Part I - A Newly Minted Scholar
From the files of Prof. Crimson Tome at Maneskatonic University:
It is with great trepidation that I take up my quill once more to add a new, and final, entry in a journal that I have not touched for longer than I care to remember. Yet now, in the twilight of my years, I feel compelled to explain – if only to some unknown reader – the reason for why I have never taken a student as my protégé save for one young stallion whom I retained many years ago. Perhaps I also feel the need to unburden myself of the terrible knowledge that I have steadfastly kept from all those around me. Perhaps, after I have written as much as my aged hoof can bear, my nights will no longer be haunted by visions of that unfathomable terror stalking the dark reaches of the Everfree.
As a newly minted scholar at the prestigious Maneskatonic University, my interests and endeavors always tended toward the ancient and, often, esoteric. Having written my dissertation on pre-diarchal Equestrian history, I found myself fascinated by the many tales of ancient civilizations and obscure factions that invariably derived from some half-forgotten oral history and then slowly passed into local myth and legend. In the pursuit of my passion, I often spent many nights under the stars, sitting around crackling campfires and listening to the strange and shadowy recollections of some aged, degenerated mare or stallion. And where my contemporaries would dismiss these stories as mere ramblings of a feeble mind, I was of the concerted belief that behind every barely remembered yarn and half-articulated tale, there lay a grain of truth to uncover.
In my fifth year at the University, I was granted a small classroom in which to conduct lessons on early Equestrian history, the trustees being of the mind that demand for such a class would be low. Much to their chagrin – I’d like to think – the course was oversubscribed three times in the first semester, and within a year I was rewarded with a large lecture hall in which to thrill my students with stories of alicorn cast-offs, slumbering elder dragons, and other such colorful fare.
The most esoteric of my material, however, I withheld from my rapt weekly audience, judging it too untested for presentation before eager young minds. But where the absence of certainty reigned, I thrived on the mere possibilities. Back then my free time was dedicated to unraveling the cryptic details of these stories and, where necessary, performing my own investigations to ascertain the truth (or, often, fiction) behind the many campfire tales that I would pick up on my travels.
In my seventh year, pushed by certain of my colleagues, I began searching for a like-minded student to take along on expeditions. Understand that I had no intention of taking an apprentice, finding that aspiring scholars – whether because of naiveté or sheer exuberance – tended to get underhoof more often than not. Nonetheless, my concerns were ameliorated by the benefits I could see from having a companion on my trips. Consequently, as the pleasant days of spring gave way to the summer heat, I offered my most promising student at the time a research position until classes resumed in the fall.
My new assistant was Clever Flanks, a name that I was not particularly thrilled by and he even less so. Nonetheless, he had proven to be the most able of my students and jumped at the chance to “get his hooves dirty,” as he put it. We scheduled a bi-weekly meeting where he and I would pore over reams of notes, journals, and parchments in an attempt to piece together some of Equestria’s long-forgotten mysteries. When we found promising leads, we would conduct interviews, perform on-site inspections, and huddle together at our next meeting to review our findings. With the help of Mr. Flanks, that summer we were able to confirm the route taken by the Hayzikites, a nomadic tribe of pegasi that were said to have split from the main pegasus society over unnamed (and some say macabre) religious practices. I won’t hesitate to admit that I became rather fond of Mr. Flanks, and regarded his scholarly progress with something approaching fatherly pride. Perhaps struck by some excess of sentimentality, then, I allowed him to extract from me a promise that he could rejoin me on expeditions the following summer.
The year that followed – my eighth as a scholar in the University – proved to be the turning point of my career at Maneskatonic.
Part II - Prof. Ebon Night's Letter
The scroll arrived in my mailbox without much fanfare and lay ignored and unread for nearly a week due to my hectic schedule in the final days of winter that year. When finally I had time to sit and review my correspondence, my attention was immediately drawn to the seal securing the parchment in place: the Royal Canterlot Library’s emblem.
Unrolling the thin parchment, I immediately recognized the hectic, hastily scrawled writing of my colleague, Dr. Ebon Night. He had departed for Canterlot on assignment some months back, and I was surprised to find that he was writing directly to me. While we enjoyed genial relations, we could hardly be considered friends. As I read the letter, however, the true purpose of his writing became clear: While investigating the banishment of Princess Luna (an area that I found particularly dull and overcrowded), Dr. Night had delved into the archives at the Royal Canterlot Library in search of contemporaneous accounts of the days immediately before and after the rise and defeat of the notorious Nightmare Moon. In his quest to uncover materials that none of the myriad other scholars had uncovered before, Dr. Night found himself, day by day, moving ever deeper into the Library’s labyrinthine stacks. After several days of searching, and having descended into the oppressively dark and narrow hallways beneath the palace itself, my colleague happened upon a most unexpected item – a copy of the Neighcronomicon written by the mad pony Abdul Al’Horsered so many ages ago. The tome, weather-beaten and charred by oxidation, was nonetheless in suitable condition for reading and Dr. Night, aware of my interest in odd and esoteric Equestrian history, thought it proper to inform me of the book’s presence in the Great Library.
The next week was spent trying to arrange a reason for traveling to Canterlot. The administration at Maneskatonic, though tolerant of my interests to some degree, was never entirely comfortable with the subject matter of my scholarship or the attention that it received from the student body. Nonetheless, I eventually convinced my Department Chair that the Royal Canterlot Library contained a most expansive collection of transcribed oral histories which would prove invaluable to my scholarship and could expand the scope of my class. With my traveling papers in hoof, I was soon on my way, having taken the first available train to Canterlot.
I arrived just after sunset, as I recall. Where most travelers would likely check into a hotel or perhaps find something to eat, I thought it more appropriate to visit the Library immediately to confirm Dr. Night’s story. Oddly, when I asked after my colleague, the guards at the entrance informed me that he had not returned since the day he sent me the scroll. Curious as that may have been, however, I put the issue to the side and proceeded to trace the route set out in Dr. Night’s correspondence, making my way through the spacious reading rooms and into the cramped, claustrophobic stacks of the Library’s inner-most halls. After what seemed like hours (but was likely only a hoof-full of minutes), I came to a long, spiraling staircase that descended down into the catacombs beneath the palace, its wrought iron guardrail bent and corroded in places, winding its way along the outer edge as the steps disappeared into the inky blackness below.
At the bottom of the staircase the hallway narrowed significantly, the ceiling charred black by the innumerable open, smoking flames that passed through its lengthy expanse. My prize, I understood from the letter, lay at the end of this tunnel, though I could not see through the stifling gloom that shrouded anything not touched by the light of my oil lamp. Continuing down the corridor, I passed shelves piled high with stacks of dusty books, musty scrolls, and yellowed, brittle loose parchment. As I walked, I began noticing something about the exposed walls – unlike the palace’s gleaming marble, the catacombs were built from much simpler granite and utilized a far more crude method of assembly. I wondered, somewhat idly, whether this meant that the catacombs were older than the palace itself; or whether the palace was simply rebuilt every few centuries or so to take advantage of newly-invented architectural techniques. For that matter, I considered whether the mad pony’s master work had been entombed below the Great Palace by its present occupants or had simply been left to molder by these, likely imagined, ancient builders.
My musings were cut short when a gleam at the end of the hallway caught my attention. Taking a few steps closer, I found that the light from my lamp was playing off the brass hinges of a large, dark tome that lay on a small pedestal at the end of the corridor. Only after I approached did I realize that the dark tome was the very prize I sought: the Neighcronomicon. Examining the book further, I saw that it had recently been opened – no doubt by Dr. Night – as the dust and grime that had accumulated on the pedestal appeared freshly disturbed. I ran a hoof over the cover, barely containing my excitement. For the longest of times the mad pony’s master work had been a rumor, spoken of in hushed whispers along with the Encyclopedia Marefactum and the diabolical Libris Draconicus. Some ponies had claimed that merely glancing at the text could break the reader’s mind. Others claimed that Abdul Al’Horsered had consorted with some unnamed (always unnamed) evil and had simply committed all the information he learned to the pages of his dread tome. None of this, of course, was going to stop me from reading the book and extracting from it whatever information I could to help in my research.
For days thereafter I returned to that oppressive tunnel, spending my mornings, afternoons, and (eventually) nights reading through the book and taking copious notes. Most of the material I read made little sense to me as I lacked the proper context to understand it. But every now and again I would find references to legends I had heard of in my other travels, each mention fleshing out the bare accounts that I had received from local ponies. But that all paled in comparison to the true prize: Al’Horsered’s tales of novel or forgotten places, times, and creatures. I took scrupulous notes on everything I read, and by the end of two weeks had nearly doubled the length of my list of legends and myths that I wished to investigate when time allowed. Considering that a job well done, and with my commission from the University expiring the next day, I boarded a train back to Maneskatonic, excited by the prospect of new adventure.
