Angel of Justice: Blood Moon

Sitting on a bed in a room dimly lit by the morning sun streaming in through the nearby curtains, a peach earth pony with short brown hair listlessly stared at a notepad held in her hoof, fidgeting with it and turning it over. She glanced over to the shadowed silhouette of a clock on the wall and sighed, contemplating whether or not she should get up or just go back to sleep.

Suddenly, her vision was assaulted as the light in the room flipped on. After taking a moment to squint and adjust her eyes, the mare looked over to see a young earth pony stallion in the doorway near the front of the room.

“Come on, up and at ‘em!” The stallion announced energetically. He had white fur, blue eyes, and black hair of similar length to the mare. His cutie mark consisted of an open book, flipping through many empty pages.

The stallion’s upbeat attitude slightly faded upon seeing the mare on the bed looking down gloomily. “Aww… what’s the matter, Scribble? Aren’t you excited?” He asked curiously.

Scribble turned her head as the stallion walked over and sat down next to her. She took another look at the notepad in her hoof, her expression souring as she did. “I don’t know… I’m just-” She looked down at her cutie mark, a feather quill encircled in a spiral of a pen stroke, and sighed while shaking her head. “I’m just not sure about this whole trip anymore, Page. Everything I do seems to end up falling to pieces.” She turned to him and frowned hesitantly.

The stallion offered her a sympathetic expression as he reached out and rested a hoof on her shoulder. “Scrib… you and I both know that last paper wasn’t your fault.”

“It doesn’t feel that way.” Scribble persisted.

“Well, I don’t care how it feels. You’ve got a real talent for finding something great to write. We wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.” He said, motioning to the hotel room around them.

Scribble felt her frown lessening a little as the stallion smiled at her reassuringly. “Are you sure you want to back me up on this? It might be a shot in the dark.” She asked, still harboring a bit of uncertainty.

The white pony nodded without a moment of hesitation. “I’m with you all the way.” He said, pulling her in for a brief side hug. “Alright, come on. We don’t want to keep the others waiting.” He got up from the bed and motioned for her to follow.

After getting up and shaking the remnants of sleep from her system, Scribble gathered all her things into a saddlebag before following the stallion out of her room.

The hotel they were staying at wasn’t very big or fancy, but it had a sort of warm air to it, much like the town outside. Not many ponies came to the faraway corners of Equestria, and even fewer came looking for a grand adventure. Still, Coltridge welcomed all who wanted a nice place to stay on their journeys.

The pair made their way through the upstairs hallways of the hotel, heading toward the lobby. As they went, they noticed hoofsteps rushing to catch up to them and turned to see a pegasus stallion that they recognized.

“Hey, guys,” The pegasus greeted with a friendly expression while walking to match their pace. “Are we all set to go?”

Page looked the pegasus up and down, examining the tote bag around his hips. The pegasus had gray fur and messy blue hair. His cutie mark was a camera’s aperture closed partially. Despite his organized-looking bag, he seemed oddly unprofessional and carefree to be joining such an expedition.

“I don’t know. Do you have all of the gear ready, Snapshot?” Page asked curiously.

The pegasus patted his large bag gently and smirked at the pair. “Yep. I’ve got all the film rolls and spare batteries we could ever need.” He reported confidently.

“Good to hear,” Page nodded with a pleased expression. He turned to the mare beside him and nudged her playfully. “We’ll make Scribble here a famous explorer in no time.”

Scribble looked down sheepishly, fighting off a slight blush. “Page, you know I’m not just doing this for me.”

Snapshot chuckled as he heard the mare’s sympathetic insistence. “Hey, as long as I get a little footnote somewhere, I don’t care who’s name goes on the front cover.” He said playfully.

“Yeah, and besides, Scholarly Scribble would look way better on a cover than Blank Page or Snapshot.” Page added, to which his sister’s cheeks reddened. Shifting his thoughts elsewhere, he turned to the pegasus curiously. “So, Snap, you’re sure the guides are going to meet us in the lobby?”

Snapshot nodded. “Uh-huh. They said they would come find us by the sitting area.”

Page nodded to himself, his eyes a little distant with thought. “Good. Hopefully, they will be here on-time. Just because it’s early doesn’t mean we aren’t burning daylight.” He stated, already looking forward to the long journey ahead of them.

Together, the trio made their way downstairs and filed into the lobby of the hotel. Although, calling it a lobby was a slight stretch given its small size. The area only consisted of the front door, the front desk, and a sitting room off to the side with three or four chairs and a single couch. The place was probably better described as an inn than a hotel with how small it was and how rustic it looked.

Taking the first few steps into the room, Scribble and her two companions could already see that two other ponies occupied the sitting area.

One was a green unicorn stallion with brown hair, and the other was a yellow pegasus mare with a black streak in her otherwise white hair. Their cutie marks seemed rather simplistic, with a few dotted lines leading to a red ‘x’ for the stallion and some wavy lines most likely meant to represent wind for the pegasus. Still, the two ponies exactly matched the description their guides had given them.

Seeing the trio approaching, the two ponies stood up. “I assume you must be our group.” The stallion inferred, his rough voice holding a friendly tone to it.

“How did you guess?” Snapshot asked, his head tilted in a confused manner.

The pegasus mare chuckled slightly. “Not many ponies come around here, and certainly not many that look like a bunch of kids fresh out of college.”

“You got us there… I’m Blank Page, this is my sister Scholarly Scribble, and this is our… uh, friend, Snapshot.” Page introduced, pointing out his companions respectively.

“It’s fine. You can say it how it is. I’m the lackey,” Snapshot said. “I mean, who else is going to take pictures and keep everything organized?”

The pegasus and her green companion looked the group up and down, quietly sizing them up. One of them seemed eager and inexperienced, the other shy and friendly, and the third looked like a goofball. None of them looked like the type to go hiking in the woods far out in the outskirts of Equestria, but who was she to judge?

“Well, it’s nice to meet all of you. I’m Gale, and this sight for sore eyes here is Pathfinder.” The pegasus greeted, smirking impishly at the green stallion while she shook each of the trio’s hooves.

Scribble smiled sheepishly at the pair. “Thank you both for helping us like this.”

Pathfinder softened his expression with a smirk. “It’s no trouble. Although, I have to ask why you folks want to head out to the woods of all places?” He said, adopting a more curious attitude.

“We’re uh…” Page began, scratching the back of his head, “We’re writing about places of historical importance. Old ruins, lost treasures, that kind of stuff.”

Gale raised an eyebrow briefly at the odd statement. “Really? And how has that been going?” She asked, more sarcastic than she first intended.

Page and his sibling lowered their expressions slightly at the less than stellar response. “Well, the dream is to go around the world exploring places nopony has ever gone before. But for now, we’re just starting with an expedition to some of the lesser-known landmarks of Equestria.”

“Oh, so you kids want to head up to the castle,” Pathfinder stated flatly.

“You know where it is?” Scribble chimed in curiously.

Pathfinder snorted through his nose, suppressing the urge to chuckle, before adopting a more serious expression. “Just about everyone in town knows where it is. It’s about a day’s walk in that direction,” He said, pointing toward the front door. “Lucky for you folks, me and Gale know those woods like the back of our hooves. We can get you there and back, no problem.”

Feeling confident in the two ponies’ knowledge and abilities, Blank Page smiled eagerly. “That’s great! When can we leave?” He asked, glancing between his two companions and their newfound guides.

“I thought you would never ask.” Gale chuckled slightly, stretching her legs in preparation to get moving. “We’re ready to go whenever you guys are.”

With unanimous agreement, the two older ponies walked toward the front door. Scribble, her brother, and their mutual assistant wasted no time following behind and out onto the not so busy streets of Coltridge.

Leaving the lodge behind, the group walked through the town and eventually made it to the outskirts. The only signs of civilization slowly faded away until nothing remained but distant shapes and plumes of chimney smoke. And ahead of them, a massive rolling horizon full of trees.

Gale and Pathfinder led their companions up to the entrance of the woods. The pair stopped momentarily and made sure their charges were following close behind before entering. Scholarly Scribble seemed hesitant to enter the wilderness initially, but her brother and her aspiring dreams pushed her forward.

At least a few hours went by as the ponies hiked along a narrow path through the trees. Were it not for their shared goal, they might as well have been on a nature hike. It was undoubtedly surrounding them from all sides.

The few animals not hibernating for the winter made their presence known almost constantly with various chirps and chitters, and the few trees with leaves still on them encased the group in an endless cocoon of forest. The experience would have been more frightening if the group didn’t have the two veterans guiding them.

Eventually, Gale and Pathfinder found a spot to rest. The three ponies following them were grateful, as their hooves were already showing signs of soreness. And they still had quite a long journey ahead of them.

Gale let out a sigh as she sat down on a decent-sized log. She took a moment to enjoy the fresh and frigid air around her while everyone else got relatively comfortable. Blank Page sat a little further down, Scribble sat next to her brother at the end, and Snapshot and Pathfinder opted to stand idly.

Snapshot decided that now would be the best time to test his camera and get a few shots of nature. As he was mindlessly clicking away at whatever looked eye-catching, he turned his attention to the pegasus sitting on the log and the unicorn standing nearby. “So, how do you two know each other?” He asked curiously.

“Oh boy…” Pathfinder groaned as he looked over to the pegasus. He could see a grin already forming on her face.

Snapshot raised an eyebrow in surprise. “What? Is it something bad or something?”

Gale snickered to herself quietly before inhaling and calming herself down enough to talk. “That depends on which one of us you ask.”

“Kid, you did not want to open this can of worms. Now she’s gonna talk all of us to death.” Pathfinder said, casting a sidelong glance at the pegasus.

“Oh, don’t be such a big baby about it. It’s not my fault you couldn’t read a map to save your life,” She said, waving him off before taking a look around. She found the three younger ponies looking at her quizzically, earning her sigh. “If you must know, me and ol’ moss-butt over there have been through these woods more times than we can count. I’m a weather pony around here, and he loves to hike, but he wasn’t always good like he is today.”

“We’ve all got to learn somewhere.” Pathfinder chimed in.

Gale rolled her eyes before continuing. “Anyway… I get called in one day about somepony that got himself lost. I grab some of my friends, and we fly over to see if we could find the poor sap. Now I-” She paused, struggling to keep a straight face as she snickered and grinned from ear to ear. “Now I look for this guy everywhere. I turned over rocks, checked in caves, dotted ‘T’s, and crossed ‘I’s. But what I was not expecting was to find a half-grown stallion halfway up a tree, clinging to it for dear life with a bunch of squirrels circling him like he was their new favorite nut.” Whatever restraint she had broke as she fell into a fit of laughter.

Pathfinder narrowed his expression and did his best to stare ahead and silently avoid eye contact while the pegasus cackled in the background. Snapshot started chuckling as he pictured the event in his head. Blank Page was stifling an outburst of his own. Even Scribble was trying her hardest not to laugh.

“Well… erm…” The stallion grumbled to himself while rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. Finally, he cleared his throat, “Anywho, enough about us. I’d like to know how all of you met since we’re so forthcoming with information.” He said, trailing his eyes between the two siblings and their friend.

Snapshot shared a glance with Scribble and Blank Page before responding. “Oh, I just met them a few weeks ago. They needed someone to help them source some equipment and take pictures, and I thought they seemed nice enough, so here I am.” He explained plainly.

“Wow… and here I thought you guys were longtime friends or something.” Gale blinked at the trio, a mildly surprised look on her face.

“Nope,” Snapshot smirked and shook his head. “But I can see why you would think that. Me, Scribble, and Pagey here get along great.” He smiled over to the white stallion and peach mare.

Blank Page narrowed his expression slightly. “Snap… I thought I asked you not to call me that.” He said uncomfortably.

Snapshot looked surprised at the stallion’s cringing. “Huh? But I thought it would be cool if we had nicknames for each other. Kinda like how you call Scribble ‘Scrib’ sometimes. Isn’t that what friends do?” He asked, genuinely curious.

“Well, yeah, but Scribble and I have known each other a little longer than we have you.” Page explained as gently as he could, hoping not to burst the naive pony’s bubble.

Gale laughed warmly under her breath as she watched the pair. “Ah, don’t let him fool you, kid. I had a nickname for Pathfinder before we were friends.” She stated, nodding toward the green stallion.

“Moss-butt?” Snapshot asked.

“No… tree hugger.” Gale stated with a goofy grin.

Much to the stallion’s chagrin, Snapshot burst out laughing and nearly fell over, and even Blank Page and Scribble laughed a bit. Something told him that this was going to be a very long walk in the woods.

‘Long walk’ didn’t even begin to describe the experience the ponies were having. The hours seemed to come and go slower and slower the further they got into the forest. On top of being disorienting and vast, the forest’s terrain was windy and uneven at times. Sometimes the group would be walking down a slope, and others they would be trudging uphill, all the while maneuvering over rocks and tree roots like some kind of obstacle course.

Although they were getting tired of walking, the ponies pushed onwards. Their shared goal was enough to motivate them past their exhaustion. However, there was something a little harder to ignore—their imaginations.

The woods grew dark as the sun continued its descent over the horizon. The many tree branches creaking in the wind caught in their flashlight beams, seemingly reaching down toward them ominously.

Scribble trailed behind her brother, trying her hardest to keep up with her friends. The woods, having been breathtaking before, were now a vast expanse of unknown. The thought of what lurked behind every distant tree was starting to get to her.

Looking behind her, she noticed Snapshot following closely with a similarly uneasy look on his face. Although she was a little glad that she wasn’t the only one afraid, Scribble wasn’t sure if she wanted to address the topic directly with open conversation.

Perhaps reaching the tipping point for how long he could last in total silence in such eerie surroundings, Snapshot opened his mouth and spoke. Or at least he tried to. “So… umm…” He chuckled uncomfortably and rubbed his neck, struggling to think of something, anything to discuss. Finally, his eyes lit up as he thought of a topic. “Hey, Scribble,”

“Hmm?” Scribble turned to him.

“You think you could run me through the history of this castle we’re going to?” Snapshot asked curiously.

“You mean you don’t already know?” Pathfinder asked from the front, looking back at the gray pony with a raised eyebrow. “I figured you would have asked about the place before agreeing to go hiking into a forest with two people you met a week ago.”

“It was a few weeks ago, but…” Snapshot shrugged blankly. “I guess I didn’t care enough to ask about the place before. Going to an old castle sounded cool enough by itself.”

Pathfinder tilted his head before shrugging as well. “Fair enough. I suppose I wouldn’t mind learning more about it myself. I don’t know too much about the place, ‘cept that some griffon owned it.”

Snapshot’s eyes widened in surprise. “No way, a griffon?” He asked, a slight tone of disbelief in his voice.

“It’s true.” Scribble chimed in, eager to share her knowledge. “A long time ago, this part of Equestria was griffon territory.”

“Wow,” Snapshot raised his eyebrows in astonishment. “How did the griffons end up giving us the territory?” He asked curiously. As far as the pegasus knew, griffons didn’t have the best relationship with equines back in the day.

“Well… they didn’t exactly ‘give’ us the territory, so much as they left it to us.” Blank Page added.

Seeing the pegasus still wearing a confused expression, Scribble took in a breath and prepared to explain. “The owner of the castle was a ruthless count by the name of Skala Herz. He was known to eviscerate and torture his enemies to show off his power. He gained so much of a reputation that they renamed the castle ‘Castle Bloodwing’. After he died, the griffons didn’t even want to be associated with him, so they abandoned this land and left it to the ponies, leaving the castle itself to be forgotten.”

“So…” Snapshot began uncomfortably. “We’re going to the home of an ancient griffon warlord known for brutally murdering people?”

Gale chuckled slightly from the front of the group. “Yep. Some folks say that it’s even haunted.”

Upon hearing this, Snapshot’s eyes shot open, face pale. “H-haunted?!”

“Don’t be silly. There’s no such thing as ghosts,” Scribble insisted, though she didn’t sound convincing.

“I don’t know about that,” Pathfinder added. “Ever since those hooded ponies stirred up a mess of mumbo jumbo off in Ponyville, there have been a lot of things in Equestria that ponies said there was no such thing as.” He said with an impish smirk.

Snapshot looked like his heart was about to beat out of his chest, and Scribble tried to keep herself from chewing off her lip.

Seeing how afraid the two ponies were, Gale’s expression fell slightly. “Don’t worry, guys, we’re just messing around. Right, Pathfinder?” She asked, nudging the stallion a little forcibly and shooting him a glare for taking things too far.

Pathfinder winced and rubbed his foreleg where the surprisingly strong mare had smacked him. “Right, right… don’t listen to an old woods pony like me.”

Although they were still a little on edge, Scribble and Snapshot calmed down a bit and decided to focus their thoughts elsewhere as they walked. The time would come soon enough that they could concentrate on entering the castle, perhaps sooner than they realized.

What must have been another hour came and went as the group hiked onwards. Despite constant reassurances from their guides, the three ponies thought that they would never reach their destination. Their minds were sober with thoughts of every possible thing that could go wrong. However, they wouldn’t have long to dwell on their anxiousness.

Gale noticed the trees up ahead were starting to thin out at the front of the group. Sure enough, she could see a clearing ahead that seemed to be the size of a small town. And in the distance, a shape started coming into view that made the pegasus smile with relief. “Look sharp, everyone,” She called back to the others. “We’re here.”

Blank Page and the others gathered by their two companions at the clearing edge and stared ahead. The forest seemed to ring the clearing, with a large hill at its center. And sitting atop was a stone structure, silently watching over the frozen landscape.

The structure looked precisely how the ponies imagined an ancient castle would. Stone towers and battlements adorned the top, with what looked like torn and faded banners hanging down. Its winding structure was obscured by how large it was, and it was hard to tell how far back it stretched. All the ponies could see was that it was huge, perhaps even as big as the royal palace back in Canterlot, if not bigger.

The trio was in awe at what they were seeing. Even this far away, the ponies could feel the grim beauty of the castle under the moonlight streaming down into the clearing. Scribble walked forward a few steps, staring ahead wide-eyed and hanging her mouth open. “Wow…”

The peach mare turned to her brother as he placed a hoof on her shoulder. Blank Page took a look at the breathtaking sight before him before glancing at his sibling and smiling. “See? I told you we’d find you a story.”

“Come on, guys,” Hearing Pathfinder calling for them, the pair looked ahead to see the stallion motioning for them to follow. “There’ll be time for sightseein’ when we get there.”

Scribble and the others snapped out of their thoughts and quickly followed behind, making their way toward the massive structure.

The group slowly pressed forward across the clearing, with the wind biting at them the whole way and giving them a painful reminder of how cold it was.

The closer they got to their destination, the more the stone structure swallowed up their view of the area in front of them. Soon enough, it completely dominated the horizon.

Up a steep and twisting incline, the ponies started to see the first signs of the castle’s architecture in the form of stone steps built into the cliff that led up to a series of walkways and more stairs.

Feeling the ground shifting underhoof, Page looked to his side and grew nervous as he saw pebbles falling. Nothing but a crumbling stone rail that came up to his chest separated him from the sheer drop off of the cliff. With the need to be cautious reaffirmed in his mind, the stallion rejoined his friends as they kept moving up.

After a harrowing climb, the ponies stepped off onto a more extensive, and thankfully, flatter, stone platform. What seemed to be a paved forecourt sat before them, leading them up to what could only be the castle’s front entrance.

A smaller set of stone steps led up a short way to two massive wooden doors. Statues of griffons stood watch on either side of the stairs, their stone forms riddled with cracks. Similarly armored griffons were etched into the doors, along with some intricate patterns of lines, some of which were hard to discern due to how faded they were.

“By the princess… just look at this place,” Scribble said, slowly walking up to one of the griffon statues and examining it closer. “It’s like a leftover from another time period!”

Gale nodded to herself as she watched the three younger ponies looking around wide-eyed and amazed. “I guess that’s one way to say ‘old and dilapidated’... Still, I have to admit it does look pretty fancy.”

“Maybe it’s fancier than what you’re used to, but I think you had it right when you said old and dilapidated,” Pathfinder added.

Blank Page studied the artwork etched into the doors in front of him, still unsure of whether he was dreaming or not. Amid his amazement, he turned to find his sister as a thought occurred to him. “Hey, Scribble, don’t you think this would be a good time to start writing down a few thoughts and observations? You know… get some first impressions for your piece?” He suggested.

Scribble snapped out of her own thoughts and turned to look at the white stallion. “Oh, right, of course!” She quickly grabbed her bag and started fishing around for her notepad. “Snapshot, you might want to get some pictures of this area as well while we’re here.” She paused, briefly glancing up at the pegasus, who was currently off to the side.

Snapshot simply waved his camera in hoof and turned back to what he was looking at before. “Way ahead of you.”

While the occasional click of a camera and the whistle of wind filled the background, Scribble kept searching for the item she needed. Much to her concern, she wasn’t finding it anywhere in her bag. “Oh no… please tell me I didn’t forget my notepad.”

“It’s a bit late if you did,” Gale said, walking over to the struggling mare and peering over her shoulder to silently help with looking through the clutter inside the bag.

Before her heart could sink any further, Scribble felt a familiar shape at the very bottom of the bag and breathed a sigh of relief. “There you are.” She shook her head before replacing the items in her bag and putting a fresh pencil in her mouth. However, as she stood up and prepared to start writing, she hesitated and stared down at the notepad pensively. “Umm… what should I write?” She asked nobody in particular, though she looked to her brother with hesitant eyes.

The stallion frowned as he saw his sibling falling short just before the finish line. “Well, try describing what you’re seeing. You were always better than me at writing creatively in school. Just do what comes naturally.” Page suggested in a helpful tone.

Scribble felt a twinge of nervousness as all of the weight was put onto her shoulders. She swallowed uncomfortably as she trailed her eyes back to the notepad before pushing through her hesitance and starting to write.

After a few moments of intermittent scribbling and looking around at the castle exterior, Scribble took the pencil from her mouth, looking over her work. “What do you think of this, Page?” She asked, handing off the notepad to her brother.

Page looked over what the peach mare had written, emitting a pleasing hum. “Not bad, Scrib. Not bad at all.” He smiled.

“Yeah,” Snapshot added, still peering through the lens of his camera at the castle’s side and some of the snowy landscape around them. “I knew you could do it.”

Scribble smiled sheepishly. “Thanks, guys. Hopefully, I’ll be able to make the actual piece just as good.”

Blank Page nodded confidently. He shifted his gaze behind him, back to the grand doors at the mouth of the castle. “I think it’s time we went inside, don’t you?” He glanced back to Scribble eagerly.

“As long as Snapshot has all of the pictures he needs out here, I’m ready to go when you are.” Scribble stated.

Hearing this, everyone turned to look at the gray pegasus. Feeling all eyes on him, Snapshot shrugged and decided that a dozen pictures were enough. “Alright, alright, I’m ready.” He trotted back to the group and joined them as they headed up the stairs and up to the doors.

Seeing how they were in front, Gale and Pathfinder both took hold of one of the doors’ handles and started pulling. Both seemed to have a little trouble with the gargantuan doors, with Pathfinder having an easier time due to his magic. Still, the pair eventually started to slowly swing the doors open.

The creaking of wood echoed slightly before them as a surprisingly cold wall of air came out to greet them. As the doors opened further, the moon’s pale light faintly illuminated a grand entrance hall that stretched onwards into shadows. A tattered and frayed crimson rug padded the cracked stone floor, going a few feet back into the corridor and welcoming them inside.

The ponies slowly stepped into the castle, leaving the door open to the wind as they looked around with awestruck expressions. The many banners and ornate decorations along the walls looked aged but still filled the area with a sense of grandeur. The place had a sort of silent and somber atmosphere, though the group was unsure whether or not this was simply due to the stories surrounding the castle.

Snapshot scanned his eyes around the many dark doorways and eerie shadows, a bit more unnerved than curious like his companions were. “Gee… I wonder why people say this place is haunted?” He stated nervously.

“It’s definitely not as bright and cheery as the princess’s castle, that’s for sure,” Scribble noted, swallowing uncomfortably as she thought about actually searching around the dark castle. “Oh well… We can’t turn back now.” She set her mouth in a solemn line and did her best to suppress her fears as she dug a flashlight out of her bag and stepped forward. The others followed suit, acquiring their own sources of light before following the peach mare inside.

Following the grand hallway ahead of them, the ponies briefly went inside of each of the rooms they found and took a look around. A dining room with an elegant-looking row of admittedly rotten tables lined up. A kitchen. A small bedroom. Every room they came across looked like it had been frozen in time, with only a thin covering of dust and some deterioration to indicate how old the structure was.

Although it was odd and more than a little eerie to be walking around such lavish and empty surroundings, the group pressed forward on their expedition.

Eventually, the ponies found their way into a sort of half-room that stood on the edge of a courtyard. A stone path and overhang ringed the yard, with a few other openings into the castle’s halls on the different sides. A thin layer of snow and dead grass made up the ground throughout most of the area. Some artifacts of the castle’s bloody past stood in the courtyard, glistening softly from the snow still coming down. Among these was a set of stocks, and more upsettingly, a large tree stump that had been repurposed into a chopping block.

Ignoring the grim objects and instead focusing on the view, Scribble and her companions braced themselves as a cold breeze flew in their faces.

“Holy hay… It’s colder than a wendigo’s tail out here.” Snapshot commented, rubbing his shoulders in an attempt at generating warmth.

Pathfinder nodded to himself while taking a look up at the sky and the thick covering of clouds swallowing up the moon. “Looks like a snowstorm is rolling in... We might want to find an interior room to settle in for the night.” He said. As he looked over to the tree stump, he scratched his chin pensively. “If we’re lucky, maybe we can find a fireplace to use.”

Gale glanced to the stallion and raised an eyebrow. “Are you volunteering to go chop some wood?”

“I might as well,” Pathfinder replied. “It’s not like I’m going to make these guys do it, and I highly doubt you have the upper body strength to lift an axe.” He added, a playfully impish expression on his face.

Gale, unfazed by the stallion’s comment, smirked to herself. “I didn’t have much trouble peeling you off of that tree.”

“Would you let that story die already?” The stallion droned.

“Honey… you will die before that story does if I have anything to say about it,” Gale stated plainly.

Meanwhile, Scribble and her two companions were more focused on something else while the pair messed with each other like a married couple.

“Uh… we’re spending the night here?” Snapshot asked hesitantly.

The pair turned, noticing the others looking at them with varying degrees of discomfort. “Well, yeah,” Gale said. “It’s not wise to go hiking long distances at night, especially in this weather. If you guys want to leave by tomorrow, we can go first thing in the morning.”

Scribble sighed quietly and looked down. “I figured as much… Still, I was sort of hoping we wouldn’t have to spend the night.”

“Ah, cheer up, guys,” Blank Page said, hoping to lighten his companions’ spirits. “We’ve got sleeping bags, water, and food. It’ll be like a sleepover.” He chuckled dryly.

Snapshot chuckled as well, though he was more nervous than optimistic. “Yeah… a sleepover in a big and potentially haunted castle.” He sighed before bringing his camera up and walking forward. “Welp… We might as well get what we came here for before something bad happ-”

Before he could even finish jinxing himself, the pegasus suddenly felt the ground beneath him, shifting as a loud cracking noise sounded out.

“Wh- w-what the?!”

*CRACK*

“AHHH!!”

The others gasped in shock as the floor swallowed up the pegasus. The stone beneath Snapshot crumbled away under his weight, and he fell into what must have been a dark hole into another area.

The stallion’s scream cut short, and he let out a painful grunt as he smacked into solid ground. Scribble and the others stood around the newly-opened hole, staring down at their friend amid a sea of stone rubble.

“Snapshot!” The peach mare yelled.

Snapshot coughed and groaned as a wave of dust flew into the air. He slowly lifted himself up on his forelegs, taking care to go slow as his body throbbed.

“Hey kid, are you ok?!” Gale called from the floor above.

Snapshot glanced up, noting how far he fell and spotting the group looking down at him. “Ow… I’m… I’m fi-” Just before he could answer, he trailed his eyes back down in front of him. Sitting a mere few inches away from his face, a gaping mouth full of teeth and two dark holes stared back at him silently.

“W-WHAT THE HAY?!” Snap yelped, backpedaling as fast as his sore body would allow. As he fell backward, he felt a sharp pain under his foreleg and heard the crackle of glass. However, he was too frightened to care much about a slight cut as he stared ahead fearfully.

Up above, Blank Page and the others seemed confused and mildly concerned by the pegasus’ sudden outburst.

“What’s wrong?” Page asked sympathetically.

The rattled stallion merely pointed a shaky foreleg ahead of him. “Guys… I-I really think you should come see this!”

The two siblings above shared an uncertain look with each other and their guides before coming to an agreement. With Blank Page leading the charge, the group started carefully climbing down into the dark space below.

Once everyone had landed semi-roughly on solid ground, they turned their attention to their pegasus friend. Snapshot was looking over a small cut on his foreleg that was bleeding slightly, quietly bemoaning that his camera had apparently broken its lens during the fall and shattered glass everywhere.

Briefly looking around the room, the ponies discovered it to be some sort of secret chamber, or at least what one might expect an underground chamber to look like. There were torches spaced out along the stone walls, with no visible door or opening in sight aside from the ceiling’s hole.

A small stone altar near the front of the room held many bizarre items on it, ranging from a small dagger with strange symbols etched into its hilt, to goblets and bowls that contained what looked to be fragments of bones and the remains of a reddish liquid.

There was a dusty bookshelf holding a small collection of books with faded titles off to the side. The whole area smelt foul, with faint hints of death and copper amid the usual musty scent that accompanied the castle.

And as Scribble and Blank Page both trailed their flashlights ahead, they were stunned into silence as they saw what had apparently spooked their friend.

Lying underneath all of the debris was a shriveled-up husk of what appeared to be a pony. Its fur had completely fallen out, with its stringy and dirt-caked gray hair not far behind. Its skin was wrinkled and clinging loosely to its bones. Its mouth was open in a silent scream, exposing its teeth. And perhaps most disturbing of all, its eyes were simply empty pits of darkness that made a violent chill go down their spines.

“Sweet Celestia…” Gale stated, her voice diminished in shock.

Scribble raised a hoof up to cover her mouth as she struggled to take in the disturbing sight. Judging from how decayed it was, the body seemed to be old. However, the room around them appeared to be much older and untouched other than their presence. “What is that thing?”

“I don’t know,” Blank Page blinked, hesitantly starting to approach the body. “It looks like a pony… but what is it doing here?” He asked nobody in particular.

As he reached the strange corpse, he knelt down and brushed off some of the debris on top of it, cringing with disgust and trying his hardest not to actually touch the thing. He suddenly squinted his eyes curiously as he found something even more bizarre about the body.

“Hey guys, check this out.” Page said, waving a foreleg for the others to get closer.

Gale raised an eyebrow as she stepped forward. “Woah… that’s weird.”

“You mean weirder than the dead body?” Snapshot asked. Scribble and the others turned to see him being checked out by Pathfinder to determine if his cut was severe or not.

“Definitely weirder.” Page nodded while getting up and stepping aside so everyone could see.

As the others looked at what the stallion was pointing out, they widened their eyes in surprise. Apparently, the dead pony had the skeletal remains of wings folded up at its sides, but it also had a horn on its head.

“An alicorn?” Scribble tilted her head curiously. “That can’t be right.”

“Right or not, it’s real,” Gale stated after examining the wings. She had never seen a pair of wings so thin and emaciated before, but they were definitely real, and so was the horn.

Scribble looked the body over, her mind buzzing with a dozen questions. Nothing about what she was seeing made sense to her, no matter how hard she tried to think of a rational explanation. “Who was this guy?”

“We need to report this to the royal guard. If anyone knows why an alicorn would be here, the princesses probably would.” Blank Page suggested.

“You might have a point there,” Pathfinder noted, “but we still can’t head back to town until morning.” He said, reminding the group of the position they were in.

Gale scratched her chin pensively, her expression brightening as an idea formed in her head. “Hey, why don’t you guys write about this in your article? I’ll bet being the first to discover alicorn bones would make you plenty famous.” She suggested with a helpful smile.

Scribble seemed hesitant as she looked up at the pegasus. “I don’t know, Gale… I’m not sure if I feel comfortable with writing about this. I mean, this is a dead pony we’re talking about, and an alicorn at that. Maybe he was some long-lost member of the royal family or something?” She mused thoughtlessly. If she was honest, she didn’t know who the strange stallion could have been. All she could deduce was that he must have died from blood loss, judging from a set of old gashes on his neck and wrists.

“Well,” Snapshot groaned, finally getting off the ground. He picked up his nearby camera, frowning slightly at the damage done to it before fishing around in his bag. “Either way, we can take some pictures to prove what we saw. It’s a good thing I brought a spare lens.” He sighed and shook his head at his misfortune before fixing his camera and walking over to the body. Thankfully, his camera seemed to function well aside from the busted lens.

After snapping a few pictures, he cringed as a slight pain throbbed in his foreleg. He looked down to see a few trickles of blood leaking out of his wound, a few droplets hitting the ground and the body. “Man… this really stings.”

“We can patch you up once we get out of this room. I left my bag up there.” Pathfinder noted, looking up and out of the hole they entered through.

“Speaking of which,” Scribble added, glancing around the room. “How do we get out of here?”

As they observed, the room seemed to have no natural exits, but that couldn’t have been true. How else would their decayed friend have gotten in?

Blank Page took his flashlight and trailed it around the room, seemingly searching for something. “Well, this is an old castle, after all. Maybe there are secret passageways?” He suggested.

“Secret Passageways?” Snapshot perked up eagerly. He turned to see the white stallion walking over to one of the far walls and running a hoof along it.

“Well,” Gale shrugged. “There’s no way in or out of here other than that hole we made.” She glanced upwards, just barely catching a glimpse of the sky outside of the half room above. “You might just be onto something, kid.” She smirked.

Blank Page kept running his hooves over the cold stone wall in front of him, hoping to find some kind of irregularity. After a few searching moments, his hopes were starting to dwindle until he came across the bookshelf along the walls. Feeling a draft of air around the edges of the shelf, he stared at it and blinked in disbelief. “No way… it can’t be that simple.”

“Did you find something, Page?” Scribble asked curiously, walking a bit closer to her brother along with the others.

“I think so,” Page replied, already in the process of testing the books on the shelf to see if one of them was false. “There’s definitely something behind this shelf, but it looks like we need to find a switch to move it.” He explained.

Gale raised an eyebrow. “Wow… really? The secret bookshelf door? Isn’t that like… literally, the oldest trick in the book?”

“To be fair, I’m sure it seemed pretty original back when this castle was built.” Page chimed in.

Gale tilted her head before nodding to herself. “Fair enough.”

After a few minutes of work from both Blank Page and Pathfinder, the pair had checked every single book on the shelf. Strangely enough, all of them were quickly removed and not connected to any switch or device at all.

Page stepped back from the shelf and furrowed his expression in confusion. “Ok… maybe this secret isn’t as straightforward as I thought.”

While most of the group was examining the shelf to find its secret, Scribble took a step back and looked over the bigger picture. Aside from the stand itself, the only things on the wall were a pair of torches on either side. Upon closer examination, one of the torches was crooked. “Hmm…”

Suddenly, Blank Page and the others heard a click sound out from the shelf. Much to their surprise, the frame started moving inwards. Curious as to how the peach mare had accomplished such a feat, Page looked over to see her reaching up to a torch on the wall turned sideways.

“Oh, come on… that was literally the next thing I would have tried.” Page grumbled, deflating slightly.

Scribble smirked with a pleased expression. “You snooze, you lose, Page.” She stated before turning her head to see what she had just revealed.

The ponies all looked behind the newly moved shelf, only to see an opening into what must have been another hallway, though this one was infinitely darker than the ones upstairs due to a complete lack of light coming in from outside.

Seeing the new path they had to take, some group members were hesitant to press forward. Snapshot, in particular, looked paler than his small wound should have allowed. “A-are you guys sure you want to go in there?” He stammered.

Pathfinder stepped out into the dark corridor, using his horn to shed some comfortable light on the area as he looked back to his companions. “I suppose you and Gale could wait for us upstairs,” He gestured to the hole in the ceiling behind them. “But where would the fun in that be?”

“But… I just remembered,” Snapshot persisted. “I’m allergic to dust… and impending doom.” He added pleadingly. Much to his dismay, his companions were already heading out into the dark unknown. The pegasus sighed anxiously and lowered his head until he felt a pat on his shoulder and looked up.

“Ah, don’t worry so much, Snap.” Blank Page said, flashing a reassuring smile and escorting the reluctant pony out with the others, leaving the room and the strange body behind as they faced exploring the deeper reaches of the castle.

As they first suspected, the ponies found themselves in yet another hallway, though this one was more aptly described as a corridor. After all, no hallway they knew of was made out of cold stone and had so many eerie openings around them. Aside from the secret panel they just exited from, which seemed to have another false torch to activate it from this side, there were many doorless openings into other rooms behind and ahead of them. And along the corner was an intersection.

“What are we doing down here?” Snapshot muttered while looking around stiffly.

Scribble looked to the pegasus with a sympathetic expression. “Don’t worry, Snapshot. Finding the stairs is our first priority.” She said. Not only did she want to get her friend’s wound tended to, but she was also hesitant to go poking around the area they now found themselves in. Still, her curiosity seemed to be outweighing her fear, unlike her gray companion.

Walking over to the corner up ahead, Blank Page shined his light around the wall, revealing a more open corridor on the other side with no visible end in sight. Turning back to his companions, he briefly glanced to the open expanse behind them and furrowed his expression. “Forward or back?” He asked, hopeful that someone else could offer some input.

After some silent glances and shrugs of indecision, Gale reached into a small pouch strung around her hips and pulled out a bit coin. She rotated it in her hoof, showing it off to the others.

“Heads for forward, tails for back?” She asked, receiving nods of agreement in return. With the direction of their search at stake, the yellow mare flipped the coin in the air and caught it before slapping it down on her foreleg and revealing it. A simplified depiction of the moon and Princess Luna greeted her.

“Tails it is,” Gale said plainly, looking up and turning around to face the hallway to their rear. As she slowly walked ahead, the others followed behind, secretly hoping to find a staircase sooner rather than later.

While they walked, the group paused at every opening they found so one or more of them could briefly search the room inside. Eventually, they started splitting off to better search the seemingly endless maze of rooms, though they never wandered too far away from each other.

The rooms they came across resembled the cold hallways that led to them. More walls built from cracked stone bricks, unlit torches along said walls, and a prevailing sense of dread in the air.

Scribble, along with her brother and Pathfinder, slowly walked into a room with a high ceiling. The room was slightly larger than most others they had come across, and its purpose was strikingly obvious to them as they looked around with silent expressions of disgust.

There were wooden and metal contraptions dotted around that seemed to serve only one purpose. One such device was an angled table with two ropes at its top and bottom. The cords were frayed from use, and they were connected to a crank that could be used to tighten them.

“My gosh…” Scribble covered her mouth as a wave of nausea passed over her. Just picturing some poor soul being strapped to the table and subjected to such torture made her pale.

Blank Page walked over to a set of chains bolted to the wall, shuddering slightly as he noted what was either rust or dry blood caked into the metal cuffs. “Skala Herz must have been one nasty customer.” He commented dryly.

“I’m starting to get why the griffons disowned him and this land,” Pathfinder added, looking over the disturbing devices around him with an uncomfortable expression. “Most people keep books or pool tables in their basement.”

“Well, most people don’t drink the blood of their enemies,” Scribble said quietly.

Hearing this, Blank Page paused what he was doing and looked to his sibling with a hint of shock in his eyes. “Wait, seriously? He did that?” He asked, his voice wavering.

Scribble looked back at the stallion, adopting a somber expression. “Reportedly.”

As they turned back to their surroundings, the trio felt a slight chill moving up their backs as they thought about what must have happened in this room.

Meanwhile, back out in the corridor, Gale and Snapshot were searching rooms as well.

The yellow mare was mostly taking the lead, with her anxious companion hanging back near the door each time.

Gale looked to Snapshot, noting his hesitant behavior. It seemed like he couldn't keep still for an instant. “You doing ok there?” She asked softly.

Snapshot made an attempt to stiffen up as he stopped darting his head around for long enough to look at the mare. “Uh… y-yeah,” He nodded, though his nerves seemed to disagree with him. “I’m just not a big fan of…” He paused, swallowing uncomfortably as the sounds of the castle creaking in the wind drew his eyes back to the many shadows around him. “dark and spooky places.”

“I thought going to an old castle seemed like a cool experience for you?”

“It was,” Snapshot sighed and rested a hoof on his foreleg. “But that was before we found that body.” He glanced over his shoulder, just barely spotting the open panel of a wall that led into the secret room at the edge of his vision. He felt a chill run down his back, thinking of that horrific sight.

Gale softened her expression a bit and rested a hoof on the nervous pony’s shoulder. “Kid, I can assure you that whatever did that guy in is long gone. There’s nothing around here but dust and poor decorating choices.” She said, narrowing her eyes a bit at the utterly oppressive atmosphere of doom and gloom around her. She could practically see the gaudy flowing cape that must have been the castle owner’s favorite attire.

Snapshot felt a little comforted by Gale’s words, but he was still a bit on edge. All the same, he managed a small smile. “Thanks… but I still think I’m going to stay out here while you guys look around.” He explained. As open and eerie as the corridor was, at least he could see all around him.

“Tell you what, how about I stay out here with you?” Gale offered with a slight smirk.

“I think that’d be-”

“Hey guys, come see this!”

Before Snapshot could finish his sentence, Scribble’s voice came from down the hall.

The pair turned their heads, only to see the many rooms that waited ahead of them. They briefly spotted the peach mare, waving them into one of the rooms on the left before ducking back inside.

Gale turned back to her fellow pegasus. “You want to…?” She nodded toward the room curiously.

Snapshot quickly shook his head. “No thanks. The last time we found something noteworthy, I fell through the floor and nearly landed on a dead body.” He explained, sitting back down and getting as comfortable as the stone floor would allow.

Seeing the stallion’s logic, Gale nodded. “Fair enough.” She glanced back toward the room up ahead, briefly stuck in thought. “Uh… I guess I’ll go check it out. It sounds important. Don’t worry though, I’ll be right back.” She said, turning back to the nervous pony and flashing a reassuring expression, to which he nodded.

With the yellow mare walking away, Snapshot slowly felt his courage fading away. As she turned into the doorway ahead and stepped inside, he suddenly felt very uneasy in the dark corridor.

“I’m starting to regret coming here.” He muttered to himself while scanning his eyes around in a paranoid fashion. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t relax. However, an abrupt throb of pain drew his attention away from his surroundings and down to his injured foreleg. The bleeding had mostly stopped, but the area along the wound was still red and very sensitive.

“Gah… I can’t believe my luck today.” He frowned, gently tracing a hoof over the length of the cut.

As he was quietly bemoaning his injury, Snapshot’s ears suddenly perked up as what sounded like something scuffling against the floor came from behind him. However, as he darted his head and his flashlight around, he found nothing but an open corridor and more darkness.

“What the hay…?” He furrowed his expression as he scanned his eyes around. The sound wasn’t in his mind, or was it? After all, he was a bundle of nerves by this point.

The pegasus slowly and cautiously stepped forward, letting the beam from his flashlight fall on more of the seemingly empty hallway. Nothing was out of place, and he was still alone as far as he could tell. Or at least, nothing looked out of place.

“Huh?”

Snapshot tilted his head as he looked to the secret wall panel. He remembered it being open, but strangely enough, it looked more relaxed than it was before, if only slightly.

Walking up to the exposed panel, he grabbed ahold of it and attempted to move it. The wall seemed too heavy for a light draft to have moved it, but there was no other sign of anything around it.

“Wait… what the…?” Snapshot furrowed his brow as something caught his eye inside the room. After looking around himself once more to satisfy his nerves, he stepped inside and flashed his light ahead.
.
..
…

Meanwhile, Gale suddenly found herself inside perhaps the grimmest looking room she had yet seen in the castle. The area looked to be a sort of torture chamber, judging from all of the disturbing devices littered around.

“Yikes…” She held her neck defensively as she noted an iron neckband bolted to the wall with spikes facing inwards. After shuddering briefly, she shook the thoughts from her head and turned her attention to finding her companions.

Seeing no sign of Scribble or the others in this room, the pegasus walked forward until she reached a door on the other side. Strangely enough, the sight of an actual wooden door was somewhat refreshing after going through so many open areas.

Gale pulled open the door and peered inside, confirming her suspicions that her friends were within. The three ponies were in another, smaller room connected to the torture chamber. This room was immediately more welcoming than the bloody section before it, but it wasn’t that much of an improvement upon closer inspection.

Along with a table at the back of the room full of strange-looking books and other objects, there were symbols painted along the walls in what the yellow mare hoped was red paint. A vast star within a circle painted on the ground, alongside the table, was what everyone was looking at.

Scribble turned as she heard the pegasus approaching. Gale was staring ahead at the symbol drawn along the floor, a disquieted expression stuck on her face. “Where’s Snapshot?” She asked curiously, looking back to the open door to the torture chamber.

“He stayed back in the hallway,” Gale replied, briefly looking at the peach pony before returning to her disturbed scan of the room. “What is this place?”

“It looks like someone was practicing some kind of black magic in here.” Blank Page inferred the obvious. “Was Skala Herz into the occult?” He asked, shifting his attention to his more knowledgeable sister.

“According to the legends, he was,” Scribble explained. However, her expression became more puzzled as she looked around at the various symbols and the items on the table. “But… this stuff looks new. Well, it looks newer than it should be.” She noted.

Pathfinder skewed his expression in confusion at the mare’s words. “How’s that?”

Scribble walked over to one of the symbols on the wall, examining it closely under her light and even running a hoof along the red paint. “I might be wrong… but it looks like this stuff was put here sometime after the castle was abandoned.”

“So…” Gale started, slowly coming to the same conclusion the peach mare had. “Does that mean that someone else lived here after the griffons?”

AHHHHHHH!!

A blood-curdling scream pierced the silence in the air, making everyone’s heart jolt. The ponies darted their heads toward the door, their eyes widening as they recognized the owner of the outburst.

Scribble gasped in concern. “That was Snapshot!”

Not wanting to waste any time, Pathfinder rushed to the door and motioned for the others to follow. “Come on, let’s go!”