As it turned out, the 'comfortable room' Moon Dancer had chosen for storytime was, in fact, a private study of some kind—or that's what it looked like to me. I'd never actually been in a private study before. The place wasn't too dissimilar from a private office space, just smaller, cozier, and a bit more old-timey in its aesthetic. You had your large bookshelf to one side, a desk topped with quills and an inkwell. some unrolled scrolls of parchment, a few stacked tomes, and a rudimentary desklamp. There was even a large chalkboard mounted to one of the walls.

On the other side of the room, opposite the desk and lit by the soft amber glow of a large crystal embedded in the ceiling, was a plush, midnight blue armchair. In front of that was what looked like a small circular coffee table about a third the height of the chair. Sitting on top of that coffee table was...

Bro, is that a wine bottle?

A closer look revealed that, yes that was, in fact, an unopened bottle of wine. Next to that was an empty crystalline wine glass and nothing else. Now, I wasn't much a of drinker back on Earth. That's not to say I hadn't gotten drunk a few times during parties, but I found alcohol didn't do much for me. I didn't get hangovers and that was great and all, but all the hard stuff did was make me feel uncomfortably thick-headed, nauseous, and worsen my already shit vision.

I'd never once felt that pleasant buzz everyone talked about, no matter what I tried. Beer, wine, rum, margaritas, vodka. Tried it all, had a horrible time every time. In the end, I just gave up drinking entirely and never looked back. Even now, with all the changes to my very existence, I still wasn't keen on taking up the bottle. That said, I was curious enough to find out what kind of wine I was looking at.

I made my way over to the small table and turned to Moon Dancer with a questioning look. The mare, who was just now entering the room, looked from me, to the wine on the table. She frowned a moment, then shook her head. “I'm sorry, Salvatore,” she said after a second, “but I think that was meant for my Lady to enjoy once she has the time. You can use the seat if you like, but the wine...”

“Nah, that's cool,” I replied with a wave of my hand, “I'm not a big drinker anyway. I am curious about the brand though. Mind if I take a look?”

Moon Dancer hesitated, but eventually gave a nod. With that, I snatched up the bottle of clear, sparkling alcohol and almost dropped the thing in surprise. It was cold. Like, really cold. It was as if it'd just been taken out of the freezer, yet the liquid inside wasn't frozen at all. Thinking about it for a second, I turned back to Moon Dancer. “How long has this been here?” I asked.

And where did it even come from? Do these caves have a winery somewhere?

Moon Dancer just shrugged in response. “I wasn't the one who brought it here so I can't say. Though if I had to guess I'd say it's likely been here for some time. I believe Lady Luna meant to relax here once she'd returned from her expedition to Daring Do's old cabin.”

“Ah, so it's probably magic keeping this thing cold then,” I surmised.

I scanned the white label on the bottle and saw Derodine Wudurose scrawled in fancy blood red font at the top and sparkling rosé wine just below that. I frowned, then shrugged and set the wine bottle back down on the table. I couldn't tell if the wine was high quality or not just by looking at the name, but given it was meant for a former Princess, it was probably safe to assume it was the good stuff.

Not that it matters to me. Alcohol is alcohol as far I'm concerned, no matter how fancy the bottle looks or how renowned the brand is.

My curiosity sated for now, I took up Moon Dancer's offer and plopped down into the comfy armchair. I paused, then frowned as I shifted my weight around. I tried to get comfortable, but after a moment, I realized I couldn't relax. The plush chair was too comfortable and for me, that somehow made it uncomfortable. Coming to that conclusion, I stood back up and made my way over to the much more modest chair at the desk.

The chair was made of dark wood with simple black cushions covering the seat and wooden armrests. That was good enough for me. That was much closer to the kind of chair I was used to. Satisfied, I settled into the chair and moved it around so that it faced the rest of the room. In doing so, I caught Moon Dancer watching me from near the other chair, a thick eyebrow raised in bemusement.

“What? I like this chair better,” I said, feeling the need to defend myself, “I don't tell you how to live your life or where to plant your butt down, do I?”

Moon Dancer thought about it for a second, then shrugged. “I suppose that's fine. We have more important things to discuss anyway.”

“That we do,” I agreed before giving the mare a bemused look of my own when she didn't take the other chair, “so, uh... you gonna take a seat, or...?”

“I'm fine with standing, thanks,” she replied a bit too quickly.

Okay... weird, but whatever.

“Alright then,” I replied aloud, “so let's get this show on the road. I'm guessing we don't have a ton of time here.”

“That we don't,” Moon Dancer confirmed with a serious nod, “but be warned, I don't have all the details about what happened back then where Twilight's journey was concerned. As far as I know, she travelled alone for the most part, but I wasn't told what she'd been up to before we finally met again.”

“Got it,” I replied, “I'll keep it in mind.”

Hopefully, Twilight can figure something out about this Equestria's Twilight.

I watched attentively as Moon Dancer closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and when she opened her eyes again, they were blank and distant—like she was looking directly into the past. It wasn't as unnerving as the empty pools of endless nothingness she and Cozy Glow had shown from before, but it was still a little unsettling. And then she began to speak. Her voice was hollow, but resonated powerfully throughout the small study.

“I'll speak as best I can of what I know regarding Twilight, but much of what I have to say is based upon my own experiences,” she began, “my role was a relatively small one, but crucial for what was to come.”

And so I settled myself in to hear the tale of how the world went to shit, as told from the perspective of a mare who played a role in its demise—albeit a minor one, apparently.

---

I received a knock at my door late one night from a stallion shrouded in a dark cloak. He was a unicorn—an unassuming sort, if a bit sallow around the face. I hadn't been expecting anypony, but this wasn't the first time I'd gotten an unexpected visitor in the night.

My home was little more than a small shanty built on the outskirts of Canterlot. Nopony likes to talk about it, but Canterlot does have its slums just like any large city—though it is a smaller shantytown than most. I lived just outside of that district, but still got the occasional bum or delinquent coming around thinking the place was abandoned. I'm no Twilight Sparkle, but I could throw out a few spells to protect myself and my home when I needed to, so the intruders weren't much of a problem.

At first, I thought this stallion was one of them, just another bum looking for a place to hole up for the night. He certainly looked the part, with his ratty cloak and sickly face, but something stopped me from driving him off like all the rest. It was something in his gaze—some strange gleam in his eyes that unnerved me. It caught me off guard and before I could do anything, the stallion pulled a small roll of parchment from his cloak and held it out to me.

I took the scroll without really thinking, still caught on the backhoof as I was by the unicorn's disturbing gaze. Once I had it, he just gave me a slow nod and walked away without saying a word. I tried to call after him and even followed him outside, but I lost sight of him after only a few paces. He was gone, vanished into the night somehow.

The only thing that proved he existed at all was the scroll I was holding in my magic. All I could do was wonder what this was all about as I headed back inside. I was suspicious of the stallion of course, but not so wary that I didn't check the scroll's contents—most would have had they been in my horseshoes, I think. Unfortunately, that was my first mistake.

I'd expected to read a letter of some sort when I unrolled the scroll, but that wasn't at all what I received. No, what greeted me wasn't a letter, but an array of magical sigils that took up the entire piece of parchment. It was a horribly complex inscription the likes of which I'd never seen before. Worse still, the array carried a familiar coppery scent that told me those dark red markings weren't written in ink.

I only had a moment to process what I was looking at before the array activated. A blinding flare of crimson light was the last thing I saw before everything went black. I'd passed out, and by the time I woke up, the sun was already high in the sky. It took a moment to remember what happened, but once it came back to me, I was almost convinced it had all been a dream. I checked for the parchment with the magic array, but I couldn't find it anywhere.

Eventually I just chalked it up to a few too many alfalfa crisps before bed and tried to move on. Everything was normal for the next few days, but during that time, I couldn't get the memory of that spell scroll out of my head. I found my mind coming back to those blood red sigils whenever my thoughts wandered too far away from me. It got to the point where it was starting to interfere with my personal studies.

Ultimately I started searching for the scrolls again, all the while trying to tell myself it was all just a dream—that there'd been no stallion or mysterious spell scroll. I turned my little ramshackle hut upside down. I wandered the slums looking for the stallion. I even wrote Twilight a letter asking for help or guidance or something... but she never responded.

And then, just as I was finally starting to convince myself that I was acting ridiculous... the visions came.

It started as small flashes—brief images of things I couldn't comprehend and didn't recognize. Ponies I didn't know, places I'd never been to, creatures shrouded in shadow. The sudden mental intrusions would leave pounding headaches in their wake. At first they only lasted a brief moment, but as the visions got longer and more complex, the headaches grew stronger and lasted longer.

It happened without warning, both during the day and at night, interrupting whatever I happened to be doing at the time. I had no answers and found none, no matter how hard I looked. All the while the visions came more and more frequently. It wasn't long before they replaced my dreams, my own subsconscious mind showing me the worst of what these visions had to offer.

I heard things, things I couldn't understand. Voices in the dark speaking unfathomable words that scraped against the ears like icy knives. Those brief images stretched out into a nightmarish panorama of unspeakable horrors I hadn't know could exist in this world—that shouldn't have existed. Eldritch monstrosities, dark and twisted temples, gruesome rituals, the agonized wails of tortured innocents, the laughter of mad sadists.

All of this and more tore at my mind, driving me insane. I couldn't find a way to stop it. I had nopony to turn to. I tried again and again to ask for help—to seek answers, to make it stop, but in the end I was left to suffer these visions I couldn't understand. They were so vivid. So visceral. So... real. Each one was like diving headfirst into another time and place.

Were it not for the sheer horror of it all, I would've found these visions fascinating. As it was, I very nearly chose to slit my own throat just to end my suffering. Perhaps I would have... if he hadn't arrived at my doorstep when he did...

---

“He?” I couldn't help but ask, “Who's 'he'? That stallion in the cloak?”

I didn't mean to interrupt the mare, the question just kind of came out while I was thinking. I'd held my silence while Moon Dancer told her tale, but my own mind was racing as I listened, trying to put pieces together. From the outside looking in, it was clear someone was trying to break Moon Dancer and build her back up into a tool to be used for... something.

That's about all I'd been able to glean so far aside from my guess that there was someone behind that stallion pulling the strings. My guess on that front was essentially proven correct when Moon Dancer shook her head in response to my question.

“No, it wasn't the stallion from before,” she replied, “it was another unicorn stallion dressed in the same cloak as the other one. This one was a bit taller. Lankier. He had that same unnerving gleam in his eyes, but there was also... something else.”

I raised an eyebrow as the mare paused, “...Something else?”

“Purpose. Conviction.” She finally said. “A determination to do what needed to be done, no matter the cost. He had a goal, and he wanted—needed me to help him reach it. I didn't know it at the time, but it's clear to me now that, like that other stallion and Cozy Glow, it had to be me.”

“Weird,” I commented, “do you know why? Is it because you knew Twilight?”

“Maybe, but I doubt it,” she said with little enthusiasm, “all I know for sure is that I was part of his plan. Part of the prophecy. He told me I was crucial in what was to come—we all were.”

“Wait, hold up... prophecy?” I sat up straighter in my chair and eyed the mare warily, “you're gonna have to back up a bit on that one. No one said anything about a prophecy.”

“You're right,” Moon Dancer conceded with a small nod of apology, “I'm... getting ahead of myself. I'll return to where I left off...”

With that, she closed her eyes, which I only just now realized hadn't had that empty look when I interrupted. She opened them a moment later and spoke again, and I wasn't surprised to see that same look come over her once more. I groaned inwardly, but held my tongue as she continued her story.

---

The stallion gave me no name but instead introduced himself as a friend of a friend who'd come to help. The stallion promised not only to drive away these maddening visions, but to grant me knowledge. He promised to rip apart the veil of ignorance keeping me blind.

He promised me the answers to my visions, the truth of Harmony, the true history of our world and the cosmic secrets that lay beyond. All he asked for in return was a favor, to help him with a certain task that needed doing. I... was in no state to refuse. As I was, I would have rent the very sky asunder if it meant an end to my suffering.

And so, with no room in my addled mind to doubt the stallion, I agreed without question or hesitation. The stallion's eyes lit up like the sun with my promise of assistance. With a brilliant smile he produced a time-worn dagger from his cloak, both its wicked hilt and jagged blade as black as the void.

He held it out to me, instructing me to plunge the weapon into my chest to the hilt. The ludicrous demand was enough to cut through some of my madness and give me pause, but only for a moment. The stallion assured me that my life was in no danger and that the process would cleanse me of the scenes and images that haunted me.

I gave it a moment's thought, but decided that, whether I survived or not, my pain would likely end either way. And so I did as he asked and let the dagger pierce my chest. The physical pain was terrible, but beyond it, I could feel something pouring out of me.

My lifeblood was being spilled across the floor, yes, but there was something else that went with it—something vile and unnameable. Even as I fell to the ground, writhing in agony, I could feel that nameless vileness being sucked away, almost as if it was being drawn into the blade itself. All too soon my mind began to clear and I felt lighter than I had in weeks. Saner. More... whole.

After a time—I wasn't sure how long—the stallion approached me. Without warning or preamble, he grasped the hilt of the dagger and tore it out of me. For a horrifying moment I thought I would die right then and there. In my mind I could see my insides torn out and splayed across the floor.

I could almost feel it happen as my sight and consciousness slowly faded to nothing... but that didn't happen. To my horrified amazement, the pain vanished altogether. I watched as my horrific wound sealed itself in an instant. In the span of a few moments, I was physically whole and mentally unbroken.

I was overcome with shock and confusion, but my mind was a placid lake otherwise. I waited for the other horseshoe to drop, but I needn't have bothered. I could feel it. I'd been cursed by a malevolent force I hadn't even known was there, and I could sense now that it was completely gone.

I was finally free.

---

“And it never occurred to you that this guy was working with the other stallion?” I asked with a healthy amount of skepticism, “not even with how he fixed you up? None of that raised any red flags?”

Once more, the mare's eyes cleared as she took a moment to answer my questions. She shook her head sadly, “Of course I had my doubts and suspicions, but that was only after the fact, and by that point, I was already bound to serve his purposes.”

I blinked, then frowned, not liking that phrasing one bit. “Bound?” I repeated, “Are we talking some kind of verbal oath of service or, like, magically bound, like a slave to his will?”

“Not quite the latter... but close enough,” she replied with a bitter smile, “it was more of a subtle compulsion somewhere in the back of my mind, something I never noticed until it was far too late. We were all like that in the beginning.”

“You, Cozy Glow, and that stallion you mean?”

Moon Dancer nodded, “we all joined him for different reasons but he trapped us all the same way. I was desperate for an escape and the knowledge he could provide, Cozy Glow was looking for an easier path to power, and the other stallion...” she paused and gave a pensive frown,”I'm... not quite sure, actually. He never spoke unless it was required for a ritual.”

“Ah, so he recruited you all to join his cult,” I surmised, not in the least bit surprised given the blood magic and self-mutilation with what was obviously some kind of ritual dagger, “and he told you he was a 'friend of a friend'? I'm assuming he was talking about Twilight?”

“He was,” Moon Dancer confirmed with another contrite nod. A faraway look crossed her face as she said her next words, as if she was musing on a fond memory from the past, “I was the second to join his cause. Cozy Glow was the last. He promised us knowledge and power... and that's exactly what he gave us...”

---

I followed after the stallion, knowing nothing of what I was getting myself into at the time. I readily left my old life in Canterlot behind to join him on his mission, whatever it may have been. We spent the next few months wandering the lands of Equestria and beyond.

The lanky stallion took me to places both known and unknown to me. Hidden caves, dark and deadly forests, old mountain ruins, ancient desert temples buried beneath the sands. With each new location he would open my eyes to a new truth I hadn't known about the world. He would show me things, new visions—not to twist the mind but to lay bare the true history.

I learned of the Unbegotten Source, of how the ancient god arrived when the world was yet unbaked. I learned of how it brought life to our infant planet... and how it birthed its eventual death. I learned of the Old Night that slept beneath the earth for millions of years. I was told of Star Swirl and the past he tried to hide from the future.

And I was told of Twilight and her destiny as was written in the stallion's book of prophecy. It was a massive tome, three or four times the size of a normal book and thousands upon thousands of pages long. It was within an ancient ruin at the base of a mountain that the stallion revealed the book to us.

It was there that he finally informed us of what we were meant to do. It was in that place that we learned we were meant to help Twilight. We were meant to guide her toward her 'second ascension' . We were told that she would open the path to an existence beyond our comprehension. She would fall into darkness and, in doing so, find the light of ultimate truth—a truth that would raise us all from the bed of ignorance.

She would ascend once more and become a true Goddess, as was written long ago. Our role in that prophecy was to open a path to the Source, and we were given all the tools we needed and more to do so. He spoke to us of the eldritch arts—the power of the Dark. A forbidden power not meant for mortal use. We learned occult spells, rituals, incantations, inscriptions.

It was a new sort of magic, and it was everything we wanted and more. Yes, many of the rituals we learned were gruesome and inequine, but by this point we had all partaken of this forbidden fruit and were begging for more, no matter the cost. We were all fully committed, ready and willing to do our part.

And so we did...

---

“By the time the lanky stallion summoned Twilight to meet with us, she was already at the tail end of her journey,” Moon Dancer explained, “it was the first time I'd seen her in a long time, even before my life had taken this occult turn.”

Her face twisted, but I couldn't tell what expression she was trying to make. There was sorrow and longing there, but also something else I couldn't quite parse. She hesitated, but eventually got herself under control and continued.

“She was... changed. No longer equine,” she said with a strange and deliberate slowness. “When we finally saw her, she'd become a hideous thing of flesh and shadow. At the time, I didn't even bat an eye, none of us did. We simply accepted it as inevitable and moved on with the ritual.”

That... was a lot to unpack.

On one hand, I got my explanation as to how Zushakon wound up here. At least, Moon Dancer had implied the Old Night was born from the Unbegotten Source. I wasn't sure if that's actually how things went down in the mythos, but I also don't think Zushakon's birth was mentioned one way or another.

On the other hand, there was the Unbegotten Source itself, Ubbo-Sathla. I wanted to question how and why the outer god was here, but again, I had to remember this was just one world in a multiverse where anything could happen. There was no point in questioning it. I just had to accept it and move right along, something I was thankfully pretty good at.

What was strange was that none of what she was telling me was surprising. I mean, I could've guessed at a lot of what happened, but that wasn't it. Everything she told me, at least where Twilight was concerned, felt... weirdly familiar—like I'd already known all of this and was just being reminded.

I'd gotten the sensation a few times now ever since we arrived back in Daring Do's cellar. I couldn't shake the feeling. It was almost as if I'd already been here before... but not quite. It annoyed me that I couldn't place the feeling, but at the same, I kind of didn't want to. The more I thought about it, the more the sensation scared me.

I just got this weird, nameless dread I couldn't place that got stronger each time I felt it. In the end, I chose not to dwell on the matter and forcefully put it out of my mind. Instead, I returned my attention to Moon Dancer. She hadn't mentioned much about Twilight up until now, but that was fine. I was pretty sure I'd find out more soon enough, but in the meantime...

“And the ritual?” I asked, continuing from where Moon Dancer left off, “you mentioned you guys were trying to open a path of some sort? To Ubbo-Sathla? And while I'm at it, did you ever find out that stallion's name? Like, at all?”

“Ubbo... Sathla?” Moon Dancer replied, her massive eyebrows raising in surprise as she zeroed in on the name and ignored everything else, “So you know of the Demiurge's true name then? You've seen it with your own eyes? How?”

“Whoa, hold on a sec,” I said, raising my hands defensively and mentally kicking myself for complicating things, “I've never seen the thing myself, I just... come from a place where that kind of knowledge is a bit more, ah... easily accessible.”

“The Dreamlands then,” Moon Dancer guessed, “Lady Luna's made mention of it before, but to think you—”

“No, not the Dreamlands,” I interjected, doing my best not to groan in annoyance, “look, we can talk about me and what I know later. For now, let's just... get back to your story, alright? We don't have a lot of time, remember?”

She looked me over with newfound curiosity for a moment before nodding, “Fair enough,” she finally said before explaining, “to answer your question, no, he never once gave his name, but Twilight seemed to know him. As for the ritual meant to connect Twilight to the primordial god, it was a success intially,” her expression grew dark, “but things... did not go as I expected in the end.”

“What do you mean?” I asked with a frown, “what happened?”

At this, Moon Dancer grimaced. There was a bitter anger tinged with guilt and betrayal in her eyes and a hint of it seeped into her next words.

“Perhaps I misunderstood what that unicorn's words meant or maybe I misinterpreted the prophecy somehow, but in the end, either way... none of us were granted the enlightenment we were promised."

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