Twilight stepped out of the auxiliary library - which she had started thinking of as the Game Room - and found Applejack sitting on a low couch in the hallway. The castle seemed to have supplied them for ponies waiting outside her doors, seemingly hang a much higher idea of her station and political career than she did. Her friend looked concerned, and Twilight sat down to her and made a sympathetic noise. "You OK?"

Applejack shrugged. "I probably am. But what happened to Fluttershy got me a little worried. I get that you're supposed to put a little of yourself into your character. I mean, it's like acting, right? But if that happens again, and for something more serious, I can see it gettin' real ugly real quick." She sighed, "I like this game, I really do, but I'm not sure if it's gonna keep being worth it."

Twilight nodded. "I know what you mean. But I think with Fluttershy and animals, it's a special case. To be honest, I knew that was going to hit her harder than anypony else, I just didn't know how hard. I was hoping it would light a fire under her, and now I'm worried I might have really upset her." Twilight slumped gracelessly. "If it was anyone else I'd go and apologise directly, but I think I ought to give her her space."

"I'll agree there. She'll go and be in her own little world for a bit, and then she'll come back to us when she's good and ready. Mac's the same way. You never, ever want to press him when he's upset, even if you mean well, but if you let him put his head on straight he'll come right back to you. Just be sure to say something before next week, you hear?"

"Yeah, I will. Luckily, I don't think anything else is going to come up which might have the same reaction any time soon. Gosh, I put this whole thing together because I wanted to share something with my friends. If I keep upsetting everyone, I'll feel like a total jerk."

Applejack punched her on the shoulder in what Twilight theorised was some kind of affectionate gesture understood only by rough-and-tumble types. "Way I see it, the fact that you're so worried about hurting folks is what means you aren't a jerk. You done messed up this time, but that happens to everypony once in a while. Just try to learn something from it and hopefully it won't happen again."

Twilight giggled despite herself. "Dear Princess Applejack, today I learned…"

Applejack smirked. "Something like that."

+++

As Applejack had predicted, Fluttershy was curled up at the roots of a nearby tree. Most ponies would have said she was alone, but Fluttershy knew better than that. The world and all its creatures surrounded her, letting her pour her feelings out and draw in some of the serenity that nature could bring. The world was huge, and Fluttershy took a kind of comfort in the thought that she was such a small part of such an enormous whole. No matter what happened in her life, the world would continue to turn and nature would continue to take its course.

She felt all of her stress and anxiety flow from her. Tree Hugger felt a similar experience with her strange poses, Eastern music and questionable medicinal herbs. Fluttershy found all of those too distracting to really meditate, but out in the wild she could find something of her own. When Tree Hugger had tried to meditate out in the natural world, she had claimed that birdsong and the feeling of pine needles were distracting, so she supposed it must take all kinds to make a world.

Casually, almost as if by accident, Rainbow Dash dropped out of the sky and sat on a bench down the road. She wasn't close by any means, but she was visible, and if Fluttershy were to decide she wanted a Pony to speak to, she'd be there. Rainbow knew from experience that even if Fluttershy didn't want to talk, knowing that she could would make all the difference in the world.

+++

Spike sat at the dining room table and sighed into his glass of orange juice. He looked up briefly as Rarity sat down next to him. Naturally she was radiant, but he found it hard to muster up the energy to appreciate her beauty. He gave her a halfhearted "Hey, Rarity."

She rubbed his back softly, and he shifted in his seat. "Hello there, dearest. Feeling blue?"

Spike huffed. "Sure I am. I've ruined everything, same as always."

"How so?"

"Well, when Twilight first mentioned wanting to play O&O, I was super keen on it. I pushed her into running this game, and now look what's happened. Maybe if I'd kept by big trap shut we could have just played Monopony or something."

Rarity hooked a hoof under Spike's chin and tilted his head up. "Spike, darling, you're talking nonsense. Firstly, Monopony would have caused far more strife than this. Secondly, how can this little unpleasantness possibly be your fault? Your friend suggested a game for us all, and you joined in. Maybe you think you pushed her, but I know you and Twilight. I'm sure if I asked her, she'd say she pushed you." Rarity paused for a second to collect her thoughts. "Then, of course, Twilight brought up a touchy subject, and Fluttershy reacted poorly. None of that can be blamed on you."

He jerked his head away, looking down. "Huh. Easy for you to say."

"Spike…"

He winced. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be getting moody at you. It's just…imagine you take us all out to the theatre or something, and then AJ and RD start arguing. And like, you knew they were going to bicker, but it turns into a real shouting match. Even if you knew it wasn't your fault, wouldn't you still feel like a total jerk?"

"Maybe so, but I'd still take us all to dinner after the show and try not to let things end on a sour note. So, care to show us all the wine list?"

Spike nodded. He hopped off his stool and strode back towards the game room, Rarity in tow. As he headed back, a thought occurred to him. "Say, Rarity? Do you think if I drank wine, it'd catch fire?"

Rarity shuddered. "Let's put it this way, dear. While it's a shame what happened to the old library, I'm glad that when you come of age you'll no longer be living in a house made of wood."

+++

When Twilight came back into the game room, she was surprised to see Pinkie already present and working on the Equestria Daily crossword, idly rolling a pencil around in her mouth. "Hey, Pinkie. Can I get you anything?"

"Hmm?" Pinkie looked up. "No thanks. Just waiting for everyone to get back from their voyages of self-discovery." She looked back down at the newspaper, and then jotted a word down.

"Fair enough. You sure you don't want a little more fresh air yourself? You can't have taken very long for your break."

"Nah. I've been practicing a kind of compressed relaxation, where I squeeze twice as much rest into half as much time."

"Well I'm not sure how resting really hard works, but OK. You let me know how that works out for you." The rest of the group drifted into the room singularly or in pairs. Eventually, Fluttershy took her place and gave Twilight a nod. Twilight took the cue and cleared her throat. "So you continue up into the hills, leaving the Roc behind…"

The motley crew strode up the path, almost daring the universe to throw something at them. The mountains ahead were grey and indistinct against the cloudy sky, and they had expected the path up to them to be increasingly dreary as well. Thus is was to their total surprise that they rounded a bend into the leeward side of one especially sharp hill and found themselves in a garden. They stepped through an empty space where once a gate had hung, amidst the remains of a wooden fence. Half of the posts were missing, and those that remained were thoroughly rotten.

Ahead, there was a manor house, clearly once bright and cheerful but now faded and falling inevitably into disrepair. The garden itself was similarly untended. Once they got over the initial shock, they could see that the flowers in their beds were long overgrown, choking the trellises and creeping into the once-pleasant path. The stones of the path were few and far between, most having been swallowed up by grass. Another path leading from the house to a greenhouse had clearly once been an avenue of pleasant trees, but was now lined with grey and twisted remains, pillars in dead bark. The greenhouse was choked with vines and almost half of its panes were broken or fallen from their frames.

The house itself had once been gaily painted in bright blued, yellows and pinks, though what little paint had not peeled off had faded leaving near-white patches amidst the grey stone and dark wood. The effect was of some kind of unspeakable disease, and the assembled heroes did not know if it would be more accurate to call the house dead or merely dying. Wandering Eye let out a long, low whistle. "D'you reckon Sunny knew about this?"

Dikembe shook his head. "She said nothing about anyone living further up in the hills. Why would she hide some old country house?"

"Maybe she's part of the conspiracy!" exclaimed Thunder.

"The conspiracy to hide an old empty house?" asked Buzzer.

Ragna took a sudden step back, and her talismans rattled. "N-not empty!" she declared, pointing a quivering talon at the house. Standing in one of the dark windows was a pony, gaunt and sickly pale. The onlooker stared down at the intruders with ancient eyes devoid of any clear emotion. As the trespassers stared back up, eyes wide, the figure slowly disappeared. It was as if a picture in sand had been blown away by the wind. The last thing to vanish was its grim face, and they could not help but feel that it was judging them as it faded out.

They stood in silence for almost a minute, until Silver Wing said, "Hey, I just had a great idea. Let's all leave the haunted house and go be turnip farmers or something nice and safe like that."

Ragna nodded enthusiastically. "That sounds wonderful. Anyone else in favour of beating our greataxes into plowshares?"

The others were disconcertingly stoic. "What did I say earlier?" asked Dikembe. "The undead are an abomination, and they cannot be suffered to exist. Either that is a spirit of evil, and so it must be destroyed - or it is an innocent soul trapped on the mortal plane, and so we must help it to pass on to the afterlife. In either case, we cannot simply ignore the presence of an undead creature like this."

"Well, yes" agreed Ragna., "But I thought you meant things more along the lines of Flankenstein's Monster. Spirits are different."

"Wait," asked Thunder, "Does Flankenstein even count as undead?"

"Flankenstein's Monster", insisted Dikembe. "Flankenstein was the creator, not the monster. That's, like, the most annoying misconception in the world."

"Well in a manner of speaking Doctor Flankenstein was a monster", replied Ragna.

The party suddenly felts if some great cosmic power, which ruled all their destinies, had just rolled its eyes and sighed.

Buzzer shook herself. "Well, whoever turns out to be the real monster, we got a ghost problem. Come on, gang!" The great cosmic power nodded.

"Wait a sec", objected Wandering Eye, "Don't we already have a job to do? You know, vampire kidnapping village folk and all? Can we really just put that on hold to go on ghost adventures?"

Dikembe shrugged. "Actually, yeah. Big important jobs like hat can usually be left on the shelf while you do a few side-quests. Unless there's something scheduled to happen at the next full moon, or on the thousandth anniversary of some great event, most things tend to be fairly flexible when it comes to timing."

"Huh. Well, I ain't gonna argue with something that convenient." She trotted along with the bulk of the group until only Ragna and Silver Wing were left outside. The garden, unpleasant enough when they were in a group, was outright threatening when it was just the two of them. Knight and barbarian alike shivered in their armour, backing slowly towards each other until they stood shaking flank-to-flank like a pair of saplings on a windy day.

"You know", pondered Ragna, "In ghost stories and horror movies it's typically the one or two characters on their own who get picked off first."

"Y-you mean the safest place is inside the haunted house?" asked Silver Wing as she shook so hard her hooves started to drill into the soft ground.

Ragna took a deep breath and steeled herself. "I'm afraid so. We'd better catch up and hope Thunder gets it first."

+++

"Hey!" cried Rainbow Dash. "I'm getting a little tired of this, Rarity."

"What?", asked Rarity with an innocent face almost as convincing as Sweetie Belle's. "Of all of us, you're probably the most likely to offend a ghost."

Dash's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You mean, like, accidentally, right?" The others shifted awkwardly in their seats, wary of the chance of another pony storming off.

Rarity shrugged demurely, ignoring Dash's glare. "Either that or you'd pick a fight with it."

Rainbow Dash sat bolt upright, her previous umbrage forgotten in the face of a chance at a little action. "Hey, that's a great idea!"

+++

Thunder stamped her hooves on the ground and struck a defiant pose. "Come out, you punk ghost! What's the matter? You scared?"

"So, uh, Dikembe. This how you expected to die?" asked Wandering Eye.

Dikembe weighed his words for a second before replying. "Maybe expected is a strong word, but if you'd told me about it ahead of time I wouldn't have been surprised."

Thunder's taunts echoed into the house. What had started as a bold challenge to all enemies seen and unseen, a mailed boot thrown against the world, faded into the dark and became somehow pathetic by comparison with its surroundings.

As the silence stretched on, the assembled adventurers looked around the foyer awkwardly. A stopped grandfather clock peered down at them from one corner, its white face hovering in the dark like a full moon. It seemed that they were the first to step into the house in a long time, as their passage woke great clouds of dust and sent them falling gently over the room.

Buzzer jerked her head towards the landing and gasped. "Something moved!" She sprang up the stairs like a crossbow bolt, and the others wasted no time in following her. When they got to the top, they found a hallway just as empty as the lobby. They scanned their surroundings, as alert as if they expected to see a snake - or something that would make them wish they had seen a snake. "What was it?" asked Buzzer, "Just my imagination?"

Ragna picked up a framed and faded portrait from the floor. It depicted as our looking mare in a dress with a high collar. "Here's our culprit" she declared, pointing at a nail poking out of the wall above her head. "Must've been just about to fall for years."

"Or was it knocked off by the ghost?" asked Wandering Eye, as she passed an appraising glance over the rest of the landing. Spotting a pair of silver candlesticks that might once have been beautiful, she swiped them with her wing and stowed them quietly in her bag. She was pretty confident none of the others had noticed, which was a plus.

"Why would a ghost go around knocking the pictures off the walls? In their own house?"

Dikembe stood up a little straighter. "Wait a minute, everyone. I know a spell to Detect Evil."

"Detect Evil?" asked Thunder, "That sounds like a pretty useful spell."

"It doesn't work the way you'd expect. I mean, I can't walk down the street and go, ping - she cheats on her taxes, ping - he stole that hat. But it can definitely find unnatural creatures, so here we go." He stood stock still, until his head snapped straight up. His eyes were glowing pale blue. "Something is definitely in this house with us. I can't say for sure it's out ghost, but I know it's undead."

The others met this news with a clank of shifting wargear, and the general effect was very striking. True, in Ragna's case the noise came from a failed attempt to sneak towards the door, but it was still impressive.

As Buzzer noticed her companion's doorward creeping, she stretched out one leg to block her path. "Say, Ragna," she began in a bright tone, "I've been meaning to ask. What's your deal? Aren't you supposed to be rough and tough and laugh in the face of danger?"

Ragna sighed, and resigned herself to the inevitable. It seemed she really would have to stay in the accursed house. "Ordinary danger is one thing, but spirits are quite another. The Spirit World is all around us, and I'd prefer not to tangle with it if at all possible."

Thunder jumped, and all eyes turned towards her. "You may not want to tangle with it, but it doesn't look like we have a choice!" She pointed a hoof and, sure enough, the gaunt figure from the window was standing at the end of the hallway. Its white coat was as bright as a bonfire in the gloom, and as it took a step towards the party they noticed that its hooffall was totally silent.

+++

"Aaaand, let's leave it there for now" said Twilight with a bright smile on her face. "Good golly, this is more tiring than you might expect!"

She was nearly drowned out by the sound of her friends leaping to their hooves and exclaiming at her. All except Spike, who stared at her for a few seconds before bursting out laughing. "You're gonna leave it there? You're a real stinker, Twi."