The first thing I noticed when my senses returned to me was the musky, piney smell. It wasn't so overpowering that it trumped the sudden feeling of complete and utter wrongness in the air, but it was enough to make me wrinkle my nose. I opened my eyes to see a suspended ceiling made of dark hardwood and dimly lit by a soft amber glow from a light source somewhere nearby.

The floor beneath my back felt hard and cold like I'd been sleeping on cement. I could feel it even through the black faux fur coat I still wore, but that's not what made me shiver. No, what sent a chill down my spine was the absolute silence. The silence was so loud it was actually hurting my ears and after a few tense moments of nothing happening, I decided to sit up and take in my surroundings, if only to distract myself from the lack of noise and feeling of being watched by something inhuman... or inequine for that matter.

I immediately got the sense that I was in the basement or cellar of some avid antiquarian. The room, dimly illuminated by small amber crystals in the walls near the ceiling, was large with rows of bookshelves packed full of dusty-looking books and pedestals with glass cases full of things and old antique armoires and the like. I would've called the place strangely cozy if it weren't for the ominous atmosphere poking at my nerves.

I also found, with some slight surprise that my wireless headphones were resting comfortably around my neck as though they'd always been there. Thinking back to our encounter with Apparatus, I frowned and reached into the inner pocket of my coat to find that, yes, I still had my phone as well. I powered it on to find that it was still fully functional.

Fully charged but still no signal, naturally.

I looked up from my phone to continue my observations and my wandering eyes spotted a set of wooden steps leading up to what I thought might've been a closed-off entrance above and behind me. The 'door' in question wasn't exactly a door per se but looked more like a large black rectangle made of metal and cut partway into the ceiling. The way it was positioned convinced me more than ever that we were in some sort of basement or cellar below ground.

A low groan nearby nearly made me jump out of my skin and I whipped back around to see a familiar lavender equine shape sprawled on her side next to me. It was then that I remembered I wasn't alone in my absurd and horrific predicament anymore and that Twilight was probably with me for the long haul—however long it actually was.

But wait... wings? The hell?

I put my phone back in my pocket and took a closer look to make sure I wasn't seeing things. Sure enough, I could plainly see a wing weakly shifting and flexing on one side as the unconscious mare stirred slightly. As I puzzled over the change I heard her give another weary-sounding groan. A moment later she began blearily picking herself up off the ground and I got a look at the other wing as well.

She definitely hadn't been an alicorn before we wound up... wherever we were now. Try as I might, I couldn't wrap my head around the reason for that particular change of all things. I could think of a ton of possibilities, but nothing concrete came to mind. Then again, neither of us was sure what kind of form she'd take once we left my creepy doppelganger's pocket dimension, but this?

Well... all things considered this was a better outcome than I expected. Not sure why she got the alicorn upgrade, but hell, I'll take it.

It took a moment for her to steady herself, but after a few seconds she was up and looking around like I'd been earlier. She was facing away from me as she took everything in and apparently—like me—hadn't noticed me in her blind spot. She paused and shivered a bit, reflexively ruffling the feathers that made up her new wings. It wasn't particularly cold in here so I assumed it was because she could feel the foreboding in the air the same as me.

"Is this... a library?" she muttered after a moment. Her tone was hopeful but grew confused as she said her next words, "no wait, this must be... but then where's—"

"Over here," I called out, raising a hand in greeting as she jumped and whipped around to face where I was sitting by the stairs, "yo, welcome to your new life for the foreseeable future."

"Salvatore," she breathed out, her tense expression and posture both loosening in relief, "thank goodness. I thought... well, I don't know what I thought, but I'm glad you're okay."

"Same," I said before nodding to her new appendages, "and hey, congratulations on your ascension, princess."

"Princess?" she frowned, "what are you talking about? I'm—" she paused, then turned to look at the wings at her sides, splaying them out to get a better look, "oh... it appears that I am, in fact, a Princess."

The words were flat, but the disbelief was clear on her face.

"Well, you're an alicorn anyway," I concluded, "any idea how it happened?"

Twilight remained silent for a long moment before speaking, her eyes still roaming over her wings. When she finally did speak, the words came slowly, full of confusion and concern.

"I... don't know," she admitted, "the last thing I remember is talking to that... that 'other you' and he did something and then everything went white and... I woke up here."

"Yeah, that's pretty much what happened, I think," I replied, sighing as I ran a hand through my thick dreads. The place was still putting me on edge, but knowing I had Twilight here to back me up honestly did a lot to calm me down, "now we just have to find out what flavor of fucked up this Equestria is."

I waited for Twilight to say something in response, but nothing came. I returned my gaze to the mare to see her still fussing over her new wings, completely oblivious to fact that I was still here apparently.

"Uh... Twilight?"

"Hm?" she replied distractedly. She looked over to me, blinking stupidly before realization dawned and she shook her head, "sorry, Sal, I... I'm still not used to... this. What were you saying?"

I raised an eyebrow and opened my mouth to tell her there were more important things to worry about but decided against it. To my eyes, the only thing that happened was that she grew wings, but for all I knew, the changes might've been more fundamental than that. I kind of wanted to ask about it, but again, there were more important things to worry about right now so I just moved on.

"I only woke up a little bit before you did so I'm not sure where we are or what the situation is right now," I said instead, "I've never actually been down in one before, but I'm pretty sure this is someone's cellar," I paused and turned to face the black wall-door thing at the top of the stairs, "...or maybe some kind of bunker?"

"No, I think you were right about it being a cellar," Twilight said as she turned to get a look at one of the bookshelves. She took a few hesitant steps towards the nearest bookshelf before she stopped and swept wary eyes over the rest of the knick-knacks on display, "just from a glance I can tell that this place is a veritable treasure trove of secret knowledge and ancient history," she shook her head and frowned, "normally I'd be ecstatic to stumble upon something like this, but this place... I don't like the feel of it. It's like... like..."

"Like someone's watching you?" I guessed.

"Well, yes there's that, but..." she shivered again and turned to give me a strange look, "do you get the sense that something horrible happened here?"

I looked around and shrugged.

"Honestly? I just kind of already assumed that was the case given the nature of the worlds we're being sent to," I replied, "but why ask me? I've never been one to frequent haunted places so I couldn't really tell you."

"I don't know, I just..." she scanned the room again, "I almost can't believe this is another Equestria. The atmosphere, the ambient magic... it all feels so alien... and yet, for some reason, I also feel like I've been here before."

Now it was my turn to frown as I thought about her words. I looked over to the bookshelf in front of me, then to the ceiling above. Now that she mentioned it... I was actually starting to get... not deja vu exactly, but a sense that I knew this place. Or that I should know this place. Something about it did seem familiar in a way, but I couldn't place my finger on how or why.

"I've definitely never been here before, but yeah," I finally replied, "I get what you mean."

"You feel it too?" Twilight asked in surprise.

"Yeah, I think so," I grunted as I rose to my feet, "so... should we check the place out? Maybe we can find some clues about what happened here," I jerked a thumb towards the apparently sealed-off exit behind me, "I mean it doesn't look like we're going anywhere anytime soon."

Twilight's brows furrowed and she moved over to where I was standing to get a better look at the wall-door. She tilted her head like she was listening for something and before I could comment, her horn sparked to life with a soft magenta glow and a quiet hum. I watched as the wall-door lit up with the same glow and wondered silently if she was doing some kind of magic scan to find a lock or something.

After about a minute or so the magic surrounding her horn and the wall-door dissipated. She took a step back, shook her head, and turned to me with a worried grimace.

"This is definitely the entrance, and it seems like there's some kind of magic seal blocking it off but that's about all I can tell you," she deduced, "the magic here is strange and I'm not sure if it's because of the way the seal was created or if it's just because magic in this Equestria doesn't work like it did in mine."

"So what you're saying is," I surmised, "we're stuck down here until someone decides to come and open that door?"

"Maybe," she answered uncertainly, "I could try analyzing the spellwork. Given enough time I might be able to find a backdoor and force the seal open but that would take time we might not have," she went silent a moment, then her ears perked up as though she remembered something, "but wait, maybe you can get it open?"

"Me?" I asked in bewilderment, "what the hell could I do? I don't have any—" I stopped mid-sentence as I remembered the same thing she'd probably remembered, "oooohhh... right. Chaos magic. Apparently, I can do that now."

Naturally, I was excited at the prospect of being able to use magic even if it was the more unpredictable kind. That said, the thought of our current situation made me hesitate before I got too invested in the idea of trying it out. After a moment's thought, I furrowed my own brows and switched my gaze from the sealed-off entrance to Twilight to address the issue.

Actually, now that I think about it...

Having just remembered why we were here in the first place I focused on that familiar itch I'd been ignoring since I last used the crystal sense thing back in Twilight's library. The itch became an awareness of what I'd been told was actually a shard of the Multiversal Needle. Truth be told, I wasn't sure if what Apparatus said about the crystals was true. I wanted to believe it, but I knew it'd be better to reserve judgment until I actually had some solid proof that he wasn't bullshitting me like Discord had been this whole time.

"Salvatore?" Twilight asked, confusing coloring her voice, "what are you doing?"

I opened my eyes, not having realized that I'd even closed them, and turned to see the mare staring at me with a bemused frown. I sighed, crossed my arms, and cast a grim frown of my own out over the cellar.

"I was trying to see if I could track down the location of that Linchpin crystal shard."

"Oh, right," Twilight replied, her eyes lighting up as she remembered the conversation with Apparatus, "the... what did he call it? The Multiversal Needle, right," her frown turned equal parts curious and hopeful, "did you find it?"

"It's, uh... not that simple," I sighed again, "the crystal-finding sense Discord forced on me only really points me in the right direction—literally. It doesn't tell me exactly where it is, but I do have a vague idea of distance."

"And?" she pressed, "is it close?"

"Nope, I can't even feel it from where we are," I quirked an eyebrow at her, "and have we not had the discussion about how that crystal sense works? I feel like we've talked about it already."

"No, we haven't," she said with a thoughtful scowl, "I know from your memories that you used it before, but I don't know how you did it, and with how focused I was on studying the Chaos magic inside you, I never got around to asking."

"Huh."

"Yeah... so... it's not here?"

"Nope, but I know there's one in this Equestria somewhere."

"Okay, so we need to actually go outside to look then," Twilight lowered her gaze to the floor and tapped one of her front hooves in thought for a second before raising her head again, "I suppose that brings us back to the issue of the door."

"I mean, I guess I can try busting us out of here with Chaos magic. It might be worth a shot, but do you think it's a good idea?" I asked, giving Twilight a skeptical look, "Sure, I could snap my fingers and pop the lock open maybe, but with Chaos magic being what it is, would it really be that easy?"

"No, I suppose not," Twilight conceded unhappily, "Chaos magic is only really straightforward when it wants to be and the result might not be worth the attempt," she eyed the sealed black door, "still, I'm not so sure about the alternative of being stuck down here either."

"I get that," I nodded before stepping past Twilight, "and I'm itching to put that magic to work myself, but I wanna get a better idea of what we'll be getting into before we go out there," I moved past the bookshelf and headed deeper into the cellar, "I'm not sure if we're being watched or not, but we haven't been attacked or confronted yet even with all the noise we've been making, so I figure we're good to look around at least for the moment."

I turned to see Twilight tentatively following behind me as I went. Her mouth was set in a thin line of wariness as she looked over the space around her, but I could see a hint of curiosity and longing in her eyes. It was clear she wanted to scour the whole place and consume every scrap of knowledge it contained and really, I couldn't blame her. If I was in her shoes (horseshoes?) and found some alternate Earth, I'd want to find out how it differed from my own.

Of course, not to the extent that she probably wanted to, but I got the general idea of how she felt. That was part of the reason for my suggestion. It wasn't just that I wanted us to simply head out blindly into the unknown without some kind of context. I also wanted to keep us focused on something other than the sinister presence permeating this place like an airborne poison.

"Why don't you see if we can get anything useful out of the books?" I said, nodding to the myriad bookshelves, "I'll check, uh... anything else that looks relevant I guess."

"Alright," came Twilight's reluctant reply after a moment, "just be careful, Sal. A lot of this looks really valuable and we don't know if there's been any wards or traps placed to protect it all from burglars and the like. In fact..."

She trailed off and closed her eyes. Her horn lit up once again and her face scrunched up in concentration as she cast another spell. The magic aura around her horn suddenly pulsed brighter and a shockwave of magenta light swept across the entire cellar. I took a step back in surprise but didn't really feel anything as the magic passed over me other than a slight tingling sensation.

The whole event lasted only a moment, the wave of light dissipating completely as it finally hit the far wall. The aura around Twilight's horn faded as well and she took another look around before letting out a relieved sigh.

"I'm so glad to have my magic back," she muttered before speaking a bit louder in my direction, "it doesn't seem like there's any magical traps or wards, at least none that I can detect. That doesn't mean we can be complacent though. Like I said, the magic here feels weird and my thaumic senses may not be working right."

"And can your magical detection spell sense physical traps?" I asked, "like if I opened up one of those cabinets and received a shotgun blast to the face?"

"Yes, it can detect physical traps," Twilight replied with a roll of her eyes, "and no, there are no traps like that hidden in any of the cabinets. Really, Salvatore? A shotgun?"

"Hey, you don't know if ponies in this Equestria use firearms," I shot back with a shrug, "for all we know, there could've been some terrible war and we might walk out of here to find the gruesome aftermath. Or worse, it could still be going on and we just can't hear it for some reason."

"Somehow I doubt that," she huffed, "but I guess we can go with your plan for now. It's not like we'll get anywhere by just standing around anyway."

"That's the spirit," I said with a teasing grin, "I knew you couldn't resist the allure of a good book."

She rolled her eyes again as she made her way back to the bookshelves and with that, our search began in earnest. While Twilight rummaged through one bookshelf after another, I took to searching old cabinets and looking over the weird and fantastical objects on display. I found all kinds of things from unlabeled bottles and cans full of strange-smelling (and suspicious-looking) powders, spices, and gelatinous goop to shiny treasures you'd see in an Indiana Jones film.

There were statues and statuettes made of gold and ivory and jade stone. I found crazy-looking instruments and old scrolls that revealed esoteric text written in languages I couldn't read. There were mystical talismans and opulent jewelry in glass cases. Hell, I even found an honest-to-god crystal pony skull just sitting on a shelf. I spotted a large map pinned to one of the walls and moved closer to take a look.

The parchment the map was inscribed on was old and yellowed, the many landmarks and their names faded with age. I could barely make anything out, but the general shape of the land seemed to be consistent with what I remembered from the map of Equestria I'd reference every so often when I'd written some of my stories. Unfortunately, I found the map was too old to be of any real help and, in the end, it only served to show that this was indeed some version of Equestria and the familiar lands surrounding the country.

So far I hadn't managed to find anything particularly useful. I'd found plenty of interesting odds and ends, but nothing that could help give context to our current predicament. Sifting through all the treasures on display, I did begin to get a sense of who might've owned this cellar. The sneaking suspicion only served to increase not only that odd sense that I knew this place but also a creeping dread—a feeling that I definitely shouldn't be here.

"Finding a lot of neat stuff over here, but nothing about the state of the world outside," I called out to Twilight as I tried to push the unnerving sensation down, "any luck on your end?"

"I don't think so," she replied, making her way over to where I was standing in front of a set of shelves. The mare held two books in a magic field as she trotted over, with her face shoved into one and another hovering close by, "whoever collected all of these has a taste for the obscure," she snapped the book shut and sent both of the large texts telekinetically zooming off presumably to where she'd found them, "there's a lot of esoterica and some tomes full of very... morally questionable spells and rituals."

"Yeah, based on what I've found so far, I can see that," I said as I craned my neck to see the objects at the top of a particularly large shelf, "I think I've got an idea of who owns this place at least."

I didn't recognize any of the stuff I saw but I figured Twilight might if this Equestria and hers were anything like the one I knew. Even if she didn't, just the fact that all of this was here in one place should've given it away, but to my surprise that wasn't the case.

"Really?" she asked, "who?"

I was about to answer when something on the top shelf near the back of the cellar suddenly caught my eye. Sitting inconspicuously between several other fantastical objects was a small stand covered by a glass case. The display mirrored many of the others I'd seen around but this one, in particular, stood out for the simple fact that the small stand in question was empty.

In a room packed to bursting with stuff to see, this singular display case held no item of interest. I'd been pretty thorough in checking around and I hadn't seen a single case that didn't have something to gawk at sitting inside. The longer I stared at the spot, the stronger that feeling of familiarity became. It was like a small tingle at the back of my mind—there was something there, but it was distant and hazy.

"Salvatore?"

I blinked.

"Huh?"

I looked down at Twilight and saw she was eyeing me with more than a bit of concern. It was only when I came back to my senses and took stock of myself that I realized I was shaking slightly. I hadn't noticed it before and I couldn't put my finger on why just then, but I was way more unnerved than I initially thought. Twilight looked from me to the empty display case I'd been staring at, then back to me with an ever-deepening grimace.

"Salvatore, are you okay?" she asked worriedly, "not to sound trite, but you look like you've seen a ghost."

Our eyes met and for a long, awkward second we just stared at each other. Twilight was watching me expectantly and I don't know what kind of look I had on my face. I wanted to explain, but the words wouldn't come for some reason. I swallowed and opened my mouth to say something, but before I could even get a breath out, a bunch of things happened at once.

The air shuddered and some unseen force suddenly rippled across the cellar. The sensation that hit me stole my breath away. I stumbled, feeling like I'd had the wind knocked out of me. At that same moment, the amber crystals giving off such a warm glow flickered like faulty lightbulbs before cutting out entirely. In an instant, my world was nothing but black.

What remained when those crystals winked out was a darkness so thick and heavy that it was almost a physical weight on my back. Just as the overbearing darkness fell, Twilight let out a sharp gasp of pain. I looked in her general direction just in time to see her horn emit purple sparks of magic for the briefest of moments before inky blackness snuffed it back out.

"Oh no," I heard her mutter in a small shaky voice, "no... nononono! Salvatore, my magic, it's—"

Her panicked whispers were cut off by the tell-tale high-pitched screech of a heavy metal door being slowly pried open somewhere in the distance. The sound, like Twilight's voice, was muted and tinny like something heard on an old-timey radio. Neither Twilight nor I said a word, both of us knowing exactly what that sound meant. There was someone or more likely something coming down the stairs.

I didn't know about Twilight, but I could feel a presence filling the room—something hungry and violent sniffing around in the dark. Other than to open the door the thing made no sound, but I knew it was on the move, searching for the two idiots that stumbled into its feeding grounds. I didn't dare to make a sound—I couldn't—but Twilight evidently had no such issue.

"Sal," she whispered shakily. The words sounded like they were spoken right next to my ear, "if you still have your chaos magic, use it... now."

Twilight's whispered words hadn't gone unnoticed.

In the time it took me to register what she was talking about through the haze of fear, the silent, hungry thing had picked up its pace. Again, I felt it more than heard it moving closer, picking up speed as it made a beeline straight for us. For Twilight. Its voracious appetite pressed down on us, trying to crush out rational thought and leav only the terror of the hunted prey.

"Salvatore!" Twilight shrieked.

"Shit!" I shouted back reflexively.

I raised a hand, poised to snap my fingers, but not knowing how to actually draw out the Chaos magic within. The only thing on my mind at that moment was that I needed to turn the lights back on. It wasn't even that complex a thought. My entire existence at that point in time could've boiled down to one word. One single concept.

Light.

With that desperate prayer in mind, I snapped my fingers, and as I did, I realized that using Chaos magic wasn't all that hard. I felt a strange, twisting, churning sensation that started in my gut before spreading throughout my entire body. It didn't hurt exactly, but it was far from pleasant. The magic was a paradox of sensations, feeling completely alien yet wholly natural at the same time like I'd always been able to use it.

It spread like a wildfire, building up a weird pressure that seemed to push against my flesh from the inside. Again, it didn't hurt, it was just very, very, very uncomfortable. The pressure kept expanding and growing until something intangible within me popped and the spell was unleashed. And the crazy part is that that had all happened in the time it took me to complete the snapping motion.

What I was hoping for was to turn the glowing crystals back on and banish that nightmarish thing back to wherever the hell it came from.

What I got... was a tiny keychain flashlight.

I had more to write after this, but as I finished that last sentence I realized this was a perfect stopping point.

Yeah, I know, but hey, the good news is that I know exactly where I'm going with this so the next chapter should be out a lot sooner.