen eyes can see her again. There's a fierceness to her features that you're not used to seeing.
"So she was lying," Trixie declares even as she grunts with the effort of holding you still. "I knew it."
"No. She wasn't lying. And that's not time magic I detected either." She looks deep into your eyes like they're some kind of telescope. "It's dimensional magic."
She lights her horn with a spell, a powerful one too if the massive corona means anything. "Don't worry. You won't feel a thing." Wait, she's casting it on you? No! You struggle against the magic but you can't move an inch! Can't dodge or anything as Starlight lowers her horn and fires the massive spell right at—!
You feel... warm. There's a strange sensation of disconnection, of difference. Like you've been walking around with a cast on and sudd—
"Is she okay?"
"Should be. The spell shouldn't have affected her at all."
"Perhaps she's just tired?"
"Ah reckon Ah would be."
"Dashie! Wake up!"
"Pinkie! That's not how you rouse a pony from unconsciousness."
"Oh! Right. We need smelling salts!"
"Why did you have those?"
"Just in case!"
A sharp tang of salt woke Rainbow Dash from the depths of slumber. The first thing she noticed was how strange she felt. Her whole body felt lighter. Freer. Like she'd taken off a weighted training uniform she didn't know she was wearing.
The second thing she noticed was the faces of all her friends clustered around her.
"You're okay!" Pinkie cried as she leapt forward and snatched up her her friend in a bone-crushing hug. "I was so worried."
"Pinkie... can't... breathe!"
"Yes I can. Oh, you mean you can't! Sorry Dashie!" She released her with an apologetic smile.
Twilight stepped around her and passed Rainbow Dash a bottle of water. The pegasus took it with a nod of thanks and gulped it down. "We came as soon as we got Starlight's message," she explained. "How do you feel? Any lingering compulsions?"
Dash shook her head. "I'm good. I feel like I just ran an Iron Pony, but nothing hurts. What happened?"
Starlight stepped forward. "It's hard to put it in non-academic terms, but you were astrally connected—"
"You had a worm in your brain!" Pinkie jumped in.
"I had a what?!"
"A parasite, Pinkie," Twilight corrected. "Not a worm."
"Even that's technically wrong." Starlight countered, "since it didn't feed on anything."
"Will somepony please just tell me what was in my head!"
Starlight seemed unsure for a moment before reaching back into a bag at her side. "This." She held up a jar containing... a thing. It defied description as much as it defied her ability to look at it properly. It had colors, but none she could name. It was like a crack in the air, but it also moved like water and like a wind-blown string.
"At some point—I don't know how or when—you picked up a transdimensional hitchhiker. Or were chosen by it. Again, I don't know. Either way, it's been puppeteering you around like a marionette." She tapped the glass, making the thing inside writhe.
Rainbow Dash could only stare, gobsmacked, at the caged anomaly. "That thing was in my head?"
"Not literally, no, but dimensionally, yes."
"But I don't remember feeling weird or having to fight for control of my body or anything."
It was Twilight who shook her head in response. "You wouldn't have. It sat in the metaphysical conception of your mind and made decisions on your behalf—what to say, where to go, how you felt—and your body put them into action. Your conscious mind had no say and probably just rationalized away until it convinced itself that the choices must have been yours."
"Oh. Wow, that's... geez. And I had no idea it was happening." She went quiet for a minute. "Can I squish it? It'd like to squash it like the bug it is."
"Unfortunately, no," Starlight answered. "It's not made of real matter. Besides, this isn't its true body. Just a portion of it extended into our reality. But while we've been talking I've been forming a dimensional tunnel and tracing its connection back to the source. And I think—" the corona around her horn changed color "—I've almost reached its home realm."
Suddenly, her horn started to crackle with black and white sparks.
"Almost there!" she grunted. "There's some kind of barrier. Twilight! I need a boost!"
"I'm here!" Her magic poured into Starlight, and from Starlight into the caged entity. It surged along the tether that connected it between dimensions like a raging tsunami, following the path back up the chains of dimensions until—
