The second expedition party landed smoothly, without incident… save for Katie, who once again found herself meeting up face-first with a loose patch of soil that had a felled trees laying askew next to it. The momentum only aided her in getting buried up to her croup, though the dirt was loose enough for her wings to stick out without any injury to their delicate frames. NoLegs meowed in frustration and waved his tail before Katie was magically yanked out of the dirt by her tail, and his eyes narrowed when he found half her body was still frozen solid.

It took a few minutes after that, longer than usual, for the ice to thaw as dirt clung to it like it had been glued on upon impact. Once that had been done, Katie stretched her legs in the magical grip and retracted her tongue and turned to NoLegs. "Thanks a bunch," she chirped sincerely, before he nodded and released his magical hold on her to let her drop back to the ground again. Katie landed on all fours clumsily, but quickly got her bearings together and made sure to back away from the loose soil onto sturdier ground.

NoLegs then magically conjured a triad of coats, each with holes for wings to slide through. All three were adorned with a small medal or two on the left breast and paired with an army helmet adorned with a crest of a lion and an eagle circling one another, one pouncing from above and the other swooping down low with wings flared wide. Both front paws and talons were locked together, perhaps in a dance of some sort. The troops hastily got dressed, making sure the coats were on just right and that their helmets would not slide off anytime soon.

Once they finished adjusting their outfits, NoLegs conjured a set of spears and gave them to the soldiers, who readily took them in their claws. Finally, he himself landed on the ground and conjured a pony-sized construct a few paces away from the quartet, one stationed on metallic wheels secured in a cage-frame brace and carved of wood. In fact, it was a literal wooden horse with googly eyes tacked on the face where eyes would normally be, with what seemed like a cornucopia tied loosely around its neck and special doors with tiny knobs built into the stomach and barrel.

On its wooden muzzle was a set of tacks, intricately decorated with gold, brass, silver, and a touch of platinum with fine leather-woven straps that gave the impression that such a garment was only something a complete whorse would wear. These tactfully garish tacks were connected to a similarly-crafted harness with reins and adorned with a fine leather and silken saddle on its back that was a little on the plump side. NoLegs trudged to the wooden horse and jumped on its saddle with a pleased mew as he sank slightly in it when it hugged his bottom, turning to the troops who turned to him.

Katie canted her head at the anomaly. "Where'd you get that toy?" she asked. "Can I have one?"

NoLegs waved his tail and answered telepathically, "You have to be small like me, and to obtain the rank of Colonel before you can get one of these."

Katie nodded, staring at the wooden horse with her orbs gleaming in wonder, amusement, and a slight sense of awe over the fact that NoLegs had that particular toy tucked away until just now. She started pondering over how he was able to carry such a thing in his thaumic energy, before she turned to Nathan to find him and the other two gryphons tucking their spears tightly beneath their wings. She snickered at the choice of facial decoration the faux beast had, silently admitting that the googly eyes made it all the more ridiculous.

NoLegs telepathically chortled, knowing full well the look he was getting from those small and beady orbs. His lips twitched up in a toothy, knowing grin. His magic seized the reins and tugged, making sure both that and the tacks were secured tight, before using his tail to beckon Katie over with a few flicks in a 'come hither' gesture. Katie cantered over to look at the wooden beast more closely, circling its wheeled hooves a few times to observe it from every ground-bound angle. Her wings beat once she ceased circling, and she ascended up to the false muzzle before swooping in a quarter-circle to stare Nolegs in the eye. "Yes?" she asked, crossing her forelegs.

NoLegs thumped his tail against the saddle, and scooted to its front to make some room. Perplexed, and tilting her head, Katie flew and landed on the saddle barrel-first, finding it made of leather stuffed to the brim with what felt like water that displaced slightly to hug her body. "Yikes," she exclaimed, flying right back up and looking down at the saddle as the wrinkles she left simply smoothed themselves out with no magical assistance whatsoever. "The hell did you do to get the saddle like that?"

NoLegs turned and sent her a coy, smug grin of shit-eating satisfaction. Katie's brow furrowed when he failed to answer, but ultimately she just shrugged her shoulders and flew over to the gryphons. "So… where's the shrine?" she asked. "The longer we dally, the worse things'll get and the harder they'll be to fix, if indeed we can fix things around here at all."

Nathan and Jeremy shared a glance, while Quicksilver simply nodded in understanding. They eventually fluffed their wings momentarily and swished their tails in unison. "Can you read ancient alicorn?" Quicksilver asked.

Katie rapidly shook her head to ensure her ears were working right. "Come again?"

"Can you read ancient alicorn?" Quicksilver repeated in a clipped voice, mired by the slightest tinge of exasperation.

Katie contemplated the question for a few seconds. It did not take long for her to grimly shake her head. "Only Swarm, but not a lot of it," she confirmed. "Never got past the third year of mandatory learning." Her legs sagged. "Sometimes it fucking sucks being a nymph, especially when I've been stuck this way for Godcat knows how long now."

Four pairs of brows rose in that instant, their owners staring at Katie with such incredulity it almost passed off as legitimate bemusement. Silence hung in the air for a full minute on end before Nathan spoke in a sibilant hiss, "... you're a nymph. You've been a nymph for some time..." Katie nodded, which only garnered three talons rising up and smacking into beaks in that moment with enough force to cause the resultant sound to echo a few meters into the surrounding Ashwood.

NoLegs telepathically grumbled as his tail met with his muzzle a second later, "That sure explains a fucking lot."

Nathan was the first to part claw from face, and he sighed in resignation. "Is the general aware of this?" he asked slowly.

Katie nodded. "I told him before he sent me to the deck. He just glared at something past me and mumbled about stupidity and surprise, but still went with his decision," she answered earnestly. "Though I think he's not going to lay off the assignments anytime soon, since I already proved myself to him."

Nathan sighed ruefully. "First Windwood, now you," he grumbled indignantly. He shared a very concerned look with Nathan and Jeremy. "When is he going to go off the deep end again?"

"Again?" Katie echoed, orbs widening.

Nathan turned back to her and nodded solemnly. "He went… very utterly fucking insane once. Before Starcovert and Bladerune set him straight and entered the military," he stated, choosing to stop himself there with a shudder wracking his body so much the spear his wing cradled rattled as if it threatened to abandon ship.

Katie's orbs shrank in alarm. Lance was nutty once? That was something very troubling indeed, more so than the revelation of Anna being a potential host of parasitic organisms. Although, she gave it some thought and sagged a little more when she realized one such as he would have to be a little nutty to indulge in the practice of foal and teenage soldiers. Especially undead and emotionally-fraught ones at that, Faust forbid. The more she pondered about it, the more she started believing him to be some sort of crazy-magnet given legs and wings and the job of a flipping general on top of that.

"Just… l-let's get to the… M-Mighty Oak, alright? This is a lot to t-take in," Katie muttered, her voice fraught with worry to the point it sounded like a plea.

"You heard the newbie," Jeremy piped up, turning tail and marching northwestwood. Nathan and Quicksilver grumbled, but turned to fall in step behind Jeremy. Katie got in line behind them, choosing to stay airborne in the event that there was more loose soil ahead. NoLegs used his magic to seize the reins and trundle his ride behind them with a few tugs, using momentum to get the wheels turning as they started on their way to the Mighty Oak's shrine.

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Roughly three hours passed after their initial departure from their landing point, and the storm clouds overhead started darkening before it was even noon. Winding trails, some with snuffed torches and others without torches at all, led the party on a twisting trail of sorts, with no end in sight as far as their intended goal was concerned. Ashwood itself seemed to darken as well, with the few upright cursed trees eyeing them with their bark starting to rot on them, cracking in places and riddled with fungus. This wound up distorting their already-grotesque features to a degree that Katie found nauseating whenever she so much as spared a glance to said trees in question.

The trees, in turn, seemed to be watching them so intently they started giving off a predatory vibe. Aside from buzzing wings, claws, paws, and wheels crunching on fallen leaves and twigs, and the occasional creak of movement from the trees as they continued to eye them suspiciously, Ashwood was unnaturally quiet for a forest that was so alive. One so alive with things only a mental patient who'd read too many horror stories could dream about, or perhaps the combined forces of whatever broke the barrier.

Katie started shivering as her stomach scrunched and twisted in perfect tandem with every snapping twig, every broken leaf, almost as though her body itself started falling into the rhythm of what little noise she could catch and protesting simultaneously. A sense that she was getting closer, at long last, to uncovering the Wise Guy behind the broken barrier started to sink in, but with it came a feeling of dread. Who or what was strong enough to pull such a feat off, and in such a way the inhabitants of both planets could see it in all its grandeur? She was thankful she played dead near Frostbite, recalling seeing the shield fall down from the Valkyrie's interior, but not before blinding white encompassed it.

And furthermore, she started to entertain the notion that the culprit to that incident may well be linked to the current shitshow that was the trees watching her and her group pass through with gazes so judgemental it felt as if they'd laid her soul bare for the briefest of moments. If so… then why would they do either of those things?

Eventually, a tree whispered a single word in her ear as she hovered past, with its rotting breath and a soft exhale that could not have been mistaken for the wind, "Pestilence…" The word snapped Katie out of her reverie, and she halted before turning to the tree quick as a whip.

"What?" Katie hissed, looking at the tree expectantly. It gave no answer, merely opting to stare into her orbs with its own black abysses. She could've sworn she saw swollen milky eyes with nigh-featureless irises and pupils within those recesses, only visible thanks to the soft azure light her own eyes gave off. Its rotting breath grew stronger and more acrid as the two stared off, but Katie did not balk in the slightest; the tree had spoken, and she wanted it to repeat what it said on the off-chance her ears had deceived her.

The tree twisted its head upside-down, the bark peeling away in places to reveal pulsating, rotting flesh riddled with boils and fungus. It leaned closer to her, and the others stopped and huddled behind her as its neck stretched with a sickening series of cracks. Its muzzle began twitching erratically, and as it drew closer Katie's orbs shrank as she realized the bark lining it formed hellish teeth rivaling her own. It opened wide, preparing to lunge, but fell short as Katie darted back, well out of range.

Katie took point and flew on ahead, and nobody hesitated to follow after her. She went slow and low to avoid crashing into things as well as the ectoplasms' attention, hooves tucked close and tense. Her ears sprang up and began swiveling, straining to catch anything her compatriots weren't making. Tension started hanging in the air, almost as smothering to her as the clouds were to the sky overhead. It took a good ten minutes after the tree tried biting her face off before they reached a clearing, one lined with torches that were oddly lit with a conspicuous and sickly blue set of flames.

Landing on the ground, she turned her head to Nathan without moving the rest of her body. "Can we take a break here?" she asked sincerely, her voice strained. "Because my wings are starting to ache." She turned to the closest torch and added, "And I am pretty sure flames aren't supposed to be all blue."

Nathan turned to the torch in question and reared up on his paws before he marched to it upright, dislodging his spear from his wing and clutching it in his talons. Edging closer, he peered at the bowl of the torch, and saw a multitude of broken rings with runes carved into them, as well as a few pony skulls so scorched he couldn't tell what was outside and what was inside. The rings sported a dark rock-like substance within their middles that was only visible thanks to holes on the outside, which the engraved metal coated even as the fires licked them. He angled his spearhead into the blaze and started prodding at the mass until he found an intact horn-sized ring and hoisted it out, flames still clinging to it.

"Hrm… magic inhibitors…" Nathan paused, looking at the skulls again. He noticed a distinct lack of unicorn horns in the burning remains, and turned to the ring again.

"Magic inhibitors? How are they on fire, assuming that they're the fuel?" Katie asked, orbs going cross-eyed as she stared at the now-burning spearhead.

"There's a compound within the rings, coated by metal that is then carved with runes inside and out to allow the compound to absorb a unicorn's magic whenever they try to cast a spell. Sablestone, I'm guessing," Nathan answered, turning to Katie and thrusting his spear downward, sending the ring into the dirt where the flames weakened as dust flew from the impact. Impressively, the embers stubbornly lingered.

Katie turned to the ring, orbs still crossed. Her mental gears ground for a moment. "Sablestone… as in… what changeling royals used to use for their thrones?" she asked.

"One and the same, only harvested and used for a different purpose. The runes and the metal on which they're engraved, however, can only take so much magic, despite the sablestone being built to start absorbing all the magic of a pony who wears it—unicorn, earth, pegasus, it matters not. Too much magic, well… suffice to say that if a unicorn, for instance, overcharges… it results in a backlash that knocks the would-be caster out with quite a nasty shock without giving the sablestone time to absorb it, since it's only a very minute amount," Nathan muttered, turning to the ring with eyes narrowing. "I heard from Armin that he learned a hotel staff smuggled that exact type of ring into Equestria within two weeks of staying and investigating… for subduing anypony who spent the night."

"Hotel staff…" Katie's orbs went wide. So that was why Natalie and Anna couldn't bust themselves out of that mess. She trotted to the ring and stamped a metal-clad hoof on it, channeling mana to conjure ice. The temperature dropped, the flames on the torches weakened drastically and ice formed… before the blue flames coming from the ring engulfed it just as it began to form on the shoe. Hastily retracting her limb before she could torch herself, she watched as the embers flickered with a pop. "Seriously, why's it on fire?"

"Someone probably lit the rings on fire to expunge the magic they absorbed. But… that'll just make the sablestone useless once the fires die," Nathan sighed, shaking his head. "And judging by the blue flames… it seems these particular rings sponged up a lot of pegasus magic."

Katie turned to Nathan, brows raised high. "Does Lance use sablestone?" she asked.

Nathan shook his head. "Not much of a point to; sablestone doesn't affect changelings, we gryphons would simply take them off with our claws, and the only three unicorns in the force could do likewise with their hooves, provided they aren't in any way hogtied," he stated dismissively. "In short, it's moot."

Katie nodded, turning back to the line of torches. "Pegasus magic…" she muttered. "How would one apply tiny rings to somepony with pegasus magic?"

Nathan frowned and turned to the torches, using his spear to sift through the soot and skulls again. It took a bit of skull-turning, but with the effort he uncovered a hoof-sized ring that would, with a great deal of practice and pain on the recipient's behalf, fit onto a wing, or barring that a hoof. Nathan deftly used his spearhead to heft it out of the blaze, depositing it onto the ground next to its smaller companion. "Would that answer your question?" he asked. Katie nodded upon seeing the larger ring.

"The torches leading away from the crystal caverns had red flames…" Gears began turning in Katie's head as she made the utterance. She made a mental note to take a look-see at them later, and sent another cursory glance around the clearing. Aside from the blue flames adorning the torches, with that query having already been answered, she found nothing out of the ordinary. Turning to NoLegs, her mouth opened to ask him to do something, only to close when a blue glow emanated from his tail and spread outward to envelop the clearing. Turning back to said clearing, she watched as the glow rippled all around and faded within seconds.

Nothing turned up, even as the last vestiges of NoLegs's magic flickered and faded out of existence. The clouds above continued to darken, and Katie looked straight up at them before noticing a very slight fog formed from fine misty droplets clouding her sight a little. Yet she did not feel anything as miniscule as a grain of sand land on her chitinous hide. A faint hue of mana, just barely even there, pulsed so softly through the droplets Katie started to think she was hallucinating.

Then the drops began moving, ever so slightly, shifting about in various directions by the smallest millimeter possible. Her orbs widened once more, and she turned to NoLegs. "The hell did you do?" she queried.

NoLegs studied her closely, his little furry face hardening into a no-nonsense look. He waved his tail. "Do you see droplets?" he asked. Katie nodded fervently, and he broke out into a small smile. "You're seeing humidity… though it would seem you need magical assistance to do so."

Katie's brow rose higher, skeptically at that. "Why?" she asked tersely.

"It's vital for all the troops, if they have wings. It helps gauge whether the weather's going to turn for the worse or not," NoLegs answered, his smile fading. "I was required to get and perfect this spell in case we got a troop or two who couldn't see ion charges, heat, or humidity. Matt and Natalie can't see any of those, Lance can only see heat to an extent, but he has to spread his wings and channel his magic through them and then the air around himself for that to kick in, and Anna can only see ion charges… without magical aid, strangely enough."

Katie's orbs widened further at all that mumbo-jumbo. "Lance can see heat?"

NoLegs nodded. "Nowhere near as good as he used to, ever since his wings got clipped, and he also used to see humidity and charges. Now he can't see either at all, so only time's gonna tell if he'll stay crippled in that capacity. It's not likely to stay that way for long, given how his wings got repaired," he confirmed, looking to the sky with a hiss of displeasure. "And I can't see any of those things at all unless I cast the spell. We gotta seek shelter soon."

Katie's eyes narrowed and turned skyward again. The clouds simply stopped crackling lightning by now, and seemed blacker than ever. She could not even see the ectoplasms reclining within, though she guessed they were probably preparing to send a monsoon onto Ashwood. She turned to Nathan again. "Does pegasus magic being set aflame via rings attract the buggers?" she queried, lifting a hoof and gesturing sharply up for emphasis.

Nathan shook his head. "No… but it does not repel them, either." He flared his wings, and so did Quicksilver and Jeremy. "We must search for shelter… from above. But we cannot go too high."

Katie groaned, silently cursing Lance for throwing her in this mess and saying, "here, you work this shit out." Some general he was. She flared her wings, making a mental note to file a complaint once evidence-scrounging concluded, while seeing NoLegs make his wooden horse and the group's spears vanish in flashes of light before levitating himself in his magic. As one, the unit flew smoothly above the treeline, and circled the clearing once to gauge for any nearby shelters.

As luck would have it, there was no visible shelter to be had within a half-mile radius of the clearing. NoLegs led the way, backtracking the way they came and the others falling into a V-formation behind him. Sharp eyes and ears scanned the landscape and waited for the telltale creaking that would signal a moving tree respectively, and traveling by air was far easier and faster than trekking along the ground. Using the imprints they left in the ground with claws, paws, and the wheel-tracks of the wooden horse also made backtracking stupidly easy, though Katie could not help but wonder as she beat her wings and kept her ears peeled.

What had lit the torches? And how in the world did they get their grubby hooves… or whatever limbs they possed on sablestone magic inhibitors?

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Shelter, it turned out, was a mile away from where the group had initially landed, and it was the abandoned house on the furthest reaches of Greenwood's outskirts, in the opposite direction of their little venture no less. Everyone filed inside without complaint, though they flung out the broken glass shards before sitting down on the floor as thunder rumbled both sky and earth. An air of impatience held the lot in a vise-like grip as the first droplets of rain started to fall. Oddly, the pitter-patter of rain was accompanied by a constant, drumming thump-thump-thump a few minutes later.

Curious, Katie chanced a glance outside and she whimpered at the sight that greeted her. Hail was falling, each orb the size of the frogs of her hooves, hitting with just enough force to snap the smallest of branches clean off of their trees. "This is just like fucking Canterlot, except without pissy ponies throwing vases everywhere!" she squeaked, ears drooping so much their tips managed to sag past her cheekbones.

NoLegs rolled his eyes and simply flicked his tail. Within seconds, Katie was pulled a little further from the window by his magic. "Great, the big stupid ice balls are here to heckle us again," he telepathically seethed. "Looks like we'll be stuck here for the night."

Katie sighed, turning to NoLegs. "I noticed doors in your horse. Maybe we could use it for something," she stated.

NoLegs raised both brows and flicked his tail, making a motion similar to a claw scratching his temples. "What?" he telepathically queried.

"I dunno, getting into Greenwood or something. If nothing else, we could find evidence there," Katie retorted with a shrug of earnest. A sickening snap filled the air, and she turned to the window just in time to see a tree branch bigger than Twilight crash just outside, accompanied by a ball of hail the size of a cantaloupe that was itself cemented into the severed bark. "Okay, who the hell pissed off Godcat this time?"

"Well, if the hail gets that large, I'm afraid the little stunt you want to perform simply won't be possible. You're liable to have your head split open, for one thing," Quicksilver scoffed dismissively, lifting a talon and waving it about in a manner that suggested he was batting something away. "Any ice you could form in this weather would become very frail, very quickly. And it would break in mere moments."

Katie turned to the ball of hail outside, eyes narrowing. Her orbs trailed up to glance as much of her stub-horn as they were able. Then they started darting back and forth, stub-horn, giant ball of hail, back to stub-horn, and so forth, though this lasted for a few seconds. "Humidity…" she muttered. Recalling her ice-bath session in the Crystal Empire, however, dispelled that budding plan before she could even consider a phase two—were she to even conjure ice now and trot outside, all it would do was weigh her wings down or possibly worse. Then she also accounted for the clumps of hail and shook her head, deciding she didn't need to add another concussion to today's problems.

And, loathe as she was to acknowledge it, Quicksilver had a point. If the hail outside could snap tree branches bigger than she was, then NoLegs's snazzy wooden horse wouldn't stand a chance outside. She turned to NoLegs again, now seeing him waving his tail and spreading his magic over the abandoned house in which they took shelter. She held her breath for a moment, watching as his magic rippled through the bark and torn-up remnants of furniture, through the moss growing all over, even through the emptied dresser with the torn dress overlaid on top…

Another snap rent the air, and Katie turned to the door to find a tree branch landing outside the frame with a muddy squelch, sinking slightly upon impact. It was a branch no bigger than she was, and a few small pellets of hail got stuck in its frame. NoLegs spread his magic to it as well, before the aura faded from the area. Only when the blue glow died did two things happen, simultaneously at that.

First and foremost, the hail melted with a most unusual crackle, giving off a hideously green miasma-like aura as it did. This aura evaporated in a steam-like manner, but not before it tried to get into the house, only to be repelled when Katie fanned her wings and beat them with enough force to effectively blow it out. Second, as this miasma was repelled, a very curious thing happened with the moss; it withered, shriveled, died, and vanished in a puff of sickly green mana the exact same shade of the miasma in that order. This, in turn, revealed a very-well-hidden trap door with rusted hinges and a distinct lack of a knob resting just under the window itself.

All eyes turned to that trap door, and five brows rose in unison. Everyone moved from where they sat and trotted to the anomaly, circling it in a tight cluster. Nathan grappled for it first, reaching with a talon to try to wedge the digits between the frame and the door. Fumbling for a moment, he'd tried to lift the door… but it simply refused to budge. Jeremy and Quicksilver tried to do likewise, and they had no luck either. All three turned to the rusted hinges and hissed at it in unison.

NoLegs let his tail glow and tried working the door free with his magic, and that time he actually got it to budge and rattle against his grip. After a few tugs, it jostled and got stuck, moving no more. Katie facehoofed and planted herself onto the door, standing as tall and straight as she could. Channeling mana into her shoes, the air chilled again, and ice grew onto her legs and the door itself, though not enough to glue the door to its frame. That done, she buzzed as much as her wings were able, and though the door was stuck, it moved—slightly!—with a groan of protest.

After that, though, it remained fixed stubbornly in place. Nathan tried to jimmy his claws between door and frame again, but he fumbled and cursed, that time slipping with even less luck than before. After that, he turned to Katie as she tried to use her whole body to tug the door open again, before grabbing her by the withers and earning himself a startled hiss of displeasure. "Hey!" Katie shrieked in alarm, her wings snapping taut against her sides.

Before they could come to blows, NoLegs jumped on Katie's back and magically lifted Nathan's claws off of her withers. "Hold up," he telepathically said in a sharp, clipped tone. "If you're wanting to yank her off, you could tear her shoulders off and then she'll go bitching to Lance about it. I got a better idea." Magically, he grasped Katie and yanked her bodily, though the door still refused to budge. To be fair, so did Katie, now that she had effectively glued herself to it.

It only took a second for Katie to realize what NoLegs was trying to do, and started buzzing her wings again. With their efforts combined, the door budged… a lot less than they'd have liked. In fact, it barely moved at all. Nathan, Jeremy, and Quicksilver seized Katie in their talons again, though this time they flew above her to grapple for her barrel. With a few more tugs, the door opened and held for a moment before Katie was forcibly dislodged from it to let it fall and lean against the wall.

This revealed two things: a deep abyss with a tangle of roots poking out of the soil, and a nail with a hook screwed into the door's underside holding up a worn picture frame by a meager, fraying thread of yarn wrapped around that hook. In that frame, once the group re-assembled and melted the ice to better look at it, they found a picture holding a small family of four, two fillies in front and two adults behind with a foreleg and a limb that didn't end in a hoof wrapped around the other. The scene the picture was taken in was relatively normal; the family standing outside a well-maintained tree-house in far better shape than the one the group currently stood in, with rays of sunlight filtering in through the leaves above that made them seem to glow.

The adults wore small smiles on their faces, and the two fillies had huge grins. The expressions weren't what caught Nathan's eyes, however, nor was it the fact that one of the adults had talons and a beak while the other had a pony's face and a unicorn's horn. No, it was the fillies themselves. Both had tan-beige coats and green manes, both sported a horn, though only one had golden baubles in her mane. The other let her mane flow freely, and was holding a small stuffed teddy in her brown talons, green-and-brown-tan wings spread behind her, with one of those wings draping the unicorn next to her.

All five sets of eyes widened and, slowly, the troops shared glances. "Are those fillies… who I think they are?" Katie asked hesitantly. She saw a lump move down Jeremy's throat as he gulped, before he slowly gave a nod. She noticed the errant third horn and did a double-take, shaking her head rapidly and even conking herself on the side of her head with a hoof.

The picture did not change. Katie slowly turned back to the abyss before her hooves, noticing the roots were sparse and folded into the soil in such a way it seemed almost… eerily inviting. She turned back to the picture frame and lifted a hoof to it, using her claws to tenderly flip it over without dislodging it. The picture frame's backside beheld nothing except warped wood.

NoLegs magically grabbed the picture and made it vanish in a flash of light, though not before taking it off the hook. "Just what is going on here?" he telepathically asked. "Why does Sarah have a horn in this photo? She's never had a horn that we've seen on her head, nor a scar where one would be, for that matter!"

Katie shrugged, turning to the abyss. "I don't know… maybe it's an error on behalf of whoever took the picture, or somepony went and somehow spliced the damn thing in there… but I get the feeling this little hidey-hole may have our answers," she muttered. NoLegs sighed and jumped on her back, his tail giving off a soft light that made her shoes vanish, prior to brightening just enough to rival the light of a lit candle. As one, they jumped down the hole, followed by the gryphons who went single file after them, the whole lot unaware of just what was waiting below for them to find.

Something was down there, and it was going to answer a few questions that the troops hadn't asked, and a few pressing ones that were on their minds in that moment.