The Perilous Quest to Save Vinyl From Certain Demise

You take the path to the eastern side of the mountain, deciding to risk running into some strange wild creature rather than the sheer force of the mountain. This path may be a bit longer, but it's not nearly as steep, nor as dangerously unstable as the other side. Satisfied with your reasoning, you trot along the second pathway when the road forks, leading you to the mountain's eastern side.

You might as well start now, as you have a long way to go.

The pathway winds upwards slowly, and for the longest time, the going is pleasant and uneventful. You smile, taking in the serenity of the mountainside, the gentle breeze making the only sound from the world about you besides the steady clip-clop of your hooves.

As you pass by another bend on your way upwards, however, you notice something strange on the path ahead. Slowly, you creep behind a nearby boulder, and peek over the top, in case whatever lay ahead was hostile.

The creature you see horrifies you with it's gruesome form. It's pink, bare skin is hairless, save for a single patch, messily grown about the top of what she could only assume was a head. With no muzzle, but rather, a flatter facial shape, it's features were unlike those of any other beast in all of Equestria. And oh, how deformed and horrible were it's limbs, so much that it was forced to only use it's hind legs for support, the others dangling from it's sides. As if to make it all worse still, each leg ended by splitting into smaller parts, as if they were once hooves, but had been sliced by knives into almost equal parts.

At least it had the decency to cover most of it's body with a strange kind of fabric. You can hardly imagine what it's midsection might be like beneath, or worse yet, whatever strange organ it might use to reproduce.

The very sight of this creature disgusts you, as you watch this creature stand, slowly using it's hind legs to move in a strange kind of trot, swinging it's forelegs at it's sides. You barely look at the creature for long enough to realize that the tiny slits in it's head were eyes...

But by the time you do realize, those eyes stare back at you, widening as they focus in on your hiding place.

You duck behind the boulder, attempting to hide, but too late, for the creature has noticed you, and you hear it hobbling towards you on it's deformed hind legs.

"Holy crap.." You hear it vocalize, though you have no idea what strange method it used to speak. "Octavia? So this really is Equestria! I made it!"

This creature knows your name! Though you know you are decently famed for your cello playing, it still unsettles you that such an abhorrent thing should know of you. No matter how you looked at it, this was suspicious.

The creature approaches, and if you want to proceed to the mountain's top, you realize you'd have to either face this monster, or find some way around it. Perhaps you could also make peace, since it seems to understand speech, but one look at its gruesome body makes you absolutely sure that it could only be hostile. The speech might be just one of the ways it lures ponies to be its victims...

What should you do?

Ambush the creature when it gets close, and try to overpower it.

Avoid it, and try to find another way up the mountain!

Attempt to communicate with it, and reach some form of understanding.