怪談とポニー Ep2 - Factory Reset

“Hmm… Thorntwist was right!” Misty threw a quick look around the hall when the girls landed two by two between the conveyor lines. Denser in some corners, the shadows were still unable to hide any unexpected activity in the block from the eyes of the guards if any of them decided to check the factory windows. “We’re not supposed to be seen, mates!” she pulled her friends into the dark narrow passage between the nearest machine tools and gestured for silence.

Right in time, as the approaching hum of voices reached them from outside. Coming closer, two stallions could be discerned; thankfully, their tone was even – those two discussed something casually. The voices passed and the echoing silence fell again; rare specks of dust were dancing in the sloped rays coming through the upper parts of the factory high windows and throwing patches of soft light between dark silhouettes of the dead machine tools.

“You see?!” Misty made an exaggeratedly meaningful face causing Windy to snort and muffle herself with the palm.

Hiding behind the machinery, crouching in the gaps, in short dashes, the girls reached the far end of the production hall and rolled down the short stairs. There, at the basement door, Misty finally straightened up and took out the large bunch of keys, looking for the correct one. The girls took seats on the narrow stairs, waiting.

“Thank Harmony, the keys are labelled!” whispered Lacy, fiddling with her flashlight. “But I guess that the whole ring must be one heavy thing…”

“And noisy,” noticed Windy; the girl watched Misty, resting her chin on her fists.

“That’s among other reasons, why we start from the basement…” the unicorn filly fished out the right one and accurately shoved it into the lock, sticking out the tip of her tongue. “Here… it… is! Now…” the lock clicked twice with the key turns. “We haven’t a chance to explore the basement levels thoroughly, but… I have a strong feeling, there must be something important inside. Even if mister Thorntwist said that there were no accidents on the underground levels.”

With those words, Misty leaned on the handle forcedly; the heavy door turned on its hinges easily and silently as before, without a visible strain to pull. Stirred by the cool breath of the darkness inside, the girl’s hair fluttered around her face; Misty stumbled for a second and blinked pensively.

“Hmmm…” she shrugged, shaking away the feeling, and clicked her flashlight on, gesturing the friends to follow. With the sound resembling a soft, mellow kiss, the large door closed behind Flaunty going down last.

The four light spots swept about the light-grey monochromatic walls and ceiling, flashing out the cable harnesses and occasional flat lamps on the ceiling – details they had no time to spot in the morning. The hallway looked as if it underwent some sort of repair and refurbishing recently, with electrics and lightening being changed and modernized. It remained useless at the moment with the main power turned off. Girls’ flashlights were going to be the only available light source throughout their investigation. Misty involuntarily cringed.

Stopping for a moment, she lit the floor scheme Lacy Reins promptly took out and unfolded. The plan looked simple enough: one central gallery going into the newer block on one end and to the staircases and elevators on both ends; the number of rooms was connected to it by the closed doors – most likely storages at that moment, according to what mister Thorntwist said.

“Look! We need to check it through anyway,” Misty’s flashlight travelled across the plan. “Every nook and cranny! The same on the second level… Lacy, do you have the scheme?”

“Of course,” the earth filly adjusted her glasses. “I specifically asked mister Thorntwist for all the documents which could aid.”

“Good! Now…” the flashlight jerked towards the interconnection of the short entrance hallway with the main basement passage, pulling the opposite wall and two dark openings left and right from the darkness. A glimpsing dejavu feeling made Misty shake her head. “…mates, we have time till about half past eleven: Thorntwist said they would have shift change at midnight. We must check the basement and get into the machinery room before that.”

“Why, Misty?” reaching the intersection already and going to examine it, Windy turned back; the ray of her flashlight danced on the girls’ legs.

“Somehow, I doubt those sabotaging the factory were coming from outside of the building,” Misty caught up with the pegasus girl, pulling the rest after her.

“Why not? We did…” Lacy let out a tiny smile, shrugging.

“We were simply lucky: light on… wings, nothing heavy with us, we simply got in fast. Besides, we got noticed anyway, so…” Misty stopped, biting her lip. “Those bringing troubles here must have something to help them stage the so-called incidents. Do they usually bring stuff through the accidentally opened windows?” the girl made a sceptical face.

“Reasonable!” in the small dome of light formed by the girls’ lamps, Windy and Flaunty exchanged glances.

“But, we shouldn’t ignore that possibility completely!” Misty stated with confidence. “The production hall is where everything happens, so we’ll make an ambush there… Or,” she downcasted under her friends’ eyes, “better say, we’ll hide and watch. But until then…” she lowered her voice with emphasis. “I tend to think they come from inside… if we accept the insider idea, that means through the underground levels.”

“And that’s another reason we shouldn’t split no matter what!” added the girl meaningfully.

“And the first one is?” Windy could sound gamine, but the friends saw she was totally serious.

“I feel something is here,” simply said Misty, but everypony understood what she meant. “Some presence… But I can’t read it like in Canterton. I mean it was more transparent there,” the unicorn girl sighed. “I can’t feel its intentions here, even approximately… yet, only know there is… something. So, we keep together, mates!” she cut it peremptorily.

“Aye, ma’am!” Windy smirked and turned her flashlight into the intersection again.

“And keep your eyes open, please! It’s pitch dark here, we need to be careful.”

“Aye, ma’am!” with their nonchalance, Flaunty and Lacy made Misty roll her eyes; the four fillies slowly proceeded.

Sliding on the light-grey walls, the lights suddenly dropped into the void, as the girls reached the intersection. The hallway narrowed by the randomly stacked boxes ran into the distance on the left; the flashlights were unable to reach the end. Misty swayed her lamp side to side: the ray of light picked the same walls with cables, crates and numerous identical doors along the path. The square metal ventilation shaft under the ceiling sighed with the gust of air and tingled lightly sending the involuntary shivers down the friends’ spines and making Lacy and Flaunty instinctively flash it with their lights. Naturally, the girls spotted nothing except shiny metal duct with the latticed hatches and the row of dead lamps.

“It’s okay, girls!” Misty glanced at the duct lighting it for a second as well. “The wind must be coming inside through the shafts on the roof… Even if the active ventilation is disabled here either.”

“How long did they say this place was abandoned?” directing the light at her feet, Windy was examining the floor. “It looks clean to me, not that dusty it could be…”

“A week, he said. Maybe a couple of days more,” Lacy glanced up at her pegasus friend from the plan she held. “Right after the last episode they turned the power off and locked the old block completely, except the occasional security checks.”

“It doesn’t look as if they moved anything here since,” Flaunty slid her finger along the top of the nearest box: the faint cleaner stripe remained where she touched.

“More dust could help us find out if somepony was here, doing something unplanned,” noticed Windy catching up with Misty; the latter stopped at one of the similar doors and looked slightly puzzled.

“That would give out our presence as well, if somepony, who isn’t supposed to be here, is yet roaming the place,” the unicorn girl slowly scanned the door with her flashlight, alternating between the surface and the bunch of keys she held. “As I see, we have another problem at the moment!” turning to the friends Misty lit the keys on her palm.

Only a few keys from the large bunch were properly labelled: such as “Basement entrance”, “Second new block”, “Second level” and a couple of others. The rest had only numbers on them. The problem was in the nameless doors, as they could make sure of by lighting a couple of the nearest ones. Misty remembered how mister Thorntwist said that it was done after another accident when the thought of sabotage possibility firmly nested in his head. The idea was to complicate the access to the unauthorized areas for any strangers.

‘It didn’t look that it worked as intended,’ smirked Misty examining the door, ‘but it’s only making our job harder now!’

The girls herded at the door, meticulously searching the blank rectangle and the frame for any helpful clue, but it was Flaunty who spotted something useful thanks to her height.

“Oh! Here, look, girls!” she pointed at the small digits, thinly painted at the upper right corner of the leaf – they said “12”.

“Wait!” Misty started brushing through the keys quickly, finally finding one with the same number. “Let’s check.”

The key fitted as expected and unlocked the door in two turns, leaving the girls in the face of the dark gap of unknown.

“No electricity means no alarms and other… surprises!” Windy mischievously winked; she ran her flashlight along the door frame edge, then along the floor behind, as if making sure that it existed, then stepped inside. “Come in, pals,” called she quietly, “that’s a storage room.”

Windy’s flashlight jumped from one row of stacked boxes, which reached almost the ceiling leaving only a narrow gap for the light from the turned off at the moment lamps to spread, to another: the boxes and crates reached the far wall, seemingly being the only things in that room. Disturbed by the opened door and ponies coming in, the dust danced in the four rays of light. The girls quickly examined the storage, accurately walking to the end of each row: boxes and only boxes, no crossing passages, nothing else. Not fitting any completed row, the few of them lied freely at the entrance, forming a smaller stack.

“Finished crystals,” the golden aura carefully peeled the duct tape off the upper box; Misty peeked in. She flashed inside, showing the friends the crystals about of index finger length, packed with long curly hay strands. “Nothing fancy!”

Checking another box from the pile gave them the same result. The boxes stacked in large rows returned the rustling sonant tone, almost like empty, upon knocking.

“Same thing in all of them, I suppose,” Windy Mane circled the room with her flashlight again. “By the way,” uttered she intently. “Have you noticed any traces of that… black powder? I haven’t. Nor in the hallway…”

The girls were to shook their heads slowly.

“I wonder, what gives…” Misty was pondering aloud. “We assumed the powder is connected to the accidents, right? Then, if the supposed saboteur had full access to the building, why the stuff can be traced along the production line only? They could make things happen all over the old block if not the entire factory…” She sighed. “I still can’t understand the mechanism of what they were doing here.”

“Are we dealing with some supernatural effect indeed?” she looked at her friends as if expecting some hints from the girls. “But I don’t feel any hostility from it, despite the presence is constant here…”

A couple more rooms gave the investigators the same: boxes varied only in size and the stacking method – one room was already equipped with the durable stillages for them. The spots of light had nothing to stop on, except the non-ending packed product, wiring and dusty lamps under the ceiling.

‘If it goes that way… and nothing happens during these nights in the production hall,’ Misty already estimated their future steps, ‘we’ll have nothing to do than to leave fruitlessly… for a week. And then,’ she cringed, ‘it’ll depend on the inspection decision. Maybe there will be nothing to investigate…’

‘No, girl, stop!’ she shook her head mentally. ‘That’s no class! We must find the answer… However,’ the doubt veiled her again, ‘with no direct evidence of sabotage… the equipment is technically in order as Nordy confirmed… We can say, it’s some paranormal effect indeed, but…’

Only the softness of the cuddle allowed Misty to jump from surprise not.

“What’s wrong, girl?” she felt Flaunty’s warm hands on her shoulders. “You look a bit… absent.”

“It’s just…” Misty looked at the girls gathering around mindfully. “Something doesn’t quite compute still!”

“In Canterton it was more or less clear from the start,” elaborated she. “Here though…” the filly pursed her lips with doubt. “There is something, I admit. But I still can’t catch its vibe on the tail. I can’t believe that what I feel can be the cause of the trouble. It’s… ermmm…” Misty stumbled looking for an explanation, “not aggressive definitely… Maybe sorrowful, I don’t know…”

“Perhaps, my praised by you extrasensory perception is not enough for that…” the girl sighed.

“Look, we understand that you must plan beforehand,” started Lacy softly, “and weigh all the chances…”

“But we barely scratched it here!” finished Windy with a cheerful smile. “The basement is huge… and I rather believe in some natural reason for the machines breaking… even after my acquaintance with Fran,” she shook her short red mane.

“Yeah, mates. Sorry!” Misty shook off the sad thoughts. “I simply… The least I want us to fail him, after how mister Thorntwist accepted us.”

The next numbered room was full of heavy wooden crates instead of boxes. Sent through the small gap, the ray of the flashlight reflected onto something shiny and lilac – a larger chunk of something solid of deeper colour. Examining it under different angles as much as the gap allowed, the girls assumed, that was unprocessed crystal. The crates were full of magical crystal “ore”.

“Tons of them here!” Misty pondered aloud, rubbing the nearest crate she leaned on. “Mister Thorntwist told about the accidents being in form of explosions. But they neither had nor found anything to explode… If these crystals can somehow react with… whatever…”

“There are enough to send the entire old block fly!” exhaled Lacy with widening eyes. “Its basement included!”

“Maybe that was the reason why the accidents happened in the machinery hall only,” muttered Misty. “Controlled effect of a kind?”

“Hmmm…” throwing back her long chestnut mane, Flaunty was rubbing the chin. “Whoever did this practically had everything to blow the building, maybe even the factory. But that’s not what they need.” She smirked. “Big ka-boom results in full-time official investigation reopening, right?” the girl glanced at her friends meaningfully. “Heavy excavation tech involved and all the fuss!”

“You mean, they rather need nopony wishing to employ here and the place quietly closed!” Windy guessed first. “What for then?”

“Who knows…” shrugged Flaunty. She squinted. “Canterton was abandoned, yet remained technically the school for, creepy to think of it, more than thousand years, so… What I wanted to say – this method could fit both the natural and supernatural forces if they are involved.”

Quickly scouted, the rest of the rooms delivered them nothing new in terms of evidence. They even could be called sterile, as Misty chuckled inwardly, if not for some small amount of dust accumulated naturally. The girls returned to the intersection, where the basement entrance was, then looked in the rooms to the right of it; the same accurate abandonment met them in each, despite the friends did their best to fish at least something regarding the case they unofficially contracted to investigate. Despite their polite silence, Misty started to notice her own doubtful sentiments spreading among the girls.

‘It’s only natural!’ Misty checked the time, suddenly finding out that they had roamed the basement for about an hour and a half already. ‘Still no signs of planned pony actions,’ sighed she, ‘and the spiritual presence shows no actual intentions. Damn!’

Finishing with the supposedly last room, the girls pulled out to the hallway to be met by the first surprise for that night. Directed right into the distance, their flashlights somehow abutted into the solid wall not so far from the place they were standing.

“What the…” Windy quickly swiped her flashlight across the gallery walls with a few remaining doors, only to make sure they indeed connected to the dead-end; Lacy took out and rustled with the scheme. Flaunty flashed back to the intersection to check their actual position – they were near it and the girl turned to Misty shrugging puzzledly: they couldn’t make it to another wing end if the basement was nearly symmetrical.

“The hallway must be at least twice longer…” quietly said Lacy, glancing at her friends; as if in confirmation of her words, she turned over the sheet and lifted it into the light. Even without explanation, the girls saw that the hallway was supposed to run way further from the entrance than they saw, with more rooms connecting to it. In the following oppressing silence, the girls immediately started noticing what they paid no attention to before – subtle constructions crackling, mostly metal ducts – with approaching night, cool air began to come in through the ventilation. Flaunty cleared her throat a bit hesitantly.

“When I thought it’s going to become boring, it suddenly started turning out interesting!” smirked Windy stretching to the bone crackle.

“Wait… Hmmm…” Lacy’s large eyes shimmered behind the glasses, running back and forth across the basement plan. “Long gallery… Next block passage… Stairs here and there… Hmmm… Ventilation shafts…” muttered she, then shone her flashlight into the hallway dead-end, fishing the double doors out from the darkness.

“Come on, Misty, bring your keys here!” before anypony uttered a word, her braids already jumped to the beat of the earth filly dashing to the doors. “Look for an unlabeled key or keys!” confidently stated Lacy, examining them, when Misty and sisters approached.

It turned out there were two such keys in the bunch; the second one Misty tried fitted the lock. Opening the first pair of doors, the girls revealed a tiny pier, formed by the enormous thickness of the basement bearing wall, and a second pair of the doors. The latter opened using the same key and let them into another dark hallway.

“The plan sucks!” noticed Lacy with a wry smile. “This is the rest of the first level, typical method to split the overly long corridor and avoid strong draughts. But it marked as one single hallway on the scheme,” the girl facepalmed, making her friends smile. “I wonder what else…”

“Okay, don’t show that plan to your parents!” giggled Windy. “We also won’t! Now what?” she glanced at Misty. “Do we check the remaining rooms?”

No matter how much she regretted to admit it, the remaining rooms were nearly the same as before, offering Misty and her friends only a limited list of objects to come across; nothing of the investigation value was on that list though. Until the fillies opened the door to something different from the first sight.

“Mhmmm…” Windy evidently got used to finding the same storage rooms behind each door; the rest of the girls similarly looked a bit dumbfounded by the revealed room, resembling some library or better say archive most of all. Dozens of open racks and filing boxes with hundreds of dusty folders in them filled the room, leaving some free space to navigate and a couple of desks with chairs.

“It seems that they brought the outdated document archive here. Yes, there are dates, years to be exact,” Flaunty Mane picked one folder at random when the girls entered. She and her sister began to pick folders from the shelves marked with different years and check through them swiftly. “Dates start descending from five years ago… Perhaps, the year when Nordy accepted the inheritance,” Flaunty shrugged with her wings.

“Paychecks, delivery,” muttered Windy, brushing through the bureaucracy galore, “lots of accounting mumbo-jumbo here!”

Meanwhile, Lacy brushed the dust off one of the chairs and landed behind the empty desk; expanding the schemes of basement levels and production line on its surface, she stared at them pensively. Misty came closer, stopping behind her shoulder and illuminating the plans with her flashlight; it wasn’t the first time she noticed, how Lacy returns to the machinery scheme again and again as if trying to catch something, which kept whisking away from her.

“Oh, look!” sounded from the shelves. Misty briefly shone her lamp at the girls to see Flaunty lifting yet another thick folder. “It’s labelled “Purchases”. I’ll check it, just in case…” throwing back her mane, the filly dived into the papers. The disturbed sheets let a cloud of dust fly and made Flaunty sneeze; the girls froze listening to the distorted by repeating echo sound rolling out of the room and down the hallway, resembling some broken glass sound at the end.

“Sorry!” Flaunty blushed a little and sniffed. “Sounded creepy…”

“Know what…” drawled Lacy after a few minutes of silence diluted only with paper rustling. “I think there was nothing paranormal in the accidents themselves! And that is why,” she gestured Misty to lean closer. “I just realized that! The plan has control points marked on the production line,” Lacy pointed at the thin lines accompanied by text on the scheme for Misty to understand. “The spots where some staff must be present all the time to keep the process running properly.”

“Yeah!” the glasses flashed in the light; Lacy nodded in response to understanding lighting up in Misty’s eyes. “The places where somepony is near the line!” emphasized she, then poked into the plan again. “Now look at the outlined spots. These are the accident locations!”

“Windy, can you please find me the same folder from the previous year and the next one?” reached their ears from the archive shelves. Flaunty turned over the pages with increasing attention; more and more satisfaction in her quiet humming.

Misty stared at the plan: many labelled “control points” were circled in red; there were a few not marked, but there were no outlined spots without a “control point” in them. Misty and Lacy exchanged glances.

“We knew that the accidents always involved ponies injured… But this shows that they were specifically and only staged to result in exactly that!” grimly summed up Lacy. “Ask me and I say that it most resembles the ill will of somepony material than some spiritual effect.” Misty was to admit the reasoning in her words; inwardly, she would like the problems to be caused by something paranormal – the idea of somepony purposely harming their kin looked nothing fancy!

“If you need more evidence, there was no black powder in the other rooms, including that one,” meaningfully glanced Lacy.

“Hmmm… That may be interesting!” Flaunty’s exclamation interrupted the girls’ thoughts; the pegasus sisters stopped their digging and joined Misty and Lacy at the desk. In the response to their inquiring look Flaunty dropped the thick folder she held, poking at the page.

“I may know nothing about the magical crystals processing,” uttered she, seeing Misty and Lacy staring at the document a bit abashedly. “But ordering candles… Yeah, yeah, simple candles! In large numbers, monthly,” Flaunty raised one eyebrow. “Isn’t it a bit strange?!”

“The last year given here and the previous, and one before,” continued she, nodding. “I suppose every year stored in that archive. And that’s not fifty or ninety years ago, but recently, when electric light exists in every nook and cranny! Besides, who in the sane mind would try to light the entire factory with candles?!” she drove in the final nail.

“And where else except lighting are the candles used?” Windy added insinuatingly. “We’re not insisting… But, if we just imagine…”

“Decoration, but that hardly fits here… a-a-and… Rituals!” breathed out Misty.

“So it might be two in one pack at the end of the day…” muttered Lacy adjusting her glasses. “Interesting!”

Together they quickly brushed through several equivalent folders from different years;,confirming their find and even expanding it; in addition to regular candle orderings, the fillies came across a few with incense sticks. Four friends exchanged meaningful glances.

“So the old chap wasn’t making it up,” muttered Windy Mane, habitually putting her collar strap at risk. “The story he heard and told me wasn’t a fable, even if the current owner is sceptical about that.”

“Yeah…” musingly drawled Misty. “It looks that somepony was… negotiating with a spiritual entity here for quite a long time. I wonder, what were the stipulations of that… agreement?”

“You think that spirit, whatever it was, might have turned hostile when the new owner stopped paying attention to its existence…” Lacy rubbed her temples. “If the accidents were the result of its acts, that “spiritual entity” must obtain… How do you call that? Completely formed personality. Like Fran, for example.”

“The problem is – I don’t sense any hostility,” Misty spread her arms puzzledly. “The spirit would hardly make any difference between the factory workers it was supposed to be hostile towards and us – complete strangers, technically intruding its area. I still have no idea what to make out of it.”

“The sunset was a few minutes ago,” reminded Flaunty checking the watch, when the girls left the archive; her flashlight travelled across the end of the hallway, shining on three remaining passages. “We planned to hide in the production hall and see if somepony shows up,” reminded she, glancing at Misty inquiringly.

“We’d better stay consistent, mates,” Misty shook her head slowly after a moment of thinking. “Let’s check the remaining rooms… and the second level as fast as we can without ignoring things, then return upstairs. Thorntwist promised to tighten the security outside, I hope whoever sabotages, they won’t slip by unnoticed.”

“You still think they can’t come from outside, right?” Windy shook her red mane; the girl was examining the shut metal doors already. “Somepony, give me a hand! The doors have no locks…” she ran her flashlight around the metal frame, stopping at the large red button. “It’s the heavy load elevator judging by the width!”

The underpowered doors had some backlash nevertheless; with some effort, Windy managed to make a gap enough to send a ray of light through.

“Yeah, it is. The platform is between the floors,” there was a slight disappointment in the girl’s voice. “Anyway, it’s useless without electricity.”

Another door opened freely, revealing the dark staircase in the light of their lamps. Holding on the doorknob, Lacy looked at Misty; the unicorn filly shook her head.

“Let’s check another room first!”

“That’s… unexpected…” Flaunty Mane blinked several times, examining what made all four girls freeze and scratch their napes as soon as they lit the interior. Her reaction was understandable, considering the light falling on the huge stack, which occupied most of the room, leaving some space behind the entrance and along one of the side walls.

The crates and boxes were accurately stacked, accounting for their various sizes to form almost a solid block nearly reaching the ceiling. One couldn’t probably squeeze a knife between adjacent ones; evidently, it took much effort to put all the stuff that way, not mentioning that it was quite unhandy to store anything in such a pile without a chance to pick one piece not taking apart the whole.

“Ahem!” The girls stared at it for a good few minutes before Flaunty coughed and approached the stack, carefully knocking on one of the boxes. “Filled with something… But what’s the point in that heap?” the girl looked lost, glancing back at her friends. “Unless… they dumped the old junk here…”

“It looks stupid still, if you ask me,” Windy Mane observed the stack sarcastically. “If they didn’t plan to use anything of that, why not simply dispose of it entirely?”

“Old junk, you say…” uttered Misty pensively. Her aura enveloped one box, then another, showing the girl that it was impossible to move any of them, not risking being buried under that heap. Misty bit her lip, running the fingers along the cardboard wall; she wanted to say something…

“Wait! Misty, that room is shorter than it should be!” alternating her flashlight between the plan she held and the non-barricaded wall she managed to walk along twice, Lacy exclaimed making her friends jump from surprise; the end of her phrase rolled behind their backs, echoing in the long hallway.

“Sorry!” Lacy’s cheeks flushed under the glasses. “I mean… The plan wasn’t one hundred per cent reliable from the start, but it seems, that room is at least five steps shorter than the one behind that wall. Yet they are of the same length on the scheme.”

“That stack is not to store things… Something may be hidden behind!” Misty’s eyes shimmered brightly for the first time since they entered the basement.

“Errmmm…” both Windy and Flaunty looked around the stack, wordlessly describing the futility of their task. However, the four friends moved along, guided by the mutual exploratory spirit and feeling the surface inch by inch, hoping for some miraculous clue.

Lacy was the first who found something attention-worthy: accidentally, the cardboard surface under her fingers produced a slightly different sound, giving up inside visibly when she pushed stronger. Attracted by her involuntary whoop, the girls rushed to their friend.

“These sound empty!” Flaunty Mane gave one of the upper boxes a flick, listening to the hollow sound as the box barely gave in.

“It’s better if I try,” noticed Misty, seeing how Windy spread her wings and flexed. “It’s a bit tight here,” elaborated she apologetically.

Wrapped in the golden aura, one of the upper boxes slowly moved inside the structure, audibly pushing something behind itself. It hid in the darkness, then something rustled behind and fell down with a tiny hollow thud; the box held by Misty moved freely and hung into the void finally. ‘Carton!’ realized the fillies when Misty decided to release the box and the latter smacked the floor with the same sound. The smell of dust and paper filled the air.

Pushing a few more boxes more confidently, Misty found out that the empty ones were placed in a small column two boxes wide and two boxes deep. The girls directed their flashlights into the increasing gap to see a part of the ceiling with the running away row of lamps and two walls of boxes: a narrow passage was revealing itself in front of their eyes.

“Just a second!” with an impatient sigh, Windy stepped forward and gave the remaining boxes a good kick, sending them flying into the gap at once. “You’re welcome!” she smirked, lighting the passage. The light spot slid along the crates and fell on the opposite wall, which looked the same dull even grey surface as everywhere else from their view.

“I’ll check!” Misty braced herself, grasping the flashlight tighter. “Stay here, mates… In case something collapses and you’ll need to dig me out of that barricade,” she chuckled a bit nervously.

“It’s okay!” she took Lacy’s hand, which tried to grab her on the sleeve, for a second. Listening to her senses once more, Misty didn’t notice anything threatening and proceeded carefully.

“Looks like a solid wall!” reached the girls’ ears in a minute. Three of them shone into Misty’s back with their lamps, lighting the supposed dead end. “But it’s not!”

“There is… a thin crack in the wall!” said Misty after a short pause. “It forms a proper rectangle. Must be a door, but I see no keyhole or handle…”

“And I can’t pick the edge up,” sounded plaintive; she palpated the door endeavouring to open. “Anypony has a knife or… anything?”

“I’m going to help her,” dropped Windy handing her sister the flashlight and squeezing into the passage.

“Eh… Okay!” Misty was to give up.

“Pals, there is nothing to hook to indeed,” a disappointed huff sounded from the depth after a couple of minutes both girls spent trying to open the secret door. “Damn!” in warm blood, Windy gave the surface a light punch.

To their sheer surprise, the supposed door gave in slightly and sprung, bouncing off the frame and revealing a gap enough to grab the edge. Misty and Windy exchanged glances; with a smirk, Windy pulled the leaf open.

The opening wasn’t large and two girls peeking inside the room obstructed the passage completely; their friends’ lamps couldn’t reach from behind and dispel the darkness, thus Misty and Windy could rely on their single light source only. Carefully examining around with the flashlight, they found the floor, nearest walls and the ceiling in their intended places; thankfully, that new place wasn’t some kind of abyss. In reality, the compartment turned out rather small, likely narrower than the storage it adjoined – the light easily reached the far corners of the room, telling the girls that it was almost empty. The grey walls were bare, the ceiling even had no lamps at all, while only one would probably be enough to flood it with light. The only mention-worthy thing there rested in the centre of the otherwise pristine floor; however, the first glance at it in the ray of their flashlight made Misty’s heart beat faster.

A low square elevation of the same nondescript concrete gave a base for a knee-high table loosely resembling a lectern. A bright glare shone on its surface when the ray of light slid by. It turned out to be a glass plate spreading and holding something underneath. The rest of the inclined desk was occupied by a couple of bowls with something loose inside and a variety of candles; unusually thick they lined along the far edge of the desk and stood in a stair-like manner on both sides of the glass press. Remnants and wax spots along the edges of the elevation told that similar candles were placed there as well when that place was better maintained. A medium-size old basket tiredly leaned on the desk front, as if held together by that support only.

‘That thing resembles an altar too much to be something else!’ Misty’s flashlight returned to the centre of that structure, sticking to the glass plate. ‘It looks like paper… Maybe, there are some answers there!’

“Do we certainly know what we are doing?” Windy touched Misty’s sleeve, feeling her urge to approach the thing. “Let’s be careful anyway, pal!”

“I’ll better go alone first,” Misty smiled apologetically. “We don’t need to bother… anything more than it’s absolutely necessary. Don’t worry!” she squeezed her friend’s hand lightly.

Slowly, shining the flashlight at her feet not to disturb or knock over something accidentally, Misty approached the elevation with the improvised altar. Ready to retreat at any moment, the filly listened to herself and that presence sensation, which she had ever since entering the basement. At the moment, everything seemed peaceful: Misty couldn’t recognize any threat or disturbance in that feeling; if that presence had any will, it was rather tinted with the faintest sorrow now than anything else. It wasn’t very hard to guess what it could be caused by; observing the scene of desolation over once carefully attended place, the girl let out a tiny sigh.

Under a closer look, the glass plate held a sheet of very thick paper. Yellowish, time-worn, with its shabby edges it reminded Misty about the ancient scrolls only the Regal Sisters and history books could witness. ‘Well, maybe some other alicorn…’ flashed in her head. The sheet surface was densely peppered with the words written in the peculiar intricate font; several words were highlighted red. Promptly deciding against touching the ramshackle document, holding together mostly with the aid of the glass cover, Misty leaned closer. Trying to parse and comprehend the lines, the girl noticed that two bowls of something resembling the tinted sand actually held a few thin, partially spent incense sticks each.

‘Hmmm… The fable told by the old workpony turns out not entirely a fable!’ smirked Misty inwardly. ‘But by the look of it, Nordy’s father wasn’t the first one Thorntwist taking part in it!’

The document language was heavy, truly ancient: Misty caught herself on not knowing a good portion of the words, modern Ponish stepped way forward since the times that text was recent. Maybe Princesses could fluently read that…

‘Contract! It is a contract, no doubt…’ despite the complexity of the ancient formula, Misty saw such words as “agreement”, “protection”, “obliged” among the recognizable ones. ‘But… it makes things even stranger…’

“Come here! It’s okay,” with a puzzled smile, Misty called her friend quietly, gesturing Windy to approach.

“What’s the matter, mate?” quickly but cautiously crossing the room, the pegasus filly appeared behind her shoulder. “Anything about this old lingo?” Windy pointed at the desk.

“Yeah! There was and still is some spirit on that factory,” quietly nodded Misty. “It looks that Thorntwists, a lot of their ancestors, had some sort of contract with it. Some sort of the protecting spirit… A brownie or neighponese zashiki-warashi seems to be too shallow of an explanation,” smiled she lowering her voice, “but something along these lines in the general sense.”

“Hmmm…” Windy huffed indeterminately.

“You see that tough-to-pronounce word in red?” Misty lit the paper again, explaining her inferences to her confusedly blinking friend. “That must be the spirit name. Spirits don’t need food or entertainment in the usual sense, Windy. For a large number of them, recognition is the most desirable reward…” glanced she meaningfully. “In one form or another, it doesn’t matter: while somepony remembers about you, you exist.”

“It fits the living ponies no less,” Windy Mane smirked. “Everypony needs their name called occasionally to feel needed.”

“Exactly! Name remembered, some symbolic offering made… This,” Misty nodded towards the decrepit basket, “was filled with some flowers likely…” What filled the basket resembled some ash at the moment.

“And the new owner of the factory, as good as he is, nevertheless decided that all of it was gibberish,” Misty raised her eyebrows. “So, this… altar is abandoned for a few years likely…”

“So you think…”

“Hardly the spirit caused all the troubles. And there is a reason for that,” Misty rejected her friend’s guess softly. “But, we could probably…” the unicorn girl automatically checked her pockets then took an inquiring look around.

“Here!” watching friend’s discomfiture, Windy was handing her a gas lighter. “In the places like that, I always thought that a flashlight was good, but some backup would never hurt!” explained she with a wide smile.

“Thanks, Windy! You’re a fairy!” exhaled Misty. She started to lit the candles on the desk, fixing a few toppled ones. Then adjusted and lit the incense sticks. The small flames trembled for a while as if unsure of their intentions; crackling and sparkling they ate the dust from the wicks and finally flared up brightly, flooding the desk with their soft warm light and drawing a golden halo around the entire structure.

Perhaps it was her imagination, but Misty fancied some change in that presence. It felt like the first unconscious movement of a sleeping pony called by the name and delivered a feel of rightness into Misty’s soul.

“That’s it,” Misty stepped back from the altar, pulling Windy with her.

“Misty, Windy! Girls, are you okay there?” the voices of the friends reached them from the storage room.

“We’re fine! Coming back already!” called Misty, nudging her pegasus friend towards the exit. Lingering in the doorway, she made a decision, but reconsidered using the digital camera after a moment of thinking; instead of that, Misty took out her cell phone and made a photo of the entire room with the candles-lit structure.

“I’ll need to talk with mister Thorntwist about that,” elaborated she under Windy’s bewildered look. The girls accurately closed the handleless door trying to leave it the same way it was before their visit.

In the bright light of their lamps, Flaunty and Lacy greeted them both, squeezing out between the crates and boxes, like the deep sea divers returning to the shore. Despite they tried to hide it, the girls had become a little anxious, not seeing Misty and Windy but only hearing their muffled voices.

“Well, mates… What can I say?” dusting off her hands, Misty briefly described to them what they with Windy found inside. “Everything is good in moderation, including being sceptic. Mister Thorntwist should have paid more attention to that old “legend” definitely… At least perform some investigation before denying everything and completely cutting off all the fruitful cooperation,” she shook her head in disapproval.

“Wasn’t it enough then for the accidents to start happening?” huffed Windy. “The spirit got disgruntled and…”

“I doubt that,” Misty was hard to talk around. “And now I see three reasons for that. First – the spirit was supposed to protect. After the breach of agreement, it would rather stop whatever it was doing… But I can’t explain that series of accidents by the accumulated negative effect being… errmmm… unblocked.”

“Second,” Misty started digging in her bunch of keys, throwing an unequivocal glance at the staircase door, “if you trust my senses, then you should take it as I say – that spirit isn’t hostile. I… I don’t know if that would be an exaggerated claim, but… it’s not in that spirit’s nature, I suppose.”

“And the third,” added she in a moment. “As Lacy found out – all the accidents were thoroughly planned… even technically reasoned.”

“Not a single one of these accidents was actually accidental,” confirmed Lacy confidently.

“Which returns us to the chance of accumulated effect being vanishingly low – the pattern is too obvious to ignore!” finally holding the proper key, Misty headed to the stair. “So, we’re checking the lower level as well.”

“Ughhh…” Flaunty gave a tiny shiver entering the stairwell – the rest of the girls seemed to feel it as well. Cool draught trailed along the floor; being more pronounced there, it sent goosebumps up girls’ legs.

“Yeah,” Misty made a grim face. “There must be another exit here. If it was the ventilation – and we know it’s turned off – then it would be the same everywhere. These doors look tight enough not to let it entirely through, but the more of them we pass, the stronger the wind is.”