The Shadow Over Innsmareth

“Ia! Ia! Cutethulhu fhtagn!”

Rainbow Dash awoke screaming from the nightmare. What was that beast she had seen? What did those words mean? Why were these dreams haunting her? For the past three nights, her sleep was full of nightmares. She worried about herself. Was she going crazy? She looked outside and it seemed to be sometime after midnight. She wouldn’t normally fly off when there was so little light to see by, but flying was the best way to clear her head, so she flew.

The world seemed to make more sense while soaring above it at incredible speeds. She flew towards the moon, thinking of Luna who once tried to force the ponies to all live in darkness. It really wouldn’t have been so bad, she thought. But she and her friends -her wonderful friends- stopped Nightmare Moon’s threat. They had even learned to like Luna, despite her actions. Her friends might be willing to help her, might be there for her if she’d tell them about her fears. But she was Rainbow Dash! She has no fears. What would the other ponies say to her if she told them she was scared, especially of something from a silly dream?

“Rainbow Dash, it’s just a dream. Dreams aren’t real. The fearless Dash afraid of a silly little dream!” She imagined her friends mocking her.

No, they wouldn’t do anything like that. Or would they? Dash couldn’t stand to let her friends see her afraid. She would just keep it a secret. After all, it was only a dream, and these dreams would probably stop soon anyways.

She looked around her and realized that she had flown further than she thought. Ponyville wasn't in sight anymore, but the tall trees of the Everfree Forest were approaching fast. She stopped and looked around for any sign of where to fly. She heard a faint sound, like a distant voice calling for her. It grew louder.

“Dash! Rainbow Dash! Come this way! Come home!”

It must be one of her friends. Maybe they noticed her leaving and followed her in case she lost her way. She’d never tell anypony she needed help, but she was grateful. She flew in the direction of the voice, looking down towards the ground to see if she could see any of her friends but there was nopony to be seen. The voice kept calling her name. She knew her friend must be out there somewhere. It was probably just Scootaloo or Pinkie Pie following her again. She couldn’t blame them of course, she was pretty awesome, but they needed to stop. The voice grew louder and over the horizon she saw a body of water. She could have sworn she never flew over any water on the way out, but maybe she was mistaken. As she grew closer she saw buildings on the edge of the shimmering expanse. It seemed to be a little village, and the water seemed to be the sea. She knew something was wrong. The voice didn’t sound familiar, but she had to check it out. Whoever it was knew her name; maybe she had a fan she never knew about. As she neared the little town on the edge of the sea the calling stopped. She flew down and looked around but saw nopony. It was as if the town was deserted. She called out for whoever was calling her, but there was no reply. Looking around, she saw lights flicker on in a nearby house. She walked over to it and knocked on the door with her hoof.

“Come in.” She heard a strange voice whisper from the other side of the door. The voice sounded more like a frog croaking than a pony speaking, but perhaps she was just hearing things in her state of paranoid fear.

She pushed the door open, heard a whooshing sound of something metal over her head, then everything went black.

The sun rose over Ponyville and the ponies of the town were coming out to start their days. The Pegasi were out clearing the clouds, the Apple family was tending the orchards, Derpy was delivering Pinkie Pie’s mail, and Twilight Sparkle, as usual, was in the library studying.

“This doesn’t make any sense!” Twilight said as she closed and reshelved yet another book.

“What doesn’t make sense?” said Spike as he entered the room with some fresh muffins he got from the bakery for breakfast.

“I keep hearing these strange rumors about some town called Innsmareth. They say it’s cursed, but there’s no such thing as curses! I still can’t find any proof to the contrary, though. In fact, everything points to it! Strange disappearances and mysterious rituals are all I keep finding!” replied Twilight, seeming distressed.

“Maybe you should go talk to Zecora. If anypony knows anything about creepy stuff, I’ll bet she does.” Spike advised.

“Spike, that’s a great idea! I bet she knows all about Innsmareth and can explain all of these things! I’ll bet it’s just ponies acting silly about things they aren’t familiar with... like the way everypony was with Zecora before we found out the truth!”

Later that day Twilight Sparkle left for Zecora’s house, deep within the Everfree Forest, as Spike had suggested. There she would certainly find answers to this mystery.

The entire trip she was pondering the things she had read about this mysterious town. Many years ago, an earth pony ship captain named Rootbeer Marshmallow had returned from a long voyage and after that, the town’s gold refinery seemed to have exploded with gold production. A few years later, half the town mysteriously died and since then, all of the disturbing rumors about the town started. It doesn’t help, either, that there are many reports of people going to Innsmareth and never returning. As legitimate as the rumors might sound, they couldn’t possibly be true. There had to be some kind of misunderstanding.

As Twilight arrived at Zecora’s house the pleasant aroma of her favorite tea reached her nose. She knocked at the door and Zecora quickly came and greeted her, inviting her in, as she knew how much Twilight liked her tea.

Twilight, being polite, decided to just enjoy the tea and some idle chit chat while she drank her tea before getting to the reason for her visit. So, the two of them enjoyed the tea while talking about various subjects such as life in Ponyville and Zecora’s homeland.

After about an hour Twilight decided it was time to bring up what she was there for.
“Zecora, have you ever heard about this little port town named Innsmareth? I heard some ponies from out of town talking about it the other day and when I looked it up, all I could find were strange stories about how it was cursed and the ponies there were evil and all kinds of nonsense like that!”

Zecora looked startled as Twilight said this. “I know much about this Innsmareth you speak. Its townsfolk are very disturbed indeed.”

“Are you telling me the rumors are true? There’s no way that this town could be that bad. The ponies there might be strange, but these rumors have to be greatly exaggerated!” Twilight replied, nervously.

As they talked, Zecora explained how she came through Innsmareth on her journey to Equestria, and how they planned to sacrifice her to some dark god they worshipped. She had barely escaped by climbing out of a window in her hotel when they came for her. The tale was very frightening, but to Twilight, it was intriguing even more so. Twilight’s scientific curiosity kept nagging for her to investigate this strange town for herself and find out the truth behind it all, despite Zecora’s discomforting story and numerous warnings to stay away from such an evil place. Twilight discovered that a carriage to Innsmareth would be arriving in the not-so distant town of Hoofington in three days and decided to go visit then.