Spitfire, Applebloom, Hoity Toity, Blueblood------2nd Floor NE Wing

Spitfire couldn’t have been any more upset with the baby dragon.  To think of the group she’d been thrown into nearly made her angry.  She was stuck with a spoiled-rotten Prince, an over-zealous celebrity, and a filly from a small country town.  As far as she was concerned, she was the only one capable of doing anything at all.  Having to explore the Northeast wing of the second floor didn’t help matters.  She would’ve preferred to stay near the Dining Hall, but that was just too much for the little dragon to allow.

Whereas Spitfire felt angry at the group she’d been cast into, Applebloom didn’t pay any mind to the useless Canterlot ponies that followed behind her.  She knew when something bad was going on, and she wasn’t going to try and make this a game.  She knew that this was serious business and that it needed to be handled with care.  She trotted along in pace with Spitfire as they made their way to the rooms they had been told to investigate.

The entirety of the second floor was just what it appeared to be from the foyer.  At the top of the stairs were the large double doors that Butler and the servants always seemed to disappear into.  On the west side of the second floor was a single door.  On the east side were two doors, one on the north side and one on the south side.  Spitfire’s group was told to investigate the northern room.

Spitfire stormed through the door with little consideration for traps or clues.  She was simply too preoccupied with her own thoughts to care about searching thoroughly.  Applebloom, on the other hand, was determined to find something in this wing that could help put this nightmare to an end.

The first room they came to after opening the door was simple enough.  It looked like an average bedroom, with a queen-sized bed and a few dressers and shelves.  There was a cupboard leaning against a wall next to a glass door that appeared to lead out onto a balcony.  Blueblood stared out of the door with a longing gaze.

He sighed, “What I wouldn’t give to be back in the castle…”

Spitfire shot him an angry glare, “Well you’re not, so get to looking!  The sooner we find evidence the sooner we can leave this place!”

Hesitantly, and with caution, Blueblood moved away from the door and began searching the other areas of the room.  Hoity Toity was already checking one of the many dressers for any type of journal or diary that could tell them who the host was.  Digging down deep into the dresser, Hoity managed to find a small notepad with two words written on the cover:  SS Plot.

Hoity called to the other three ponies in the room, “Excuse me dears, but I believe you may wish to see this amazing find.”  He turned around, holding the notepad out in his hoof.

Spitfire snatched the notepad from him, looking carefully at the cover and opening it to read the contents.  Spitfire’s eyes widened as she read the text that was hastily scribbled in the book.  She laughed, “I guess you celebrities aren’t useless after all!  This is an awesome find!”  She handed the book back to Hoity.

Applebloom’s voice cracked as she asked a question that sent shivers down everypony in the room’s bodies.  “Um…Why’s the door locked?”

Spitfire turned to look at the door in disbelief.  She watched as Applebloom tried to open the door, but the knob wouldn’t budge.  Before anypony could speak, the wall behind Hoity shifted and spun, swallowing the pony as it revolved around and trapped him on the other side.  Spitfire’s eyes lit up as she realized that Hoity had the notepad.

“FUCK THIS PARTY AND THIS DAMN MANSION!” she screamed in anger and disbelief as she realized that the very thing that could end this nightmare had been stripped from her hooves.

Blueblood stuttered, unsure of what to think, “C-calm down, Ms. S-Spitfire!  Th-there must be some way out!”

Spitfire glared at the ignorant prince.  “That notepad gave us the host’s identity!  Now Hoity has it and is probably about to die!”

Applebloom walked over to Spitfire, “Who’s the killer?”

Spitfire opened her mouth to speak, but as she did a silver object flew from the wall behind them and embedded itself right into her throat.  The force of the object tore straight through and burst from the other side, narrowly missing Blueblood as it bounced from the glass door.  

Spitfire collapsed on the floor, gurgling as she tried to talk.  She was drowning in her own blood, unable to tell her teammates who the killer was, and certain that Hoity would be killed and the notepad would be taken from his corpse.  She fell limp on the ground, blood pouring from the gaping hole in her throat.  Applebloom screamed in terror as she watched the blood pour.

Blueblood had nothing to say.  He simply stared on with terror in his eyes.  He couldn’t even think after watching that.  The two remaining ponies sat in the room for almost an hour, unable to think or speak or do anything.  When Butler’s voice came over the PA and told them to gather in the foyer, the door to the room swung open.  The two ponies darted from the room in a panic.  Spitfire was dead and Hoity was missing…

When they arrived at the top of the stairs, they saw a whole group of ponies gathered below and Butler leaning over the ledge with horror in his eyes and his muscles trembling.  Applebloom realized where Hoity had gone after being swallowed by the wall.  He was lying in a pool of blood in the middle of the foyer…

Cadence, Lyra, Guard 1, Sapphire Shores-----2nd Floor W Wing

Princess Cadence didn’t mind her group too much.  Although she didn’t care much for celebrities, she was happy with a normal pony and a guard in her group.  Lyra, however, didn’t feel the same.  She didn’t want to split up with Bon Bon, but she knew what Spike had said about letting her guard down was true.  The guard was indifferent.  He would have preferred to be with Princess Luna or Celestia, but he was fine with Cadence as well.  At least he was guarding Royalty, unlike Steve and Stan.  His name was Vince.

The group of ponies had been asked by Spike to examine the wing of the mansion directly above the Dining Hall:  The second floor West wing.  They happily obliged, thinking they would be safest near the Dining Hall.  The room above the Dining Hall was empty.  It was literally empty.  There wasn’t any type of decoration or painting or anything.  All that was in the room was a window looking outside and a door at the north end.  The group decided to head on through.

The second they opened the door, they heard a horrible rumbling sound coming from within the room.  They hurried down the small corridor into a square room.  To the left was another small hallway, and at the end there appeared to be a moving wall that was sliding downward.  Without wasting any time, Vince rushed down the hall, eager to see what was causing the wall to move.

Reaching the end of the hall, he heard muffled screams of terror coming from below the wall.  When the other three arrived next to him, Cadence shouted, “Is that someone screaming?!”  She could barely hear the voices over the sound of the rumbling.  

Lyra noticed the wall lowering below the doorframe.  “Look, up there!”  She pointed a hoof into the now-visible room, a small button on the wall catching her eye.  She also noticed another slab of concrete lowering down with what was now the floor.

“Oh no!”  Vince leaped into the small opening the moment he could, realizing that the floor was going crush whoever was screaming below them.  He leaped up to push the button.

As he did, the floor and ceiling stopped moving.  He let out a sigh of relief.  The other ponies took a single step toward the room, when it suddenly shot back upward very rapidly.  With a single muffled scream, Vince was gone.  Staring at the stone wall in disbelief, Cadence simply mumbled, “But…why?”

Sapphire Shores jerked around to face the direction they had just come from.  “Did you hear that?  It sounded like something moving back in the other room.”

Following her back to the other room, Lyra gently took Cadence’s arm, who was still stunned by what she had just witnessed.  Upon entering the previous room, they all gasped when they noticed that a small square was missing from the wall opposite them.  It was the wall that would be overlooking the centerpiece of the Dining Hall table.

Carefully, Lyra crawled into the small hole, unsure of where it would take her.  Following it through, she called to Cadence and Sapphire to follow her.  Nodding to each other, they both crawled into the hole one after the other, unsure of what to expect on the other side.  When they emerged, they found themselves standing in a small circular room, decorated in gemstones and classy furniture.

There was a single bookshelf on the far side of the room, stuffed full of books.  Lyra walked up to the bookshelf, looking over the titles of the books.  Cadence and Sapphire examined the other objects in the room.  When Lyra squealed in excitement, both of the Canterlot ponies flinched in fear of the worst, unsure of what caused the squeal.

“Look at what I found!”  She shouted in a sing-song voice.  She held up a small red book with gold lettering on the cover.  It read ‘About the Master:  Her Home’.

Cadence and Sapphire shared excited and enthusiastic cheers as they darted over to Lyra’s side.  When Butler’s voice called from the speaker on the ceiling, they nodded and crawled back through the hole.  They burst out of the door that led to the foyer with smiles on their faces.  That is, until they reached the top of the stairs.

They saw Applebloom and Blueblood staring down in horror on the other staircase.  They noticed Butler leaning over the ledge, his muscles twitching wildly.  They looked down the stairs and saw all of the ponies gathered together.  They also saw the pool of blood, and part of the source of the blood.  Vince’s body lay down there right beside Hoity Toity.  One of the other guards was standing in the pool, examining the bodies…

Doctor Whooves, Vinyl Scratch, Octavia, Bon Bon-----2nd Floor SE Wing

Doctor Whooves was quite content with the group he had been assigned.  There was only one pony in the group that he didn’t know too awfully well, and that was Octavia.  Vinyl Scratch and Bon Bon were both common faces in Ponyville, so Doctor didn’t feel too worried about either of them being the insane killer.  He still remained on his guard, however, so as not to fall victim to such a crazy murderer.

Both Vinyl and Bon Bon were happy to be grouped up with Doctor.  After seeing how he acted in the Dining Hall after Diamond Tiara’s murder, they felt certain that Doctor would protect them if anything happened.  Octavia wasn’t too familiar with any of the three ponies, so she kept to herself and didn’t say much.

Doctor’s group had been instructed to investigate the Southeast wing of the second floor.  Doctor happily obliged the little dragon’s direction, considering how easily the dragon found the cord that was used to kill Diamond.  With a hopeful outlook on all of this, Doctor trotted up the stairs and through the door that led to their wing.  The mares followed close behind, not wanting to be left behind.

The room that the door led to was nothing but a long, narrow hallway.  At the end of the hallway was a bathroom.  Doctor slowly pushed open the door to the bathroom, motioning for the mares to follow close behind.  

Once inside the room, the group split up, looking for anything out of the ordinary or evidence of any sort.  After spending minutes scouring the room, the mares had given up searching.  There simply wasn’t anything in this room that didn’t already belong in a bathroom.

Disappointed, Vinyl sighed, “I don’t think we’ll be getting anywhere looking in this wing.”

Doctor smiled widely, “You really ought to keep your chin up, Vinyl.  I’m certain there’s something in this room that we’re missing.”  He placed a hoof on her shoulder.

Bon Bon giggled, “What gives you that idea, Doctor?”

Doctor raised a hoof in the air, “Call it a sixth sense of mine!  I just can’t shake the feeling we’re overlooking something important!”

Octavia walked past Doctor’s funny pose and examined the mirror behind them.  She pointed at a small blue knob jutting out from the wall beside it.  “What do you suppose this is?” she asked.

Doctor looked at the knob closely, wondering just what it was.  He tried to pull it, but it didn’t budge.  He then tried to push it, but received the same results.  He tried twisting it, and it moved clockwise.  As he twisted it, he heard a faint clicking sound and the mirror beside him slid right to the side, revealing a hidden passage.

“Well what do you know…?”  Vinyl Scratch perked up a little at the sight of the hidden passage.

“Let us continue our investigation, my lovely lady friends!”  He bowed his head, waving his arm, gesturing for them to go first.  Vinyl and Bon Bon giggled as they walked past him.  Octavia simply blushed without making a sound, an annoyed look on her face.

Doctor sighed as he followed the mares through the passage.  He still couldn’t believe how big of a fool he made himself seem earlier in the Dining Hall.

The group arrived in a square, solid white room.  Well, it was solid white aside from the gray lines painted on the floor.  The room was divided into four sections, as if it was meant to be a bedroom for quadruplets.  In each section there was a shelf full of odds and ends.  Doctor took the far left corner.  Vinyl took the far right.  Octavia covered the near left corner.  That left Bon Bon with the near right corner.

Each pony began rooting around in the shelves, looking for any kind of hint as to who the host of this sick game was.  Before long, Doctor found a strange notebook with something written in blue ink on the cover.  It read ‘The Master of the House- The Truth’.

Doctor cheered, “Alright!  I think I’ve found something useful!”

Curious to see just what it was, Vinyl Scratch walked over to his side to read the cover of the book.  She tripped on a small object that had fallen off of Doctor’s shelf and landed on the ground against the wall.  She felt something give way behind her and the floor began to vibrate.  Without warning, the slab of stone fell from its spot in the room and landed with a loud bang in the room below it.

The room was identical to the one they had just been in.  Doctor rubbed his head, noticing Applejack, Flim, and Amethyst Star staring at him with wide eyes.

“Wh-what happened?  Is something…”  He saw the blood trickling from underneath the slab of stone.  His eyes widened with horror as Octavia and Bon Bon poked their heads into the hole in the ceiling.

Butler’s voice called to them from over the PA system, and everypony in the room stood paralyzed for a few moments.  The two mares above them jumped down the hole, landing on their hooves beside their teammates.  They were ignorant of what Doctor had immediately realized.  Applejack shook the tears from her eyes, and darted down the passageway back to the bathroom.  Flim and Amethyst followed immediately behind, Doctor ushering the rest of them from the room…

What had he just done...?

Second Floor Reunion

“And who are these two victims?”  Stan stepped forward into the pool of blood.  His hooves got soaked, but he continued approaching the bodies.

Applebloom’s voice called from the top of the eastern stairs, “Hoity Toity!”  She leaped down the stairs two or more at a time, Blueblood right behind her.

From the western stairs, Cadence’s voice rang out, “Vince!”  She and her companions darted down the stairs toward the group of ponies below.

Stan shouted in confusion, “Vince?  Th-this is Vince?!”  He looked at the corpse closest to him.  Sure enough, it was one of the other guards assigned to the party with Steve and himself.  They were the only two of the guards left.

Applebloom ran through the pool of blood at the center of the room, “Hoity!”  She ran to the celebrity’s side, rolling him over on his back.

“Get away from there Applebloom!  It ain’t no place for ya!”  Applejack started to run in after her sister.

Applebloom cried, “No!  He has to have the book!  He has to!”  Blueblood trotted up beside her, helping search the body.

With a gasp of excitement, Blueblood exclaimed, “I found it!  He still has it!”  He read the title of the notebook aloud to the crowd of gathered ponies.  “SS Plot!  A notebook that Spitfire was certain would tell us who our host is!”  He held the book up to show the crowd.

Everypony gathered slightly closer, standing outside of the pool of blood.  Suddenly a terrified scream came from Butler, “Look out Prince Blueblood!  Behind you!”

Blueblood turned to look behind him, but it was too late.  The front door burst open, a massive tree flying right at him.  He had just enough time to shove Applebloom out of the way before both he and Stan were hit with the full force of the tree.  The doors slammed shut tightly behind the guests once more.

In an insane turn of events, the host’s name was ripped from their hooves for the second time in an hour…  Everypony in the room let out a shriek of terror as the realization of what had just happened hit them.  The tree was stuffed snugly between the east and west staircases, and it wasn’t going to budge.

Shining Armor’s voice called from the third floor balcony.  He had witnessed everything.  Him and all of the other ponies that were investigating the floor…