Author's Note

The audio reading for this installment can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYrEVQiAGY0

Entries 15 and 16

Entry 15 – January 24th, 1123

I lament and report that things have gone dreadfully awry, and it is for shame in having played such a principal part in it that I have not written sooner.

The water fortification campaign worked splendidly, and by the time it was underway Jackson had already spread word among the pseudo-vampiric brood about the delightfulness a Bat Pony experiences at the taste of Changeling blood. There were a first few who tried it while answering the first wave of Changeling reports. Those in the brood who had not partaken could not overcome their curiosity, and within a week or so there were non-vampiric Bat Ponies trying the new substance for themselves. Almost immediately they were hooked, and it sent them into a fervor to slay more Changelings.

These consuming Bat Ponies became acute to the presence of Changelings, and I must say that the process of turning our non-predatory fighting force into one was far more expeditious than I had anticipated it would be. These hunters didn’t go on assignments anymore; they didn’t need to because they were voraciously pursuing the trail of another Changeling whenever they weren’t already sapping one.

The decimation in the Changelings’ numbers was comparable to what havoc could be reached if suddenly a quarter of Equestria decided to wage holy war against the Changelings. In fact, when consuming Bat Ponies sported numbers slain as high as 100 or 200 within a month of the leak of my word, even veteran Bat Ponies considered what fame could be gleaned if they would succumb to the blood fury.

We had made huge strides before we hit the twentieth of December, and I was already being commended for what historians were forecasting to be the decisive sweep that would force even the dastardly inexorable Queen Chrysalis to demand a truce even before our frenzied ranks could draw near her stronghold. Starfall was one of the biggest dissidents to my idea. Until the bloodshed ceased or Jackson died by some mishap, she thought she would never see her beloved again. Even the approving smiles from the princesses could not remedy the wound Starfall inflicted on me when last we met over a month ago when she confronted me for my “shortsighted and desperate attempt to seize glory”. Such a deviant postulation, however promising, should never have been acted upon.

Even my parents must’ve received word of my two breakthroughs, and I was receiving a continuous stream of payment from the Inqusition: one bit’s payment for each Changeling a frenzied Bat Pony managed to slay and report. This considerable sum funded research I had begun into how I could make the ponies’ hunger stop, but, as soon as word got out that I was pursuing such a thing, I was kindly informed that there already existed appetite-curbing spells, so I was relieved of that burden.

“Fearless thinking and perseverance were the only two things I could attribute my success to,” so I said to a few crowds I was hired to inspire.

Almost before the year turned, the first pony turned. In one of the countless raids on Changeling sanctuaries going on at the time, some poor Bat Pony drank his last, so we thought. Some thought he had taken too much blood at once. He had been sapping a Changeling when he summarily disengaged from the thing and turned to his comrades and vomited. Next, it was as if he froze. He dropped dead, stiff and cold as the cavern about him.

The soak’s funeral was held a day afterward. Somepony noticed that the undertaker had left the corpse’s mouth in a smile, and promptly the corpse arose with gleaming, red eyes and pronouncedly enlarged fangs, even for a Bat Pony. The shock of his returning had stunned all the attendees to the point where they gave him enough time to sap one pony there dry. He was slain after a dire and very bloody struggle.

I didn’t mean to, but I had nonetheless brought back the Vamponies. How stupid I was not to recognize Changelings as the link between us and that previously extinct species!

Thus, about a third of our highest-ranking hunters and countless others among our ranks were fated to become enemies of the order. We couldn’t track even a tenth of them down in time to stop their appetites from poisoning their souls.

I have plunged Equestria into a new age of fear. There is immense difficulty in slaying these beings at the given date. The old techniques for slaying them are contained in very few tomes, and their lack of use for almost a millennium forced them out of the Inquisition’s teaching. It’s also nigh impossible because most of us Acolytes have learned the weaknesses of our fellows so that we could compensate for them when we fight. It’s much like why a knight is constantly cognizant of the faults in his or her armor; the knight, just like one of our groups, falls when the weaknesses are exploited.

I returned to writing here once I ascertained that the Inquisition was not bent on slaying me for my mistake. If it was, I couldn’t possibly be writing right now. However, I cannot be in good grace because I have heard nothing from anypony involved. I have offered my supplications and apologies to Princess Luna, but our correspondence has terminated on her end.

As far as I know, Jackson has not come back. I engage myself now in trying to find a cure for the vampirism, but I’m afraid it’ll be of no use until I can have a test subject. Nopony in the early days ever sought a cure, so there is literally no knowledge on how this could possibly be accomplished.

I’ve used my coin to purchase viands in case I suddenly fall under siege here; they are stored in the basement. The mansion is enchanted against Vamponies, so long as there remains a closed door between me and the outside, according to a tome I found in the library. The enchanted copy of this diary in there seems to still keep my writing, and that’s nice, I guess.

I can’t bring myself to go outside at night, and I am alert even as I attempt to sleep. I turn off every light in here just in case some Vampony passes through the area. I will go out tomorrow to resupply myself with ingredients and storage phials.

Monetary opulence is an interesting thing. I can afford to keep a small sack of coin on me at all times, and, if I am robbed, it makes little difference to me. Of course, I carry my rapier for defense, and I have also resolved to keep this book on me at all times, for it is my only companion. The winter out here is cold, so when I go out I wear a scarf.

If there is a royal archiver monitoring this book, let it be known that I have three wishes:

I wish to remain loyal to the Inquisition and to fight this new threat in the manner I have described above.

I wish to be reassured against the coming night. I know that it is always darkest before the dawn, but night invariably comes again, and I fear it like never before.

I wish to be reassured that this isn’t entirely my fault, even though it is.

THERE IS NO DIGNITY IN EXILE.

Entry 16

In a panic, the date becomes no longer of relevance. It’s probably been two days or so since I last wrote, but I can’t distinguish the time from down here in the cellar. I probably should’ve started stockpiling water down here; I am now forced to get it from drinking from the damp walls about me. “Drinking” is probably not the best word to describe it; it’s barely enough to sustain me, as I must lick the cucumber-tasting mold on the surrounding walls.

The silence assails my senses. There is no sound from the exit to the pantry or from the boards overhead. I’d sing a dirge for myself, but I’m afraid my oxygen may run out before I complete it. It’s a shame that such a vital commodity is invisible.

There was no sum I could pay the engineer to get to my house in time before sundown. He had a schedule to maintain. I stepped off the train and hurried through the wooded path. I had no way to tell that my fears were justified before I was ambushed, but I realize now that the preemptory sensation of fear does not mitigate the fear which one experiences upon finding that it was well founded.

As I had my eyes trained on the branches overhead, I could not have braced myself for Steiner’s tackling me from the side. He, however, wasn’t prepared to face me. Strength training is the outlet for my paranoia, and, although I dropped my bag of ingredients upon his impacting me, I commanded our fall, swinging him about so that I fell on him. I stood up on him and bellowed in face in order to intimidate him, but he did not flinch, so I suspected there was some insurance he had.

I leapt away from him in time to dodge Jackson’s sweeping at me from overhead. I returned to the partially moonlit path so that I had better light to see them by. Their vibrant red eyes gave them away in the woody darkness, but I didn’t dare to look into them, for fear of being transfixed. Jackson, as I had run back to the path, had apparently picked up his stalking buddy, and when I looked back they were slinking toward me.

“Fancy meeting you two out here at this hour.”

They didn’t respond; they simply donned diabolical grins.

“Would you rather ignore an appeal to logic or a valiant warning?”

This time Jackson spoke in a voice of velvet, “Whichever you prefer.”

I took off and without looking back to them I called, “You’re better off letting me find a cure for you. Won’t you come inside and kindly bind yourselves so that I may begin researching one?”

They were pursuing me midair by now because I couldn’t hear their hooves hit the ground.

I barely saw where I was headed; the image of Jackson’s smile and his teeth was burned in my eyes. There was no way to draw my rapier without slowing my sprint, so I just ran.

When I ascended the gravel ramp, I noticed that my pursuers had slowed down, anticipating a magical barrier around the house. They couldn’t stop themselves, and the absence of a barrier led them to plow into the porch rails. I had opened the door for myself and slammed it, but I saw that it was nonetheless ajar.

Two sable left wings had been crushed but nonetheless were holding the door open. Their owners both hissed in hellish agony, but I knew I would not be able to force their wings from the door before they opened it themselves. I bolted through the dining room, slipping once on the floor and bashing my cheek against the wall. I heard the door open and resumed my flight to the pantry, opened the door, and slammed it behind me.

Pull as they might, they could not open the enchanted door without my consent, and they would not get it. I was obviously in the weaker position, but I taunted them all the same, just as one beckons an imagined figure in the darkness to fight even though he or she knows the figure is an innocuous fantasy. What’s more, I thought I heard them close the door behind them as they had entered after me. The silly force of habit has trapped them with me, and we shall see who outlasts whom.

The way is shut.

The scare hasn’t worn off just yet, but sleep beckons me away from the immediate danger. I’m sitting in a wood crate I was planning to fill with food; it keeps me out of the dampness.

Good night, my world.