Amnesia: A pony’s descent

A quick note:

- The date this is set in is based off of the idea that the events of FiM happened in the year 1000 and this is going backwards from that into 839

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the following characters or places used from either My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic or Amnesia: The Dark Descent and each belong to © Hasbro and © Frictional games, respectively. And thanks for making both an awesome show and an awesome game.

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Don’t forget, some things mustn’t be forgotten. The Shadow hunting me…

My name is Charcoal, I grew up in Canterlot, at, at uh, Hayfair…

What have I done? This is crazy. Don’t forget. I must stop him. Focus…

My name is… Charcoal…

The world was spinning. Everything, everything around me was in a blur. I moved my head up and down slightly and my surroundings only became less recognizable as my eyes shifted around the room. I closed my eyes once more and tried to get my train of thought straight. As I tried to clear my head, a few words and phrases had surfaced in my mind. Charcoal…The Shadow…hunting…Canterlot…Hayfair…stop him. None of it made sense to me. The words themselves had the faintest hint of familiarity to them, but nothing more.

The world became more in focus as proper vision slowly began to return to me. Cumbrously, I began to move my legs and attempt to get off of my side. After several attempts, I had finally managed to get enough energy to stand and maintain balance, though very uneasily. I still had no idea who I was or how I had gotten here. I could remember technical things, such as math, science, and history that’s not my own. It only frustrated me more, having all of this knowledge but not knowing absolutely anything about myself.

The world was back into enough focus now that I could get a proper survey of my surroundings. From what I could tell, I was in a small room with nothing of interest inside, but outside was a long hallway leading into darkness from what I could see. The stonework walls were a drab gray with cobblestone floors of equal color. Windows lined the hallway, yet very little light seemed to shine through them. Taking my first, awkward steps towards them, I attempted to look outside but to no avail. All I could see was just thick fog lining the windows, making visibility though them impossible. The small droplets of water appearing on the window and the occasional flash signified that it was raining.

I gave up on the windows and looked down to see a strange, pinkish fluid pooled up on the stone floor. I had no inclinations to even try to touch it. Visually following the floor down the lit parts of the hallway, I noticed even more splotches of the mysterious liquid forming a path. Not knowing what else to do, I began to follow the path down the hallway into the unknown darkness.

The further I moved through the hallway, the more I began to realize just how disoriented I still was. Standing up is one thing, but moving and trying to follow a path at the same time was taxing on my mind. My surroundings morphed and warped as I moved forwards in the most surreal manner and my vision seemed slightly tilted even though my head was straight. Coming to the end of the hallway, I noticed an open door space at its edge. Peering inside and adjusting my eyes to the dark, it was revealed that the hallway going further was cut off by a rock slide.

Seeing that way was impossible then, I continued to follow the liquid trail leading to my right. Before I managed to fully turn my vision blurred uncontrollably as I found myself falling to my side. With heavy breaths, I managed to regain control and stand up once more to continue moving. I had no idea where I was going but anywhere had to be better than this dark hallway. At the end of this hallway though was a large door with lit candles around it. This must be the way out of here. Hurrying as fast as I could without losing control again, I finally made it to the door and pushed hard against it to open it. It didn’t budge. Several more attempts later I had given up and realized that the door was locked and impossible to open. Looking back, I noticed that the liquid trail led down a side hallway to my right. It hadn’t led me to any dead ends yet, so I might as well follow it.

I turned down the side hallway and began to move towards its edge, this hallway was at least lit better. While moving along with much burden, a moving wardrobe door to my left had caught my attention. Curious, I opened the door all the way. Nothing too interesting was inside, a couple of dress shirts and what looks like a small tin can. I picked up the small thing and finally realized what it was, a tinderbox. It could be useful for later, so I decided to hold on to it for the moment. I continued moving down the hallway no longer stopping to check ever door, I had to find out where this trail was leading. At the end of the hallway the trail snaked to the right and went under a closed door. This one, thankfully, was unlocked. I opened the door and continued my journey into some place that I knew nothing of.

The door led to another section of the hallway that continued for a little bit longer before turning again to the right. This section was lit as well. Looking down, the liquid trail indeed followed the hallway to the right. I also noticed a few miscellaneous items scattered across the floor as well besides the liquid. Among them: books, some destroyed and some in fine condition, small plates, silverware, and other things that didn’t belong on the floor of a hallway. I looked back up just in time to see a sudden, howling wind burst open a door a little ways up to my right. The candles that were lit all down the hallway had simultaneously gone out. I recoiled at the sudden action and almost lost my balance again, but barely managed to keep from falling over. That wind was no natural breeze, it couldn’t have been. What the hell was going on here?

With much more trepidation, I pushed forward with every one of my instincts screaming at me not to. I reached the door that had been blown open and looked inside. It was a somewhat small storage room, some of the shelves were overturned and water pooled at its base, I sure wasn’t going in there. Moving more quickly now, I made my way to the furthest edge of the hallway and turned right into the only lit room as the left path was darkened. The room though was a dead end, but on all of the walls though was the same portrait of a very old looking pony. He had a gray coat and a pure white mane that was bare on the middle of his head but present on both sides. I also noticed a horn protruding from his forehead, must be a unicorn then. I myself am an earth pony with a gray coat that had the slightest hint of brown and a full dark gray mane, one of the few things that I actually know about myself only by looking through the shattered reflection of a mirror in the corner of the room. There was also something else; I could see a small pickaxe that appeared on my flank. My cutie mark apparently, it didn’t give much insight into myself.

As I observed the portrait further, everything was suddenly darkened as all of the lit candles in the room suddenly extinguished themselves by another fierce and frigid wind. Panicked, I stumbled out of the doorway, only to hear the most unholy roar ever coming from every direction. It rang across the hallway with unimaginable loudness as if it was right next to me, but nothing was there. I was completely terrified and my muscles seized, causing me to fall over again. I began to hyperventilate even after the roar disappeared. After a few minutes I managed to calm myself to the point where I could stand again, once again picking up the liquid trail left for me. After what had just occurred, I no longer felt the need to deviate from its path.

Moving once again, I came upon a small table with another tinderbox. This room too had windows, something that the previous hallways had lacked. To the tinderbox’s right was a small cylindrical glass object. Observing it closer, I saw that it was a lantern.  A lantern! Next to the lantern as well was a small leg pouch with a case of oil inside of it. I decided to make use of both the bag and oil. First, by filling the lantern with the oil and second by putting on the bag and placing the tinderbox I collected in it. Feeling much more confident, I once again pushed into the darkness by following the trail to my right.

Following the path through the door into another hallway, I noticed that no more windows lit the path like the previous room and was much darker than the previous paths. Pulling out the tinderbox, I used the contents to light several candles down the hallway to illuminate its path up towards another room. Inside the room were about a dozen shelves, all lining along the edges of the room, filled with various glass containers, none looked like the oil I found though. Straight ahead of me was a small table with a lit candle and a piece of parchment on it. Walking towards the desk, curiosity got the best of me as I picked up the parchment and began to read what was on it to myself:

19th of August, 839

I wish I could ask you how much you remember. I don’t know if there will be anything left after I consume this drink. Don’t be afraid, Charcoal. I can’t tell you why, but know this: I choose to forget. Try to find comfort and strength in that fact, there is a purpose. You are my final effort to put things right. Celestia willing the name Alexander of Bridleburg still invokes bitter anger in you. If not, this will sound horrible: Go to the inner sanctum and kill Alexander. He is old and weak, and you are young and strong. He will be no match for you.

One last thing: A Shadow is following you. It’s a living nightmare that breaks down reality. I’ve tried everything and there is no way to fight back. You have to escape it for as long as you can. Redeem us both, Charcoal. Descend into the darkness where Alexander waits and murder him.

Your former self,

Charcoal

Charcoal, so my name is Charcoal. I suppose it makes sense considering my coat and mane color. But, what about the rest of what was written? Who was this Alexander that was mentioned? And why do I have to murder him? For what reason? None if it made any sense. Also, Alexander, that’s a strange name for a pony, none that I’ve ever heard before. All the names of important figures from Equestrian history that I remembered had names similar to mine, Alexander was strange indeed. But it did say that he chose to forget, so maybe that’s just what happened, he forgot everything. I had no idea what to make of this note. It made no sense but at the same time seemed…right, like it’s the truth and what I must do. I didn’t know, I’ll just have to keep going forwards and hope that I can make sense of this entire situation.

The liquid trail ended in the center of the room so I was on my own now. So far that hadn’t exactly led me to any good things, but I still had to keep moving, if for nothing else, to get out of this light forsaken place. Scanning the room once more, I noticed a small lever to my left. That had to be the only way out of this dead end room. Moving over and finally pushing down on it, a small section of the wall to the right of the lever lowered and revealed a door past it. Steeling myself, I walked up to the door and opened it to continue my descent into whatever may await me past it.

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The stairs that were through the door went up only a little ways, but just enough for me to not be able to see what was past them. Walking up and over the final step, I finally saw what the stairs led to, a massive room. The room was in much worse shape than the previous section of the castle that I was in. It looked very old and very worn from age. Four giant columns in a square shape in the middle of the room supported its structure, though one was completely knocked down and a giant hole in the ceiling was the result of it. Piles of rubble were scattered all across the room with a higher level up to my right with stairs leading to it at the far end of the room. This area was much more unsettling than the last one I was in. Mainly because it just seemed so much more unsafe with everything looking like it had gone through a war inside. Light from the windows that were in the room though had shone with more brightness than before; it must have stopped raining then.

The castle itself had even struck me as odd. The architecture looked nothing like the architecture that I ever remembered seeing. I do remember Canterlot, and the buildings there, but not what I did there, that was still blank to me. I could remember the setting, but not the events. It’s just so strange how the style of this castle varied so greatly from all of the castles that I remembered. In fact, this castle looked absolutely nothing like Equestrian architecture in general. Also, the name Bridleburg had a familiar sound to it; I thought I remembered learning something about it, mostly through rumors. The area itself was in the far eastern reaches of Equestria, surrounded by mountains, was virtually uninhabited except for the Bridleburg area itself, and very little of it had even been explored past Bridleburg. If what the note had said was true, then I was very far away from home.

I moved towards the center of the room, trying to get a better view of everything in it. Near its center, I noticed a large symbol engraved into the floor as well as a set of stairs leading down next to them. As I started to look closer at it to try and remember what it was, I suddenly felt a strange sensation coming over me. I gasped as I began to remember something. A bright light flashed before my eyes and I was forced to close them for a second while it passed, and once I opened them, the room seemed different somehow, but I couldn’t figure out how. Then, words from a flashback began to ring through my ears:

“Is it inside the castle, Alexander?”

“In a manner of speaking. Come, bring the lamp. You’ve been to the Refinery have you not?”

“I don’t believe I have. Is it connected to the… what did you call it?”

“The Inner Sanctum, my most precious chamber, Charcoal. And it lies beyond the Refinery. In fact, it lies beneath the very stone of Bridleburg.”

Another flash. Once I reopened my eyes again, everything went back to normal. The Inner Sanctum? That was something that the note had referred to. That’s where I have to go. But, it didn’t seem like Alexander was what the note had described him to be. He seemed almost like he was helping me. So why does the note ask me to murder him? The more I remembered the more confused I seemed to get. I would just have to keep going and try to learn more.

I descended the stairs towards the closed door. Right before reaching it, I lit the lantern and held it with my mouth as I opened the door. Beyond the door was the beginning of a hallway, this one though was slightly different in that the entire hall wasn’t completely made of stone, only the bottom half was while the top half was whitewashed with wooden support pillars every ten meters or something close to that. But the hallway was abruptly cut off by this red, fleshy substance webbed across the width of the hallway. Moving up to it, I pressed my hoof against the thing, it indeed felt flesh-like, except very sticky and more squishy. I tried to punch through it a couple of times but this material was much tougher than it had looked. Something must be able to get through it though; it’s the only way that I can reach the Inner Sanctum.

I turned back and returned up the stairs to where I had the flashback. Then I had noticed the massive hallway that was in front of me. I hadn’t bothered to look that way before. It was then that I realized what this room way, the castle’s foyer. It had to be, it’s the only way a hallway that size would lead into a room this large. Perhaps that door was able to be opened. I rushed towards the door, stopping on the way to pick up another tinderbox and oil jar that I had noticed. Looking at the massive door less than a meter away now, I began to push on it with all my strength.

No sooner after I started did the entire castle shake as if an earthquake had just struck it and another terrifying roar ripped through my ears. This one was different though, it sounded almost like a train horn, but it pierced though and struck me down at my core with absolute fear. After recoiling from the roar I saw the same red flesh-like substance starting to grow on the door itself. It spread cancerously over the door and eventually completely covered it, making any attempts to open it impossible. It didn’t matter though, I was running away from the stuff before it even finished growing for fear that it might spread further.

There was no way that I was going back there. I had to find this Inner Sanctum, as it appeared that it was my only way to ever get out of this place. Looking to my left, I saw two potential paths, go up the stairs to the upper level that I could see in front of me, or head down another set of stairs into an area that I couldn’t see. I decided to try the stairs going up first, as the stairs going down where completely dark. After a few steps of beginning to walk up the stairs, a blood curdling scream, followed by a female voice begging "No! Get away from me!” I turned abruptly as the sound came from back down the stairway that I chose to ignore before. It must have been a hallucination but it sounded so real. I had to investigate.

Moving back down the stairs, I lifted the lantern once more as I came upon the edge of the stairs leading further down. I saw nothing except for a somewhat steep stairway leading to what looked like a T split at its end. I moved further down the stairs towards the intersection. The further down I moved, the more unsettled I became, the darkness felt so unnatural. It’s as if it were a separate being acting on its own volition. I kept the lantern close and lit; the light was the one thing that I was finding some comfort in. At the base of the stairs, it indeed split into two paths leading further down to the left and right. I looked up and saw two signs above the entrances that signified “Laboratory” to the right and “Wine Cellar” to the left. I tried the Wine cellar first, the door was locked. Only one option was left. Thankfully, the laboratory door was open; I pushed it in and made my way inside.

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From what I could see in the dark, the laboratory looked similar in design to that of the hallway heading towards the Refinery. But the darkness, why was the darkness so… dark? It was so hard to explain, it was not just dark, but dark to the point of near zero visibility, even with my lantern lit. Why was this darkness so much more different than any other darkness I had encountered before? Too many questions piling on top of each other.

I could tell that I was on a wooden platform with the actual floor below. Out in the furthest wall from me, or what I assumed was the furthest wall because I couldn’t actually see it, was a very faintly glowing torch. The light coming off of the torch seemed futile against the ravenous darkness surrounding it. I cautiously moved forwards, the wooden walkway creaking and thumping with every step rhythmically. At the end of the walkway were stairs to my left leading down towards the floor.

Moving down with much more caution as I didn’t know what was down there, the furthest wall from me when I first entered was now coming into view, nothing there except for the torch I previously saw and another rock slide. The stairs turned to the left once more and before I began to descend down that set, a thick cloud of dust appeared in front of the rock slide as the sound of something very large began to growl in the background. I hurried much faster now and quickly descended the stairs and turned left, away from the rock slide, and galloped through the open door that I saw once I turned and down the stairs that followed it.

The doorway at the bottom of the stairs came into a somewhat large room. Not nearly as large as the foyer but still sizeable. This room was lit though as a chandelier in the middle of the room had lit a small portion of its center. In the center of the room itself is what looked like a metal grate. Before I reached the grate, the same feeling that I had before with my flashback once again began to overtake me as I had another memory return to me with the same flash of light.

“There should be more Cuprite. And one part Aqua Fortis.”

The memory quickly subsided. The voice was that of Alexander. I hadn’t even spoken at all. I must have been standing near him or something. I recognized the items that he had mentioned but saw none in the room. Returning to reality once more, I picked up where I left off and came upon the grate in the middle of the room.

Peering down into it, I saw only water at the bottom. Just before I was about to turn away something very large made several thrashing splashes in the water. I couldn’t tell what it was but I didn’t want to really find out. I moved again away from the grate and towards a large bench with several jars of glass connected to each other with a pipe attached to the wall. This must be the alchemy room as the sign had said with laboratory. Alchemy was something used by the earth ponies as a rather rudimentary form of unicorn magic that was experimented with to try and achieve certain things to make their lives easier, though it had started to be largely discontinued since it required much more materials to produce the mixtures than the end result gave back. Another thing that I know about everything else but not myself. But, alchemy can also produce different types of acid as well. This had given me the perfect idea to get through the red substance blocking my way to the Inner Sanctum.

I lit the set of candles that was on the bench to give me better lighting and to save oil in my lantern while I worked. I checked around, unfortunately there were no chemicals that could be made into an acid compound. Though I did notice another piece of parchment sitting on the desk. I looked down and squinted to try and read the writing in the darkness of the laboratory, even with the candle to aid me.

The lack of a chimney to properly vent the fumes from my most recent experiments has taken its toll on many of my less stable ingredients in storage. Some seem unaffected, but many are stained by the fumes and will be difficult to salvage. I shall do what I can and move them to the Wine Cellar.

So the ingredients that I needed were in the Wine Cellar, the one that was locked. Seeing nothing else of interest in this area, a moved to the other side of the room. I stopped dead in my steps though as the eerie sound of heavy hoof falls sounded above me. It was the same thumping and creaking sounds that I made when I was on the walkway. Fear shot through me as I took cover near the bench where I had just walked away from. Something must have been walking above me, but what? What could possibly be alive in this light forsaken castle besides me? Rethinking that question, I felt it better that I didn’t know. The sound quickly ended as soon as it had begun, there were no sounds of anything going down the stairs either, so I tried to overcome my fear and search the room further.

I came upon another desk on the other side of the room, different from the bench as it had several drawers attached below it to the left and a single small cabinet to the right. I rifled through the desk drawers and picked up another tinderbox. I then opened the right cabinet and saw the most unusual thing. It was another cylinder like object but it was larger and had a small half sphere shape on top of it that glowed slightly. Reaching my hoof out, I touched the cylinder and a sudden thought appeared in my mind.

One day I shall return. If it wasn’t for the thought of you, my love, I wouldn’t be able to go on. When I find myself doing terrible things, I take comfort in you.

As long as I am able to think of you and long for a life together, I know I’m better than the work that I’m doing. The only thing that I crave while I’m here is fair judgment and a safe return.

A single tear formed in my eye. I didn’t know how to explain it, but this thought seemed absolutely genuine. I could tell it was Alexander’s too. Again, I didn’t know how, but I did. It’s as if this thing not only gave the one who touched it the thought, but the feeling and emotion of it when it was placed there as well. I felt an overwhelming sadness over me as I heard this thought. Alexander truly cared for whomever this love of his was. How could Charcoal—me, ask to kill him? Things kept making less and less sense.

Detaching myself from the canister, I noticed another note written on some parchment on top of the desk. I lit the set of candles on the desk and began to read again to myself:

This is my third attempt to produce artificial vitae. The former compounds lacked the potency I need, but I sense I’m close. Calamine and Orpiment are a given and the Cuprite binds them well. This time I will attempt Aqua Regia instead of Aqua Fortis in the hopes that it will produce a more even solution.

The experiment was unsuccessful. The solution is highly acidic and proves impractical to put to any use except as detergent. Organic tissue reacts especially violently to the solution and should be handled with great care. I might be able to use the recipe, but I’m losing hope that I will find an alchemic solution to my predicament.

Well, that had given me just the right thing that I had needed to produce an acid. I already had an idea for one but this is perfect for what I need. Luckily enough too, a small chemical pot sat on the desk next to the note, I made a note of it in case I needed it later. Seeing that there was nothing else left for me in the laboratory, I exited back up through the stairs into the main room.

I ascended the stairs with my lantern lit; praying that what I had heard earlier on the walkway was gone. With a heavy sigh of relief, I made it safely over the walkway and through the laboratory door to search the castle further for any signs of the key to the Wine Cellar.

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I had checked in every area besides the stairs that led to the upper level, so by logical choice, that’s where I started. There was no scream this time though as I walked up the stairs to the upper level. The upper level itself was only just a walkway that overlooked the foyer from a small distance up that connected to other sections of the castle. I was beginning to lose hope as I continued down the walkway though as all the potential entrances to another area were sealed off by some natural obstruction. Once I reached the end though, a small archway with a sign that said “Archives” above it with an actual door at the end gave me some hope. The door was unlocked as well, with no other visible path to another area; I opened the door and walked inside.

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I had instantly gotten a bad vibe about this place. Then again, I haven’t had a good one about any place that I’ve been to in this castle yet, but this felt especially worse. It was cold, much colder than anywhere else, unnaturally cold even. On top of that, the darkness seemed no better than it had been in the laboratory. A single light shone from a hanging candle above me, but past that the hallway in front of me was completely shrouded. A door lay on the floor in front of me, completely ripped off of its hinges from the doorframe to the right of it. Nothing about this gave any good indications of anything. The atmosphere was heavy with something, something bad, something uninviting, commanding me to leave. I had to use a great deal of awareness while in here.

I took my first steps in, nothing bad happened yet. The Archives had differed from the rest of the castle and the laboratory in that the walls were wooden instead of stone and a carpet similar to the area that I had woken up in lay on the floor with a long rug running the length of the hallway on top of it. I arrived at the doorframe and looked inside. Shelves of books lined the walls with a table in the middle also holding a various assortment of things. I also was beginning to fully grasp just how much of a state of disrepair that the castle was in. Apart from the castle just looking extremely old, many things were chipped off and holes formed all over the walls and ceiling. I moved just enough inside to scan the room quickly for any evidence of a key. I didn’t see a key, but what I did see was another note similar to the ones that I had found before that was partially concealed by a small stack of books. I walked over and picked up the parchment, noticing that the header on the page was: “Charcoal’s Journal”. Intrigued, I began to read what was on the page.

16th of May, 839

The unrelenting snow has continued to obstruct our expedition into the northern reaches of the Griffin Territory, making it impossible to dig until the storms die down. Even during this time of year being this far north and the uncontrolled weather allows for snow storms to continue raging through the land, while Equestria has already ended its winter. How the professor managed to find this location in the vast plains of snow remains a mystery to me. Later that evening, we uncovered a passage beneath the snow leading to an ice covered structure. The professor was confident that this was the tomb and ordered the others to clear the way. Tomorrow, I will lead the team into the ancient structure, and no matter what the professor may be keeping from me, the dig should give something interesting to take back to the Canterlot museum.

If this was true and it was truly from my old self, then that would explain the pickaxe on my flank. I was an archeologist then apparently. Still, this gave no explanation to what was currently happening with me being stuck in such a strange place. I left the entry where it was on the table, there was no need to bring it along as I can remember what was written easily enough. There was nothing else of important note in the room so I moved directly across the hall to the closed door that was to the left of the open doorframe when I had first entered.

The door creaked open and I began my way inside. This room looked in better shape than the previous one at least. More shelves of books and a writing desk at the end of the room directly in front of me and another closed door to the right of the desk. I quickly went through the desk drawers and found another tinderbox, added it to the others, and moved to my right to head through the other door that was in the room. The area beyond the door was only a hallway that connected to the first one that I originally entered into when I first came in the Archives. It was shrouded near the intersection of the two hallways but further past I could see the hallway leading into another room at the far end of it. There was also another door directly in front of me so I decided to try that first. I opened the door and took a few steps in.

Oooooooaaaauuugggghhhhh…

I gasped before taking cover behind a fireplace directly to the left of me. My entire body quaked with fear as soon as I had heard that unholy moan. It sounded like some sort of broken violin being slowly played.  It was most definitely not any kind of creak or natural noise that an old castle would make. It came very clearly from the direction of whatever lay beyond the closed door further up the room and to the right of me when I had walked in. Some pony, some thing, was in this Archives area with me. I felt no need to introduce myself.

After several minutes of calming myself down and assuring myself that whatever had made that noise was finally gone and would come through the door, I worked up the courage to explore the room further. The actions of everything that had happened since waking hadn’t boded well for my sanity or vision. I could feel this ever-present sense of dread and slight paranoia in the back of my mind that only grew as I moved further into the castle. This had adversely affected my vision in that wherever I looked, there was almost a constant graining of the textures of the walls, the shelves, everything. Along with that on the edges of my vision I could see the walls were warping and shaping into irregular shapes. I lit the candle that was on the desk at the edge of the room. Whenever I was near light, however, I could feel my vision returning to normal and my nerves eased themselves. I took solace in the light as it was my only sense of escape from the hellish darkness that surrounded me. I removed myself from the comfort of the light once more as I picked up another journal entry from the edge of the desk.

17th of May, 839

My hooves tremble as I write, but I must document this for fear that my memory with fail me of this event eventually if I don’t. Today, I took some of my team and ventured into the dark, ancient passage that we had uncovered. Our torches burned faintly in the murky air of such an old place underground. The crudely carved passage confused me. It looked much older than the 1st century structure we had expected. The twisting path emerged to a great ante-chamber. The walls were lined with statutes unlike anything I had ever seen. These statutes looked like some sort of mythical creature that stood on two legs instead of four. It looked somewhat akin to that of a monkey except much taller. The news of a find like this is something that could potentially reach the princess herself. At the far end of the chamber, a great stone slab sealed off whatever lay ahead. I gave the order to raise it and as soon as I pushed through the narrow space the stone collapsed again, sealing me inside. I was trapped.

As I had finished reading the entry, the only thing that I could think was: This had all actually happened to me? After that I began to wonder if maybe these journal entries will help me figure out why I’m after all. From the dates of the note written to myself and these entries, only two months have passed since the time of this event that I had just read, so they might eventually lead to why I came here in the first place and who exactly this Alexander is.

I fortified my mental state as much as I could as I slowly began to open the door on the right side of the room where I heard the moan from. I opened the door and immediately saw that it as another hallway leading down to my left. There was a small space to the right that led to a dead end; within it was a place to light a candle on the wall and a table with an odd looking vase on it. I decided to light the candle on the wall to provide some better light. As I turned around my eye caught the strange vase again, I took another look at it before beginning to turn away again. My heart stopped for a second as the thing suddenly exploded in a cloud of dust. I stared at the empty table for a second, trying to rationalize what I just witnessed, but I couldn’t. I tried as best as I could to push the disturbing thought out of my mind just like all of the others and continue on.

The end of the hallway was now visible. It was another intersection that split to the left and right with a closed door in the middle. Before I began to make my way over there though, I decided to head through the door that was just to my right with a sign that said “Old Tomes” that I noticed when I made my first scan of the hallway. The room was unlit, like many others so far in the Archives. I made my way over the desk and lit a stack of candles and began to make a sweep of the room for anything I could use. Then, I heard a noise, not really a noise, but music. It was a piano. There was a piano being played somewhere near me. It played low, dark notes in staggered rhythm that chilled me just listening to it. I found myself breathing very heavily again as the fear began to take over. After resiliently fending it off and calming myself once again the music had stopped.

I found another tinderbox and some oil in the room, though no more notes or journal entries. I exited the room and began moving towards the end of the hallway, towards the sound of both the piano and the moan now. What was I thinking, going towards the ominous sounds? Still, if I ever wanted to leave this horrible place, I had to keep going. I made it to the end of the hallway and looked both ways. To my left was another small dead end with a chair and a drawer, I learned my lesson and decided to not go there, and to my right was another long hallway leading to a room that looked similar to the one that I saw when I first entered the Archives but refrained from going in. The sign to the door right in front of me read “Local History”. Unfortunately, when I tried to move the door open it wouldn’t budge, must have been locked then. My only option left was the large room to the right, the same one again with the ominous noises. I gave a silent prayer before making my way towards it.

I arrived at the threshold of the door, tying as best I can to keep my breathing at a regular rate. After much self-encouragement, I finally managed to poke my head inside and look around. I gave a heavy sigh of relief when I saw nothing else in the room that was alive. Though albeit a slight bittersweet relief, I was hoping that there was the slightest chance that there was an actual living, rational being in here that could explain what was happening.

It was indeed a large room; it ran the length of the entire Archives area that I’ve already covered through the hallways and more to my left. It was in a much more deplorable condition than most of the other rooms, there was little to no furnishings, any paintings that were on the wall were either fallen or slanted greatly, and half of the four large windows were boarded up. Moving further inside and taking a full view of the room again, I noticed the source of the music in a piano that was close to my right. I got close to it to try and examine it for any king of magical qualities. My ambitions to do so suddenly ended once the lid that covered the piano keys slammed shut and nearly gave me a heart attack. If there was any kind of magic at work here with all the things I’ve been seeing, it is no magic that I have ever encountered before. It was almost as if it was haunted, but I never believed in ghosts. Though in my current state of mind I found many of my beliefs to be wavering and bending.

I once again found myself trying to get rid of my fear as I began to make my way to the furthest end of the room and hopefully another entrance into the local history room that I saw. Before making it all the way to the end of the room I turned towards the light of one of the windows that wasn’t boarded up and eased my mind for the time in a while. Outside of the window it was still foggy but I could make out some trees in the distance, nothing too insightful. I closed my eyes and took a deep, relaxed breath.

Oooooooaaaauuugggghhhhh….

My eyes shot open as the tiniest bit of sanity and good feelings that I had regained from the light were instantly shattered. The same broken violin moan came from directly behind me. I was near tears at the thought that I was about to die as I couldn’t see what was behind me. I didn’t want to look, I cowered where I stood and forcefully shut my eyes to try and not look at whatever horrid creature was making those noises.

A minute passed, I was still alive, at least, I thought I was. I reopened my eyes and looked behind me. Nothing was there. Nothing had killed me. It was then that a sudden thought had seeded in my mind: Am I imagining these sounds? Have I gone so low on sanity from this experience of amnesia and this horrid castle that I’m just losing it? These were questions I didn’t rightly know the answer to. There was only one way to find out though: to keep going, as crazy as it sounded to me.

I walked on through the door where the origin of the sound lay in. It was too dark to tell what was inside except for a window to the far right corner of the room. I lifted my lantern which illuminated some more of the room. Another rockslide that had somehow evaded my notice from initially looking into the room lay right in front of me to my left. This rock slide was different from the others though. Blood. There was blood all over the rocks and partially on the floor. I coughed and turned away quickly as I tried to keep myself from vomiting. Blood wasn’t an easy sight for me.

I moved along, gradually getting over what I just saw. At the window that I saw when I first entered the room there was another table with another bottle of oil on it. Along with those, of all things, another piano. The lid on this one was already closed though. Nothing else of importance to me was there so I turned to my left and continued into the darkened hallway, though with my lamp I could see everything that was right in front of me. I made it a few meters in before turning to my right and reading “Floor Plans” on another wooden sign to a slightly ajar door.

I cautiously pushed the door open and to my surprise it was actually very well lit with two large windows like the ones I saw from the big room in here. There were two giant shelves full of scrolls on each end of the room with space in the middle. I moved in further and saw that in the space was a stand with two large scrolls sprawled out on it. I took a few more steps towards them to examine what they were. My mind was once again filled with something coming back to me with the same white flash. Opening my eyes, the room seemed much like how the foyer looked when I had my first flashback again.

“Much of the castle is old and hasn’t been tended to for centuries. When the Shadow arrives it won’t take long for things to start falling apart,” I recognized the voice to be Alexander’s.

“Centuries? How is that possible? This area was only discovered recently.” It was my voice now speaking.

“Castle Bridleburg has been around for much longer than it would seem. Even before the majority of the explorers even came here. This is something that you will soon come to learn about, but for now we need to focus on reinforcing the castle. There isn’t much to be done about the wards. We should reinforce weak structures. The ground will tremble and there will be a risk that everything will cave in on us, especially downstairs. Here, here, and there. Let’s get the servants working on it.”

The same flash returned as it did last time and everything once again returned back to normal. The memory seemed so familiar now, as if it had just happened. I remember now. Alexander was with me as we discussed protecting against the Shadow. My memory though was still heavily fragmented and only certain pieces are there. I can’t connect anything to each other yet with how little I actually have. It also got me thinking. Centuries? This castle had been here for centuries? I was just as confused as, well, I was when the memory had happened. There seems to be much more going on here than some mere haunted castle then, something very old. Also, if what was said was true, then many of the reinforcements that were made seem to be failing, as I had seen from the multitude of rockslides and roof cave-ins.

The open scrolls that were actually on the board looked like plans of the foyer and the eastern half of the Archives. I took a long look at them to see if they could be any help in navigating the area, which they really weren’t. I turned around; ready to leave again, only to be once again stricken with fear and piano music once again filled the area. The piano, that damned piano at the end of the hallway that was closed, is now playing. It was the same dark, nefarious rhythm again. I moved to the edge of the door and quickly motioned my head around the doorframe to observe the piano at the end of the hallway. As soon as I moved my head out of the doorframe the sound abruptly stopped. There was nothing at the piano, and the lid was still closed. I was completely baffled and terrified at the same time. Again I questioned my sanity as I lifted my lantern and began to head out the door to my right.

The hallway came to an end a small ways down, with only one more door to the left. Well, a doorframe, the door was nowhere to be seen. I looked inside to see another desk with a journal entry on it and a couple of stand-up boards with more scrolls on them as well to its left. After my first step inside; the entire world began to tremble. The sound of cascading rocks could be heard from a distance behind me. Oh no, I thought. I galloped back down the hallway towards the large room where I had entered from. My fears were confirmed as a newly formed pile of rocks completely blocked my way back into the large room. I swore before heading back towards the room I had left from. There was only one way to go now.

Back inside the room, I took a look at the large scrolls on the boards that, looking closer, appeared to be two detailed maps of the Bridleburg area and eastern Equestria in general. The maps made my jaw drop. Never had there existed a map this detailed for eastern Equestria, or the Bridleburg area for that matter. The question of who is Alexander started to become what is Alexander. How could any pony possibly have maps that were this detailed?

I turned my attention away from that conundrum and towards the entry on the desk. I reached out to pick it up. My hoof touched the parchment.

“Agh!” I winced. Something instantly overwhelmed me with a strenuous force like I was about to experience a flashback but much more painful. My vision blurred in and out as all ability to think escaped me. I felt my throat being constricted as I choked and gasped to breathe. The pain forced me to my knees and eventually onto my side as I began to pass out. Just before the blackness overran my vision though, I heard my voice once more:

"17th of May, 839"

"After pounding the stone wall for what seemed like an eternity. I realized it was hopeless, I was trapped. I fell to the ground gasping for air. That’s when I saw a faint blue shimmer."

My vision returned to me, except instead of being in the same room, I was now on a stone floor with a narrow, lit path with darkness surrounding it before me with, as I had heard myself a second ago describing it, a faint blue shimmer atop a pedestal at the end. I began to crawl towards the light as I heard myself begin to speak again:

"My weakened body was heavy to carry but I managed to push myself towards the enchanting light. It was waiting for me. Enclosed in dark nothingness, I felt myself drawn to the mystic light."

With much strain, I had finally made it to the pedestal and grabbed towards the light.

"I reached out. Closing it into my body and covering it. The faint glow escaped my body and began to spark brightly and spirit me away. Unlocking alien memories of spiraling towers, endless deserts, and impossible geometry."

The glow disappeared as a scraping sound began to ring across my ears.

"The next thing I remember was the sound of the stone being lifted. The voice of my team that I took with me into the ruins pulling me to safety. And pressed firmly against my body were the broken pieces of a most peculiar relic."

I had finally returned to reality. And worst of all, as I awoke, the sound of that demented piano playing once more filled my ears. After regaining my bearings and a few groans I managed to stand up once more. The piano stopped as soon as my vision had fully returned to me. I sluggishly exited the room, trying to make sense of what had just occurred. It had to have been some form of magic, there was no other way. No mere memory could have the power to both strangulate and hallucinate. So many things were happening to me in such a short time in such a hellish place.

Atop being prone to memory attacks and the whole castle itself, I was now trapped in this small hallway due to the cave-in. There was nothing I could lift that would be able to break through the window in the floor plans room, and I didn’t know how far up I was in the first place. The rocks were clearly too heavy to move as well and the hallway just led to a dead end.

Before I became complete devoid of hope though, I noticed a small opening in the wall at the end of the hallway right next to me. I moved closer and lifted my lantern once more for a better look. There was definitely a few bricks missing from the wall and the others seemed loose. Through the missing bricks I could see another room; from the looks of it there were much more bookshelves throughout the room and it also seemed lit. I hadn’t noticed it before; it must have formed during the cave-in.

Looking around for something that might be able to break it with, I had finally found a loose brick directly below me that must have also fallen off the wall. Extinguishing my lantern, I lifted the heavy brick. It was nearly impossible to lift in my weakened state of both body and mind but I eventually managed to lift it to the point where I could toss it. I summoned all of my remaining strength and threw the brick as hard as I could at the wall. The brick did just as I had expected and smashed clean through the other loose bricks, knocking them back and creating a hole just big enough for me to fit through. I silently congratulated myself for a seemingly small victory, but any progress in this place was the greatest feeling ever.

The other side of the wall was indeed lit to a certain extent from what I could see through the newly formed hole. After some of my strength had returned I hoisted myself up onto the hole and lifted the rest of my body over to move inside. I took my first step inside the room, just as another flashback began to start. I instantly panicked after going through the last one but to my relief it was just like the others that I had before as Alexander’s voice began speak again.

“You have to be swift. When you activate the first one—you hear that?” While he spoke, I could hear a ticking sound in the background and once he finished there was a slight thud noise and it ceased. “If it stops, you’ll have to start over.”

“Isn’t all this a bit…excessive?”

“You can never be too careful, charcoal.”

Like the others too, my vision returned to normal, or at least as normal as it could get with how much stress my mind was taking from all of this. My initial view of the room only showed a little of what was actually in it. The area that I entered through was indeed lit but only it that one section, the room continued down to the left of me by two rows with a bookshelf in-between them. It was too dark to see the left end of the room and to my right was just another quite large, or at least larger than the others, empty bookshelf.

I raised my lantern and saw another door that was in front of me to the left a little in the other row made by the center bookshelf median. I quickly moved over to it with much anticipation as the only thought on my mind now was to get out of this area. I pushed on the door as hard as I could, the door moved back and forth only slightly but never opened. After frustratingly trying several more times and nearly pushing myself to tears again, I gave up. The door wouldn’t open. I suddenly remembered something, the door before that had the local history sign. This must be that door, which means that my only means of leaving was to find a key.

I continued on to the furthest end of the room in search of any keys. I reached the end and saw a small display stand with a piece of parchment in it. I lit the candle stack near it to conserve lantern oil and moved closer. The glass that had covered it and protected it from the outside was shattered and only some small pieces clung to the outside frame of it. Curious, I picked it up and brought it closer to the light and read Local Ponylore at the top. Even more curious now, I began to read it in the hopes of finding out more about the castle.

Eastern Equestria and Castle Bridleburg:

Deep within the far reaches of the eastern Equestrian forests lies a somewhat small settlement of Bridleburg. And next to it, shrouded and hidden by mountains is a most interesting landmark. The castle itself has been in this area for far longer than any of the settlements have. Ever since the first explorers had arrived to this area, they found this strange castle looming within its natural barriers, old and withered as if it had been there forever. It’s strange and quite unusual architecture made some believe that it was made by aliens. But the only one that they had found within the castle was a strange yet open pony named Alexander. He welcomed the explorers to the area and claimed that his family had lived there for generations ever since they had migrated from mainland Equestria many years ago. Seeing the opportunity, the explorers began to bring in more and more settlers and eventually the settlement of Bridleburg was made a few miles outside of the castle. Alexander and his castle became Bridleburg’s source of protection and law from there on, even renaming his castle from an unknown name before to Castle Bridleburg and himself to Baron Alexander of Bridleburg. Ever since, and even since the time of the first explorers, strange tales about things in the area and rumors about Alexander have existed and are still told today.

The Gatherers:

This is one of the stories that goes back to the time of the first explorers. It is said that some explorers had gotten lost in the cold dark woods and became tainted by some dark magic that surrounds the area of Bridleburg. The taint and corruption twisted their bodies and left them disfigured and empty of essence. Those who have sighted them describe them as horrible revenants that lurk silently through the woods. They are called Gatherers for their ambition to steal living creatures. It is the whimpers of their bound victims being dragged behind them that reveal their presence into places unknown.

The Immortal Baron Alexander:

A rumor that has more recently surfaced amongst the population of Bridleburg, some are beginning to speculate just how old Alexander really is. Alexander had been described as being very old since the accounts of the first settlers and explorers. That time was well over fifty years ago. The same Alexander has been alive and unchanged for the entire time since. He too had claimed that his family lived in the castle for generations yet the servants who began to work for Alexander since moving to the area has never seen any others in Alexander’s family. As the first generation of settlers began to pass on and the younger generation was brought up, rumors began that Alexander may be immortal just like the princess. Some have asked Alexander about meeting the princess but he refused any talk of visiting or being visited by royalty. Thus he remains as this shadowy figure that secludes himself within his castle, keeping to himself and the area around him.

Chills ran down my spine. Alexander being immortal? And these Gatherers, they sounded like something straight out of a nightmare, and I was currently in a nightmare. I hoped that all of these stories were just that, stories, and not real. If so, things just became twice as complicated as they already were.

I kept all that I had just read in mind as I searched further. This time I looked everywhere I possibly could. The key wasn’t out in the open so I had hoped that maybe it would be on one of the bookshelves somewhere. Coming to the end of the room back to where I first entered through the hole, I noticed an odd looking book that stuck out much further from the shelf than all the others. I then remembered exactly what the book was, or rather what it did. Forming my path, I pulled the book out slightly. The ticking sound that I had heard from the flashback sounded clearly and I moved quickly across the room to the other side where the second book was. I pulled that one out like the first and moved again all the way across the room again to a bookshelf in the middle and pulled the last book out. A low rumble sounded as soon as the last book clicked and I turned my head to my left to watch the large empty bookshelf shifting to its left and revealing another room adjacent to the one that I was in.

I galloped through the room, overjoyed as I could possibly be in a situation like this. It was a more square room with a single writing desk at the end of it in front of me with a window shining much more brightly than most of the others had on it. And on the desk, my most sought for item, a key. I quickly moved to the desk and snatched the key up. I must have triggered something very angry though, because as soon as the key was lifted off of the desk a loud crash came from behind me with a few grunts of something big. I froze dead for a second as I thought: Is this really happening? My one large find and victory that came out of this terrible place was ran into the ground by whatever was stalking the archive hallways.

I was stuck somewhere between finding a hiding spot or just giving up and sitting down to let fate do what it will with me. I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to choose though as the noises quickly died down and all seemed to return to its normal state. If normal is having the constant threat of an unknown entity about you and feeling like you’re about die every second, that is. I gave a heavy sigh of relief, whatever made that crash was gone. Before I went to investigate though, I checked through the drawers for anything interesting and there was in fact a note in one of them.

Regarding the Closing of the Wine Cellar

Those fools have no idea what power they’re dealing with. The only reason I allowed them to remain here was in the hopes that I could further my ambitions much faster, which I have, but some are becoming superstitious of me. They ask for me to reveal my secrets of how I stay alive for so long or to meet the princess. If she were to even get near here it could jeopardize everything that I’ve set in motion. I’ve nearly prevented all outside contact, but some still get through though. I need absolute assurance that nothing will interfere with my plans, those few though who keep pestering me may eventually become a problem. Maybe I will feed them some wine, it would solve my problems with them. The winery hasn’t been majorly important until they first arrived, but now I’m getting more opportunities to use it to my advantage. The Wine Cellar will therefore be closed until this matter is handled.

I got even more chills. This had to have been by Alexander. Though if what he wrote was true, then something bigger is indeed going on. Something that transcends only me, I had no idea what it was, but I had to find out. As horrifying as this place is, it makes me feel like I was actually living. I’m discovering things that until now were only myths. Nothing else was in the room so it was time for me to find out what that large crash was behind me.

What had happened was very obvious from the moment I left the small room. The door that had been locked was now completely severed from its hinges and laying on the floor in front of me in two pieces. Two pieces, something had the strength to rip a door in half. I gingerly moved around the pieces of what was once a door and out into the hallway that lay beyond the doorframe. I recognized it as the same hallway that I was in earlier by looking at the sign that once again read “Local History” on it. I began back the way that I came by moving down the hall as silently as I could to not bring notice to myself by whatever may be lurking these halls. The rest of this hall remained seemingly unchanged, though I found the one that did change other than the split door. The other door that I needed to head through to make it back to the entrance was locked. I disbelievingly tried harder to open it again before giving up and swearing again.

“Oh come on,” I said out loud, forgetting about trying to remain silent. My frustration with this entire place had far exceeded its limit. Shaking my head at how bad my luck was, I moved back to where I began at the broken door and then to my right towards the large room. I began towards it had just made it to the end of the hallway.

Urrrghaagghh…

I had finally gotten my first glimpse of the mysterious lurker, and how I wish I hadn’t. I had just crossed the threshold through the room and saw it was all the way across the room and just exiting through the door at the right end so it was hard to see, but I did see some things, and they weren’t good. From what I could see, the thing was absolutely deformed beyond belief. It had a large gash in its side and one of the forelegs looked severed in the middle, replace by a metallic object as I could hear it thumping on the floor as it  left. Its coat and mane were completely gone, instead only rotted flesh remained of it. I only saw the backside of it and couldn’t see its face, but I felt it better that I hadn’t, If it looked anything like the rest of the body, then I would have probably passed out from fear, though I did come very close.

Thinking straight again, I sat down with a sudden realization: That horrible monster went through the door at the end of the room, which leads to the exit, and the only other alternative route is locked, so my only chance of leaving is to follow that monster. I didn’t think that I could do it. I thought long about it, really thought about it. I eventually came to terms that I have to do it and that either way I had equal chance of running into it again. I stood up and with hopelessness about me, I continued on towards the end. As I neared the doorframe, my breaths became steadily heavier, my hoof steps became louder, and the now always present wavering of my vision worsened. I came upon the edge of the doorway and took a deep breath before looking around the corner. There was nothing. Nothing beyond the door. Only the same hallway that I had entered through.

Still extremely cautious but slightly more relieved, I continued further. My slow steps echoed louder than I had remembered them echoing before. I had finally made it to the end of the hallway and was bracing myself to turn again to the final hallway that would lead back to the foyer.

Oooooooaaaauuugggghhhhh…

It came from behind me, behind me! How in the hell could that thing get behind me? A quick head turn revealed nothing though. The only way that was possible was if there were two of them, not a pleasing thought. Before I regained my nerves and tried to continue, all fell apart and I finally snapped once I heard a second growl that was closer to me this time and the piano once again started. I screamed and madly rushed towards the exit. I didn’t care anymore, I had to get out of this place. My vision was blurred from the blind panic but I don’t believe that I actually saw the monster again before I made it to the end of the hallway, and in turn, my much relieved exit.

__________________________________________________________________________

I made it. I was finally out of that terrible place. The light of the foyer was much brighter than that of the Archives. I collapsed onto the ground and laid there for a few minutes to take in the light and regain what had been greatly shaken. For the first time, I was smiling. Smiling because I had finally achieved something out of all that had happened. I made it.

I stood, finally relaxed and more confident than I had ever been since waking up in this demented castle, and took my first steps towards the Wine Cellar. It took only four steps, four steps to bereave me of all of those feelings in an instant. That terrible, earth shaking train whistle-like roar boomed throughout the castle once more and struck me with much more fear as I had let my guard down since returning to the foyer, which I believed to be safe. I was wrong. The nasty flesh like substance that was blocking the entrance to the Refinery grew across the wall that wall behind me and the floor below me. The stuff on the floor though looked more like puss filled sacs.

I learned the hard way that I was right. The one closest to me exploded and whatever substance filled it splashed all over me. It seared my coat and made my skin react as if it were being set on fire, which for all I know it had. I screamed with agony and galloped as fast as I could away before another could explode near me. I made it to the end of the walkway that sat above the ground level of the foyer and in a fear stricken rush began to move down the stairs, only to trip on the first two steps and fall. I hit a single stair again and again as everything spun around me again. A blow to my head, then to my forelegs, then to my side, my head again, it all blended together as the pain made me lose my sense of reality and begin to pass out.

I wasn’t passed out, yet I wasn’t exactly fully awake either. Everything hurt, whether it was from the flesh sac or the fall I didn’t know, it just hurt. I could feel my heartbeat. A low, double thud. Slow. Beating. My eyes opened slightly, then closed again, then once more opened. This continued for a good while. It was all just so surreal. The pain and loss of sanity had taken its toll on me; I couldn’t think anymore, just function, barely.

My eyes finally opened for real this time. No more disorientation, no more disability to think. I must have actually passed out for a while. But one thing was certain, I was alive, something I didn’t know if I should have been thankful for or be cursing myself for.  My left foreleg twitched. I had control over myself again. With the strength I regained from being motionless for a time, I pushed with all my might and slowly came up into a standing position once more, though with much strain as I struggled for a bit to keep myself up. I leaned against the stairs rail for support for a bit as I recovered my energy. My right side still stung from whatever splashed on me from that sac, but I wanted nothing more to do with those. I was bleeding from a few of the burn areas and cuts from my fall, as well as a faint taste of blood in my mouth. I stared at the floor with heavy eyes.

In the midst of recovering my energy, I realized I had started to do something else, I began to cry. I felt the watery tears pooling in the base of my eyes and occasionally falling to the ground. By this point I cared little if I was crying or not, nothing really mattered to me at the moment. I was probably going to die down here in this monster infested hell. How could such a place like this exist in such a peaceful nation? Fears and myths where something that was only meant to scare foals, not push one to the brink of death. I pushed off from the rail and looked back up towards the Archives. The flesh substance was still there, but remained only there. I turned and began to move towards the Wine Cellar. I had to keep going, I didn’t know why, but I just had to. It’s like there was some unnatural drive within me to push further, learn more, figure out why this was all happening, and most importantly, to finally escape.

None of the fleshy substance was in the stairway that led to the Laboratory and Wine Cellar. I moved to the intersection just as I did before, but this time turned left to the Wine Cellar. I made it to the door safely and pulled the key out of my leg bag, surprised that it had somehow remained in it and had not fallen out. The key fit right into the slot, a definite clicking sound of its turning gave me the signal that the door was finally unlocked. I took the handle and pulled the door open, making my way inside to hopefully find the ingredients that I needed to make the acid which I had ventured all this way for in the first place.

__________________________________________________________________________

It was dark. As the Laboratory had been. But from what I could tell I was on another wooden platform. The entrance led to the furthest right edge of the platform and to my left was the stairs. Everything about the Wine Cellar, save for its layout, seemed exactly the same as the laboratory

I raised my lantern once more, another item that I was surprised wasn’t gone, and descended the stairs until I reached its turning point that went down further to the left. From this point, I could see what the Wine Cellar mostly looked like. The floor of the Cellar itself was mostly bare except for a couple of large barrels, holding wine I assumed, and many doors all around leading to other sections that I couldn’t see. There were two in front of me, one directly to my left, and several that I could barely make out behind me by looking past the stairs. Chains rattled off in the distance and I instantly raised my awareness once more before continuing further. I descended the next set of stairs to my left and as my hoof touched the ground another flashback came to me.

“Where did the Baron go?”

“Who cares? He left us with enough wine to last us a lifetime. Or at least until tomorrow!” The sound of laughter filled the room as the flashback ended.

I was puzzled. I hadn’t recognized either of those voices. Was I even there? How could I have been experiencing flashbacks that weren’t my own? More questions that needed an answer but I feared there was none. Large pools of blood and a couple of wine bottles resided on the floor to the left of me. I decided it best not to explore that area first and instead begin moving towards my right to see what was in that area. At the end of the main room was a slightly ajar door in front of me and an open doorframe to the right. I was closer to the slightly open one so I made my way in there first.

It was very dirty and unkempt, much like the rest of the castle. Multiple support pillars were set up throughout the room with unorganized barrels between them, smaller than the large ones outside though. In the darkness to my left was a small jar that gave a soft blue glow. Intrigued, I walked over to it and knelt down to examine it. “Calamine” it read on the label. This was one of the things that I needed. I quickly picked it up and placed it in my bag. No sooner had I picked it up did the entire world around me once again quake and a loud crash made me quickly glance to my right as I watched my only exit become covered with rocks and pillars.

“No,” I whispered.

I shot up and moved as quickly as I could to not lose my balance as the shaking started to cease. Multiple debris covered the door, I could barely see through it but some of what had fallen went through the open door. I thought for a minute and concluded my only chance of getting out was to move all of them out of the way or at least to the point where I could get out. Working as hard as I could, I slowly began to move the large rocks out of the way and pushing the pillars to the side, conjuring up the rest of the strength I had regained earlier in the process. After a few long, arduous minutes, I made a hole just big enough for me to fit through. I slid though a large rock that was too big to move and a pillar to finally make it out of the room.

Feeling both accomplished and exhausted, I turned to my left and through the open doorframe. Inside was another small room with chains hanging from the ceiling which was the ones that I assumed that I heard earlier. There was also another closed door to my left. I took one more step in before violently recoiling as a terrified scream came from behind the door followed by three loud smashes on it that actually made the entire door shake as if it were being pounded on. I ran back behind the doorframe once more and peeked around the corner occasionally to see if the door had done anything else. It remained stationary once more. Whether there was something actually alive in there or it was an illusion, I had no idea. It had seemed like nothing was inside though after what had just happened.

I made my way as slowly as possible to the door, and with equal speed, pulled the door slightly and looked through the small crack. Nothing again. It was just the end of a small corner of the room. I pulled the door open further and slinked around the edge inside. The room had a small hallway that eventually led to a larger more square room. Upon viewing it though, I had to stifle vomiting. The room was covered in gore and blood. A small table in the center along with a few upturned chairs, but other than that it was just complete death. Another flashback began to come on.

“What’s happening? Agh, feels like…my body is going…to burst…” The sound of flesh violently ripping and blood, or what I assumed to be blood, spilling across the floor made me almost puke once more.

“Sweet Celestia, do something!” It was the same two voices from my previous flashback, just before third and once again unknown voice spoke.

“Accept it, where not getting out of here alive.”

“How can you say that? Alexander you bastard, let us out of here!” The immediate sound of coughing as he finished speaking ended the memory.

Disgusting. Whatever had happened to these poor souls was something that only the most horrible of ponies could do. Alexander must have been the one who did it too, from reading both the note by him and whoever spoke mentioning him. Perhaps Alexander was as bad as my past self had described him after all? Too many questions, never enough answers, and the answers I get only lead to more questions. I sighed, trying to collect myself and get the sight in front of me out of my mind to search the room.

There was a single window in this room, actually, there had been a lot of windows around in the rooms what I was in, though they eventually became unimportant to me as they just seemed so dull. They gave almost no light and seeing out of them was nigh impossible. I kept seeing them, but they gave me nothing I could use so I just stopped caring about them. Besides that, the room was just as dull as all of the others. It was a depressing and horrid sight to look at, and my mind was taking the brunt of its negative effects on me. I was slipping away from rational thought and into instinct, because instinct kept me alive, it was quick. I lost myself in thought, of all places to do so. After a certain amount of time, how specific I didn’t know, I brought myself back into reality. I was standing in the middle of several mutilated corpses and pools of blood thinking about my entire situation, what a fool I was being.

I checked the rest of the room, another tinderbox and a small room on the left side adjacent to the larger one that I was in. Inside that one I found another item that I needed for my acid, Aqua Regia. Other than that, nothing else was in the room, besides the corpses. I left with a sigh of relief of getting out of that nasty place. I exited the room with the long rattling chains in them and back into the main room of the Wine Cellar. I found myself becoming more disconnected with what seemed real. What was real in the first place? I have only so many memories of my life that I don’t even know what to believe or if any of this is right. The darkness of this cellar must be driving me mad. I lifted my lit lantern and took in the lights rays, a small bit of solace to keep my sanity up.

I decided to go back to the first door that I had noticed when I first entered directly in front of where the stairs began to head back up. I pulled the door open and became immediately suspicious. It was as dark as any of the other rooms, no windows in this one, but all I could see through it was a single desk at the end surrounded by fog, or what I assumed to be fog, it was hard to tell.

I took a few cautious steps inside.

Nothing.

A few more.

Nothing.

The least few to the desk itself.

Nothing.

Completely baffled yet alright with the outcome, I lit the candle that I saw on the desk when I neared it and looked around. Barrels, a lot more barrels around the room, and a tool rack, but nothing else out of the ordinary from what I’ve been seeing thus far. Only one thing took my attention, another ingredient that I needed. “Cuprite” it read. Feeling better that I found another, I quickly snatched it up and put it with the others.

The door slammed shut behind me as I heard that series of grunts by what sounded like the same thing in the Archives. My eyes sprang open with fear and I silently cursed myself for letting my guard down and ducked into a corner behind a set of barrels to hide in case whatever it was came inside.

Nothing else made any noises. I seemed to be alone once more, as they had done to me before, scare me to the point of collapsing and leaving just as quickly. If I wasn’t so sure that these things were soulless abominations from what I’ve seen of them, I would have assumed they were doing this for their own damned amusement.

I left my impromptu hiding spot and moved back over the now closed door I had entered through. I pushed it open slightly and peeked through, nothing from what I could see. I pushed it even further to where it was half open. Still no monsters. At last I just opened the door to its fully open state and exited through it. The Wine Cellar remained as it was when I first entered, creepy and foreboding, yet no monsters. Another sigh of relief before heading to my right to the last unexplored area of the Wine Cellar.

After a small area that ran under the wooden walkway I came upon a door that was in the center of the stone wall. I, with even more caution that I had with the previous one due to those things possibly lurking about, pulled open the door. Same as before with how dark it was, similar fog-like stuff. I raised my lantern and could see that the room was more rectangular in shape, to my left was an opening that led into another room and to my right looked like a narrower piece of the room that wrapped around so I couldn’t see the end of it.

I tried going to my right first. A small metal holder with a wooden torch inside were placed around several locations of the room. I lit the one that was closest to my right and looked around the corner to the area I couldn’t see initially. It looked like nothing was there at first, but after a second of searching I saw another faint glow of the last ingredient that I needed. I rushed over to it, though with my guard still raised in case of any more surprises, and observed the small jar. “Orpiment”, this one read. I collected it, storing with the others and turning around to head back.

I made it safely back to where my lit torch was. Looking back into the rest of the room though, I grew curious as to what was past the opening up ahead. There must be something down here that can help me, maybe another key to another door that was somewhere up ahead. I should at least check anyway, I definitely don’t want to end up having to come back down here again.

I continued to justify my reasoning for still being down here as I entered through the opening. A few shelves of miscellaneous items and the occasional barrel, but mostly bare. Though to my left at the end of the side room was a smaller hallway that went down to the left, so I moved in further. As I did, I could hear more sounds above me on the walkway akin to that of the ones in the laboratory. The creaking and the thumping of something striking it. I pushed it out of my mind as I had already experienced before and just assumed that it was my mind playing tricks on me and kept going.

I turned at the end of the room and saw that the hallway went on past further than my vision could see. Though there were more windows this time that looked like they were giving more light, I assumed only because it was such a narrow hallway. There were also several more torch placements on the walls, so I lit them as I went through the hallway towards the end. There was a door somewhere near the middle of it but I saw something that had caught my eye at the end of the hallway that also gave off a slight glow, less than the ingredients for the acid but still more visible than anything else. I kept the door in mind but left it alone as I moved further down the hall.

I made it to the end of the hallway and observed the large shelf that was against the wall and its contents. Nothing else had piqued my interest besides the small vial that I now found it to be. Picking it up, I remembered what I was, Laudanum, a substance that came from several experiments of alchemy involving plants. It was often used for healing purposes for those with large injuries to ease the pain. Suddenly thinking of my constantly burning side from that sac, I thought it best to use it to help with that.

Rrrarghrr…

This one was close, much closer to me. I fearfully turned my head to the right of me down the hallway and did a double take before moving in the corner of the hallway’s end. Waves of terror were sweeping over me, for with the light of the torch, I saw what those things looked like from the front.

That thing had no lower jaw.

It wasn’t necessarily gone, just…stretched, stretched and flapping about at least halfway to the ground from its head. Its eyes were mismatched and asymmetrical, I couldn’t see them so well but they looked like they were slit in a strange way that was narrower near the top of the eye but wider near the center. Its left foreleg was indeed replaced with a large metallic object, a claw, stained red. Other than that it was completely deprived of any hair as only the husk of dead flesh remained sloppily attached on the thing.

Just looking at it invoked a terror that I hadn’t thought existed in me; it went beyond anything I had felt before. My staggered breaths gave way to my teeth beginning to grind and chatter, of all things I could start to do. I clenched my mouth shut and tried to remain focused. Being in the presence of whatever this thing was had been having adverse effects on my mind. The small bit of vision distortion that was present before had now gone completely to my sight becoming distorted and wavering to the point where it was making my head spin. Blackness overtook the edges of my vision as tunnel vision began to set. I had to look away from it; it was making me do this somehow. I wrenched my head away from looking at it and buried my head down into the ground and prayed that it would go away.

The monster had shuffled around a bit and left after a few seconds, but I still kept my head down. Only after minutes I lifted it and saw an empty hallway once more. I stood, took a few steps, and lost my balance before falling completely to my side once more as my ears rang and my sight become distorted beyond recognition. The thing was gone, but the trauma of just staring at it and being in this darkness for so long had finally gotten to me. I lay there, confused as my thoughts swam through me head in no order. A few more heavy breaths. I could even begin to see imaginary bugs crawling across my eyes. I still thrashed about though because I hadn’t known any better. I was a pitiful mess on the floor coping with insanity.

It had taken a while, a long while, but I finally regained my senses once more as I found myself sometime later looking through a somewhat clear view again. I took one large, gasping breath and a few coughs before standing. I didn’t even think about it anymore, I quickly picked up the laudanum that I had dropped when I fell off the ground and poured it into my mouth.

The relief was nearly instant. I could feel my pain ending as I actually relaxed some. The tension in my muscles ceased and the burning in my side subsided. It was a good feeling. I shook slightly from the recovery and collected myself. Now that I wasn’t in as much pain, I could finally get out of here.

I moved swiftly to the door in the middle of the hallway with renewed vigor as the laudanum did its work. I felt completely renewed. I opened the door with no caution at all and, for once, with confidence, not caring what was on the other side. There was indeed nothing from what I could see. I moved towards the stairs and began to climb them quickly as there was no more time to waste. I had to get this acid made and through the Refinery to the inner sanctum, this was the only thing that mattered anymore. I had to know, had to know why all this was happening, and more specifically, why it was all happening to me. I made it to the Wine Cellar entrance and went through it without taking a second look back down.

__________________________________________________________________________

The door only barely shut behind me before the same thundering roar I heard when I had exited the Archives shot through me once more. The same red flesh substance began to morph over and grow across the walls of the hallway containing the narrow steps leading up and to the laboratory. I wouldn’t stay around long enough this time for that awful stuff to explode all over me again.

I burst into a full gallop moving up the stairs as fast as I could without tripping again, that horrid stuff following close behind me. A large patch of it had already grown on the small intersection of the stairway where it began to head towards the laboratory and I slunk down slightly and jumped, clearing  it and making it safely to the other side. I moved faster as I neared the Laboratory door and in a split second opened and closed it, escaping the red stuff.

I took a few exhausted breaths as I stood on the other side of the door. I actually made it past all of that without getting sprayed with another searing dose of that pus. I continued forwards, relieved and more confident than I had been. I was getting so close to finally getting out of this area that was being overrun. I moved casually down the stairs and towards the Laboratory itself. It remained just as I had left it, or at least from what I could tell from initially viewing it. I made it to the mixing bench and began the process of producing my long sought after acid. I began by placing the four chemicals onto the metal holders placed on the wall respectively to make the necessary mixture. Starting with the Aqua Regia first, then the Calamine, then the Cuprite.

Everything I was working on suddenly stopped as a tumultuous crashing sound came from outside the Laboratory. It sounded as if the entire room had just collapsed. I kept my pause for a moment, and then continued once more. I was too close to stop and check on things now; this was the only real progress I had made since finding the Wine Cellar key. I finally added the Orpiment and grabbed the chemical pot across before bringing it back and placing it under the mixture faucet to receive it once it was finished. Everything was in place now; it was time to actually create the acid. I turned the burners on and watched with rising hopes as the ingredients began to boil. I turned the wheels above the fixtures holding the jars and one by one the ingredients flowed through the pipe connecting all of them into a faucet and finally into my chemical pot. The room gave one more shake as it did. I raised the acid up and closer to me and held it as if it were a newborn foal. This was the end result to everything I had been working towards. I could now finally get into the Refinery and this Inner Sanctum.

Now that I was done with that I was done with the Laboratory, I saw no more need to be in here. I finally went to go check on what made that large crashing sound. The answer was abundantly clear as soon as I entered the small hallway that connected the main room with the Laboratory, the stairs had collapsed. Things were really beginning to fall apart around this area of the castle, I had to move quickly. Looking around the wreckage, there was no way that I could jump up onto the platform; I wouldn’t want to risk it anyway with a volatile pot of acid on me. Looking further around, I did see something that gave me some hope, the small section of the stairs that was flat as I descended them, it was still fully intact. Beginning to work my plan as I went, I carefully lifted the square piece of the stairs and leaned it up against the little bit of the stairs that still remained on top. It was perfect, exactly set up to walk on. I did, though maintaining a great deal of balance because of the small chance that the section was unstable, which judging from the fact that it fell apart in the first place, I assumed that it was. I finally made it up past the small section and over the small piece of stairs left. The walkway itself to the door was still stable. I opened the door and continued my way towards the Refinery.

__________________________________________________________________________

Another roar. More hard fleshy stuff. I was familiar with it by this point, and tired of it. I moved carefully and swiftly around what was in the stairway up until I made it into the foyer itself. The stuff had grown everywhere now. Only certain sections of the floors and walls remained bare. I started by searching for a clear path to the stairs leading to the Refinery. Most of the area immediately around the stairs leading down remained bare enough. I navigated my way around what little pieces of red flesh there was on the floor and down the stairs, finally making it through the door. This area looked just the same as it had before, even with all of it that’s already spread across the foyer. The small section that was there before still remained as well. That was about to change. Pulling out the acid, I took one last look at the red stuff and prayed that this would work. I tilted the jar slightly and tossed its contents directly at the acid.

Triumph. Something I hadn’t felt much since I woke.

I watched with great pleasure as the horrible thing dissolved and broke down into nothing, clearing my path. Straight in front of me was another door, presumably leading the Refinery I figured. I didn’t waste any time, the foyer was being taken over too rapidly to think about whether I should go further or not. Like it or not, no matter what happened, I was stuck there. And my only way out was to go in further.

__________________________________________________________________________

This area was even darker than the others, the further I went the darker it got. My lantern was rapidly becoming my most important thing to me as I lifted it and continued my way through. It was impossible to see the end, but it was just a really long hallway from all I could see. I made it only a little ways in before a flashback came to me.

“It sure is dark in here.”

“Yes, and there’s a good reason for it. You can light the lamp now, if you wish Charcoal.”

“What’s the reason for it? The darkness, that is.”

“Stay close. Be careful not to stray.”

“But what’s the reason? Why is it so dark?”

“Pay attention, Charcoal. It’s important that you keep going straight and make sure not to stray.”

I made a note of that. My need to explore made me lose consciousness last time. The hallway eventually turned left and continued on further. The hallway was now separated in the middle by segmented pillars running the length of it. Debris lay scattered all across it as well. It eventually came to an end and into another large room. This one looked similar to the Wine Cellar in that the large barrels were stored inside here too. It also looked like there was only one area that connected to this one, a larger room connected by an opening right in front of me.

Rrrarghrr…

I hadn’t even made it fully into the room before I heard that. Without even thinking, I instantly extinguished my lantern and ducked into the hallway. As I did I caught a glimpse of the thing moving across my only way through this area from the left end of the opening and disappearing on the right. Like all the other times, I would have to follow it. Follow it. What was I thinking? I must have been crazy, and for all I knew I was. A defeated sigh escaped me before I continued.

The room through the opening was roughly the same size as the previous one, more barrels within this one as well. From what I saw there were a few doors that I could go through. One in front of me, and one on each my left and right side. I didn’t feel like following that monster exactly and going to my right, so I decided to go left towards the closest door to me first. Before I reached the door I noticed a few severed and torn limbs that had been hidden behind a barrel to the left of me that were very heavy with decay. I tried to keep thoughts of how they might of gotten there and who they had belonged to out of my mind as I entered through the door.

That soul grinding, unholy roar that refused to relent struck again. But it was worse this time. My vision turned blood red, all I could see was a macabre of a sight everywhere. I forcefully shut my eyes and tried to cover my ears in a vain attempt to stop listening. It quickly subsided and once I opened my eyes I found my vision to be normal again, or as normal as it could get. I took a few very deep breaths. It was getting worse. It only kept getting worse. It had to have been the work of this Shadow mentioned in that letter. I know of no naturally occurring phenomenon that I have learned of that could do something like this. I had to keep moving further to try and get away from it hopefully. I stumbled slightly going forwards but quickly recovered and lit a candle on a small table directly in front of me. Sparse areas of the room where covered in the red flesh like stuff, but not enough to cause a complete panic over. So long as I avoided the large exploding sacs I would be fine.

The room itself was much smaller than the previous one, but roughly a squarer shape that it. Another jar of oil sat on one of the shelves of wine that was in the room. I grabbed it, filled the lantern, and made my way over to the door that was to the right of me that I had noticed upon entering the room. The room beyond that door had only one thing of importance, another laudanum. Very important to have on me in case I needed it again. I turned once more to my right once I got inside the room and collected to laudanum to face another door there as well, only to have it push open by itself, slowly. I recoiled at the sight, but not as bad as I had before to similar occurrences.

It revealed another long room behind it, almost the size of a hallway but slightly larger and wider than most that I’ve seen thus far. Further down in front of me was another door. This series of rooms seemed to run around the main room. I had also notice another journal entry on the table in front of me.

22nd of June, 839

It’s been more than a month since my last entry. After the event in the old chamber in the Griffin Territory, the professor insisted that I return to Canterlot lest we forfeit all of our findings here should I take a turn for the worse. It was a bit excessive in my opinion but I’m glad that it turned out the way that it did. I found my journal amongst the things that had returned with me along with the broken stone orb wrapped in a cloth. I tried to assemble the pieces, but they wouldn’t fit together as if they weren’t from the same object. Was there ever a complete orb? Or had I just imagined it all?

This was interesting, but didn’t help me with my current situation with how much knowledge I had of this orb other than that I had found it before I lost all of my memory, and according to this I could have even simply imagined that. Without any more information to help clear things up, I began to move again. The door at the opposite end of the room was locked so I turned back and went over to the other door that I saw. This was the only door that led away from this room so I decided to check in here first.

It was at least somewhat lit. A single light hanging in the middle of the room gave me enough sight to not need my lantern. Two large barrels to either side of me blocked my field of view so I had to move in closer to see around. Nothing of interest was to my left but in front of me was a hatch that led down somewhere, and to my right was a smaller barrel of what looked like oil. I confirmed my suspicion as I neared it. What was inside filled the rest of my lantern and I looked over and on the table was another journal entry. I picked it up like all the others are read to myself:

25th of June, 839

I feel the need to continue this journal, even though it was only intended for my expedition into the Griffin Territory. This orb is something very important, I know it. I had taken it upon myself to piece it back together, but its proving more difficult than I had anticipated. The pieces act strangely, they seem to change shape, color, and texture, but ever so slightly. Yesterday, I took careful measurements and confirmed my suspicions, the pieces were changing. I hurried to the best geologist in Canterlot that I could find. I asked him about it and he discussed with me about how rocks change form, more specifically about the nature of glass and its tendency to slowly collapse in on itself. This had eased my mind a bit, but I still believed that these pieces were of otherworldly properties.

Otherworldly properties? Was I now dealing with aliens? It was something that had been theorized by others but never proven, even the princess downplayed any evidence that such things have ever visited this world. It still bothered me how much I knew about everything around me from my past but never my actual past itself. It kept adding to my frustration which piled on top of my fear. None of it was a good mixture either. Having something else to consider now, I decided that there was nothing else for me in the room and went back to take a look at that hatch. It was slightly opened so I lifted what was left fully open and looked inside. More red fleshy stuff. More of it. It was so prolific. It hadn’t covered all of the floor but it did cover the majority of the walls. The drop itself down want very far at all, any hope of a ladder was gone as that entire section of the wall was completely covered.

Bracing myself, I jumped down into the hatch. I landed with a hard thud as I fell first on my hooves and then onto my side. It didn’t hurt all that much so I stood again quicker than I had before and moved on, once again making sure to avoid anything that might lash out at me. This hallway was much denser than the others, and more cramped as well. In a small hallway like this surrounded by that flesh stuff and with me not immediately running in fear from it because I was forced to, I began to see just how disgusting it really was. It grew like thick spider webs off of the wall and made just the most absolutely disgusting sounds.

The path turned left and then right. I made it to the edge of corner of the first turn but before I managed to turn right the roar came back even louder than it had all the other times. My vision too turned red once more and the entire hallway trembled and shook. I was fearful that it may fall to I continued quicker than I had before. The hallway turned right as I had seen and came to another door. “Cellar Archives” this one read. I didn’t care where it lead though. I just wanted to get out of this narrow and cramp hallway before it had collapsed.

__________________________________________________________________________

The entire hallway was actually lit. I was pleasantly surprised. It looked similar to the halls that I first roamed through when I woke up all that time ago, it seemed like ages now. There were several boxes of various shapes stacked in different locations around the hallway from what I could see, and an archway to my right a little ways in. I could still hear the echoes of the roaring from behind me so I decided it was best for me to get moving and not wait for whatever it was making that noise to find me.

Everything was consumed by blackness in an instant and I was blinded.

My heart nearly stopped.

I couldn’t see anything. Anything.

“Aaaghh!”

When some light finally returned, I found myself wading up just above my knees in water. Worst yet, the walls were completely covered in the red flesh now. Looking back, I saw my exit back into the hallway was blocked too. The initial shock had passed after a few seconds and I managed to collect myself a little. But to see an entire hallway flooded with water in the blink of an eye was completely unimaginable. This was no mere illusion magic either, none of it was, this I was realizing more and more as I continued. Whatever was making all of these terrible things come into this world, it was far more powerful than any kind of magic. Whatever this Shadow was, it possessed power greater than anything that I know of, perhaps even greater than that of the princess.

The water was freezing too. It stung and pierced my legs with its bitter iciness as I began to move through it. All of the boxes that were stacked around previously were now scattered aimlessly throughout the water now covering the ground. I made it over to the archway that I saw when I first entered the Cellar Archives and saw a lot of things just as disorganized inside with nothing of real note except for what looked like a small level on the far edge of the wall. It didn’t look like it would affect anything to me since I assumed that anything that it would affect is probably ruined by this water, so I didn’t bother going inside.

Splash

It was at the far edge of the hallway directly in front of me when I saw it. A single splash. Along with that a gurgling noise of something that had surfaced and taken a breath or something like that, I couldn’t tell. In fact, it had even reminded me of something that I remembered seeing from earlier, in the Laboratory.

I wasn’t given the chance to finish my thought as the singular splash that I heard was now a multitude of violent splashes that kept drawing closer to me. I panicked and almost instinctively climbed up on the nearest box next to me. The splashes reached the box and suddenly stopped. Though I could hear the same gurgling noises again. I couldn’t see what the thing was in the murky water so I lifted my lantern to see if I could get a glimpse of it.

No. That’s impossible.

There was nothing in the water. With my lantern I could see all the way through it, and there was nothing there. I swung it around to other areas to see if it was anywhere else around the box, but the water was devoid of anything except for the other boxes. I found myself quickly rethinking my idea of impossible with everything that’s happened recently. Becoming increasingly confused, I put my lantern away and stuck my hoof into the water to my right to see what would happen. I sorely regret my stupidity in doing that because as soon as I did the water once again splashed as I heard something roar and the next thing I knew something very sharp pierced through the end of my hoof. I wrenched it out of the water and winced as I saw a small stream of blood pouring out of it. My mind was reeling at how impossible this was. I was being attacked by and invisible water monster.

The bleeding stopped after I applied some pressure to it and a few minutes passed, the entire time the waters sat eerily silent. By this time I had realized that this thing must have been what I saw in the Laboratory. Or at least the splash that it made, since it was made very clear by now that I can’t even see the damn thing. The only way that I can move throughout this hallway was by jumping from box to box, trying to avoid falling in the water.

I began by doing just that and jumping to the closest box in front of me, leading down the hallway. As soon as I landed on it and balanced myself the water behind me began to thrash and it stopped right next to me as it had before. I tried to keep it from unnerving me as I jumped again but it was very difficult considering I know just how easily this thing will shred me apart should I fall. I made it several more boxes down the hallway before I finally reached the end of it and looked down to my right where it turned. I now realized what that lever must have been for. At the end of the hallway was a doorframe but instead of a door there was a metal gate blocking the way, it looked way too heavy for me to lift so I decided to head back into the room to see if my hunch was right.

More jumps. I was doing rather well at keeping my balance and not falling considering how terrified I was. Perhaps that was what was keeping my balance in the first place, the fear. I made it to the archway that led into the small room and cursed at it. There was no way that I could make a jump onto one of the boxes in the room due to the low hanging of the archway, I would have to sprint through the water to get to the lever. The monster had stopped next to me as it had all the other times. I took a deep breath and bolted off the box into the room. The instant I made contact with the water I heard the monster moving just as swiftly. I made it inside the room and towards the nearest box. It was just to my right and I barely made it up because I felt another sharp object graze the back of my leg as I jumped up onto it. I could hear the thing make another series of noises, clearly upset that I had escaped it. The boxes in this room were much closer to each other and I could walk across them with ease. I made it to the lever and pulled down on it hoping for the best.

I was right, as soon as the lever came down I heard gears working and something opening  out of the water ahead of me to my left. But I was also hearing something else. A ticking noise. Similar too…

Thinking quickly, I darted off of the large box I was on onto the smaller ones, grabbing a book off of one of the shelves that was in the room and quickly jumping into  the water and out of the door onto the next box, the water monster following closely behind me. The ticking noise sounded just like the one from the Archives with the books, and if that any indication of anything then I had to move fast. I jumped from each box all the way to the end where it turned right, and taking a complete leap of faith, I threw the book back towards where I came from and took off through the water after jumping off of the box towards the open gate.

It worked just as I planned, the water monster began to go after the book that I threw and ignored me, at first. As soon as I was halfway towards the door I could hear it gaining ground on me once more. My heart was beating at an unimaginable rate as I sped up faster as I was running literally for my life. Just as I was about to reach the gate it began to close rapidly and I just cleared it before it slammed into the ground and I heard something crashing into it with another roar. I had come into another larger room with several stone support pillars around the room and boxes scattered around the pillars. To the left of me upon entering was another closed gate, but this one had a wheel next to it that I had assumed to be an opening mechanism.

I moved quickly towards it but not as fast this time thinking that I had escaped the water monster. My brief triumph over it was quickly destroyed as I saw a second set of splashes coming from the middle of the room.

Another one.

I picked up my speed and just barely avoided it as I rushed towards the door. I made it safely to it and up on a large crate that was next to it. I almost fell off of it though as I had just noticed several severed limbs laying on it. I wanted to move badly but this was the only thing that I could stand on immediately around me. Plus the water was still relatively freezing so constantly going in and out of it was starting to really get to me.

After sitting there for a minute regaining my strength from my last encounter with a water monster, I got another idea that might work similarly to my last one. The turning wheel was on the other side of the door which meant I had to be in the water to turn it and I wouldn’t last five seconds with that horrid thing skulking about the water, but if I, and this thought sickened me, fed the thing one of these limbs next to me it might be distracted just long enough for me to get past the gate. It was an extremely risky play but I had to get out of this place before that thing, that Shadow making all those roaring noises back in the foyer and Refinery got closer to me.

I lifted a severed half of a torso and tried my best to not vomit. I hurled the thing as far away from the door as I could get so it would take longer for it to reach it and moved as soon as it hit the water without looking to see if the monster took the bait. I made it to the door and began turning the wheel as I heard splashing sounds leading away from behind me. I was thankful that it had worked and continued turning the wheel as the gate slowly lifted. Behind me now I could heard flesh ripping and water thrashing about as I got a bad mental image of what was happening. I just managed to lift the gate past the point where I could fit under it and waited no longer before doing so as I heard the splashes coming closer. Through the gate was another small hallway that led to a closed door at the end. As soon as I reached it I flung it open and closed as I cleared the opening. Another loud thump was audible from behind the door and for a moment I was worried that it would try to break through it, but to my relief I heard the splashing once again retreating back into the room.

I slumped down against the door for a moment to catch my breath before searching the new room that I had entered. It was like an intermediate room between another area of the Cellar Archives as the door across the room looked like the ones from the Laboratory entrance. There were a couple of shelves on either side of the room with books that hadn’t fallen into the water stacked on a few of the shelves. None of it looked too interesting to take away from the short time I had so I decided to move on. The door at the end of the room read “Archive Tunnels” above it. I attempted to open it before realizing that a small lock was over the handle and prevented it to open. Frustrated once more, I searched to room again for anything that may help me break the lock.

My search ended with the finding of a small, hollow needle that lay on one of the shelves. It looked just small enough to pick the lock with. I went back over to the door and began to work on it. It was hard to pick locks with hooves but I managed to get it in just far enough for it to make a definite clicking sound before dropping off of the door and into the water. I decided to keep the hollow needle in case I ever needed to do the same thing again. The door opened this time with no troubles.

__________________________________________________________________________

It looked exactly like what the sign said, a tunnel. Well, not necessarily a tunnel in the sense of a cave, but just another series of hallways, this one turned right into a closed door at the end. The red stuff still covered the walls but at least candles were lit all along the hallway, I instantly became suspicious. The last time I came into a seemingly harmless and lit hallway I nearly died several times.

I proceeded with caution as I made my way towards the door. I made it safely there and through it fine. The hallway in front of me went on for another bit before turning left. I took a step in and the Shadow’s roar echoed through from a distance behind me.

Splash splash splash splash splash

It was much quicker than I had heard it than before, and from right behind me too. I closed the door on impulse, hoping to deter it like I did before. The splashes stopped at the door for a second before something large crashed into the door and splintered it. It was actually breaking through the door now. I didn’t give it another thought. I turned and ran.

The hall turned left as I saw from before. It went on for a little longer before reaching another door from what I saw as I began running down it. A few barrels floated through the water and I dodged each one that got close to my path. The door behind me was torn down with another loud crash and I heard the splashes continuing again towards me. I made it to the next door and opened it as fast as I could before closing it once more behind me as I entered through it.

The hallway immediately split into two different directions, I didn’t have time to think about it so I just went right. The hall turned left quickly then went on a little longer before turning left again. I heard the door that I closed previously break down too and I moved quicker. Another small ways forwards before it turned right again into another door. I did the same routine with the last one.

It went forwards again for a tiny bit before turning right. As I turned the corner I saw a small blockade of boxes and barrels in my way. I stopped for a split second before hearing the last door I closed break down. I rushed forwards in a panic and jumped. I cleared the debris and ran faster, my heart feeling like it was about to burst now. As I continued towards the next door at the end of the hallway I turned my head back quickly to see the monster merely push the blockade completely out of the way with ease as it continued towards me. I pushed on faster before making it through the door that I had just gotten to.

A left turn, then right, then left again. The creature broke through the door as I was nearing the second left turn. As I rounded the corner another blockade stood in my path. I was slipping more out of a conscious thought processing mind and more into a primal “survival mode” as my life became increasing more in danger. It drove me on to escape the danger and I didn’t even have to think now as I surged forwards and cleared this blockade now. It continued further and I went through and closed another door again.

The hallway turned left then right once more. But this time the hallway seemed to keep going for a long time and I couldn’t even see the end. The door I just closed was definitely gone by now and that thing was more than likely gaining ground on me with nothing in its path now, though I didn’t bother to turn my head anymore to see if I was right. It stretched further and further and I was running out of energy rapidly now. Just as I thought I was going to collapse from the exhaustion a door became visible at the end. This one looked like it led somewhere else too as it wasn’t another simple wooden door. It gave me the final boost of energy that I needed to push on towards it. I halted at the door and quickly glimpsed at the words “Back Hall” on the door before a large growl from behind reminded me that my life was still on the line and without another thought I pulled the door open and closed behind me with the remaining bits of my energy before finally collapsing on the now water free stone floor.

End Part 1.

Next Chapter: Part 2 Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 19 Minutes