20th December, 69 BNM
Early Morning
North-Midland Equestria
Citadel Valley, Citadel ruins

Even from a distance, at the precipice of the valley, drained of the lake during the cataclysm that claimed its great battlements and towers he had heard of, Chack saw the cursed state from a mile away.
Now here, within its crumbled walls and ruined pillars protruding like bones from the ravaged, sloping land, the place practically reeked of menace.
As he arrived, it was immediately clear that something was at work here.
There were no plants, not even the tiniest of shrubs, weeds or even mossy fungi to cover the crumbled ruins of the fortress, buried as the mountain side came slamming into its upper levels. No birdsong, not even insects crawling amidst the slopes and fragments.
The Salamander glanced around, as he felt the evil all around him stirring, that feeling in the back of his mind screaming at him to flee for safety.
But as he looked around, he knew he had to find someway to get to the source, and eradicate it somehow, if not contain it like the plague it was.
Then, he saw it. Movement.
A black vapour trail, like a smoking, serpentine creature, slithering over the ground. Following it, Chack saw that the creature, about the size of a small mouse, was slithering along to the south at a constant rate. The Salamander, still clad in what parts of his blood red armour remained, followed.
They went up some slopes, further into the main ruins, and Chack found himself wondering where this creature was going.
"A fragment of the Savant's spirit, but it is corrupted."
Chack didn't need to hear what Everfree noted through his sword, as the Salamander took off in pursuit through the ruins, keeping his distance enough to stay within sight of it.

Soon, he came to a clearing, as a few pillars of support structure that somehow remained standing as the mountainside slid down surrounded them.
Ahead, he saw the smokelike snake vanish, down into a tiny fissure.
Out of the fissure, more of the smokey vapour hung about like a heavy smog, and an oily substance akin to tar, but blacker then the darkest shade imaginable, oozed slowly from the cracks. But here, in this clearing, inside the skeleton of what looked like the base of a tall tower, the whispers were more pronounced.
A hundred voices, some cackles, some clicks, none of them natural, all of them ethereal. They crawled and clawed away at Chack's senses, to the point where his decades of hardened warrior composure started to crack, and they sensed it.
Shaking off his fear, Chack whipped around, his green blade glowing fiercely as he roared out to whomever was here, however many unseen presences were there with him amidst the ruins, on that desolate mountain slope.
"Come out and face me! Whatever you are now, you will not cause more suffering to anyone!"
"Non potes ne promissiones." [Do not make promises you cannot keep.]
It was the last thing he expected to hear, a reply to his proclamation to bolster his own fear.
"Chack! He's going to tak-!"
Everfree's scream from the blade Chack carried was suddenly cut off, as a cold chill swept through the air all around him with a rustling wind that had no origin except from beneath.
Then, the ground began to crack. In a split second glance, Chack saw the ground fracture, more of the black vapour and tar oozing from the cracks, as a noise like a massive breath being released rushed out around him.
The ground shattered, and he began to fall. As gravity took him, Chack saw black vapour forms, some with wings, others like puffs of smoke in the air, take flight with this greater opening.
He fell into the chasm, the depths of the Citadel's underground catacombs opening up to swallow him whole. Brick, mortar and dark smoke billowed as the Salamander vanished down the tower wreckage's throat, falling deeper and deeper, his brief scream of surprise, and terror, drowned as a rush of air billowed from the chasm that opened beneath him.
As the Salamander plummeted, dark shadows soared skywards, and away in all directions, smoky shapes drifting through the air in all directions. But a large number of them turned south, their sights set on one of Equestria's older forests, a last unkempt region of Equestria.

Citadel ruins, catacomb depths
Ruined stairwell

The light above began to vanish, Chack instinctively thrust out his sword to the nearest wall, the green blade digging into the brickwork as it scarred down the well shaped hollow, slowing him by a noticeable, but not great enough degree.
Behind him, as he glimpsed it, a crumbled stairwell beckoned, and he knew that the tower here had stretched from the higher levels down into the catacombs, a winding stairwell of some sort.
But inky black liquid rushed up, a tremendous splash engulfing him.
Then, as Chack regained his bearings, the water he was engulfed in stilling its ripples unnaturally fast, the glow from his green blade illuminated the base of the submerged stairwell.
Eyes, dozens of them, glinted in the green light within the murky dark waters. Flanking them were the remnants of many bodies, all ponies, all wearing ragged cloaks emblazoned with the emblem of the Savant. A submerged mass grave of Siral's former Citadel workforce, trapped here, left to die.
But as soon as one of the rotted pony heads slowly turned to look at the mystified Salamander floating above them, Chack knew that somehow, to the deepest horror he could have not even imagined when coming here, that the dead, were not done serving Siral.
Frantically pumping his legs and half tail, Chack was out of the water before any more of the corpses could begin to move, and scrambling up the crumbled stairwell walls.
Backing up across the staircase, a few bricks tumbling into the inky depths below, Chack's red armour was drenched and stained, but as a body began to slowly crawl out of the muck he had just come from, the Samurai's breath caught in his throat, the green blade quivering in his hand as he saw the first of many corpses, imbued with magic darker then he had thought possible, having festered in these depths, coming for him.
Glancing up, the Samurai saw holes like fissures along the walls of the stairwell chasm above him, oozing the black smoke, seeming to stretch down towards him with malicious intent in their smoking fingertips.
As a bone rattling breathing echoed in the sun-deprived stairwell hole, Chack took off into the nearest half ruined corridor, his green blade lighting the way. if not to help him see, then to possibly ward off any menacing beings that feared sources of light.
But as he ran deeper down the corridors, Chack felt something he seldom felt. Regret, but not out of his cruelty.
He realized he had underestimated what was at work here. Starswirl's descriptions, the haze that escaped from the depths of possessing any of his sin beings, was a fragment of what dwelled here.
The Salamander's footsteps echoed in the hallways, as more gurgling breaths and movement all through the catacombs began to echo back.

Mid-Morning
Midland Equestria
Northern Everfree forest

Galloping through the outer reaches of Everfree Forest, Starswirl came to a place he thought would be useful. A clearing, flanked by many mushroom growth on a maze of willow trees, bordering the darker parts of the forest.
"Everfree!? We must speak now!"
Starswirl's demand rang out across the forest, echoing by his magical input to ring across the forest trees. Silence was all that greeted him, the wind rustling on the tree tops ominously as a shade of evil seemed to gather around him.
Overhead, a stormcloud had grown, unusual for this time of morning. A rumble sounded, thunder growing in its confines, as the black cloud seemed rather appropriate at the moment. And yet, it also seemed unnatural.
"Everfree is the last unkempt area of Equestria. Why is this storm..."
Starswirl's musings were answered sooner then he expected, as a flicker of movement on the nearby rocks. A dark magic, as he realized what it was.
Starswirl blinked, seeing the black wispy vapour hanging, creeping from the ground slowly. But mid blink, an image burned into his mind.
Teeth, hollow eyes, claws, and a primal hunger.
A Demon, and where there was one, there were many more somewhere.
But these evil spirits were weak alone, only powerful in very large groups. But to gather enough together required sorcery of great power, enough to keep them under control.
The last time Starswirl had encountered a being strong enough to keep a usable demon force, he had been with the Exemlar of Honesty, in that nightmarish jungle, rescuing Siral from the clutches of that deranged Alicorn, Geldrath, using it as a base to wait out the inevitable Alicorn civil war. So long ago, yet it was a vivid evil he would never forget.
And yet this demon, this creature, bore the mark of being in the enthrallment of a different being. It felt familiar somehow, and it dawned on Starswirl with utter horror.
"Siral... What have you done?"
The black shadowy smoke flickered over the ground, which Starswirl saw from the corner of his vision, before it vanished upwards in a swirling mass of dark magic.
But it was what flew overhead that finally caught his eye. An Eagle Owl, with a glint of black magic amidst the unnatural silver colour he saw from its eyes, staring down at him.
As Starswirl looked on, a flock of ravens with similar evil glints suddenly flew over the trees, and as their caws filled his ears, Starswirl screamed as his head nearly split open, as the vision from an unseen, distant presence filled his mind:

He pursued the Salamander, toying with the helpless samurai, chasing him deeper like a rat in a trap. His hordes, his thrall, clamouring, gnashing their teeth, hungry, and he heeded their desire for life to feed off.
But the powerful magic sword he wielded, was not of his own forging. He sensed it, and he knew.
Everfree. The Forest spirit took one of my servants from my control. So I shall eradicate it.
I shall spread my influence. If they cannot be slain by my power as it stands, then perhaps I can compel them to destroy each other.
Out of the catacombs of his ruined fortress, flecks of malicious evil magic flew like dust on the wind, covering all corners of Equestria as the mountain breezes, the river currents, and the bird slaves he infected, carried the spores of his essence across the land.
All over Equestria, visions of Alicorns scheming, living in their own state of conflict with each other, were subtly infected. The tiniest of dark nuggets of malice infecting their mind, nurturing their desire for power, their paranoia of other Alicorns not aligned with them growing.
The Savant nurtured the evils already in them, himself a catalyst of evil already present. He knew it would be their undoing, the ultimate backup plan, even if the world suffered for it. But what was damaged could be salvaged. He merely hoped the Alicorns would be destroyed, so when he salvaged the world, they were not existent to replenish their numbers.
A cleansing fire, brought on by their own arrogance. All Siral would do, was fan the embers to become flames. Now, he would urge them on. They would believe they had their own epiphanies that the time for more drastic confrontation had come.
The fools would be the cause of their own demise, he could see it, he would make it so.
I do what must be done, while you blindly follow a destiny you were told to follow!

A loud series of raven caws, panicked ones, filled Starswirl's mind as he opened his eyes.
Above him, the possessed ravens that had been swarming him were chased off, Timbrwolves having come from nowhere to begin rapidly snapping at them, scaring them away while having downed one or two. A phoenix had also flown by, another denizen of the forest, and set itself ablaze as it swooped towards the Eagle Owl, its fiery body scaring off the large owl into fleeing with the other marauding bird servants of the Savant.
Shaking his head of the headache inducing visions, Starswirl saw one of the Timberwolves approach him, its bared wooden fangs retracted as the Wizard recognised a certain glint in its green eyes.
"Take me to him, now!" Starswirl demanded, having no time for pleasantries at this point, nor with what that brief attack by Siral revealed to be his intention.
It took only a few moments for the other Timberwolves to begin darting off into the dense undergrowth, through the Willow trees bordering the edge of the Everfree forest's darker depths. But the largest wolf turned its head in the sam direction, before looking back at Starswirl expectantly.
Taking a stalwart breath, the Wizard galloped off into the deep forest, the Alpha Timberwolf joining him as they ventured in towards the forest master's dwelling.
The forest swallowed up Starswirl, as he pushed in deeper.
But he knew that whatever they did, Siral had unleashed a new evil.

Mid Morning
Baltimare, Nationalist headquarters

It had been over 1 and a half years since the deaths of the Trumanes, but the leadership of the Nationalists remained intact, if not the best it could be.
Yet there was the faintest of cold winds this morning in the streets, as a strange wind from the west blew over the city.
As the council of generals, and the mixed Alicorns of the Nationalists, gathered for a new meeting of battle strategics, the air rustled about them. The tiniest flecks of dark vapour, like pollen on the wind, landed on the Alicorns involved.
Across their minds, a spark of an idea came to be. Their minds flashed a collective idea, vague but the same between them all. To harness the raw celestial power magic that proved so effective many times, at its strongest source.
Up in the frozen north wastes, the frozen tundra and the Aurora borealis they always held, was where the strongest of the magic it harnessed originated. Whomever harnessed that, would have victory.
The tiniest glint of ambition, perhaps madness, came into their minds. Why hadn't they thought of this before?

Meanwhile
Vanhoover, Royalist headquarters

Suffice to say, the exact same 'spark' of inspiration had flourished in the minds of the Royalists. Now, the far north, beyond even the Crystal Empire, was prized territory. Whomever controlled it, harnessed that cosmic energy at its strongest source, would have power beyond anything they had today. Perhaps, power to force submission of the other side.

Nokotaford, Royal Palace

The two sisters had both felt it, that wave of malice, that tiny thought in the back of their mind of something in the far north, a great power lying in wait there, to be exploited.
Yet as they shared a glance at each other over their usual morning studies, Celestia and Luna couldn't help but wonder where such thoughts had come from. They had no interest in this war, that powerful magic, even after witnessing its first period of use at the Battle of Tartarus.
They still recalled the raw power of that magic, and it had, deep down, frightened them.

Equestria overview

The Citadel Ruins, the root, the origin, the well from which these seeds, these fragments of malicious intent spread from, a black spot buried under the ruins of its former grandeur, infecting the land.
Like a massive fungus growing underground, its influence took root. Siral's influence seeded itself across the lands, in the minds of its Alicorn leaders, those he hadn't already had killed by his hand or by the deed of his former elite servants.
Spores, seedlings, all laced with the compulsion towards that most amoral desires, all to serve the Savant's ambitions. To see those in power, to be undone by their own ambitions coming to blows with each other.
Like a vine crawling through the crack in a brick, eventually he would expand the crack, and destroy all that he had penetrated. This was Siral's gambit, his backup plan, one he kept only to himself, even to Teal Quirt, the one servant of his who was more privy to insider knowledge of his ambitions then others.
For his power, his enthrallment, was based in a dark magic older then most of what was known. Primal, base, and dangerous.
A magic, that had cursed him, scarred him, by another long in the past who ingrained the idea that Alicorns were more a plague then he could ever be in obtaining power against them.

Mid Morning
North-Midland Equestria
Citadel Valley, Citadel ruins
Catacombs

Chack's green glowing sword dimmed at his command, and he felt the shiver along his spine, a thousand tiny clawed presences flittering around him in the oppressive abyss he had willingly ventured into.
The tunnel grew darker, and darker. Right then, the moment the tunnel became utterly black, Chack glimpsed a pony hovering a few dozen feet down the tunnel, watching him.
Scars mired his body, his eyes sunken and a soulless black that still oozed the madness that had claimed him, and the hunger of those he both was part of and master of.
Siral, the Savant.
He barely visible, but he was there. A shadow amidst the darkened stone walls and cavernous pillars, as the walls and shadows also flickered, as if a heat shimmer was all over the place. But there was no heat, only the cold, hungry aura of menace that claimed this entire cesspool of a ruined fortress. The hordes of ancient demons, harvested and cultivated from all over the darkest corners of Equestria and beyond for decades in secret, swarmed in their collective power around Siral's ghostly presence.
"Locus erit sepulchrum." [This place shall be your tomb.]
"Begone demon!"
Chack lashed out, his green sword sending a slashing shockwave at the hazy mist he saw before him. But as the green light illumanted the half collapsed corridor, the black haze, and the writhing claws and teeth he swore he saw within them, merely split apart as if he were attacking fog. But he did ward them off long enough to scramble away, the eerie clicking and distant shrieks of a horde of evil beings now aware of his presence.
"Everfree!"
Chack shook the blade, seeking guidance. But there was only silence.
"Et morietur solus!" [You will die alone!]
Glancing backwards, Chack decided he'd definitely underestimated the danger here. Shaking his head, the Salamander spun to slash his sword down, the green tear in the air before him revealing the outside world. He leapt forwards, to freedom.
But he collided with an invisible wall of black, weblike magic. A curse, preventing such easy methods of escape.
"Once inside, you are trapped, servant of Stasrwirl."
The ominous voice, from Siral if Chack was correct, spoke in plain dialect now, for once not the ancient magical tongue that seemed to be its true language now.
"You and I haven't met, Savant. But even if I underestimated you, you won't claim me like you did so many others!"
"Do not delude yourself into thinking you can defy my will! As we speak, I set upon your other master. Everfree will become the memory he already is thought to be by so many, and Starswirl, consorting with him now in a hapless search for you, will die with his domain. They will not live to see Alicorns tear themselves apart, and neither will you."
Now, like a million tiny black moths, darkness surrounded Chack. Even his green blade only illuminated his own body, as all else turned opaque. He felt yanked in all directions, and as he blinked, like flashing images burning into his mind a thousand fold, the maws and hungry stares of the demon colony Siral had under his command chanted for his hide.
But then, the blurring stopped, as the Salamander was suddenly inside a large chamber, freefalling. His green blade illuminated a crumbled bridge, a black lake, and many stalactites and stalagmites protruding from the ceiling and black waters waiting below.
Up above, he glimpsed the dark equivalent of the teleportation spell, the one that had transported him deeper into the Catacombs. To the dungeon hall's underground lake.

Catacombs, underground lake chamber

The water claimed him, his splash spreading out as the Salamander and his green blade vanished under the deep, inky waters.
But high above, as the smoky being ruling this cavernous ruin compelled them, his same eyes were drawn to distant shapes fluttering in the waters. A swarm of creatures that were not demons, but had been enhanced by and may as well have been.
Scrambling backwards, clawing his way up a protruding rock column from the water, Chack held his sword out as the hordes of man-eating leeches that infested the lake swarmed towards him.
Further away, as the shapeless evil of Siral watched on like a smoke layer hanging in the ceiling of the chamber, a small wrought iron gate creaked open by the dark magic on its chains. And through the opened doorway, out of its holding pen, Siral's pet here in the lake swam out. A long snaking form slid out through the water, may spikes lining its length, turned pale by no sunlight exposure, the Sea Serpent of the Savant's lair.
The leeches not already swarming where Chack was moved out of the way as the creature surged forwards through the water.
But scrambling up the rock column, as he slashed and flicked aside leech after leech, Chack saw the surging water barely lit in the distance by his green blade's light. His eyes turned wide with fear, an emotion he was swiftly becoming accustomed to down here, and one he thought he was now likely to die feeling, at the mercy of the horrors of the Savant.

Mid-Morning
Midland Equestria
Northern Everfree forest

The thunderstorm had reached the forest, but there was no rain, only the howling wind, and the overarching sense of evil invading the forest.
Thunder and lightning rained down in the distance as the storm moved over the forest, and as Starswirl galloped through the forest, he noticed other creatures, many birds, taking flight out of the forest. The Timberwolves leading him to Everfree's heart seemed fearful now.
But it didn't take long for the fumes of a distant forest fire to reach Starswirl's nostrils.
The Wizard stopped, as the scent of burning forest was carried ever more swiftly by the howling winds of the rain-starved storm.
His blue magic hovering him up to the canopy, Starswirl glanced across the treetops, and the Wizard saw the columns of smoke rising from the forest under the heaviest part of the storm, ablaze by the countless lightning strikes raining down on the treetops.
Siral's magic, raining down upon Everfree's domain. One shapeless entity slaughtering another.
"Star-swirl... Hurry, before he, reaches you!"
A voice carried on the wind, and there, among the canopy trees, as if formed out of the leaf layers, the face of Everfree's Alicorn origin stared back, wracked with pain as the forest that was his body was being slowly burnt to cinders by Siral's dark storm.
Not pausing, the Wizard clenched his hat to his head as he landed as swiftly on the forest floor as he could, the Alpha Timberwolf having waited nervously for him to finish sightseeing.
The Wizard took flight again, deeper into the forest, as its deity suffered with its domain burning. The Savant was enacting his slaughter of Alicorns in force now, starting with one he had lost a controlled servant by the hand of one of Everfree's servants. As servant he would see slaughtered within hours.
To those in history, this would simply be seen as a freak storm in mid Equestria, setting a forest fire. But the truth was not to be known for a very long time indeed, and to very few.
But the evils of the Savant were not universal in whom they targeted, whom they reached. They were actually blind because of the actions of some.

Meanwhile, Mid Morning
Cherryrain Hills

Discord slept fitfully, taking a lazy morning as he had no real need to be up. But as he slept, he was plagued by nightmares, of something he thought was him, but somehow wasn't.
A black magic, evils, compelling him with his name.
And he swore he had felt that same evil on the winds as he awakened briefly, before rubbing his drowsy eyes to go back to sleep. Yet the Draconeraqus couldn't shake off the feeling of something brewing on the horizon.
Unseen, the dark spectral smoke lingered near his temporary dwelling, a small abandoned flour mill he'd turned into his own home for now, appearing abandoned to all who viewed it from the outside.
It lingered, knowing Discord was there, its link, its legacy. But it could do nothing. All he did was tie his creator to life, but he was free from control. He couldn't be controlled, he was too damaged.
But in the end, he was useful, because he lived.

Mid Morning
North-Midland Equestria
Citadel Valley, Citadel ruins

She saw it, the shadow fountain from the crumbled hole in the ruins.
"He can't be..."
Teal Quirt saw what evils had been brewing, from what she thought she'd made sure destroyed by working with the others, while they were still somewhat united against the master who sought to enslave them.
But as she saw from a distance, she also knew who had gone down there.
"Fool, he chose his own demise."
She turned to leave, but hesitated. He had come to defeat this evil at its source, the cause rather then the victims. He took on Siral for all's sake, a kindness to all by removing the cause of suffering on all sides. But in his ambition, his drive, he wandered right into a waiting trap, one nobody knew had been growing like a fungus underground.
She spared a glance back, her scowl deepening as her claws crushed together in frustration.
The Being of Envy set forth, ignoring what demons fluttered around her as she kept her presence masked as much as she could. Ahead of her, the ruins of the Citadel, the lair of the Savant, beckoned.
And inside, a creature she owed a favour to. He harmed her, but he submitted to her. That made them even. But then he freed her from Siral's enslavement when she thought she'd never be free, meaning the scales of favour were unbalanced.
And in spite of all she thought of Chack, Teal hated owing him a favour above all else.
She went forth, into what she knew was a literal heart of darkness, spreading its influence unseen across Equestria, and reining fire upon Everfree Forest to destroy the one powerful single being and the Wizard who might pose a credible threat.

Author's Notes:

Siral, he was a longtime coming as a villain, as he's fallen so far from when we see him in chapter 1. And now he's even embraced traits of the very Alicorn who scarred him enough to send him on this path of evil, Geldrath.
But more on the extent of Siral's evils next chapter, which I promise won't take as long.