You will arrive along the old road. Luna continued the letter. The old road to Ponyville, now with a different, tenebrous look to it, following the country side and entering the extended forest that grew around the simple village. In this road, sister, you will face many dangers. Viciousness and altered minds occupy now the surrounding woods, ready to kill, waiting for the pray, and perhaps even other eldritch horrors. So prepare yourself to face the worst, and remember: The can be no bravery without madness. It will take you to hell, but in there we will find our redemption. The letter ended.
“Foolish of my sister to think I would fight my way into the castle with an army.” Luna thought to herself, sitting inside her chariot flown by two bat ponies, personal guards for Princess Luna. “I will just fly straight to our old castle and get this done. Regardless if this magic is natural from this world or not, it will not be more powerful than Alicorn magic. My sister has just grown old, I will get this done. I don't need an army of mercenaries to defeat an enemy that is unaffected by the magic of friendship.” She was confident. She felt like she was going to be able to finish this quickly, in hopes of rescuing her sister while there was still time, regardless if the letter told of her possible death.
Luna grabbed the chariot immediately after receiving the letter. She met Twilight Sparkle along the way, Twilight had never seen any of this or read about it in any book. The new threat was unknown, but still, Luna couldn't get her hopes down. Twilight commented on how the forest grew around the town quickly, and they couldn't do much to stop it, but she found a way of keeping it at bay for now. Ponyville had been evacuated except from some people who stayed behind to help the mercenaries with everything, but with everything the town was left in ruins, almost destroyed. Twilight mentioned how Celestia made an apparence there on her tree house unannounced. Celestia was accompanied by a roster of individuals who would arrive during the remainder of the week, but she still carried on into the forrest alone. Days passed and she received a letter about she being in charge of Canterlot and the forces to keep the forest at bay. It didn't make any sense, Twilight and her friends were usually the ones who would be in charge of dealing with a threat like this, but even their magic couldn't stop what was going on. Regardless, something had to be done. Luna finally boarded the chariot and left Canterlot.
Luna sighed. She felt her sister was still alive, and she wanted to make this right. From what she read on the letter, she felt indirectly responsible for those events. Still, Celestia only told a small number of individuals about this whole thing, and she couldn't help but wonder what kind of experiments underwent this place while she was gone and her sister felt the burden of being an only ruler.
The chariot trembled. “What is going on over there?!” Luna asked the guards.
“We don't know, it seems we are losing control!” One of the guards answered, worried. “Brace yourself, princess. We are going to crash!”
This was not good news. Luna held herself to the chariot as the trembling grew bigger and the direction they headed started slowly making it's way down. Turbulence grew and the ground approached faster and faster. Luna tried using her magic to help with the crash but it was no use. She felt powerless to the situation. They entered airspace above the new grown forest, and the trees only grew bigger. They finally approached the ground.
Luna hid inside her chariot, and closed her eyes, ready for impact. She heard the sound of branches breaking, she felt the impact of the first kick as they bounced of the ground, and then... darkness.
Luna slowly opened her eyes. She felt the dirt touching her whole body. as she lifted her face, she looked around. There were dead dark trees all around, the chariot had been turned upside down by the crash and left a trail as it crashed. Luna wasn't hurt, she felt alright and could easily get up, at least she thought she could.
She heard moaning, maybe from the two guards that accompanied her. She felt relief as she tried to get up to walk over to them. As she felt her weakness to get up, she heard the sound of a blade being swiftly unholsted. Luna felt worried, a cold feeling went down her spine, and as that happened she heard a whisper, pleading for mercy. It was from one of the guards. Then a gasp was heard, as the life of the guard possibly slipped away, and the laughs of the executioner and his friend were heard.
Luna felt scarred. What if they found her, after all, it's not everyday the chariot of princess crashes into nowhere. But then she remembered. Her magic was powerful enough, she could easily deal with bandits. She forced herself up, unfamiliar with this feeling of physical weakness. She stumbled and then supported herself on the chariot while she got up. Getting her face up again she faced two individuals.
One of them was a big as Big Mac, a full grown stallion, and earth pony fit for physical works, wearing what appeared to be light armor, quickly put together in a hurry, offering little protection and and a steel helmet and was armed with a whip. The other one was a unicorn wearing a mask, he levited a small flintlock rifle. They both looked like general citizens of Ponyville, but the look in their faces, and the recent interaction with the guard told Luna that their attitude was different, and maybe that their mind was broken.
The unicorn pointed the rifle at Luna, the click on the rifle told it was loaded and read to fire. The cruel look in the unicorn's face told Luna this was going to hurt if she allowed this to happen. She was quick, her horn started to glow as Luna casted a spell. She imagined this was going to be good enough to knock the two down so she could continue her way to the castle.
The spell failed. At the moment it was supposed to go, nothing but sparkles left her horn. Luna was surprised. Suddenly, her physical weakness and magical inability all made sense. While she didn't know why, she knew magic wasn't as strong here as she thought. Unfortunately for Luna, that only cost her her life. She closed her eyes, not to see when it would all be over.
The explosive sound of the flintlock going off could be heard from all the forest, but the sound of blood painting the ground was almost silent. Luna didn't felt anything and she worried if death was painless as it was. She opened her eyes only to find she stood on the same place as before, but now only the big buck stood in-front of her, surprised as even him didn't understand the situation. He quickly turned around, one hood picking the holstered whip in his belt. Luna, still opening her eyes, looked closer to the big pony as the situation quickly happened in front of her and her vision unblurred. As the pony raised his whip for an attack and let out a scream for combat, he was quickly stopped by a blade piercing right through his face, leaving the head from the back. A gasp of death was heard and the blade retracted.
The body fell only to reveal two other individuals. A dark coated gryphon wielding a flintlock pistol and a dagger, wearing a bandanna and a coat made of fur, accompanied by an armored, regular sized, earth pony, wearing full body armor, a helmet, and a long sword, a set better, and arguably more expensive, than the regular guard in Equestria and those who wore that armor were called Crusaders.
“Quickly, follow us, we will get you to Ponyville!” the gryphon said. “There is no time for introductions, we will answer any questions back in the town.”
Luna, confused and weak, now with her coat all painted by blood, felt that was her only choice. She left the support of the chariot and went back to her four hooves, quickly following the crusader and the gryphon, looking behind for a moment to see the corpse of one guard, half burried under the chariot, dead probably since the crash, and another with his neck sliced open and a blood pool forming around the cut. She switched her vision quickly back into the road, the Old Road, to forget the graphic view, and focus on making back alive to Ponyville.
The Letter.
Dear Sister,
Ruin has come to our land. You remember our old home at the castle we shared, with towers rising above the trees and stone shaped in such way to create one of the best landmarks Equestria could offer. We lived good long years inside the walls of that castle. Praised by our citizens and loved by all. Yet, it wouldn't be long until story took a different turn.
When I banished you to the moon, I was soon overcame by loneliness. The feeling of regret and the constant reminder of your banished led me to take desperate actions in search of a solution. Books in our vast library revealed a different kind of magic, unlike any other seem before, forbidden in every way, but my broken mind took a step forward. This magic did not require a horn to perform, instead it required construction, a ritual of opening of some gateway to unnameable power. Spending every resource the castle and the forest had to offer, I spend months trying to bring you back. Alas, the ritual was a lie, we brought corruption into the land and every stone of that castle was dammed forever and turned the surrounding forest in what Equestria calls now the "Everfree Forest". I found a way to hide it from everyone, and when you finally returned through another, more pure and magical way, I was relieved, I believed I could keep my secret hidden forever, or until I could not anymore.
Recently, as you may know I traveled to a far way land to resolve diplomatic issues. That was a lie, instead I returned to our old castle in Everfree forest, the corruption was getting out of hand and something had to be done. If this letter is delivered to you, it means I could not keep my secret, and, as worse as it may sound, I may have met my demise, and the corruption spreads quickly.
You remember our old castle. It is a festering abomination. I beg of you to return to our castle and reclaim the land back to Equestria, fighting back the corruption. This is no matter resolved with friendship, so I asked Twilight to stay in Canterlot leading the forces into keeping the corruption into the Ponyville areas. And you, Luna, you will command the forces to restore the land from the ravenous clutching shadows of the Darkest Dungeon.
