When Grogar told Twilight to cease her studies, she had been loathed to do so... but not nearly as much as she would've thought.

She stood before the ram who sat behind his desk, eyeing her with no small amount of disappointment. The sight would've normally made the filly cringe and look away with shame... but she found she just couldn't muster the energy to care all that much.

The small pang of fear and shame wasn't enough to warrant any kind of reaction out of her, and she found that incredibly odd to say the least.

As she puzzled over her own reaction—or lack thereof—Grogar narrowed his eyes slightly and leaned forward over the desk, crossing his cloven hooves as he did so.

"Feeling a little off at the moment, are we?" Grogar asked after a minute, "feeling a bit dull and uninspired? Somewhat listless perhaps? Apathetic?"

"I'm mostly.... confused, Father," Twilight replied slowly, "I do feel a little tired, and like something is wrong, but I don't know what the problem is."

She raised a hoof to her chin and looked up thoughtfully, a contemplative silence falling over her. Grogar didn't speak, instead waiting for the filly to continue, which she did a moment later.

"I've been trying to use Soul Magic, but it hasn't been working like it normally does," she said in a flat tone, "I've been doing exactly as you taught me, but it's not working for some reason, and I haven't been able to figure out why."

She lowered her hoof and looked back at Grogar expectantly.

"I'm assuming that's the reason you told me to stop my studies?" she asked pointedly, "is it because I'm failing? Was there something obvious I was missing?"

Grogar remained silent for another few moments as he eyed the filly with an unreadable expression. Twilight didn't squirm beneath his scrutiny as she normally would've—another thing the filly noticed and made note of.

Eventually Grogar gave a long suffering sigh and leaned back in his chair before speaking again.

"I cannot say I'm all that surprised," Grogar said in a resigned sort of tone, "though I do confess at being somewhat disappointed given how excellent of a student you've been up to this point."

Twilight blinked.

"So I can assume that means I have overlooked something in my studies?"

"Yes, child," Grogar answered as his red eyes burned brighter, "but I cannot completely fault you for your ignorance... after all..."

The Black Compendium lifted itself off the ground next to Twilight and floated over to the ram. It set itself gently down onto the desk before him and with that done, his eyes dimmed once more.

"...while this tome is extensive when it comes to knowledge of Dark Magic," Grogar explained, placing a hoof on the cover of the book, "it makes no mention of the world we currently inhabit, and thus, does not account for the shift in ambient mana."

"The shift in mana..." Twilight repeated with a thoughtful furrow of her brow, "so... you're saying that my repeated failures have something to do with the change in the mana permeating the air of the Shadow World?"

"To an extent, yes," Grogar replied with a single nod, "I had hoped you would realize the error in your methodology on your own, but it seems that was too much to ask for."

Again, Twilight was struck by the feeling that she should've been offended or indignant, but the only reaction she could muster was confusion.

"What do you mean?" the filly asked, tilting her head with a slight frown of bemusement, "I did everything exactly as you told me to. What was wrong with my methodology?"

Grogar was again silent for a time as he contemplated the lavender filly before him. Another moment passed and he slowly nodded once before his horns lit up with a dull pink glow.

"Come, trot with me, child," he commanded as the world melted around them, "there is a task you must undertake, and while I had hoped to put this task off for awhile yet, I fear that is no longer an option."

As Grogar finished speaking, the world returned to it's normal state. Once Twilight had shaken off the disorientation, she saw that they were once more outside the castle... but something was different.

It took the filly a moment to figure out what it was, but when she did, her eyes widened slightly.

Moonlight.

The land around her had been bathed in the pale glow of the moon. She turned her surprised gaze skyward and, sure enough, the round disk of light sat like a beacon in the darkness, illuminating everything below.

The sudden appearance of the moon did nothing to comfort the filly. If anything, it made her uncomfortable.

Even in her strange state of apathy, she could feel something cold, malevolent, and powerful about the pale light the moon cast, yet Grogar seemed to pay it no mind as he spoke to Twilight.

"Come, child," came Grogar's somewhat impatient voice, "I will discuss with you the reason why your methods failed to produce the results you desired as we make our way to the city."

"We're going back to the city?" Twilight asked in confusion, "why are we going back? Is this task supposed to take place there?"

"Not quite," Grogar replied with a small knowing smirk, "but this task requires us to run an... errand of sorts within the city of Tambelon."

He glanced down at the frowning filly and chuckled.

"I think it's also time you met the denizens of my once fair city," he continued, "they're ready to awaken now, but we mustn't dawdle lest we miss our opportunity."

Twilight wanted to ask what the demonic ram meant by that, but decided she'd find out soon enough. There was still the more important question of what the appearance of the moon meant.

Although...

"Father," Twilight began, looking up at Grogar as they trotted down the stony path, "that moon obviously wasn't there before, so why did it appear now? And does it have something to do with the townsponies being awake?"

"Not all of my citizens are ponies," Grogar corrected in response, "but yes, the moon acts as a guiding light, coaxing souls out of the darkness of their eternal slumber and into the waking world."

At Twilight's bemused expression, Grogar shook his head.

"In your more modern terms," he offered instead, "you can think of it as an 'alarm clock' of sorts—waking the citizens from their slumber and allowing them to roam the earth once more."

"Roam the... wait," Twilight stopped in her tracks and looked at Grogar in genuine surprise, "Father, when you say 'eternal slumber', do you really mean that the ponies—er... creatures in town are... are they undead like me?"

"Not like you, child," Grogar replied as they made their way closer to the city gates, "they are a cursed type of undead, mere puppets, forced to dance to the tune of the magic that permeates this realm."

"What... does that mean?"

"You'll soon see for yourself, Twilight Sparkle," Grogar said as they stepped past the gates and into the city, "there's still a bit of time left, until they awaken, but let's not speak of this anymore—at least not for the moment."

The ram went silent for a moment as he finally turned his attention to the moon—a slight frown adorning his features.

"The ambient mana of this realm is quite different than that of the realm you came from," Grogar began, not taking his eyes off the moon above as he spoke, "but you've already felt this for yourself."

Twilight nodded uncertainly, not quite sure yet of where Grogar was going with this. Grogar looked back down at the filly with a serious expression before continuing.

"Tell me, child, how did it feel to channel this world's mana through your wellspring for the first time?" he asked, "if the mana itself had emotions, what do you think they would have been?"

Twilight didn't quite understand the question, so rather than answer right away, she sat on her haunches and frowned at her hooves. Her frown became a grimace and she closed her eyes as she thought about both the question and it's answer.

"I... when I first channeled the mana, it felt... wrong," the filly replied slowly, "but that's not all. If I think about it in terms of emotion, then... well... I can't quite put one specific emotion to it... but it all felt... negative."

Her eyes snapped open as the realization dawned on her.

"Like the emotions you'd use when casting Dark Magic," she breathed, "that's why my Soul Magic wasn't working."

Grogar grinned slightly as a small spark of life returned to Twilight's dull amethyst eyes, though it had gone as soon as it came. Still, the filly continued—her feelings muted, but her mind still putting the pieces together.

"I wasn't trying to cast Dark Magic, and while the ambient mana feels... sinister in nature, it isn't specifically Dark Magic. It's more like... more a like a complement to Dark Magic than anything."

"And how does this relate to the mistake you made when trying to cast regular Soul Magic?" Grogar pushed, "what did you do wrong?"

"It wasn't that I had somehow gotten the spellwork wrong," Twilight replied, pacing about the area as Grogar looked on, "it was more that I wasn't in the right frame of mind.

"Of course, the change in ambient mana would have a drastic effect on Soul Magic and how it's invoked. I knew that, but I guess I didn't really register the fact... until now anyway."

"Very good, Twilight Sparkle," Grogar responded with a single nod of acknowledgement, "and how do you propose to fix such an issue?"

Twilight slowed to a stop and lowered her head, frowning in thought. A moment later she raised her head and, rather than answer directly, she lit up her horn and, with what little feeling she could muster, focused her thoughts on her own death and the death of her parents.

As she channeled her altered mana into her horn, she finally realized just what had happened and why she had been so disconnected from her own feelings.

She was losing them, and with that realization came another. In her current emotional state, she was able to remain detached enough to realize the one important fact Grogar had been trying to impress upon her.

Raw negativity was the fuel that powered Soul Magic in this realm.

With that in mind, she aimed her horn at a nearby rock as big as she was, and wrapped it in her dark violet aura. After a second or two, it morphed into a plain wooden stool.

With a simple shift of emotion, the Transmogrification spell took almost no effort.

It wasn't the memories that were important—or even the sadness, despair, and longing specifically. It could be any kind of emotion, as long as it created negativity.

The only real difference between Soul Magic and Dark Magic in the Shadow World was intent, and even then, that line was ill defined at best.

In that moment she realized that the Harmony she had known and lived by for so long wouldn't help her here. Grogar had been more right than the filly knew when he said she'd have to abandon the tenets of Equestria's idea of Harmony.

In this realm, with her mana changed from what it once was, she'd have to more or less embrace Disharmony if she wanted to continue using her natural born Soul Magic.

With what little emotion Twilight had left, she felt... conflicted.

On one hoof, this environment was perfect for what she was to learn, just as Grogar had implied. She also had no need to completely rework her methods like she feared she would—just a few mental tweaks was all it took.

On the other hoof however, she'd pretty much have to give up who she was as a pony. As young as she still was, even she knew that the constant use of negative emotions to fuel not just Soul and Dark Magic, but all of her spells, would change her drastically over time.

The thought didn't bother her all that much, but that was most likely due to the fading 'echoes' of who she was before.

Still, somewhere beneath the rising sea of apathy was a spark of panic—a fear of losing all emotion and the ability to cast Soul and Dark Magic.

For the moment, she pushed those thoughts aside as she observed her work. When she was satisfied that the spell had gone as planned she turned back to Grogar and waited for his approval.

Grogar gazed upon the stool with a critical eye. Finding no flaws in the spellwork, he returned the filly's expectant gaze with his own smile of satisfaction.

"I am pleased to see that you've figured it out, though I still wish you had done so sooner," he began before sweeping his eyes over the city, "by now I'm sure you've also realized that you're running out of time."

Twilight nodded once before tilting her head slightly.

"Those 'echoes' you were talking about are fading, aren't they?" she asked tonelessly, "I don't feel like I did before."

"Indeed, child," Grogar replied, still looking out at the empty city, "soon you will become nothing but a hollow shell of your former self... but that is anathema to my desires, and I do not wish such a fate for you."

His gaze suddenly shifted to the moon above as he spoke. Twilight herself began to feel an odd shift of something in the air. Despite her lack of sentiment, she began to feel a strange sort of giddiness.

No... it wasn't giddiness, but restlessness.

"In light of current circumstances," Grogar continued, not having taken his eyes off the moon, "I have decided to push ahead with the next phase of your lessons on what it means to be a lich, Twilight Sparkle."

A sudden surge of energy poured into the filly, causing her to gasp in shock and her horn to spark weakly. The pale light of the moon seemed to intensify and a biting wind suddenly blew across the land.

Twilight swore she could hear a low, keening wail as the gusts became stronger. At first, she couldn't discern where the sound had come from, but she found her gaze being drawn skyward almost against her will.

It was the moon.

The moon was wailing.

"Life fades unto Death, and in Death are we Reborn in an endless cycle... but that cycle is broken and the Moon Mourns anew, for it cannot complete the cycle..."

The wail had become all but deafening and the wind powerful enough to bend even the hardiest trees, but Twilight paid no heed to any of this.

She also failed to notice the nearly blinding violet glow of her eyes and the bell around her neck... as well as the rumble of the earth beneath her hooves.

She stood transfixed by the sight of the moon above her.

"And so, unable to find true peace in this broken cycle, these Lost Souls rise once more to haunt the Land of the Living. So has it been since the breaking of the cycle, and so shall it be until the cycle is whole once more."

Grogar had never once taken his eyes off the moon as he spoke. Unbeknownst to Twilight, each and every bell around Grogar's neck blazed with the same pale white light of the moon.

As the rumble of the earth grew, the light of Grogar's bells darkened. The light continued to darken until there was nothing left but a darkness as black as the void.

The low, deep clang of a bell rang out once, then twice, then three times. The sound cut through the howl of the wind and the rumble of the earth, shaking Twilight to her very bones with its tone.

When Grogar finally turned his gaze on Twilight, his scarlet eyes blazed with a power she could scarcely believe. When he spoke again, Twilight felt the might of his words in every fiber of her being.

"Bear witness, my child. Watch as the city of Tambelon awakens under the light of the Mourning Moon."

And Twilight watched.

She watched as the ground rumbled and cracked and split throughout the entire city. She listened to the cries of thousands of voices that had remained silent for far too long.

She looked on as the city itself took on the same pale glow as the moon. The streets, the buildings, the walls, the trees, everything within Tambelon began to change.

Trees sprouted bright green leaves—the blackened wood giving way to healthy brown branches. Dry, brittle, and flaked stone became hardy and polished.

It was as though Twilight was watching time flow backwards. Both the structures and nature within the city were all reverting back to their former glory right before the filly's eyes.

Still, as wondrous as the sight was to witness, the thousands of rotted, decaying bodies pulling themselves out of the ground throughout the city created a stark and rather horrifying contrast.

It didn't last long however, as the rotting corpses also seemed to be under the influence of whatever was fixing the city, and their flesh was soon whole and unblemished by death just as the city was.

Had Twilight bothered to look towards Grogar's castle, she would've seen the same effect taking place. The castle itself was restored, though no less oppressive than it had been before.

The sheer impossibility of what she was seeing was enough to bring forth a gasp of awe from the nearly emotionless filly.

Beneath the light of the Mourning Moon, the Kingdom of Tambelon had awakened once more.

Took way too long, but in my opinion, it was worth it. The good stuff comes next chapter.