My name is Nightmare Moon, the Queen of the Night; formerly Princess Luna, co-ruler of the Equestrian Diarchy along with my sister and the object of my eternal ire, Celestia, the Solar Princess and currently the monarch of Equestria. Though she may have held that title up until now, it will be torn from her very soon—though whether that is to happen by my hoof or another remains to be seen.

After one thousand years of being trapped within my own moon, I am finally free to take hold of my long awaited vengeance against my precious sister. I am finally free to take my place as the rightful and only ruler of Equestria. Now that I have returned to Equestria, I can finally be acknowledged, loved, feared by the subjects who shunned me in favor of her so many years ago.

Or so I thought.

Now that I am back, I'm faced with several dilemmas, both infuriating, and distressing. I found myself returning to the Everfree Castle where I'd been banished originally and found that it had quite literally become a ruin in the midst of a forest overrun with oversized flora, dangerous fauna, and wild magic.

This was unforgivable, and I would make sure Celestia paid for such neglect, but that could wait. I'd made my way to where I could sense the most ponies and found a small, quaint town just past the forest that hadn't been there when I'd been sent away. This in and of itself wasn't an issue, and it would give me a chance to announce my glorious and long overdue advent to Equestria.

I admit I was eager to make myself known to the masses once again; eager to see their shocked and fearful expressions as I fell upon their short and pitiful lives like a dark and imperious shadow. As I neared the town, I began to feel something in the air wasn't right, but in that moment I could focus on nothing other than inevitable retribution and the throne of Equestria. They were so close at hoof that I was blind to everything else, including a horribly familiar sensation of dread and that hideous, otherworldly aura.

It had been so long—too long since I'd felt that sensation, though it now boggles my mind as to how I could've possibly forgotten such an ancient and evil presence. It was something that did not belong in this reality or any other, and I was a fool for not realizing what it was the moment I set hoof in the old castle.

Ignorant of what was to come, and writing off my feeling of unease as simple weakness of the mind, I quickly made my way to the town, only to find that all of its denizens had relocated to what I guessed to be the town's center. From afar I could see countless ponies pouring into what was most likely Town Hall, and the sight filled me with a sort of foal like anticipation. I knew not the reason they had all gathered together, but rather than speculate, I instead focused on the convenience of the situation.

The entire town seemed to have gathered within the confines of the building, and I would've been remiss had I wasted the opportunity to reveal myself before these ready and waiting citizens. It would be an entrance fit to inspire both fear and awe in equal measure, and I could hardly contain myself, even as that nagging sense of dread grew stronger.

It wasn't until I finally appeared before the mass of ponies that I realized my folly, for as I began making my speech, something pulled at my attention—it all but demanded it. The growing dread reached its peak and as I laid eyes upon the source of the sickening aura, dread gave way to alarm, horror, confusion, and recognition.

To anypony else, she may have seemed like an ordinary unicorn mare, her coat a simple shade of lavender and her amethyst eyes wide with a fear so oddly absent from the rest of the crowd. The other ponies in the large room may have been nervous, worried perhaps, even shocked, but there was more bewilderment in their expressions than anything else; a lack of recognition on their part that was profoundly disturbing to me.

Still, despite all of that, my eyes remained fixed on that lavender mare, and hers on mine. She may have looked the part of a simple peasant, but both the malignant presence and the striking resemblance the mare bore to an unfortunate pony I'd failed to save long ago were all too telling. There were some subtle differences in her features, but no doubt remained in my mind about the unicorn's true identity.

The Dead Goddess, Skal-Gazaath.

I'd hoped to never set hoof in her awful presence again, but somewhere in the back of my mind I knew would eventually, for I was the only one who knew of the thing she'd left behind, and whom she'd left it with. To this day I'm unsure of what became of the stallion I encountered all those years ago, but I nevertheless curse the day I met him in that forest beyond the wretched town of Hollow Shades.

There was much I cursed about that day, but above all, that meeting was something I had hoped to wipe from my memory forever.

While I had thankfully never set eyes upon Skal-Gazaath's true form, the cold and sickening aura which she exuded was enough to pull at the threads of my sanity, which had already been horribly picked upon from a thousand years of isolation within my own namesake.

Despite the fear, anger, and dismay I felt then, I still couldn't help but laugh at my foul luck. Even as memories I thought long abandoned rose to the surface I laughed; even as images of the things I witnessed in that abominable town once again grew vivid and horrible in my mind.

Equestria had been a relatively peaceful country before I was banished to the moon by my own sister. It might've been that I made it slightly less peaceful given my discontent with the way things were between Celestia, myself, and our subjects, but for all of my bitterness, Equestria knew a great deal of peace.

This wasn't always the case—far from it in fact.

Shortly after my sister and I defeated the Lord of Chaos and officially taken the throne of Equestria, there had been war, and much of it. Equestria had been left in shambles after Discord's reign—in some instances quite literally. In the wake of Discord's imprisonment, there was no shortage of political and social unrest, both within Equestria and without.

It was a time of great uncertainty, and though my sister and I did our best to calm the masses and restore order to a then broken nation, it took several years and the task proved to be nearly impossible. Famine, plagues—both natural and magical in nature, civil disorder, threats from beyond the borders of Equestria and more all contributed to a nightmarish start to our reign.

We both looked to the then newly discovered Elements of Harmony for some kind of salvation, but the artifacts had been rendered inert after the sealing of the Lord of Chaos. Now that Discord had been contained, there was more chaos than ever, and the irony was not lost on me or Celestia. Even with as strong as Discord's prison had been at the time it was a wonder the wretched draconequus didn't break free.

That he didn't was a testament to how powerful the Elements of Harmony were back then. Celestia and I thought he'd be the greatest of our worries, but once Discord was dealt with, our worries only grew. By some miracle we managed to avoid an outright civil war and a war between Equestria and the Dragonlands, either of which would've devastated the country.

Unfortunately, just as we'd found a solution to the issue regarding country wide famine—just as my sister and I had slowly begun to rebuild our nation, war with the Griffon Kingdom broke out, and so a long and bloody battle was fought. Resources were being drained at an alarming rate, morale was low, and the citizens of Equestria began to crack under the pressure.

It was during this most dire situation that I encountered that stallion and his consociate.

While Celestia was busy keeping the nation together from our seat of power, I was leading our army against the griffons. It was also my unfortunate duty to quell the subtler issues that came from within our own borders. Traitors, malcontents, and those who would turn to dark magic for either some misguided attempt to end the war or for personal gain.

I'd gotten an anonymous report late one night of such a faction practicing unwholesome and potentially dangerous activities in a small village in the thickly forested swamplands far to the northeast of Everfree Castle. A large group of ponies consisting mostly of earth ponies and a few unicorns had formed some sort of doomsday cult and were planning to carry out a ritual to summon some unspeakable horror from beyond this realm.

At first this report was met with only mild concern, as there'd been no solid evidence of the claim and there were far more pressing issues at hoof to worry about. Nevertheless I sent what little help I could spare at the time; a small squad consisting of three Royal Guards were sent out to investigate the rather sleepy town known as Hollow Shades in order to verify the truth of the matter.

It was when they failed to report in after an extended period of time that I began to grow suspicious. It took time to travel from the capital to the forest where Hollow Shades was located, but a well stocked group of Royal Guards could make the trip there and back in just over a week's time—a pegasus squadron in roughly three or four days.

For the sake of expediency, it was a squad of pegasi that I'd sent to Hollow Shades. I had expected them to finish their investigation and be back in the capital within the span of roughly one week, but two weeks had passed by with no word whatsoever from the small squadron. The needs of the nation were many, but eventually I managed to free up enough time to personally visit the isolated town.

Gathering up two experienced soldiers from Equestria's standing army, I set out for Hollow Shades in order to find out both what had become of the Royal Guards I'd sent, and to uncover the truth of what was happening in that town. It was a journey I wouldn't forget for some time to come, no matter how much I wanted to.

Upon my departure from the capital, I took two ponies in particular; two ponies I knew I could trust, and that knew their business and knew it well. From the Shadowbolt air squadron I took Colonel Whipping Wind. A middle aged pegasus mare of cobalt coat, short silver mane, cold green eyes, and modest upbringing, Colonel Wind had seen plenty of battle in the last few years and had come out of her experience harder than anypony I knew.

Accompanying her was Tungsten Steel, the earth pony Lieutenant of the Equestrian Army's ground forces. Lieutenant Steel was a younger stallion—surprisingly young for his rank—and bore a coat the color of his own namesake. Like Colonel Wind and most of the ponies in the army, Steel's black mane was cut short; unlike Whipping Wind however, his dark blue eyes had a strange sort of softness, despite the fact that he'd fought especially hard to get to where he was in life.

Both ponies were proven and trustworthy companions, and perhaps save for my sister at the time, I wouldn't have had anypony else by my side.

Our trip into that ominous forest was not undertaken without some prior knowledge of the old and often fetid swamps, and the even older town that lie therein. In fact it was none other than I who founded the then idyllic fishing town of Hollow Shades. That had been back during a time when the forests that surrounded it were not so thick, and the water was clear and not so clouded and vile.

Over time, the isolated village became a dark and alien place, full of ponies who knew little of the goings-on of daily life as it had been outside the forest, and of whom little was known about save for a few expeditions by travelers who would divulge only minute details of what they saw of the eerie and unwholesome landscape. When asked about the town and its inhabitants themselves, their faces would grow pale and excuses would be made before they quickly departed, revealing nothing.

Indeed, the pony who had given the report of such terrible occult practices had only given a vague and mysterious account of what she allegedly saw in that town. Her dark gaunt eyes gleaming with unbridled terror, pallid wrinkled face twisted in fear, and unkempt grime spattered mane and tail may have lent some credence if not for the mad incoherent babble that spewed forth from her mouth.

She'd spoken of a harrowing escape from the town, but aside from that, not much else could be discerned. Her words were hushed, her sentences broken and incomprehensible, and her voice trembling with a fear she refused to elaborate upon in any great detail. When she had arrived at the castle, the Guard had refused to even let her through the gates, thinking her a complete madmare.

It wasn't until I had personally intervened that she was allowed an audience—something, I am ashamed to say, I regretted almost immediately. When she began speaking of dark forces, terrible rituals, and the unspeakably hideous world ending 'thing' which lay beyond, I was convinced she was every bit as mad as the castle staff claimed her to be.

Still, I had a duty to see to the safety of my subjects and if there was even the slightest chance that the mare's insane rambling held any truth, the situation would be handled accordingly. Thus did I send out those unfortunate Royal Guards who had yet to report back.

It was then that a sort of unease began to gnaw at me, and I found myself wondering more and more if it had been right to dismiss the mare's claims so easily. After all, neither Celestia nor I had given the town any thought in several decades.

When Hollow Shades was first founded, it had been at the behest of the citizenry that they be allowed to self-govern, and so, knowing little of what it meant to be a ruler at the time, my sister and I acquiesced without complaint. Since then, the town had been left to its own devices, an apparent mistake I had fully intended to correct once we'd discovered what had become of the Guards, the town and its citizens.

Tungsten Steel had been among one of the ponies who'd been there in the court when the mare, sick with fear, had told her frustratingly vague yet decidedly morbid tale, and of the three of us—myself and Whipping Wind included—it was he that wore his concern so openly. He could feel keenly the tangible shift in atmosphere as we finally reached the forest's edge, and had cautioned us against a brazen entry.

I did not blame him for his caution or his worry, for although I hid it well, I still felt the same sense of dread rising in my stomach. Even the colonel could not hide her discomfort completely, and, as Tungsten had suggested, we moved forward into the dense forest at a steady and careful pace, our eyes open and searching for anything out of the ordinary.

It had been late afternoon when we arrived and pushed into the thick underbrush, but as we made our way further into the trees the natural light from my sister's sun quickly began to grow dim to an almost unnatural degree. The forest itself was still and silent, producing not the sound of local fauna nor the ambient rustling of leaves in the wind.

Even the soft crunch of dirt beneath our hooves as we trotted ever further towards our destination sounded heavily muted in our own ears. There was most definitely something profoundly sinister in the air, of that I was all but certain, yet still nothing was immediately apparent within our line of sight.

Roughly half an hour past as we traversed the horrendously quiet forest, and the darkness had become such that a simple illumination spell was necessary for my two companions to see by. The unnatural shadows which surrounded us were a clear indication that there was indeed some dark magic at work, and it was very potent at that.

Another quarter of an hour into the forest and the trees finally began to thin out, though the way was still as dark as ever. Through the thinning trunks and the haze of shadow, the beginnings of the murky swamp could be seen up ahead, albeit just barely. The stench had become an altogether unpleasant mix of rotted plants, natural bacteria, and other horrible smells which I either could not or did not want to readily identify.

I stopped our small entourage just before we reached the treeline in order to observe the misty clearing that lay beyond. The majority of what I witnessed was shrouded in darkness, but the large swamp was clearly visible and I could see a complex series of low wooden bridges that connected the mainland to the small town that had been built above the water's surface.

We had finally reached Hollow Shades proper, and through the anomalous gloom could be seen the silhouettes of crude wooden huts, cabins, and small boating houses that sat still as a grave atop the surface of the swamp. I saw plenty of structures dotted across the large platform that held the town aloft, but what I did not see were ponies, and that worried me greatly. Something about the lack of moving bodies within the town's borders tugged at my mind, and the unease I felt grew exponentially.

A sudden tap on my shoulder caught my attention and I turned to see Whipping Wind silently gesture out towards the swamp, her countenance deeply troubled. Tungsten Steel and I followed her gaze and my own brow furrowed in bemusement at what I saw. There was some object floating in the dark water near the swamp's outer edge not far from where we stood.

Oddly perturbed by the sight, I gave one last cautious glance back towards the strangely empty town ahead and made my way closer to the object, silently motioning for the other two to follow behind. As I neared the object, I became aware of a strange sensation I couldn't quite place. Whatever this sensation was, it greatly repulsed me, and the closer I got to my destination, the more repugnant the feeling and smell.

It seemed not to affect the other two as strongly, but I could tell they were growing ever more uneasy. Even at as close a distance as we now were to the thing in the miry shallows of the swamp, the thing was still hard to make out in the darkness, but make it out I did, and I was horrified, disgusted and dismayed at what I saw, for the thing that had washed up near the shore was none other than the bloated muddied corpse of a pegasus stallion, its flesh swollen and rotted to a hideous degree and grimy greenish brown stumps were the wings had once been.

The smell alone was enough to make me wretch, but that was not the most disturbing thing about this corpse. What gave me pause was the odd, unpleasant sensation that seemed to emanate from the body. Though they were sickened the same as I was, both the colonel and lieutenant were able to verify the body as having belonged to one of the guards I'd sent out to investigate more than a week ago.

A pang of guilt gnawed at me then, swiftly followed by a slight shudder of disgust and worry as I looked upon the face of the poor stallion who'd lost his life in this dreadful place. Between myself, Whipping Wind and Tungsten Steel, none of us were strangers to the sight of corpses. Many had littered the battlegrounds upon which we fought valiantly for our homeland.

Though all out war was a relatively new concept to Equestria, my sister and I were not entirely unfamiliar with it, and had several centuries of life experience prior to the trying times in which we lived then. Still, the sight of so much bloodshed never became quite so easy to bear, and aside from that, there was something different in what lay before me there beside the dark swamp—something that unnerved me greatly.

The face itself was grotesquely twisted and deformed from swelling, but I could see plainly that it was locked in an expression of the utmost horror and agony, as if the last thing the guard had seen before he died was some kind of beast from out of his darkest nightmare.

And the unfamiliar yet, oddly necrotic atmosphere which surrounded the body like a shroud, it was unlike anything I'd ever sensed. The aura was similar in essence to dark magic, but not quite magical in nature; a lesser trained mage would've said there was necromancy at work, but I knew better.

This stallion's body had been tampered with by forces yet unknown to me, though whether it was before or after he'd shed his mortal coil, I couldn't say. As I beheld the corpse, I began to wonder at the fate of the other two Guards I'd sent here, and these thoughts, along with the body, brought a renewed sense of urgency to the mission at hoof.

Against Tungsten's protest, and much to my own shame, I chose to leave the dead stallion where he lay, at least until this horrid situation could be sorted out. While I did not completely throw caution to the wind, new haste was made in reaching the town. After crossing one of the many low bridges into Hollow Shades, we began our investigation in earnest.

Whipping Wind suggested we separate to cover more ground, but I advised against such an action, wary of the fact that we had no real idea of what lay hiding in the shadows. Both the lieutenant and colonel had brought weapons in the form of hoof and wing blades, while I myself carried nothing more than a small shortsword that could be wielded with magic. It was a precautionary measure that we hadn't expected to come into play, but now, in this ominous place, I was glad of our preparation.

Together we searched the town, making sure to stay quiet and avoiding large open areas. As we systematically scoured the town for suspicious ponies and clues to what had transpired prior to our arrival, it was becoming quite obvious that most, if not all of the inhabitants seemed to have some sort of strange obsession or fascination with an odd symbol.

We soon discovered that the many residences, shops, and other structures were just as deserted as the streets outside, leaving us free to enter and inspect without incident. It was during our search of the surrounding domiciles that we stumbled upon these strange symbols. The images consisted of a thin black six pointed star ringed by a thick circle. It was a rather simplistic design, but something about it seemed vaguely and eerily familiar to me, though I could not for the life of me think of where I would've seen such a thing.

The image had been placed in nearly every home, whether it be painted on walls, stitched into small decorative banners, cast in black stone as sculptures of varying sizes, or in a few cases, carved as a small pendant to be put on a necklace. I of course, wondered at the symbol and what it could mean, but these musings amounted to nothing with so little information to go on, so I set them aside.

Everywhere we went within the town, I could faintly sense that awful necrotic aura. It permeated the town like a thick fog and I could scarcely ignore it. It was beginning to make me physically ill, and with every passing moment I wished more and more to be done with this investigation and be gone from this place.

I'd asked Whipping Wind and Tungsten Steel if they'd felt the sensation as I did, but they had no idea of what I spoke. They admitted to feeling something ominous in the air, but that was to be expected and I knew that most anypony would feel the same in these unnerving circumstances.

I was unsure of how much time had passed since we arrived in Hollow Shades proper, but eventually we stumbled upon something of note in one of the larger, more lavish abodes near the town's center. During a sweep of the home, the colonel discovered a journal that had been sitting atop a desk in a locked study. Whipping Wind had managed to break the lock and find the journal, and judging by her pale face, it was clear she had taken a peek at the contents within and didn't like what she'd read.

She gave me the journal and I proceeded to skim through a few of the pages. With each new entry I read, my own confusion and horror grew to match that of Whipping Wind's. From what I read, I was able to discern that this journal belonged to one Onyx Thaddeus Pie. According to the journal, Onyx Pie was an earth pony outsider who'd come from afar to Hollow Shades roughly four years back with the intention of spreading the word of a being he'd referred to as the Dead Goddess Skal-Gazaath, an all powerful being who ruled over a realm separate from our own—a realm the journal's owner called the 'Black Dimension'.

Praise upon praise was heaped upon this 'Skal-Gazaath' by the stallion, and there were hints of gratitude for some kind of miraculous service rendered by the deity, but the journal gave no detail as to what this service was. Several key pieces of information in fact, were missing; information about this supposed goddess, information about the world she resided in, and information about Onyx Pie himself.

As far as these topics were concerned, from what little I managed to gather, there was just enough information to hint at something potentially groundbreaking and horrifying in the extreme, but not enough to make any solid conclusions.

Not much, if anything at all was said about his origins, but evidently Onyx had chosen Hollow Shades for its isolation and the general ignorance of its citizens, most of whom had never set hoof outside the town and knew little of what lay beyond the forest. Within the first two years of his stay he'd successfully dragged just over half of the citizenry into this insane cult of worship, and by the third year he'd converted all but the most stubborn of inhabitants.

Onyx had pulled his believers in with promises of a glorious eternal life beyond death, the limitless power found within the 'Black Dimension', and deliverance from all encompassing destruction once it came time to 'wipe the Old King from existence'. All this he promised in exchange for their undying servitude to this Dead Goddess.

All of it was utter nonsense born of a mind wholly removed from the realms of sanity, of that I was certain. Still, such notions were not what made my stomach turn and the bile rise in my throat. It was what Onyx Pie and his followers had done to those who refused to join his cult that sickened myself and the colonel as we read on.

Those that refused to conform were instead used in gruesome rituals the likes of which I dare not repeat. The unhinged earth pony had described in unflinching detail the inner workings of these rituals in his journal, and in reading over these details I felt my ire rise alongside the disgust.

What this pony and his cultists had done, I could see as nothing more than hideous inequine experiments performed on poor souls who could see the true horror of what their town had become in Onyx Pie's wake. My anger grew all the more when I read that the bodies of those who had not survived were simply dumped into the swamp and forgotten.

Before I could discover the reason behind the stallion's depravity, there came the muted sound of a struggle from somewhere above. Both Whipping Wind and I turned our surprised gazes to the ceiling just as a muffled feminine cry of panic rang out. The sound was quickly followed by more cries, angry grunts, and the frantic shuffling and thudding of hooves against hardwood flooring.

It was then that I remembered that the lieutenant had ascended the stairs to the second floor in search of more clues to this morbid mystery. The fact that he'd found more than a simple clue was abundantly clear by the noise, and with great haste, Whipping Wind and I made our way up the stairs to Tungsten's location, the wretched journal left atop a small dresser below.

The second floor consisted of a singular bedroom, largely empty save for a single bed pushed back against one wall, a sizable bookshelf fully stocked with all manner of tomes, and a simple desk cluttered with loose sheets of parchment, quills, and a few more tomes stacked atop one another. Dark curtains had been pulled over the only window in the room, and a strange scent of lavender and some unknown spice pervaded the air.

Overall the room itself seemed rather orthodox compared to the others I'd seen around town, and unlike the other abodes we had come across, it lacked any sign of the oddly familiar symbol I'd seen before. It also seemed the house still had what I thought at first was a resident.

Upon entering the bedroom however, I was shocked to find Tungsten locked in a struggle with yet another of the guards I had sent to look into the goings-on of Hollow Shades. The pegasus guard in question had been bound in chains—chains which it seemed had been partially undone by the lieutenant.

From what I could see of the mare and a closet door which lay open behind the two struggling ponies, Tungsten had pulled the mare from the closet, but was not fully able to remove the guard's binds before she began her wild, panicked flailing. The words the mare cried were wrought with pure terror and her features were gaunt and etched with fear and madness, much like that of the mare that had made her way to Everfree Castle.

Whipping Wind was quick to assist Tungsten in detaining the hysterical mare, but try as they might, they could do nothing to calm her. I took the opportunity to listen to the guard, and much of her fear addled ramblings told of chilling acts she'd bore witness and been subjected to. As she spoke, she seemed not at all to even notice who we were, despite the many reassurances of my two companions. Her eyes were foggy and distant—as though she were still trapped in the nightmare of her prior situation. Her wings had also been removed and the wounds left open to fester and her words, or what I could make of them, seemed not to be directed at any of us in general.

"Don't put me back in! Please don't send me back there! Not with those monsters... not in that darkness, not again! I can't take it anymore! The... the lights... the stars... are they stars? Why do they hurt? The voices are too loud... awful... can't think... c-can't... spinning... w-why is everything spinning?!"

And thus the mare continued on, completely oblivious to the world around her and the fact that she was in the presence of the Princess of the Night herself. Her mind was gone, her words as portentous as they were nonsensical. The hopeless desperation and despair in her voice sent chills down my spine, and guilt began to weigh heavily on me once again; guilt that I'd let her and the other guards suffer for as long as they had.

I had found two of the three guards I'd sent to Hollow Shades, and dreaded to see what kind of state I would find the last guard in. The thought spurred me into action, and using a simple spell, I sent the raving mare into a dreamless slumber in which she would remain until my sister and I could give her the help she desperately needed. With that done, I gave both the colonel and lieutenant the command to give medical aid to, and keep watch over the sleeping guard while I dealt with Onyx Pie and the rest of his zealous followers.

A mix of anger and worry bade me to go alone to confront the situation, but for all my bluster and determination, I was not prepared for the sudden shift in the atmosphere. Up until now, the nauseating aura I'd been sensing since my team and I arrived in town had been somewhat subdued, but as I made my way back downstairs, the strength with which I was suddenly assaulted by that appalling energy was enough to halt me in my tracks and nearly make me wretch right then and there.

I stumbled forward the rest of the way, pushing back against the rising bile in an effort to seek out the source, only to find nothing out of the ordinary as I reached the bottom of the steps. By the time I stepped onto the first floor, the aura had drastically diminished back to what it had been before. Wary and shaking with built up adrenaline, I slowly and carefully scanned the main room for any sign of life, but found nothing.

It was with a deep sense of dread that I finally noticed what had changed. I had intended on keeping the journal as evidence of the Pie stallion's heinous crimes against equinity, and had also meant to use it to discover his intentions. I had hoped the journal would reveal the depths of his machinations, but upon attempting to retrieve the journal, I found the spot where I'd left it barren, devoid of the object that held all the answers.

Something or somepony had entered the house and taken the journal. The realization set me on edge, my heart racing in my chest and my mind whirling with questions and possibilities, none of them comforting in the slightest. It may very well have been that whoever took the journal had some need for it and had not realized we were here, but in truth, I didn't believe that for a moment.

To me at least, it was far more likely that somepony knew we were here and was actively trying to impede our progress. It was far more likely that the pony in question was none other than Onyx Pie himself. If that was indeed the case, it did raise several questions, not the least of which was how he'd managed to take his journal and vanish right from under my nose in an instant. I was fairly certain that the awful sensation I felt had much to do with it, but was not exactly sure how.

In the end, I was left with far more questions than answers, but answers I did have all the same. I would simply have to move forward with what I already knew and hope that would be enough. Casting one last worried glance back towards the stairs, I left the house, all the while trying to convince myself that the colonel and lieutenant could take care of themselves should the need arise.

The journal was no longer within my reach, but I had read just enough to discover that much, if not all of the heinous rituals took place in a large clearing in the forest northeast of the town. With grim purpose and a watchful eye on my surroundings, I began to move out of Hollow Shades proper and back into the forest, praying I would make it in time to rescue the last guard and put an end to whatever mad ritual the townsponies had set up.

The journey back into the unnaturally darkened forest was just as taxing on the nerves as it had initially been upon the arrival of myself and my companions, but the discoveries I'd made had tempered those nerves somewhat and a sense of righteous anger kept much of my unease at bay. I felt that, as the Princess of the Night and protector of Equestria's ponies, I had not only a personal, but moral obligation to see to the end of this madness, and marched eastward with renewed fervor.

It wasn't long before the zeal with which I moved began to wane, quickly replaced by caution as that unpleasant tingling in my horn began to strengthen once more. With the mute stillness of the forest pressing down upon me from all sides, I continued east for what felt like another half mile or so, the sensation of being watched from every direction leaving me tense and more than a little perturbed.

Then, from somewhere out of the blackness before me, I began to hear several voices. They were distant and indiscernible at first, but gradually, I was able to make out the distinct sound of chanting. The low and haunting cadence temporarily froze me where I stood and for a moment, all I could do was listen with a slowly mounting sense of foreboding. The words spoken sounded nothing like any language I had ever heard.

The voices had a sort of ebb and flow, like the tides of the ocean, and the sound pulled harshly at my mind much like the sickening aura. So horrifically captivated by the noise was I, that I lost all sense of time, and it was only when the chanting grew louder and more fervent that I came to my senses once more. As the voices grew more frantic, so too did the weight of that otherworldly energy.

The aura swelled and rose until it became almost like a physical presence—like some horrible entity willed into existence; like a being that could not and should not be, but nevertheless was. Before I could register what I was experiencing, the frantic chanting was drowned out by a horrendous scream that pierced the air and sent chills down my spine. It was something wholly inequine; a wretched, tortured, agonized cry that would make even the foulest demons locked away in Tartarus recoil in horror.

The chanting then devolved into yet more screams, these far more equine, but no less chilling. The sounds that followed thereafter were of a completely different, and far more grisly nature. The distant and somewhat muted sounds of grinding and crunching reached my ears, punctuated by a series of wet squelches, the distinct noise of trees being felled, and heavy impacts fit to make the ground beneath my hooves quake slightly.

An abominable chorus of terrified screams and unearthly wails played all the while, and somewhere in the vile cacophony I could just make out the sound of laughter. It was wrong, mad—the laugh of a creature unhinged, or perhaps possessed. The laughter eventually turned to speech, the booming voice of a stallion somehow making himself heard over all else. The words he spoke were once more in a language both eerie and unfathomable to me, but the zeal with which he spoke could not be denied.

Then, with one final cry from the stallion, silence reigned once more—crushing in its suddenness and intensity.

The noise had ceased, but the alien presence remained. The sheer malevolence in the air combined with what I'd just heard was enough to make me want to turn and flee the other way, but I was not known for my cowardice, and so, despite my fears and worries I pressed on, determined to finish whatever that twisted stallion had started.

Before I could travel too close towards the disastrous aftermath of whatever had transpired however, I was stopped again by another sound. It was nothing so drastic as what I'd heard previously, merely the simple sound of hooves crunching softly against the dirt and fallen leaves of the forest floor. I strained my ears and could just pick up two sets of hooves approaching; one set at languid comfortable pace, and the other coming just as slow, but with far more uneven gait, as though the creature the steps belonged to had imbibed a bit too much hard cider before heading home.

Along with the shuffling steps I could also hear the familiar clank of metal on metal and deduced with a cold shiver of realization and despair that one of the two approaching entities was wearing armor. My worst fears were indeed realized when at last the two beings slowly came into view. The first to stand before me was an earth pony stallion. With his black coat, he would've been nigh impossible to see in the all encompassing darkness if not for the vibrant orange and grey that made up the curls of his mane and tail and the haunting, almost too bright glow of his cerulean irides.

I was unable to make out his expression in the gloom, but there was something in those eyes that did not belong there; something otherworldly, something that told me this stallion was not quite the pony he appeared to be. Truly he was a most unsettling creature, and in my mind there was no mistake that I was in the company of Onyx Thaddeus Pie himself. Still, despite having every intention of bringing this stallion to justice for the atrocities he'd committed, it was not his presence that kept me rooted in place.

Rather, it was the atrocious and oppressive malevolence of the thing that followed after the earth pony. Though there was something horrendous and ominously out of place about the stallion, I, at the very least, could still identify him as a pony. I could not call the abomination that trotted beside him anything of the sort. In my vision stood another pegasus mare—the last of the guards in fact, fully armored save for the head.

Her amethyst eyes were cloudy and unseeing, and her features expressionless. Her posture was terribly unsteady and her violet coat and straight cut cobalt blue mane and tail were dirty and frayed. Unlike the other two gaurds, the mare still had her wings, a surprising fact, but irrelevant in the face of everything else about her. Visibly she looked the part of an animated corpse, and Onyx her necromancer, but that couldn't be further from the truth as I sensed it. Aside from her appearance, there was nothing about this mare—this thing, that was remotely equine, not anymore at least.

From what I could feel of the two, it was almost as if Onyx was the servant and the shambling corpse-like pony thing was the one in control. I knew not what to make of what I saw and sensed, and received no time to parse the situation before the stallion spoke. His tone was calm, confident and casual—much as though we'd both met during a leisurely stroll through the public Everfree Gardens.

"I thank you from the bottom of my heart, princess, for while She in Her infinite generosity has blessed me with much of what I need to continue my legacy, you have provided me the final missing piece—the Vessel I required to house Her power if you will, imperfect and temporary as it may be."

He spoke these words, and though I could not fully see his features, I could hear full well the genuine gratitude in his voice. After speaking those portentous words, both the stallion and the thing wearing the pegasus mare like a second skin sank back into the darkness and were gone from both my physical and thaumic senses, much to my shock, anger, and though I would refuse to admit to the feeling outright... relief. Though the latter did not last long, as Onyx Pie's last words filled my ears; a dark disembodied whisper carried on a non-existent wind.

"You will never see me or this mare again, princess, but in gratitude for what you've given me, I've left you with a gift; a keepsake of sorts. I no longer need it, as I've been given a new keepsake of my own to take care of by Her will... farewell, princess..."

And with that, the unnatural shadows began to lift from the forest and all faded back into a natural silence. Slowly but surely, the sound of rustling flora and chittering fauna began to return and I could feel a cool wind whip through my starry mane. As the darkness around me vanished, the amber light of the low hanging sun filtered back through the trees. It was only when I felt the cool but comforting embrace of the moon's energy just below the horizon that I realized my connection to the celestial body as well as my grasp of time itself had been tenuous at best.

Both my sister and I were bound to our respective celestial bodies, Celestia the sun and I the moon. It was our task to raise and lower each on a fixed schedule, one that was easily maintained through the use of magic meant to augment our internal clock. Now that the atmosphere had returned to normal, I found myself baffled and shaken. Baffled at the fact that hardly any time at all had passed since my companions and I had entered the forest, and shaken by the implications of what that and my weakened connection to the moon meant.

I could make no sense of it, and so decided to focus on the current situation, as the mystery of what transpired in this forest and in Hollow Shades had yet to be solved. With that in mind, and with thoughts of Onyx Pie's final words hounding me, I continued deeper into the forest until I finally reached a clearing further ahead. The chaotic multitude of sounds I had heard would have no doubt suggested some hideously macabre outcome, and I had well prepared myself to see just such a thing, but was once more shocked into open mouthed silence at what lay before me.

Many of the trees around the clearing looked like they had been torn out by the roots and flung about, and there was certainly evidence of some ritual taking place based on the large and oddly simplistic stone altar in the center of the clearing and the scattered and broken candles strewn about the ground, but that and the many deep grooves in the dirt were the only signs that anything had happened at all. Where I expected to see the maimed and broken corpses of cultists, and despite the heavy scent of blood that had wafted through the trees during whatever had transpired, I saw nothing of the sort.

As I searched the clearing, I could find no bodies, not a drop of blood anywhere to be seen, not a feather, a single lock of a mane or tail, or any fur whatsoever. If it hadn't been for the felled trees, the altar, and the heavily disturbed soil, I would've been convinced I had imagined the whole thing. There was however, one thing that stood out among the carnage that had taken place.

Atop the altar, sitting in plain view for me to see, was a book; a journal to be specific, and none other than the same journal I had come across in the large house back in Hollow Shades. It took a moment to understand, but as I took hold of the journal I realized that this was most likely the 'gift' that the stallion had mentioned, one I chose to accept in the end, if for no other reason than to continue my investigation into the grim events that had befallen the town and its ponies.

It was true that I had yet to find the information I needed from the journal, but I'd hardly had the chance to give the book a thorough reading, and was sure I'd find the knowledge I sought with time. In light of what I'd read and what I'd heard and seen in that town and the forest surrounding it, I chose to continue my research alone, swearing both the colonel and lieutenant to secrecy regarding the matter. Celestia and Equestria as a whole had suffered far too much already, and this I felt was not something that should be shared with the world at large with all the problems currently plaguing society.

I discovered within that journal terrible truths best left to rot in the darkness of obscurity—entities and powers that were, and should remain beyond our understanding. I knew not how Onyx Pie had come across this knowledge, but I was determined to keep such information out of the hooves of the public, lest this tragic event repeat itself. With that resolution in mind, I began my grim work. Fabrications were made, deals were exchanged and documents were forged regarding Hollow Shades, the investigation and population therein, and the ultimate fate of the three guards.

The mare that had initially escaped from Hollow Shades was officially deemed insane and I personally removed and destroyed utterly every trace of occultism I could find from Hollow Shades. Though it pained me greatly to do so, I also recovered the bodies that had been thrown so carelessly into the swamp and burned them from existence. The pegasus guard that had survived the ordeal was sent to a psychiatric hospital, though she remained in a catatonic state for the next few years before finally passing away. It was a tragedy to be sure, and I was there to mourn her loss along with those who loved her, but deep down I could not deny that it was an unexpected boon on my part.

I spent several months studying the journal in secret, and many more years seeking the whereabouts of the stallion that had caused so much horror, and in that time I learned much more than I ever wanted to know about this realm, and the other. Unfortunately Onyx Thaddeus Pie had been true to his word and as more and more time passed, I never found hide nor hair of him or the creature I now knew to be the vessel for Skal-Gazaath's power. I also knew from the stallion's words and his journal that he'd been given some kind of treasure to hold onto for this Dead Goddess, but I failed to find out exactly what it was.

A little over a century passed and I eventually gave up my search. Convinced I had learned all I could from my limited resources and buoyed by the fact that nothing else seemed to have come from the stallion's actions that day, I destroyed the journal and attempted to fully focus on my duties as a Princess of Equestria. Hollow Shades had long since been abandoned and become a ghost town avoided by all as far as I knew, and I did my best to put the entire ordeal out of my mind, with great difficulty. It was only after Equestria had finally regained its peace that the memory faded enough to be ignored, and by that point I had already come to resent my sister and her more prominent role as a ruler in the eyes of Equestria.

Now, well over a thousand years later, and during the advent of my long awaited return no less, I stand once more before yet another Vessel for Skal-Gazaath. I didn't want to believe it possible, but this mare reeked of that presence and worse yet, she was far more complete—far more alive and lucid than the previous Vessel had been.

The uncanny similarities between her appearance and that of the previously possessed mare, while not completely one-to-one, were nevertheless absolutely striking, and to me it was a sign that I was a fool to leave things as they were. I had no idea of the game fate meant to play against me, but it was all too clear that my glorious return would be met with peril the likes of which I could have never prepared for.

Author's Notes:

So initially I had intended to make a sort of flashback chapter from Nightmare Moon's point of view, but I myself am not really all that fond of flashback chapters. With this in mind I pondered on how to best go about it, and realized with what I was planning to write about, this would be the perfect opportunity to give the story that classic Lovecraftian flair so to speak.

As of right now I'm only intending to write in this style for this chapter (this story initially wasn't meant to be written in this style at all and I have another fic written more or less entirely like this anyway) but that may change in the future if another specific opportunity arises.

As an addendum I'm aware of Hollow Shades role in canon and the fact that it existed prior to Celestia and Luna becoming Princesses due to the whole thing with Mage Meadowbrook, but I've made some major alterations to history which necessitated the AU tag. To those who don't care for the change, I'm sorry, but the idea was there and I couldn't resist writing it, and to those who don't really care either way, hope you enjoyed the chapter.