Well done. You have found the castle and thus, shelter. When you have rested, seek the throne room. There, you will sense a lingering presence, it will feel like static on your fur. Go to the spot in the room where it feels Strongest and get Angery. Curse Celestia and the sun, call on the night to prtect you...you will not be dissappointed.

Er, ahem. As an alternate viewpoint, you might try cursing the night instead. Ponies don't tend to look kindly on denizens of darkness, but as a lord of light? Who could possibly want you dead as a harbinger of the light? It would be far safer.

Buck. Shit. Buck. Damn. Buck. Shit. Buck.

These words form a mantra in your head as you move through the dark ruins, bumping into walls, slipping on wet stones, and falling over pieces of rubble strewn on the floor. You're covered with bruises you're sure though luckily your coat will probably hide them. Not that you could check, even if you had a mirror, because you CAN'T SEE A BUCKING THING!!! All light from the moon and stars has faded leaving the night pitch black, thanks to the storm clouds no doubt. The only thing you're left with are the flashes of lightning, which are especially aggravating as they hurt your eyes, light up the world for only a split second, and prevent your eyes from properly developing to the dark. Thank you Everfree weather! Really bucking considerate!

Part of this is your fault though, you guess... You could have just waited in the room you walked into and avoided the pain and aggravation of stumbling around ancient dilapidated ruins in pitch black lighting. But you got a sudden urge to look around. Considering that the room you took shelter in was fairly open to the elements itself, you figured that you might as well follow your urges and look for a better spot to hole up in.

You hit a stone corner with your right shoulder as you walk forward, gritting your teeth and stepping back, bringing your front-left hoof up to the shoulder as you wince and suck in air through your teeth. You rub it slowly as you let out your breath slowly, then sigh, as you practically feel the new bruise forming. Well... it's not like you haven't been cold, wet, bruised, and alone before... Could be much worse. So it's probably going to get much worse. If life's taught you anything, it's that things are never satisfied with how bad you've got it... there's always one more bucking thing around the corner to make your life just a little bit worse.

You sigh and continue forward, your hoofsteps sounding loud against the stone, the wailing of the rain onto the walls and roofs around you nearly drowning them out, the low rumbles of the storm sounding in the distance... You stop for some reason though, and furrow your brows. You're not sure why, but... suddenly you feel as though you're in someplace that's... important. Someplace special. You can't shake the feeling that you need to be here... wherever here is.

A flash of lightning helps illuminate that question for you. In a brief moment you see crumbling stone columns, clinging moss and ivy, long-broken windows, and a set of steps leading to a raised platform. That's pretty much all you can see in the brief moments that the lightning shows you the room, and you blink a bit, shaking your head, clearing your eyes, before biting your lip nervously.

This place feels... safer than the rest. Better. More important. You can't put your hoof on it, but there's something definitely... special here. And it has a good roof, with relatively few holes in it, and the open windows aren't bringing in THAT much rain... You shrug slightly with a sigh. You're probably not going to find anyplace better than this to hunker down. You lower your aching body down onto the stone, still cold and still damp, crossing your hooves in front of you with a sigh. You close your eyes and lay your head down on your forelegs, closing your eyes as the storm pours itself out all around the castle you take a few moments to just breathe in, and rest.

Once you claim the power offered to you by the night, your worst memories will flash before your eyes. Every betrayal, every lie ever spoken to you. You will recall the cruelty of the ponies in your life and see thier greed flash before your eyes. Finally you will understand TRUE anger, how dare other ponies experience joy when you have so little! Then, as you realize that "Harmony" is an illusion, you will see shards of stone from around the room fly to you. They will merge into a dagger of black crystal before your eyes. This weapon is the Blade of Despair, and it shall grow in power, and size, as you do. This will be your weapon, and your tool.

Use it well.

Nomad

Listen to Nomad he means well.The nightmare shall help on your path.Let it be known that you shall crush these INFERIOR PONIES.You will crush their skulls beneath your hooves.You shall rain supreme with your alicorn brothers.I am Insanity hear my voice like the howling wind on a winter night.

Much as I hate it, I have nothing new to add. Nomad is right in saying you must embrace the night. Insanity is correct in saying harmony will fall. But, Zecora must FUCKING DIE. Unquestionable. You need that Amulet.

A thought occours to me, Zecora is mortal and thus, corrutable. The Blade of Despair can bring out the inner darkness in a pony...or zebra. She was shunned and scorned, treated as an outcast for years. That resentment and anger is still there. Infect her with the Blade of Despair, and you will gain an ally with an expertise in potion brewing, as well as a base of opperations in the Everfree...that dosen't have hole in the walls/ceiling.

And think... About this forest, about this storm, about your life, and about how little has actually changed for you besides the geography. You're cold, wet, bruised, and tired. There's been many a night in Manehatten where you got all four of those and hungry tacked on. Aside from the break in routine, and the fact that you're in the single most dangerous forest in Equestria, it's actually... an improvement.

There are no ponies here after all... ponies who pretend to give a buck about you. Sure, you get plenty of sympathetic looks, but you get just as many whispers, and giggles behind your back from the Manehattenites. After all you never fit in with them. Your lack of a magical butt-tattoo guaranteed that you'd always be an outcast. Ponies were supposed to find their life's work, their true calling, and have it appear on their flank with the moment of realization. After that they'd throw themselves into it with strength, with gusto, with passion, pursuing their life's work and fulfilling their place in pony society. But a blank-flank had no place in pony society, not when they were groan... A blank flank had nothing to strive for, nothing to master, nothing to add. A blank flank was... useless.

You were reduced to begging of course, groveling at their hooves for spare bits. After all, employment was fulfilled by those who were passionate, those who knew their life's calling. If a mule or a griffon didn't have a Cutie-Mark and wanted to pursue a career then that was fine. They had figured out their calling a different way. But if a blank-flank, who never understood, never found his talent, never became worthwhile tried to pursue a career... Well, a great number of ponies thought you were mentally handicapped anyways. And you played that up sometimes. Trying to garner sympathy... sometimes they tossed a few bits your way, helping out the poor, stupid blank-flank... But most didn't. And you could always hear the derision, the mocking, the off-hoof comments about your smell, your looks, your... condition. Whenever they thought you weren't listening... or sometimes even if they knew you were.

You tried everything of course. Everything. Hoofball, dancing, algebra, crate-packing, cooking, mining, scuba-diving, farming, painting, writing, piano, bowling, croquette, saddle-making, gardening, sky-diving, and everything else... Those were in your younger days. As more and more time passed, and nothing worked you stopped trying, and started resenting ponies more and more... You started to want to take them down a peg from their high and mighty positions. Make THEM feel what it was like to not have anything to strive for! To be unfulfilled, useless, and unloved. You wanted to be better than them! You wanted the greatest Cutie-Mark ever so that you could make them all kiss up to your damn flank! ... But more than that, you just wanted to be good at something... anything... to finally be useful for once.

So you prayed to Celestia, asked her for guidance, hoping that her light would shine upon you and help show you the way to happiness. But all it ever did was show off your damned flank so everypony could see how useless you were. You prayed to Luna, asked her night to comfort and shroud you, to hide and protect you. But all it gave you were freezing winds to chill you as you slept. So what reverence should you have for the Princesses? Why should you give a buck about either of them!? They left you all alone, them, and everypony else, pushed you away and left you by yourself, with nothing but your own damn flank to keep you company... Your own uselessness emblazoned on your side, a constant reminder that you were nothing but a failure...

You don't even realize that you're crying until the hot tears streak down your cheeks. You open your eyes in surprise, and then start to blink them away, bringing your left foreleg up to wipe at your face. You smirk slightly as you rub the tears from your eyes, chuckling softly.

"Heheheh... Huh... haven't cried since I was a colt... that's odd..." You mutter as you finish rubbing away the tears and lower your hoof... and then blink again, this time for a reason that has nothing to do with tears. There, in the dark, about near the top of the pedestal you glimpsed earlier is a soft blue glow of some kind... You're fairly certain it wasn't there before. You lean forward a bit more, eyes focused on the small blue blip in the dark. Getting up to your hooves shakily, wincing from your still bruised and tired legs, you furrow your brows as you stare at the light, wondering when it arrived and what the buck it was doing there.

Trying to examine it from this far away doesn't do you much good. You can't really tell much about it, aside from the fact that it's glowing and small, and has some kind of dark blue mist curling around it, twinkling slightly as though seeded with tiny stars. Come to think of it the outline of the small bright blip looks kind of like a star. It's even casting a pale blue light though not strong enough to reach you, just illuminating the small raised platform and walls around it. You start to step forward to get closer to the strange light when a distinct-

Grrrrrooooowwwwwllll

Fills the room. You blink, and look down to your stomach. Surely you're not hungry again already are you?

Grrrrrrrrr...

No... no you're not.

You turn your head slowly, looking over your right shoulder, searching for the origin of the sound, your eyes moving across the dark towards around the entrance you came in. And as you look to it you are met with the sight of three sets of glowing green eyes watching you from the dark.

Your blood runs cold... your fur stands up on the back of your neck and your heart starts pounding faster in your chest. Something primal, something basic in you knows already what's behind those green eyes. But the Everfree is kind enough to give you another flash of lightning, allowing you to confirm your fears.

The brilliant light illuminates them for a split second, and that's all the time you need to make out their shapes. Low, canine, crouching, and built like wolves or wolf-like things at the least. You saw the expected fang-filled mouths and razor-sharp claws, but also leaves and twigs. You're not sure what to make of that, but you are fairly certain of one thing. These creatures are the ones with the rumbling stomachs... and you're their dinner.

You turn around to face them, looking at the set of green dots in the dark, and slowly start to back up, towards the blue star and the light it's casting. You have no plan, no great idea, just the instinct to start moving as far away from those eyes mixed with fear. The fear makes your legs shake, your movements slow, and your step unsteady. Your unsteady step touches a wet stone.

CRACK!

Your vision swims as pain erupts from the back of your skull, and traces all along your back. More tears roll down your cheeks as you gasp for breathe and grit your teeth, suppressing your yelps of pain as you try to focus. You blink again and again, trying to clear your vision, even as the pain starts to subside and you feel something warm dribbling down the back of your neck. You blink again to get your vision back, and then you see eyes... a brilliant set of green eyes, a foot or two away from you. A low growl and a snarl, a flash of lightning, and you can see your death, leaping through the air with a mouth full of fangs, coming right at you...

Time slowed down. Every leaf, stick of wood, and thorn-tooth in the thing's body was suddenly highlighted for you. Your left foreleg moved forward, of it's own volition, in a desperate attempt to stave off what you know is coming. And why? You don't have any meat on your bones. And they're made out of wood, why would they need to eat meat? You can't help but wonder if this is some kind of revenge for the grass you ate, if they were related. These thoughts pass through your mind in a fraction of a moment, before you realize quite plainly that you're going to die. And then a set of thoughts so fast that they're nearly unintelligible pass through your skull.

It's coming, it's coming, it's coming, you're about to die, it's going to kill you, you're going to die, you're going to die! There's nothing that can save you! You have split-seconds before it gets you, before it eats you, and all you can think of are crystals, black and beautiful crystals, stabbing, cutting, slicing, dicing, crystals! Crystals cut cut CUT!!!

What happens next defies your understanding. Something churns inside of you, mixing and twisting inside of your body, and a shadowy black tendril of mist curls out from the fur of your left foreleg, appearing distinct against the dark. The misty tendril snakes across the room over to the source of the pale blue light, and engulfs it mist and all. It envelopes the star-shaped light it in a pitch black sphere, and then jerks back into your foreleg, carrying it's prey with it, absorbing it in through your skin...

Your hoof feels cold... your entire leg, numb, as blue lightning crackles along the fur. The surface of your hoof is covered in dark blue mist, with twinkling lights. And a foot long black crystal sword is jutting from your hoof.

SCHLICK!!!

The wolf-thing can't stop mid-leap. The sword goes through it's open mouth and out the back of it's head, sending thorn-teeth and splinters flying. Green sap covers the strange weapon jutting from your hoof and drips down the edges, landing in a puddle between your hind-legs on the stone... or at least you think that's sap.

Eyes wide and breathe quick, you jerk your hoof back, practically ripping the sword out from the wolf-thing's head. The head breaks apart into little pieces, scattering wooden bits and sap everywhere, splattering your face and coat with the gooey green substance. You watch, mouth agape, as green ethereal mist pours out of the place where the wooden wolf's head used to be, illuminating it's decapitated body and the chunks of wood around it, as it twists through the air, up to the crystal blade and then funnels into it's surface, pouring itself into the black and then vanishing, dissipating completely...

You blink, and ignore the urge to clonk yourself a second time to make sure that you're not dreaming. You shake your head slightly, and turn your gaze to the weapon jutting out of your hoof, watching the green sap drip down it's edges, and looking past the sap coating and splinters now stuck in it to it's proper body...

It's composed entirely of a pitch-black crystal, reflective and flawless, shaped like a blade with jagged edges, sharp and glinting, ending in a sharp piercing tip at the end. You'd think that it would weigh a great deal, but it doesn't. You can barely tell that it's even jutting from your hoof at all by the weight, it's so light... it reminds you of glass with how it looks and feels... Very sharp lethal black crystalline glass... At it's base, pooling around the surface of your hoof near where the sword juts out is a dark-blue mist, with little twinkling silvery lights inside of it, like stars, curling and shifting around the base of the blade...

You turn your weapon this way, and you turn it that way, staring at the crystal, trying to come to terms with the fact that it not only exists, but that you just used it to slice through a wooden wolf's head.

Grrrroooowwwwlll...

And you are forced to do that very quickly. You look up from the enchanting blade to see two sets of green eyes, still shining in the dark. They've separated, low to the ground and a lightning flash shows them moving several feet away towards opposite sides of you, encircling you to attack from two points at once, cautious from the death of their comrade...

Your heart starts beating quickly again, adrenaline not yet done coursing through your system, and you turn your gaze back to the blade coming out of your hoof... And you gulp. Then you furrow your brows and nod, before springing up to your hooves, careful with your front-left, lifting the blade up high and turning your gaze from one wolf, to the other, panting as you watch the wolves encircling you, waiting... thinking...

MUTATION GAINED: OBSIDIAN BLADE: This is a Legacy Mutation, inspired and accessed by interaction with Nightmare Moon's remnant presence. The Obsidian Blade is a powerful mystic weapon, composed of solid magic, and able to be dissipated, or solidified, at the wielders whim. The blade fuels magical energy by stealing it from deceased foes, and the Star of Woe has repurposed it into increased Mutation recovery time. As a Legacy Mutation, when the Obsidian Blade mutates and improves, aesthetic mutations may accompany it, in memory of Nightmare Moon.

Author's Notes:

(Took me FOREVER to figure out how to write this. The chapter just didn't want to come together. I'm hoping that it came out alright, and if you have complaints let me know politely please so I can look out for it in the future. Now is a chance to develop further techniques for dealing with enemies, or strengthen already existing ones. I hope you enjoy, however a couple of things I've noticed that I think need to be addressed below.)

1: I tried to tell and separate as best I'm able, however from now on if there's anything you DON'T want to influence the Host, then please use parenthesis or brackets to separate it from normal conversation. Otherwise I'll include it as part of what's effecting him, unless, and here's part two-

2: Please try to keep your advice and influence to one or two posts. Three I can kind of manage though it causes me some trouble. Four and up I'm not going to bother with. This is partly a balance thing and partly a timing thing.