- - -
(7)
- - -

Despite it being a few hours from sunset, the Defiled Crypts seemed to be pervaded by a supernatural, haunted haze. Sunlight dimmed and shadows lengthened, casting a pall on the grounds surrounding the ancient mausoleum. The Everfree forest was foreboding even at the best of times beneath its all encompassing canopy, but this one section put everything else they had seen to shame. Entering the unnatural darkness, the sky above her head growing overcast and indistinct, Twilight Sparkle couldn't help but repress a shiver. It was cold here, too, enough to make the hairs on her coat stand on end.

"Ah, the undead!" Rainbow Dash broke the mood with a laugh, boldly walking ahead with Applejack. "I can practically smell 'em! This is a perfect opportunity to use Exorcism! Or Turn Undead! I can't wait!"

"You've fought.... these things before?" Twilight asked. Her first impulse had been to say 'ghosts' but the term was just so darn supernatural. Nevermind that they were real. Nevermind that they were ghosts. Almost any term was better.

"Ah. Well. No, not really," The pegasus paladin admitted, shrugging under her armored barding. "Only practice stuff back when I was learning. But I know all the tricks! I'm ready and good to go!"

"Aren't there undead fellas out in those battlegrounds ya been in?" Applejack inquired, motioning for them to head towards a nearby stone path.

"Forsaken are kinda special undead," Dash replied, but followed it up with a long 'hmm.'

"Special?"

"Yeah. Ah. Special." The pegasus paused, trying to remember. "Something about Sylvanias? I don't really remember the details. Just that things like Holy Wrath don't stun them like normal zombies."

"I've always wanted to fight zombies!" Pinkie chimed in and stuck out one foreleg, holding it like a cannon. "I'd blast em and blast em! Cha-chuk! Cha-chuk! Who's a pony and a half? I'm a pony and a half!"

She rolled along the ground, jumping back up to aim at another pack of invisible zombies. "But they'd keep coming, so that's when you circle strafe, circle strafe! Run to a wall to get a better gun and then POW POW POW you blow them to bits! But then more come out and you're out of ammo but, hey! What's that on the ground in the next room?"

"A chainsaw, the great communicator!" Her arm started to shake and shoot smoke as she ran up to Fluttershy. "VRRRR BRRRRRR!"

"Eee!" Her tree-loving friend cowered before the mighty pinkiesaw.

Dash arched an eyebrow at the loony pony. "That's not how you deal with zombies, Pinkie."

"It is when the zombies have shotguns!" Pinkie bounced over Fluttershy and onto the other side of the stone pathway. "But since there's no chainsaws around, what'daya wanna do about all the ghosties and ghoulies? Besides laugh at 'em?"

"We'll have to fight them, clearly," Rarity answered with a melancholy muse. "At least until we can get to the root of the problem within the mausoleum itself."

"Priests and paladins both have special spells to use against undead," Twilight remembered from her last-minute prep reading. "Rarity, Rainbow, I don't suppose you could teach me any of them? According to the notes in my spellbook, things like polymorph won't work on undead."

"Um..."

"I am sorry, Twilight, but that simply isn't possible," Rarity explained, seeing Dash wasn't quite sure how to give their bookworm leader the news. "What Rainbow Dash and I use aren't spells you can learn as a mage."

"I learned your gem finding spell pretty quickly," Twilight reminded her. "I know you use Holy spells, but that doesn't mean I can't learn them."

At this, Dash spoke up. "Actually, it does. Even though she's a unicorn, Rarity here can't use the kind of spells you learned either."

"It isn't about you or me specifically. The Holy Light is somewhat... exclusive in how it operates," the fashionista explained. "You have to forsake virtually all other magics to wield it. Arcane magic is merely a safe, domesticated form of Fel magic after all. I believe some innate magic, like elemental spells, may not be rejected... it doesn't interfere with my finding gems or my levitation, for example. But you either wield it alone or not at all."

"So I'll never be able to learn any of your Holy spells? No matter how much I study them?" Twilight frowned at that news. "That doesn't seem fair." She turned to the one other possibility left, "What about nature spells?"

"Sorry, Twilight," Fluttershy replied, but didn't say more.

"Don't worry, I'm still here!" Pinkie turned around and trotted backwards without missing a step. "I'll teach you how to make friends with the elements! All you have to do is race change to Earth Pony!"

"Oh, Celestia, did I tell ya who I saw the other day?" Applejack asked, looking back over her shoulder. "Doctor Whooves. Went up and turned himself human. Strangest thing I've ever seen. A pony turnin' inta a human."

"Where'd he get the money to race change?" Rarity asked, surprised.

"Beats me! Must have some friends in high places ah guess."

"Hey! Check it out!" Dash yelled, motioning to the open yard ahead. The stone road they were on intersected with the broken remains of a statue; the horned head lay on the ground, split in half, and part of a rearing body remained on the pedestal, one wing still mostly intact. It vaguely resembled Nightmare Moon, and from the look of it, it was made of bronze and assembled in sections - those sections now having fallen apart. It was almost onyx-dark, despite the vines and moss that had taken to growing on it. The stone path circling it was mostly worn away, but it seemed to become a visible depression of grass and cobblestones that circled the ancient statue.

Adding an exclamation point to the already creepy atmosphere of the darkened, chilly-as-the-grave forest around them, the statue and the trees and bushes nearby were all festooned with a macabre carnival of thick spider webs. The gossamer threads stuck to almost everything, and they weren't white like normal silk either, they were black as the night and shimmered like finely spun threads of oil.

Fluttershy gasped, as she saw the first body, hanging from the webs. The pony was wrapped tightly enough that her face could almost be seen, frozen in horror. The pegasus, probably a cultist, was long dead: her body cavity was shriveled and drained, leaving a mummified corpse behind. There were two others within an apple's throw of the fallen statue, also spun up and hanging from branches.

Up ahead, the ground skittered with tiny black shapes.

"Ah yes, the pony eating spiders," Rarity was the first to speak, albeit with a demure grimace. "Lovely."

"They're so small!" Dash scoffed, ready to run ahead. "I'll just pop Divine Protection and round em up with consecrate!"

Fluttershy bit her friend's tail, keeping her from rushing in.

"Hey!" The pally pegasus fell back on her hooves, wings still flapping. "What?"

The timid druid let Dash go, and stood up a little taller. "Um. Please don't just rush in. Those are only Nightmareweb hatchlings. Not... um... adults."

"Those're just baby spiders?" Applejack asked. "So...?"

"That's an adult right there." Fluttershy raised a shaking hoof to point just to the left of the statue.

Her friends all craned their necks and stared, but couldn't see it.

"I don't see it," Pinkie said with a sad moue. "Oh! Oh! Actually, I do!"

"You do?" Twilight couldn't see anything at all unusual. Just bushes and webs and the broken statue.

"Yep!" Pinkie Pie nodded vigorously and smiled. "It's invisible!"

"Invisible?" the unicorn asked, doubtful.

"Actually, yes, Nightmareweb adults are invisible," Fluttershy explained in a soft voice. "This one is half on the web and half off."

"Ah... Ah still don't see it," Applejack tilted her head but soon gave up. "Are ya sure there's somethin' there?"

"Oh um, yes," Fluttershy replied. "I'm sure. I can sense animals. That one out there is watching us. She's just waiting for somepony to get closer so she can use her webs. She's... hungry."

The fate of the three dead ponies hanging from trees entered everypony's mind at that moment.

Rarity visibly shuddered. "Well. I did hear they were dangerous..."

"Very dangerous." Fluttershy took that as an opening to expound on her knowledge of nature and wildlife. "Nightmareweb Spiders often work cooperatively to bring down larger prey, tangling it in webs and then using poison to paralyze it. Only a few drops in the bloodstream produces intense pain, followed by immobility. They then take turns sucking the juices out of-"

"Darling, please, no more," Rarity pleaded, stopping her pegasus friend.

"Oh. Um. sorry..."

"So they're invisible and they're poisonous," Twilight summarized what they knew, minus the more grizzly details and feeding habits. "And they can attack in groups?"

Fluttershy nodded, eyes darting guiltily to the side.

"You're our animal expert here." Dash tucked her wings back against her side, momentarily reigned in. "How should we handle this?"

"Maybe ya could use that stare of yers ta scare em off?" Applejack suggested.

"I can't really control it like that," Fluttershy demurred, rubbing the top of her right forehoof with her left. "I don't even know if it would work on things like these spiders. Most animals are just scared or protective of their territory. They don't want to attack anypony. These are pony-eaters by nature."

"So no stare?" Twilight asked, a little upset by not having it to fall back on. It had worked on a dragon and a cockatrice, but then, the dragon had been sentient and defending its home and treasure; the cockatrice, well, she didn't know about that one. Those were just animals, weren't they?

Fluttershy shook her head sadly. "I could try, but..."

"If they're pony-eaters, and those three chumps up in the trees point to them being just that, then how do we put these critters down?" Dash asked, growing a bit impatient.

"I - um. I guess..." Fluttershy stuttered, retreating at all the pressure on her.

"Take your time," Twilight added, leaning down.

The shy druid nodded once and took a deep, steadying breath. Drawing strength from it, she stood up straight and approached the front of their little formation, between Dash and Applejack. A brief shaft of light broke through the haunting haze overhead, but only for a second or two. A cool breeze ruffled manes and caused one of the hanging corpses to slowly spin in a lazy circle.

"I think... um..." Fluttershy finally said. "Twilight. Could you give me party assist, please?"

"Oh. Sure! Right." Twilight bit her lip, recalling what she'd learned about the marking and leadership spells. It took a second or two, but she remembered how to extend the privileges to another party member.

A star appeared in thin air, next to the statue.

Beneath it, marked by Fluttershy, was the adult Nightmareweb Spider, identified as an 'Ambusher.' With the mark magically floating over it, the other mares could see what their pegasus friend had seen. The shape was invisible, thanks to some innate magic, but the eight long, segmented legs rippled enough to make out in the haze. The body was bulbous, with a large abdomen, small core, and large head studded with beady, reflective eyes. Two cruel barbs hung from under the head: hooked fangs long enough to be daggers or small swords.

"Ah suppose it's too late ta suggest we skip this place fer later?" Applejack joked, letting out a breath she'd been holding. "I ain't never seen somethin that nasty before."

"What do these things eat to get that big?" Dash couldn't help but ask. The spider was larger than she was!

"They eat..." Fluttershy began to explain, but caught herself. "Well, you know. Um, yes, anyway. We also need to do something about the hatchlings. They'll try to attack anypony that gets close. I can use Remove Corruption to dispel poison, and um... Dash.... you have Cleanse, don't you?"

"Yep!" the other pegasus confirmed, "I only just got it the other day."

"I think... I mean, if I remember right..." Fluttershy swallowed, taking another deep breath. "The venom takes several seconds to paralyze a pony our size. We have to remove it before then. I think we should kite the adult away from the statue, or maybe polymorph it, and use area spells to, um... you know... the hatchlings. If somepony gets stuck in webs, she'll probably need help getting out."

"Everypony got that?" Twilight asked, making sure she got nods and other affirmatives. "We'll go with Fluttershy's plan. Applejack, you get the hatchlings. I'll polymorph the Ambusher."

As the group took their positions, Twilight was silently thankful they had Fluttershy to detect and mark the invisible Nightmareweb Ambushers. Just running into a pack of these things and then getting attacked out of nowhere by their hungry mother was a recipe for trouble, if not disaster.

Applejack began by charging into the mass of small spiders by the statue and stomping her hooves, creating a powerful thunderclap. The voracious little pony-eaters immediately swarmed around the warrior, crawling over each other to reach her. It looked absolutely nightmarish to Twilight, standing a safe distance away. The mere thought of having ten or twenty of those little terrors crawling up her legs, over her face, along her cutie mark, all biting and leaving sticky webs...

She shuddered; horrible!

A surge of arcane magic, and the killer arachnid puffed into a far less threatening sheep before it could respond to the nearby disturbance. As soon as that was done, the unicorn mage powered up a new spell: Blink. It was very similar to the old unicorn teleportation spell, but much faster and easier to use. The limitation was that it always moved a caster a set distance and in a set direction.

BAMF!

In the literal blink of an eye, she was a foot in the air, right next to Applejack. As gravity reasserted itself, Twilight brought together a tight knot of arcane energy and directed it into herself. Her coat and mane glowed a fierce violet-pink, and the moment her hooves hit the ground, she released the pent up energy! This was no magic missile. The arcane explosion blasted outwards in every direction, tearing into the pack of small spiders but leaving Applejack, mere inches away, completely unharmed.

Pinkie Pie bounced through the air, spinning like a top. "Magma Totem! Magma Totem!" She sang. "Show 'em what ya got!"

A festive looking firecracker spun away from the carnation-pink shaman, unleashing gouts of volcanic fire in one steady pulse after another. Everything not protected by personal association to the elemental Earth Pony instantly caught flame. This included the swarm of spiders crawling all over the hunkered down Applejack - miraculously, the magical flames greedily consumed the poisonous arachnids but left the pony unscathed.

Twilight was already unloading another arcane explosion. The spell was very fast: simply conjure, shape, release! Even inexperienced as she was, it was simple to do, over and over again. As long as Applejack kept the little spiders on her and off her two area-of-effect-spamming allies ("holding aggro: Spike had called it) then they could take the skittering beasts down. With one final explosion, the vile spiders collectively turned to ash.

"That was not fun!" Applejack exclaimed from beneath her shield. Nonetheless, she knew what had to come next. Nature magic coursed through her, cleansing and purifying the venomous poisons injected by the Nightmareweb hatchlings.

Without another word of complaint, she took the fight to the sheeped adult.

The magic holding the polymorph together broke, and the huge Ambusher spider returned to form. It immediately lunged for the warrior pony that had so rudely crashed into it. Hairy, segmented legs lifted to try and batter at the apple farmer and killer fangs scraped hungrily against Applejack's shield. Meeting unexpected resistance from its prey, the huge spider chittered and spat the poison instead, catching Applejack in the face. She cried out, blinded and in pain -

Fluttershy's magic swirled around the warriors face, dispelling the poison.

Rainbow Dash, waiting to pick up the big spider in case crowd control broke early, finally rushed in. The sword in her mouth shone with brilliant, holy light that crackled like lightning around the trail of rainbow light she left behind. Her blow hit like the wrath of Celestia herself, easily clipping off one of the Nightmareweb Spider's legs and cutting a gash into its hairy hide. Pinkie Pie channeled bolts of lighting in an almost steady stream, causing the beast to rear up high on five legs.

Then, abruptly, the head ducked down, and a web of sticky goo shot from the spinnerets on its rear. Fluttershy only had time to squeak in surprise and shock as she became engulfed and literally cocooned by spider silk. Twilight could see her thrashing, vainly, to escape... unable to cast spells or even move. Or even breathe, the unicorn realized.

She immediately switched targets to her trapped friend. Gauging the distance, Twilight knew she was too far away for an arcane explosion to reach, so rather than run or blink - and risk overshooting - she formed arcane missiles. She bolts shot from her horn, impacting and stripping away the webs while carefully leaving Fluttershy unaffected. Avoiding friendly fire was the most important thing, even though Twilight knew her friend would be able to heal herself. The idea of actually hurting the kind hearted pegasus, even by accident or even to safe her life, was unimaginable.

Rarity picked up heals and Dash used Cleanse while Fluttershy was incapacitated, and after a few seconds, enough of the cocoon had been burned and blasted away that she could escape. Still covered by draping bits of thread, Fluttershy paid it no mind and went back to her healing. The Nightmareweb Ambusher got off one last web spray before dying. Rarity gave a distressed sound as she ended up entangled and cocooned by the fallen predator.

They were able to blast her out easily enough, but the damage had already been done.

"My mane! Oh! Oh!" The unicorn was spinning in circles, one hoof still tangled in the sticky mess that was her once perfect coiffure. "I can't - Oh! This is just - "

Dash didn't help matters by laughing like a schoolfilly. "This is priceless! Pinkie Pie! We gotta get some of this stuff for pranks later!"

"This is not funny!!" Rarity composed herself enough to yell, red faced. "I have a thousand bits worth of silk in my mane!" Her left hoof tried to get out from the mess, but only made the whole tangle worse. "And I can't - Aah! This is most unpleasant!"

Fluttershy quietly transformed into a cat and then back into a pony, shapeshifting out of the webs that had remained stuck to her. The magic somehow disentangled the mess left in her own hair, leaving it as pristine and perfectly smooth as always. Rarity could only gawk at the pegasus's skill.

"That. That is not fair," she announced with a pout. Finally, she tore her hoof free.

"Disgusting," she reiterated, but ignored what couldn't be undone. Vexed, she approached the fallen spider and lowered her head. Her horn glowed fiercely, energy collecting at the tip.

A slender spool floated out of her bags over to the Nightmareweb Spider's spinnerets. Most of the webs used in the area were too interlaced or tangled to use as proper thread. Instead, Rarity had a spell - or perhaps the spools themselves had spells within them - to collect the silk from the spider directly. Long lines of it emerged from a reservoir of liquid goo, wrapping around the magical spool faster and faster. Then, all at once, the silk threads snapped tight around the wooden knob.

A white seal covered the now filled spool of thread with an audible snap.

"One down," Rarity announced, wiping sticky silk from her eyelashes. "Nine to go."

- - -

Twenty one hoof-picked stallions stood at attention in the empty chamber that passed for the Lunar Court. Four Royal Guards, stationed silently to flank the entrance and antechamber doors, watched their would-be brothers with something akin to ambivalence. Guards were famed for their unflappability, especially when on watch. To Princess Luna's practiced eye, they seemed one muscle twitch from pouncing, though at what, she couldn't be sure.

She sat on her throne, taking in the unaltered faces of the ponies she had gathered. Though, to be more exact, Celestia had gathered them - Luna had merely accepted twenty of that pre-determined crop. A suspicious side of her couldn't help but dryly observe that, if her sister wanted to plant her own ponies among the new Night Guard, then this would be how to do it. Were any of the stallions standing before her secretly Royal Guards planted as new recruits? How many of those eighty four hadn't just signed up to defend Celestia, how many were Celestia's colts already?

Luna screwed her eyes shut, trying not to think like that. That was how she had gotten in trouble before. That was how she had caused trouble before. She couldn't think like that any more! Her mind raced back to what her sister had said, and she remembered her vow.

"I'll do the same," she had said, "My ponies may start off as yours, but I'll love them just like you do. I'll honor their service to Equestria."

Yes.

'They won't betray me,' she told herself. 'They won't be able to.'

"Gentlecolts," she spoke up, her voice a bit too soft. In the back rows, a few pairs of ears twitched to hear her.

"Gentlecolts," Luna said more loudly, more forcefully. More regally. The assembled would-be Guardsponies all heard her this time, and assumed rigid postures. Marrs Orange was at their head as her chosen Master of Hooves. He stomped, once, and signaled. The ranks of ponies lowered their heads in a practiced bow.

"Please. Please, there's no need for that here," Luna told them, slowly descending from her throne. The sound of her gilded horseshoes against the black marble echoed in the otherwise empty hall. It was an irony there: this was the same Canterlot throne she had fled from, more than a thousand years ago. It, alone, remained the same when so much else in the castle had been remodeled and rebuilt. The rest of the throne room was tile and fresco: new and polished.

The twin Thrones were placed, east and west, back to back; the royal chambers set north to south. Like pole and antipole, positive and negative, except that ponies gravitated to the warmth and light of the Eastern Throne to bask in the radiance of the sun. The Western Throne was a relic. If Luna was lucky, then she'd receive word that some students had visited during the day while she slept, as part of a historical field trip.

"I have no interest in supplication," she continued, stepping down until she was on the same level as them. Raising her head high, she waited for the stallions to raise their heads so she could look them in the eyes.

When the last of them stood tall, she began to trot parallel to them.

"First, gentlecolts, let me thank you for your service to Equestria." Her eyes softened, and she bowed her head, just slightly. "Thank you. All of you. From the bottom of my heart."

Luna blinked, and cool green eyes lifted to pass over their ranks.

"Second," she said, slowly pacing again. "I thank you for your patience. I have been thinking for some time of what to say to you before I accept your vows and dye you in my colors. So much has changed. There is not a one of you versed in the Old Ways. Even the old organization of the Decurio has fallen out of favor. What can I say that could possibly resonate with you?"

She paused, and her wings flapped, once, to carry her upwards. She alighted softly back on the base of her dais. At the least, she had everyone's attention. It felt good. Heady, even. Luna resisted the urge to smile or smirk.

"Two thousand years ago," she began, giving them some perspective. "Your ancestors lived in walled camps. The land as you knew it was still not completely tame. Ponies labored hard under my sister's sun, in constant war with the wild elements.... and they feared predators under my moon light. In those dark nights, fathers feared for their colts and fillies, that they be taken in their sleep. The Night Guard were created, not just to protect me, but to stand watch in the night. To remain alert in the dark places of Equestria, so that their brothers and sisters could sleep without fear."

Luna took a deep breath, as if feeling the passage of time. "I saw how, over the generations, ponies forgot about the dangers that lurked in the shadows. They forgot about the Night Watch that guarded them while they slept, naked, under the stars. My Guard dwindled, too, as the threats retreated into forests like Everfree and Wolf's Wood."

Letting that sink in, she paused briefly.

"All I will ask of you, my ponies, is that you serve as those Night Guards served. You will sleep while others play. You will watch while others sleep. You will serve in darkness, and be sent to dark places. Do your job well, and no pony will know of the sacrifices you make so that others may doze on a hill or nap in a tree." Her wings started to spread, angling low. "I have explained what I expect from you. Any who wish to leave may do so. All those that remain... pegasus, unicorn, Earth pony. Say your vows. Say them, and I shall dye you in my colors and bind you to me."

None of the twenty one moved, save to keep their heads high. The four Royal Guards, however, nickered and backed away. The room had grown dark, shadows creeping up walls and obscuring newly restored frescoes. Two of them scraped bladed hooves against the tiled floor, barely able to conceal their anxiety. The shadows pooled around them, not wanting to get too close.

"You four," Luna said, turning her head to address the pair near her personal chamber doors. Her eyes were a collage of shifting green, pupils slit. "Leave."

Despite the situation, the Celestia's four guards stood, stamped their right forehooves in salute, and hastily headed out the doors they were supposed to guard. Luna was now alone with the twenty one. Her chosen twenty one. They were still Celestia's, but they would become hers. In time.

"We serve Equestria!" Marrs Orange barked out the vow.

"We serve Equestria!" his twenty subordinated immediately repeated.

"Hear my vow, Oh Princess!" he announced, leading the group. "My eyes close and I entrust myself to you! When next I see, my service shall begin! I am the blade and the barding, the rod and the plow! In the Light of the Sun. In the Light of the Moon. We submit ourselves! Brothers! Guards! Your Princess stands before you! Sal-lute!"

The twenty stomped and raised a hoof to their Princess.

"We submit ourselves!" they echoed, tendrils of shadow curling up their legs and across their flanks. "As Brothers! As Guards!"

"I serve in the darkness and stand guard in the night," Luna told them, remembering the old words; passing them on. "This night. All nights. Death alone shall release me."

"I serve in the darkness and stand guard in the night!" The guards echoed, their voices reverberating within the throne room. The light of the Moon, the light of Elune, engulfed the room, and the shadows constricted, leaving time for only the final verse of the vow.

"Death alone shall release me!"

And then Luna's shadow embraced them.

- - -

"Ah never thought ah'd actually have'ta say this, but I'm gettin' pretty sick'n tired ah all these giant spiders tryin' ya eat me."

The area around the crypts was now almost completely clear. The pulls had gotten steadily more difficult as they marked and drew the stealthy Nightmareweb Ambushers and swarms of hatchlings out from their myriad of hiding places. Currently, one was polymorphed and another one sleeping, thanks to Fluttershy's quick use of a Hibernate spell.

A literal carpet of vile spider hatchlings lay around Twilight and Pinkie Pie's hooves, and even the pink party pony was sticking out her tongue in disgust. Everyone but Fluttershy and Applejack were also covered in strands of sticky silk from being cocooned, some once, some multiple times. In the last fight, Pinkie had been webbed up two times in a row, much to her bubbly annoyance.

"You may have webbed me up, but my fire totem fights on!" she had yelled, managing to somehow squeeze her mouth out through the silky prison. "Avenge me fire totem!"

They were down to the last two, now.

"Break the hibernate first!" Twilight ordered, already casting. Three Ambushers at once was a little tough, but as long as their crowd control held, they could handle it. The important thing was to separate the adults from the hatchlings, so the area of effect spells didn't break polymorph or hibernate. Applejack ended up getting bitten by the second Ambusher, as a huge, hairy leg knocked her off balance for a moment, but Fluttershy's healing was top notch. Rarity had gone back to shadowform to help deal damage, and the giant pony-eating spider was soon put down. Not a minute later, the third also fell, as a rainbow blur crashed into it from above.

"Hahaha!" Dash laughed, triumphantly pulling her new sword free from the fallen spider's head. "Do we rule or what?!"

"Ah'm just glad that's over with," Applejack backed away from the dead arachnid and wiped the sweat from her brow. "Bein' poisoned over and over ain't mah idea of a good time."

While Rarity quickly went to work harvesting the last three spools of silk she needed, Twilight noticed something of particular interest to her. The area was safe as far as they could tell, and her archaeology spell was tingling! Of particular interest was the fallen statue. Getting closer, she lowered herself down enough to inspect the base.

It seemed to be very old bronze, quite dark, in the minimalist style...

The inquisitive unicorn was about to put down her surveying gear, when a huge segmented leg arched over her shoulder from behind.

"AAAAHHH!!" Jumping nearly out of her skin, Twilight's screech sent a flock of bats into the air, squeaking in protest over the sudden and unwanted noise pollution. Even at the Royal Guard camp, ponies stopped to angle their ears towards the noise coming from the crypts.

Falling on her rump, Twilight turned shakily towards the giant spider leg -

Currently held in the mouth of a pink pony.

"Gotcha! Gotcha!" Pinkie Pie chortled, spitting the hairy leg out of her mouth. "Ugh! Gross! But totally worth it! You should'a seen your face, Twilight! you were all like, 'oh, what's this, a dig site I can poke around?' And then I was like 'Hehehe! This is gonna be good!' And you went-" And here she took a deep breath, clearly planning to repeat the scream from moments before.

Only to get a hoof in her mouth instead.

"I was there, Pinkie Pie. It was very funny." Twilight removed her hoof from Pinkie Pie's pie hole. "You nearly scared the life out of me."

"You can turn people into zombies by scaring them?!" The shaman's eyes widened into huge blue saucers. "I never knew! I'm so sorry!"

"Uh. You. I." At a momentarily loss for words, Twilight just hung her head. "Nevermind. Just watch my back while I search for anything interesting. And please, no more freak outs?"

"Pinkie Pie swear!" the zany shaman crossed her chest and ended the pledge with a hoof in her eye.

Wracked by one last shudder - uggggh giant pony-eating spiders! - Twilight went back to the statue and the archaeology site she had identified. Just like before, with the cist she had found in the Everfree forest, she brought out her survey equipment. The dig site here was smaller, so she was already pretty close to anything of note. Following the magical archaeology gear, her eyes lit up as she found a suspiciously upturned cobblestone.

In fact, now that she got a closer look at it, the "cobblestone" wasn't really a cobblestone. It was cut and uniform in size. It was more like a hexagonal tile. Using a spell to clean it off, and a brush in her mouth to finish the job, Twilight confirmed that it was bronze, too. Like the statue. There was stone underneath the "cobblestone" as a sort of foundation, and the bronze had been affixed on top of it.

'Strange,' Twilight thought, bringing the metallic cobblestone up to her eye to get a closer look. There was a copper detailing within the bronze hexagon.

'Just like that statue!' she realized. The rearing mare could only have been Luna, what with there only being two winged unicorns and all. The detailing there had also been with copper, and the eyes had been inlaid with glassy obsidian. Sadly, any actual valuables like gemstones or silver had been forcibly stripped from the statue centuries ago.

Copper detailed bronze was a strange material to use as tile or in place of stone for a walkway. It must have cost a fortune to have so many of the little hexagonal tiles made, and for what? So that ponies could walk on them? Most of the tiles were buried in dirt and grass, despite being built on a solid bed of stone, probably pumice.

Inlaid on the tile was... a letter? A symbol maybe? Or was it another pictograph?

"Looks like a cutie mark!" Pinkie Pie, instead of watching for other killer spiders, opted instead to stretch her neck like a giraffe to peer over Twilight's shoulder. "An hour glass cutie mark just like Doctor Whooves used to have!"

"Pinkie Pie," Twilight lectured, amused by leap of logic her friend had taken. "An hour glass shape can mean almost anything. It is very similar to the letter 'H', for example, especially when written in ancient Equestrian alphanumerics or in stylized script. It was also associated with the afterlife and the concept of impermanence. Since this is a graveyard, it makes sense that superstitious ponies would add 'powerful symbols' to pieces of masonry or construction as..."

"What about this one?" Pinkie suddenly held up another tile, pried loose. Twilight sighed patiently and levitated it close, cleaning it off with magic and her brush.

"It looks like... three or four... circles?" Actually, they looked sort of like bubbles.

That... didn't correspond to any know icons or pictographs or letters that she knew of.

Raising an eyebrow, entertaining Pinkie's theory, Twilight took another look around. She also remembered the "tree" symbol they had found on the Earth pony grave in the forest. No names. Modern graves had names. Unicorn Mausoleums had rosters of the interred. Even pegasi kept rolls of those "returned to the wind." An individual Earth pony grave would have a name on a stele. The unicorn crypts here should have lists carved in stone near the entrances.

Finding another loose tile, she pried it up and cleaned it off.

There was another strange symbol on it, inlaid in copper: a four pointed star with a slash above and below. Twilight wracked her mind, trying to recall any arcane or mundane symbolism that it could be related to. Nothing. Nothing came to mind at all! Was it possible? Could each of these tiles have a different cutie mark on them?

There had to be... hundreds around Luna's statue.

"Fin-ished!" Rarity announced, over by the fallen spiders.

~
[34] A Sticky Situation (COMPLETE)

Objectives:
Bring 10 Spools of Nightmareweb Silk to Rarity
You will need:
[Nightmareweb Silk] x10 (10/10)
Notes:
"I don’t much like it, but I just can’t find any acceptable substitute. This silk is the only one that will do!"
~

Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy both bathed in a pillar of light as they gained a level.

"How nice," the latter quietly said.

With a loud whoop, Pinkie Pie jumped over and threw something to the ground at their feet. The red smoke flare, modified to be more pink than crimson, bathed the surprised pegasus in a colorful cloud, surprising her long enough for Pinkie to grab her hooves and transform into a ghost wolf. She immediately started to dance. Dragged along for the ride, Fluttershy mewed and finally gave in, turning into her druid-kitty form and dancing along.

Tongue lolling, the loony shaman then started to sing a Pinkie Pie song... which only came out as "who roo woof grrr whoo!!"

What with her being a wolf and all.

"Was there anything else on those spiders?" Twilight asked, trotting up to Rarity, Applejack and Rainbow Dash. The trio were staying a discrete distance from the enthusiastic party pony-turned-phantom-canine. Though it was amusing to see a ghost wolf and a Flutter-kitty dancing and trying to sing.

Didn't a druid of Fluttershy's level also know bear form?

The image of Fluttershy as a huge bear, hiding behind a tree, passed through Twilight's mind prompting a polite giggle. It seemed pretty unlikely they'd ever see their soft spoken friend feral tanking any time soon.

"Sorry, Twi," Rainbow Dash shook her head, answering the question from before. "There was nothing good. Just spider meat and gross stuff like that."

"Ah found ah 'chipped spider fang' ... like that's worth anythin'," Applejack added, sticking out her tongue. "Not even any gold, though Ah guess it would be a bit silly if spiders somehow had gold coins on em."

"This silk is more valuable than gold," Rarity informed them, sounding satisfied despite the sticky, webby mess in her hair that she'd - for now - given up on fixing. "Nightmareweb silk is among the most coveted of Equestrian fabrics. I can not wait to get back to my shop and start making new dresses and robes and cloaks! Nightmareweb embroidery is all the rage this season!"

"If you say so." Applejack shrugged. "So, Twilight, what next?"

"The Defiled Crypt," Twilight replied, turning her head towards the opened Mausoleum.

It was, like everything here, an ancient structure. Virtually no written records survived from the era in which this place had been built. Unlike most of the ruined castle, however, at least a few hundred years separated this structure's disuse from that of Luna's castle. Hermitic monks had resided here for several generations after the Mare in the Moon. Only when they, too, disappeared into the mists of history was the crypt finally left to the elements.

It reminded Twilight, vaguely, of the Canterlot Catacombs. The architecture was similar, though here many of the external pillars had fallen or crumbled. There was an outer platform, just off the ground, where relatives or friends of the interred could pray to or remember the deceased. The next platform above that was considered part of the crypt itself, and most unicorns would avoid it. There should be two or three rectangular stone slabs between the two platforms, with the names of all those buried within.

Leading her group, Twilight saw what looked like one of the marble rosters. It was tilted on its side, but still facing upwards. Another was face down, and looked extremely heavy. Unfortunately, while both stones were mostly intact, the surfaces were pitted and damaged. There was writing on some parts: names, probably, but most of it was badly faded. Using a few more archaeology spells, she tried to restore a section.

Names!

But then, she already knew this was a unicorn crypt, so that was no surprise. Checking to make sure Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were finished dancing and ready to follow, Twilight stepped up into the inner platform. Her vision briefly swam and she had to shake her head to clear it. The doors to the crypt had been blasted open with some kind of explosive, leaving the heavy stones to fall inward. The Twilight Cultists hadn't picked the most subtle and respectful way of entering a tomb. No wonder her map identified this as a "Defiled Crypt."

As expected, it was pitch black inside. A cantrip helped the situation slightly, maintaining a permanent glow-light at the tip of her horn. Rarity soon did the same, and the two unicorns provided a steady light in the darkness for their friends. Twilight felt Applejack and Rainbow Dash move up alongside her, ready to rush forward if a threat presented itself.

At least in this first section of the crypt, the walls were bare: just slowly decaying rock, dripping with perspiration. A more sensationalist part of her mind was happy to describe the walls as 'bleeding' but that was not an image she wanted to cultivate. It was just dew collecting naturally. Nothing sinister. The ceiling was low, but still high enough that a pony could rear without bumping her head. Pinkie Pie's bouncing habit, however, was out of luck. It smelled musky, but not foul, and a dark hallway stretched forward and down.

"This is suitably creepy," Rarity injected a little levity into the journey.

"Yep!" Pinkie Pie agreed, dryly reminding them of her personal cure for the ghostlies. "Ha. Ha. Ha." Her heart, for once, didn't seem to be in it.

The sound of their echoing hoofsteps filled the silence as they descended.

"There should be a Fane at the bottom here," Twilight said, if only to hear the comfort of her own voice. Ahead, piercing the gloom, the light from her horn revealed a another statue on a pedestal. It, too, was broken. Shattered. Some sections of the ceiling had collapsed nearby, but they didn't seem to be the cause of the destruction.

The Fane was a small shrine within the crypt, to tend to the dead. More practically, it also housed the tomb guardians used by ancient unicorns to protect their resting places. These had been thoroughly destroyed by the looting cultists. Alcoves covered the walls of the circular shrine room, and whatever was within had been smashed with reckless and almost gleeful abandon. Ancient tapestries had been pulled down and candles knocked over and trampled by maddened hooves.

"He. He. He."

"Pinkie, can ya'll please stop laughin'?"

The carnation colored shaman seemed about to object, but instead made a zipper motion in front of her mouth. She didn't look too happy about it. Even though they hadn't seen anything yet, the place was already giving Twilight the chills. Not that she was superstitious or anything! Just... that it was spooky... and there were actual ghosts - er, spirits - within. They all knew the danger was in there, around them, they just couldn't see it.

"Oh boy," Dash muttered. "Everypony back up a bit!"

"What is it?" Applejack asked, doing what the pegasus had asked, but not sure why.

"I just used 'Sense Undead,'" she explained, creeping forward towards one of the halls branching away from the fane. "There are... a lot of them..."

"A lot of what?" Twilight asked, feeling a sheen of cold sweat on her forehead.

"Ah... there's..." Dash glanced back, quickly. "Some hostile. Some not hostile. Wailing Souls. Soul Eaters. Preserved Dead. Some stronger ones, I think they're on the levels below us."

"Levels below us?" Rarity asked, "Heavens, how large is this place?"

The paladins hook her head. "No idea. Pretty big?" She swapped weapons, retrieving her shield and holy mace. "I better go Prot for this."

Following Dash, the six mares entered one of the interred halls. On one level, it was much like Twilight had imagined. There were near rows along the walls for the bodies to be stored, marked and labeled and slightly recessed. At the same time, it was as frightening as she had feared. Instead of nice, closed sepulchral tombs, the dead had been put to rest on open beds and covered with cloth. Centuries had decayed fabric and flesh alike, leaving piles of skeletal remains wrapped within tattered brown rags. Hollow eyes and cleaned pony skulls stared accusingly at any who dared to trespass within the forgotten mausoleum.

Worse, the cultist pillagers had haphazardly pulled down corpses to rummage around for stashes of treasure. Piles of bone lay freshly strewn on the floor, in some cases kicked into corners when whatever jewelry they had been buried with was ripped free. Urns and canopic jars had been smashed and bucked open in a search for gold.

Dark shapes, vaguely pony-like, moved from shadow to shadow...

One came close by, but Dash held up a hoof to indicate not to engage. The ghostly unicorn, a transparent blue in the light of Rarity's horn, walked past them, forlornly shaking her head. She seemed to be in grief or pain and Twilight flinched as the ghost passed through her tail. Her identification spell indicated that this was a "Wailing Soul" and it seemed non-hostile. At least for now.

"This is just awful," Rarity said, turning to watch the Wailing Soul wander into the darkness. "Twilight, we have to do something."

"I'd love to, but... what can we do?" the other unicorn asked, now a bit more wary to blindly descend into the haunted crypts. "Should we just... try and disperse them?"

Rarity shook her head, and raised a foreleg as she thought about the situation they'd been handled. "No. No. Don't attack them unless they're hostile. It would take forever to return every bone and bit of stolen property. What to do? I think... well, first we need to cleanse this place of the nastiness that is offending all these poor ponies. The strongest spirits should be at the bottom of the tomb. Putting them to rest may be enough to purify the others."

"Why are the biggest, baddest, meanest, no-goodest things always in the deepest part of the dungeon, anyway?" Pinkie complained.

"They just are, darling," Rarity replied. "I believe it may be a cosmic rule of some sort."

"We shouldn't get sidetracked," Twilight reminded them. "Rainbow, see if you can find a staircase leading down."

"Got it!" The paladin confirmed, leading them deeper into the defiled crypt. More and more Wailing Souls wandered listlessly around them, until Twilight could almost hear their soft chorus of lamenting voices. Others were less melancholy as they cursed and damned the living for their intrusion, or simply out of spite.

"Wo-oah!" Dash suddenly stopped, raising her shield. Before anyone knew it, they were being attacked. In the cramped confined of the crypt, however, it was hard to see by what. Doing her best to target the strange shape, Rainbow Dash grunted and helpfully backed up and into a wall.

It was... a skeletal pony?

The damned creature, animated by a wronged spirit's hatred for the living, had risen from one of the crypt alcoves. Still wrapped in cloth, the Preserved Dead groaned painfully from a long decayed throat and chest as it struck at the pegasus paladin. Foul chemicals seeped from between the mummification wrappings.

"That's a disease," Fluttershy warned. "Ponyrot. I can't cure it."

"I've got it, then!" Dropping out of shadowform, Rarity glowed with holy light, burning away the putrid clouds and foul chemicals that surrounded Rainbow Dash. Having to switch forms, and then back to shadow, she gave an unhappy huff. A stream of shadow unwound from her horn into the undead zombie-pony, and together with the other damage being done to it, it quickly came apart under the onslaught.

One last pitiful groan, and it broke apart like paper mache.

"Don't look now, team, but there's a whole room full'a these guys looking for a fight!" Dash slowly advanced, pulling one or two of the animated dead. Applejack worked in parallel, taunting and holding a pair of undead while her friends burned the cursed things down. The two tanks were the only ones exposed to diseases, and between Dash's Cleanse and Rarity's Abolish, the group made slow but steady progress.

"Rarity, I wanted to ask you something," Twilight said, casting a trio of magic missiles and sending the arcane fire down into a shambling unicorn corpse. It moaned and collapsed, poison and disease filling the air.

"What about?" Rarity asked, Mind Flaying another one of the abominations.

"That... 'shadow body' thing you do?" What was the name again? "Shadow Form I think? Why do you keep going in and out of it?"

"Well, you remember what I said about holy magic earlier?" She side stepped to avoid one of the fallen bodies as the group pushed ahead.

Twilight nodded.

"What's true for you is true for me as well," Rarity explained. "I can't use holy spells in my Shadowform. Actually, that isn't entirely true. I can still use some holy spells, like Power Word Shield... there is a subtle distinction between Discipline spells and Holy spells, you see?"

"I kind of don't," Twilight sheepishly admitted. "They're both holy magic, right?"

"Yes, but the source is different. Divine Spellcraft takes many forms."

"I read something like that, once. It was in Harrison Jones's notes on trolls! Loa, he called them!" Twilight couldn't help but blush at the thought of the renowned archaeologist. Not that she had any idea what he looked like. Probably not a pony. But his writings were just so... brilliant!

"Trolls use a divine magic that comes from worship of spirits and ancestors. Our divine magic comes from... oh, what was that word again?" Rarity gave a thoughtful pause, just long enough to strike down another of the Preserved Dead. "Ah, yes. Eternals. The Sun and the Moon, to be exact. Generally speaking, you can not use both at the same time, so long as the source of the power is a greater being."

"So, that Shadowform you use...?"

"You could call it a gift from Princess Luna," Rarity confirmed, her body wreathed by dark energy. Twilight still found it a little off putting, even after having seen it before. Here in the darkness of the defiled crypt, the beautiful fashionista looked almost like a dark specter herself.

"Mages consider it shadow magic," she continued. "But I was taught that it comes from the Light of the Moon. Truth be told, I prefer Discipline myself," she admitted with a smirk. "There is nothing quite as satisfying as making your own unique Light, rather than borrowing it from others."

Fluttershy raised her voice, just a little. "Actually, Twilight. The only one not using divine magic here is, um... you."

"That's right!" Pinkie Pie agreed, hitting three of the undead at the end of the hall with chain lightning. "My teacher once told me: 'Pink-pony' - actually, I told him, it was Pinkie Pie, not pink pony - but he said, 'shut up and listen, pink pony!' And then I went 'waaa' why do you have to call me bad names? And then he bonked me on the head and said, 'Fel magic is the only magic that is forbidden, and arcane magic is fel magic. It disrupts the natural order.' He really didn't like things that used bad magic."

"Anyway," she digressed and pointed at Twilight. "I think all that means is that the one using naughty magic here is you!" She then stuck out her lips and rolled up her eyes. "But then again, Master Boombox loves all kinda magic, and she isn't evil. She just loves making things that explode! I wonder which one of them was right?"

"Naughty magic, me?" Twilight couldn't believe what she was hearing. "I don't understand. What - what's wrong with using my magic?"

"There's nothing wrong with it," Rarity spoke in her friend's defense. "All ponies have magic in them, unicorns in particular. Pinkie Pie, what you're talking about is demonic magic. You're just overreacting as usual."

"It wouldn't be the first time!" Pinkie enthusiastically agreed, earth shocking another zombie. "Pew Pew!"

"I wouldn't worry about it, Twilight," Fluttershy said, trying to sound supportive. "Well, um... make sure nothing bad happens."

"You are the Element of Magic after all," Rarity chimed in.

As the last of the Preserved Dead fell, breaking apart into piles of rags and bones, the party rounded a corner. The normal rows of interred unicorn dead came to a stop at a pair of pillars. Past them and to the right, a large staircase led downward.

Waiting for them below were "pure" undead spirits, different from the relatively fragile animated corpses above. These spirits were only vaguely in pony form, some appearing like drifting lights and wisps and others as indistinct phantoms. They were all disturbed and agitated, unlike the surface level where most of the halls were filled with Wailing Souls. The trail of destruction left behind by the cultist looters continued, with one notable exception.

A fallen cultist pony lay, face down, in the middle of the hall, surrounded by phantoms. A sack full of ill gotten gains remained strapped to his saddlebags. There was no blood or gore. It was as if he had simply died of a heart attack. The enraged ghosts that had no doubt taken his life continued to haunt the halls, restlessly searching for other living ponies to punish.

Twilight took a step forward, together with Dash and Applejack -

~

Darkness.

The court was shrouded, as always, in shadow. The only light came from the full moon outside, the pale glow piercing the many wide windows that flanked the hall. Not to far away, another Guard stood silent, almost invisible within the long shadows that fell on both sides of the chamber door. A green eye turned, meeting, followed by the faintest of nods. They were brothers after all. Brothers of the shadow.

Brothers of the Night Guard.

The Princess rested on her throne, awake but not alert. Her breathing was steady and calm. She was bored, but not ill or uneasy. This had been her state for years now. The Lunar Court was far removed from Canterlot. There were no Galas or balls or politics. What needed to be done was done in shadow. Occasionally the resident monks would organize rituals dedicated to the night sky, as they had done for centuries beyond counting. They would chant to the Gods that had come to Equestria, built upon it the Night Sky and Made Covenant with the Moon and the Sun and the Stars. Her Highness would attend these and watch, silently. Perhaps even remembering.

It was why they were here. The monks believed the day would come when the Traveling Gods returned to pass judgment on their creation. After thousands of years, was the Princess simply waiting for that end? That, even her oldest Guards didn't seem to know. Instead they recruited and saw to their dark vigil, as they always had. As they always would. The Princess had organized them to be able to act without her, to better leave her to her meditations. The Nights would be kept Safe. Always.

Ears prickled. Something approached.

Wings extended, sharpened by shadow.

The doors to the throne room opened, and the guards turned, ready to attack should the source prove alarming. The other guards outside had not raised a warning. Was this a legitimate guest? On her throne, Luna's eyes widened and her head raised up.

The sound of hooves on marble indicated not one, but a pair of visitors. The first was an elderly pony, gray and wizened in his years, most of his form hidden behind a plain brown traveling cloak. A step or two behind the old unicorn followed a young colt. His coat was a dusky blue, and though he too wore a cloak, the hood was thrown back revealing a close cropped, spiky white mane broken only by an upraised horn. The guards relaxed as their Princess relaxed, sensing no danger from the pair.

Both unicorns bowed low.

"Princess Luna," the elder greeted.

"Nemo?" the Princess inquired, eyes widening slightly. "I hardly recognized you." She frowned. "You've become old."

"It has been thirty six years since I last graced your court," Nemo, the old pony, replied. "I apologize for my lengthy absence."

Luna watched him, her eyes calculating. She only spoke again when she was sure of something.

"You will be dead soon," she reasoned. "This young colt is the next Element of Magic."

"Yes, your Majesty."

The colt in question took a step forward and flourished. "Highness," he said, voice smooth and confident, despite his youth and the intimidating presence of the Moon Princess before him. "I am Enigma."

A ghost of a smile graced the Princess's features. Her eyes fell on Nemo. "Why have you brought him here? Should he not be at Canterlot, learning from my sister's conjurers?"

"Princess," Nemo replied, respectfully. "Despite his youth, Enigma has already mastered the court conjuring of Canterlot. He is fully versed in mundane magics. You may also recall that I was trained here and must by tradition die here as well. It is where I wish to pass on the mysteries of our station."

"We welcome you home then," Luna diplomatically replied. Her close guard knew she had a rather mixed opinion towards the monks she shared the castle grounds with. The preservation of secret and sacred knowledge was vital, but she had little love for those who did not act upon their knowledge.

"There is one other matter," the aged Element of Magic hastened to add. "We have recently returned from a... journey into the west. There are rumors and signs... among the zebra in particular."

"Of...?" The Princess prompted.

"Great calamity," Nemo pronounced. "A terrible evil that stirs beyond the Western Sun Wall, beyond even the lands of Uldum."

An evil beyond the far west? Beyond Uldum? Very few ponies had dared to travel so far, even among the Twin Guard. The lands were treacherous to a degree unimagined by most Equestrians. An expedition to the Western Sun Wall was madness. Celestia's Royal Guards were able to keep peace in the north and east. The West was Luna's domain by right. The Night Guards let none of their discomfort show.

"Some new dragon then? One of the Blacks?" Luna asked, narrowing her eyes. "I shall have words with Neltharion if..."

"No, Majesty. It is no dragon," Enigma spoke up, his silver eyes alight. "It puts fear into the hearts of dragons, black, red, bronze. The Tol'vir are already divided and at war. They whisper of a coming doom. An evil from beneath the shifting sands."

Amused by the colt's brash impertinence, Luna smirked. "Is that so? Nemo... You wish me to send my Night Guards across the known world because of... whispers and rumor?"

"I ask that the Shadowbolts investigate," the aged unicorn ducked his head in another sincere bow. Enigma did the same a moment later. "I have already informed Princess Celestia. She was... skeptical."

Mention of her sister raised the Princess's hackles.

"I remember you as a boy, Nemo. Younger than even this one." She nodded, sagely. "You were always forthright. A veritable Element of Honesty. Very well!" Luna decided. "I will send my Shadowbolts to investigate the Western Sun Wall... and the edge of Uldum... Silithius, I believe it is called?"

~

- and groaned as the world returned to focus.

"What was..."

"Did anyone else..."

"Have a vision? I did! I did!"

The six Elements of Harmony stopped and turned to check in on their friends. Fluttershy was spooked, looking frightfully around for the source of the strange vision, and Pinkie Pie was excited, doing the same as Fluttershy but for totally different reasons. Rarity was composed, but silent, and Dash and Applejack looked more annoyed by the sudden interruption than anything else.

"I wanna see the cutscene again!" Pinkie backed up a few steps and then tried to trigger it a second time by going forward. "Awww! Everything's all normal!"

"Pinkie Pie, this ain't the time fer bein silly!"

"But I'm not being silly!" the generally silly pink pony protested. She looked up at the ceiling and then down at the ground. "We all saw that vision thingie, which must mean there's something that triggered it. And I wanna see it again, because it was probably important! Princess Luna was there, except she was kinda Nightmare Moonish, at least she was bigger and kinda meaner looking, and the castle upstairs was intact and it was pretty neat!"

"It was... interesting," Twilight admitted, and gasped as an idea occurred to her. Taking out her trusty magical interactive map, she checked the quest update section. Really: how did anyone adventure without one of these things?

Two new quests were in the log:

[36] A Sacred Burial
[36] Visions of Nightmare

~
[36] A Sacred Burial

Objectives:
Purify the Defiled Crypt
You will need:
ERROR: UNKNOWN
Notes:
"First we need to cleanse this place of the evil that is offending all these poor ponies. The strongest spirits should be at the bottom of the tomb. Putting them to rest may be enough to purify the others."
~
~
[36] Visions of Nightmare

Objectives:
Survive the Visions of Nightmare
You will need:
Experience Vision of Nightmare (1) (COMPLETE)
ERROR: UNKNOWN
Notes:
"We all saw that vision thingie, which must mean there's something that triggered it. And I wanna see it again, because it was probably important!"
~

"Ooh! I made it into the quest log text!"

"This doesn't really explain much," Twilight mused, rolling the map back up and floating it into her bags. "But it does confirm that we experienced something that wasn't just unusual; it was important. It also implies that there are more 'visions of the nightmare' for us to trigger."

"Hopefully not during a boss fight," Dash replied. Facing the second level of the crypt, she raised her shield and imbued it with Holy Light. "We won't get anywhere by standing around! Let's bust some ghost heads!"

The second level was, unfortunately, more of a maze than the first. In addition to a few Preserved Dead that animated from defiled corpses, the mane six first encountered "Soul Eaters" - a type of phantom pony that, to their surprise, tried to take over the bodies of a victim. Luckily the time that it took one of the specters to invade an unwilling and magically enhanced pony was also enough time to blast the ghost apart. When there were several of the dangerous spirits on the prowl, Dash would use Fear on one, or Rarity would Shackle it. Both had the effect of preventing the ghost from trying to possess anypony.

The other, unexpected ghost to emerge was the "Enraged Shade."

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief as the dark form turned to ash and dust, purified by Dash's holy judgment spells. Enraged Shades would periodically pulse with dark energy, doing damage to everyone and interrupting spellcasts. Progress through the second level of the crypt was slow, but steady. Despite the difficulty, however, Twilight felt quite confident as they looked forward to checking out the next hall. They had gone around in a circle trying to find the stairs down and eliminated every other possible path.

Everyone was also working together smoothly. It was hard to believe that only the other day, Trixie had humiliated her in front of the guild lodging. Only a couple more levels, and Twilight would be on the same level as the so called 'Great and Powerful' warlock. Not that she felt a burning desire to avenge her loss in the duel or anything... well, maybe a slightly burning desire... but it also provided an important contrast. Twilight hadn't forgotten Princess Celestia's letter or the recommendation regarding forming a new guild. Maybe it was time she get started on that?

Right after they finished here. Tonight! She'd ask them tonight.

Twilight was sure her friends would say "yes." It was really just a matter of organization, not membership!

- - -

Marrs Orange opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a greenish tint, cutting through the darkness. Pinpricks of white light shone too-brightly but also failed to direct all that light far from the source. His training soon kicked in, and he stood back up and turned to check on his subordinates. They had been hoof-picked by the Princess, but most of them were familiar colts from the Second Regiment. They were groggily getting back onto their hooves.

It took a few seconds for Marrs to realize that the room was pitch black. It was the light sources that tipped him off. They were too faint and too small. There were no shadows. The lights in the throne room had been taken out!

"Princess!" He spun, searching frantically for her.

"I'm here." Her voice was soft and small, sounding almost tired. He zeroed in on it with his ears, but it took a squint to pick out Luna's dark form against her throne. Her horn glowed a moment later, producing a gentle moonlight that slowly filled the room. Amazingly, the small bit of light made Marrs wince, his eyes taking time to adjust.

"Night... vision...?" he realized, shocked. As the dim light illuminated his body, and the forms of his subordinates, he could see the changed wrought in them.

Celestia's colors were well known by all Equestrians, and as distinct and recognizable as the golden barding that was the Royal Guard's trademark. Pegasi and Earth ponies became a solid white, their eyes and manes dark blue. Unicorns were turned slate gray, manes white. Their bodies, too, changed to fit a uniform, light-empowered mould.

Marrs had known that Luna's powers would have a similar effect. He had prepared himself over months of training to accept and even welcome the transformation, yet still, this new one came as something of a shock. Gone were the ochre hues of his family line, the wealthy Manehattan Oranges. His coat was now a dark, regimental Persian indigo... a reflection of Luna's colors. In the eyes of another nearby Earth pony, and in another pegasus, he saw electric green, split by a slitted black pupil, like a cat's. Their manes had been turned a shimmering silver. Pegasus, Unicorn, Earth pony, they had all been remade.

There was no time to act like a dazed colt.

Stomping his foot twice, and barking out a command, the twenty new guards quickly regained their professionalism and faced forward. Many would, once they were dismissed, spend some time getting used to their new forms. The pegasi in particular would need some time to get used to being larger and more muscular than normal. Satisfied with the quickly regained composure of his subordinates, Marrs Orange lowered his head to the Princess in whose power they were now dyed and bound. The other twenty Guardsponies quickly followed.

Their Princess, unfortunately exhausted by her magical exertion, was already closing her eyes. The moonlight from her horn continued to bathe the throne room, even as she fell asleep on her throne, legs tucked beneath her. For a moment, Marrs was unsure what to do. Should he and the others continue bowing until they were dismissed?

'No,' he realized.

"I have no interest in supplication," she had said.

Raising his head, he quickly picked out four guards to station at the chamber doors and at the throne room's entryway. They were all without armor, but that hardly mattered. The others, he dismissed. Regulations were for two guards at each entrance and exit. He, the fifth, would stand guard as the Master at Hooves. Until ordered otherwise, regulations were to be followed.

Sitting silently to the far left of the throne, the black sheep of the Orange family smirked inwardly.

'I suppose I'm literally a black sheep now,' he mused. 'How appropriate.'

His Princess slept on, oblivious. In Luna's dreams, she remembered - she remembered, vividly - a millennia ago, sending her finest guards, her Shadowbolts, on a mission to the far west. To the cursed realm of Silithius. To a sleeping menace beneath the desert sands. It was the most fateful task she had ever given them.

It had been her first step on the road to damnation.