The man donned in a red shirt and sunglasses looks to his bookshelf. He turns around as he notices someone enters his strange room. He pulls a book off of the shelf and makes his way to his seat.
I wasn't expecting you to return. Usually, many would just give up coming back, especially due to the nature of this tale. Then again, you did chose come. You knew the signs, the story, the endless potential of a better fanfiction. (Wait should I be saying that?) Well then, I suppose we should just get started. Or rather more specifically, let us continue.

Svalich Woods
Not long after

"You know Princess, I've been curious. What is that odd staff you are holding?"

"Oh this?" Twilight held out a wooden staff with a blue crystal on the top, "This is the Storm King's Staff, better known as "The Staff of Sacanas". It was once used to hold the power of all four Alicorn Princesses (including myself) during his invasion of Equestria. Now it only has less than a tenth of its power but I could still use to conjure a small storm should things get out of hoof."

"Four Princesses?" Maria gave a curious look, "I thought there were seven of them."

"Seven?!" This caught everyone's attention.

"The Princess of the Day, the Princess of the Night, the Princess of the Earth, the Princess of the Sea, the Princess of the Air, The Princess of the Heart, and the Princess of Magic." Maria listed them out like a checklist, "Each seven of them maintained Balance and Harmony within Equestria and governed their respective realms."

"But that can't be," confused by the deviation of their history, Twilight continued to question, "Equestria never had more than five Alicorn Princesses! Where did this story come from?"

"Simple, "Hearts of Harmony" is a Fairy-tale anthology of the Princesses of the world known as Equestria. From their achievements and tragedies, each Princesses' tales inspired many children's imagination. The first story was about Grogar the Goat and his conquest, and how the seven united against him. All but the Princess of the Air died to defeat him; and due to his foul magic he corrupted the Earth Princess, using her corpse to create shape-shifting abominations.
The Second story was the unification of the Pony tribes and the stand against the Windigos. By then they chose three mares to be successors to the fallen Princesses of the Heart, Magic and Sea. Unfortunately, the Princess of the Heart fled north to protect her ponies, the Princesses of the Air and Sea were slain by the Windigos, and the Princess of Magic tried what she could to arbitrate the discussions between the tribes. However, it was the wise counsel of three simple ponies that defeated the Windigos; and with the Princess of Magic, they chose two sisters to be successors to the Day and Night.
The final story was after the Princess of Magic chose a Unicorn wizard to be her successor, the Princess of the Heart was betrayed by her successor, was turned to stone by the King of Shadows and was then shattered to pieces. It took the Princesses of the Day and Night to defeat him only to have the entire Empire of the North vanish out of existence."

The Equestrians' jaws dropped. The story was sound and held an uncanny parallels to their world, along with plausible explanations to the many gaps in their history.

"You know, that would make for a crazy history lesson if it is anything like our world's history," Pinkie chimed.

"Maybe it's just just set on a different version of Equestria." suggested Applejack, "Y'know, like in those comic books that Spike reads?"

"Maybe it was written by some pony who ended up in her world and decided to got all fanfiction on Equestria's history just to make a quick check in bits?" added Rainbow Dash.

"You mean just like those Daring Do conventions you attend?" Rarity teased as the Aasimar flushed with embarrassment.

"Out of curiosity," Twilight gave a sheepish smile as she asked Maria, "who wrote this story?"

Maria thought for a moment before the gave her reply, "I don't know his real name but his pen name was D. I. Scord."

Seven reactions and a debate later

Everyone roll for Perception
20(FS), 16(S), 15(MM), 15(TS), 14(AJ), 14(P), 12(PP), 8(RD), Nat1(R)
"Wait, do you all smell that?" asked Fluttershy.
"Yeah, is that metal?" Spike added.
"No, I know that smell," Maria became alert, "Everyone, stay together and follow behind me! It's coming from over there, across the woods."

The party left the road to follow the scent, leading them deeper into the woods. Rarity tripped over Rainbow Dash as they approached, slowing the group for a moment. Fluttershy seemed to be the one who knew where the scent came from with the help of Harry who became agitated. She helped direct the direction of the scent with Maria leading the way. Applejack and Pinkie Pie walked backed to the two who tripped, helping them get up and catch with the rest. Twilight stood close to Spike and Pest, forming a defensive line behind the lead rogue.

About half an hour tracing the scent they saw the source of the smell; a lifeless body of a man in strange clothing. The sight of him left Fluttershy frozen with fear, Rarity, Spike, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie screaming, and the rest of them gasping from horror.

"I-i-i-i-is h-h-h-he, d-d-d-d-d-d-dead?" Rainbow shivered, still in disbelief from the sight.

"Everyone shut up and stay low!" Maria barked in a hushed voice. She slowly creep her way to the body and began to inspect it.
Roll for Investigation
22
She found a dagger, a poach full of 5 gold pieces (5gp), a map and an envelope in his hand. She takes it out and reaches a hand to close his eyes, "May Lothander carry you into his bosom." She also noticed claw and bite marks all over him as well as paw prints surrounding the area around the body.

Maria slowly backs to the rest of the party with the items at hand, much to the dismay of Fluttershy. "D-did you just take those off of him?"

"It's distasteful, I know. But right now, these are the only clues as to why he died."

"What do you mean?" Rarity shot back.

"He is quite a distance from the road, he is covered with bite and claw marks and he was holding this real tight." the rogue produced the letter to the party and read it for all to hear;
Hail thee of might and valor:

I, the Burgomaster of Barovia, send you honor—with despair. My adopted daughter, the fair Ireena Kolyana, has been these past nights bitten by a vampyr. For over four hundred years, this creature has drained the life blood of my people. Now, my dear Ireena languishes and dies from an unholy wound caused by this vile beast. He has become too powerful to conquer.

So I say to you, give us up for dead and encircle this land with the symbols of good. Let holy men call upon their power that the devil may be contained within the walls of weeping Barovia. Leave our sorrows to our graves, and save the world from this evil fate of ours.
There is much wealth entrapped in this community. Return for your reward after we are all departed for a better life.

Kolyan Indirovich
Burgomaster

A deathly silence over came them as a realization dawned. They were in serious danger.

"Wait a minute," Pinkie Pie broke the silence, "Fluttershy, didn't you receive a letter from this Burger-master guy?"

"Y-yes," Fluttershy broke out of her frozen panic, "but it said he needed help for his daughter."

"Can I see this letter?" Maria took out her hand, requesting the item in question.

Fluttershy hands Maria the letter she received yesterday. The human opens it up and compares the hand writing; they are both different. One of them is fake.
Roll for Investigation
Natural 20 (Author's Note: Yes, I rolled it)
Fluttershy's letter had a more refined handwriting while in contrast, the letter from the corpse appeared to be written with force on the page as though there was desperation and urgency within it.

"Okay, nobody panic, but the one you lot received is a fake. Now this," She held out the one from the body, "is the genuine article. Our late friend here was probably meant to intercept us and ward us away from this place. Which could only mean one thing, somebody unsavory wants us here. Probably from this Vampire described in the letter."

"Oh please," Twilight waved the idea off, "There are no such things as Vampires. That's just a filly story."

Maria gave the High Elf Princess an incredulous look, "You're joking right? Of course they exist! My Grand Uncle was killed by a Vampire and raised as a Spawn. It took the whole family to chop his head off and burn the rest of him under the sun."

Roll for Perception
17
While the rest of them were arguing about the existence of Vampires, Pest heard something and it was not far from the party.
Imitating a line he heard from their High Inquisitor, Pest called out, "Everyone, leave now!"

This caught Maria's attention...
Roll for Insight
9
... and she was not amused, "Pest, we have no time for your game of impressions! If you would be so kind as to..."

Pest jumped to cover her mouth and silence her with a "shhh". Everyone then took a moment to listen: Then came a howl, followed by another, and another, then soon the forest came alive with howls.

"I think we just found out what killed him," muttered Pinkie Pie.

"And we are not going to stay here to join him," Twilight said before screaming, "RUN!"

Roll for Initiative (Click here to set the mood)
16(TS), 14(AJ), 12(R), 10(P), 9(PP), 7(MM), 5(S), 2(Wolves), Nat1(RD), Nat1(FS),
Everyone began to run for the road with the exception of Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.

Fluttershy hesitated for a moment until Rainbow Dash grabbed her arm, "Flutters! Let's go!"

As the howls became increasingly louder, the wolves soon became visible. They were huge, they were close, and there were 25 of them. Finally snapping out, Fluttershy joins the run followed closely by Rainbow Dash.

Both of them were overtaken by the wolves; one of them leaped on top of Rainbow and began attacking her. Three surrounded Rainbow to the right and three more surrounded Fluttershy to the left.

"Fluttershy!" Rainbow screamed, "Tell them to stop!"

"Now now every creature, you mustn't just attack anyone." Fluttershy pleaded politely.

The wolves gave a snarling reply. One of them even attempted to bite.

At that Fluttershy snapped at them, "Now you listen here! You will behave yourselves or I will give you the stare!"

Ignoring the threat, they continued their aggression forcing the Druid to stare right at them with an intimidating glare. Her expression soon changed to absolute horror after gazing into their eyes.

"T-they're empty," she gasped in fear, "There is nothing in them. They're just empty."

Harry mauled one of the wolves in front of the two and put it down. Three bolts of magic missiles hit each of the three wolves surrounding Rainbow Dash; followed by two crossbow bolts that finished two of the wolves.

Rainbow and Fluttershy turned to see where the projectiles came from; Twilight held out her hand and cast a firebolt at the wolf in front of Spike. Applejack stood between three wolves and Rarity and Pinkie Pie. She swung her hammer at the center wolf, only to be finished by Pest who ambushed them from behind. Pinkie drew her shortsword and stabbed the wolf to Applejack's right. Maria quickly reloaded her hand crossbows and finished off the the one Pinkie stabbed and the other flanking Rainbow. Spike finished off the wolf in front of him and then took a moment to see his handiwork with horror.

It was the wolves' turn as the survivors that surrounded the two behind attempted to bite and claw them, only to miss each attempt. More poured in to intercept them, three more advanced towards Spike, two more towards Pest. The one in front of Applejack mauled her by the arm as she screamed in pain. Seeing this, Rarity cast a radiant light that scorched the wolf, forcing it to release the Dwarf.

More wolves joined the fray forcing Rainbow to grab Fluttershy and toss her on top of the Bear. "GO!" she ordered Harry as they made a mad dash for the road. While on the bear, Fluttershy cast entangling roots to snare a group of wolves behind them.

"EVERYONE RUN FOR IT!" Twilight ordered she spent her last magic pool to fire magic missiles at the wolves in front of Spike before making a run for the road. Hearing the order, Applejack crushed the wolf in front of her with the hammer and followed suit. Rarity grabbed Pinkie, carried her on her back and joined the rest of them. Pest grabbed hold of Harry as the bear rushed past him and joined the mount with Fluttershy. Maria shot one bolt putting down another wolf before joining the run. Not needing Twilight to tell him, Spike made a dash to the rest of them as soon as he saw more of the wolves closing in on him.

The wolves continued chasing towards the road, far from where they started. They were just about to gain on them til they reached the path and all of a sudden the wolves stopped and were silent. Twilight took notice of this and stopped running.

"Twilight, what are you doing? Run!" Spike yelled.

"Wait! All of you!" Twilight surveyed the line of wolves that stood still. She took one step off the road onto the turf of fallen tree branches and dead earth; the wolves reacted with a snarl. She put her foot back to the road and the wolves ceased their aggression. Twilight lifted a rock from the ground and with her magic, she flung it at the closest wolf. It didn't even flinch.

"They're not responding," Twilight mused aloud, "It's like they're just puppets. We stay on the road, they won't attack us."

"Ooh, let me try!" Pinkie Pie jumped off of Rarity and took a step off and on the road with the predicted reaction from the wolves.

"They're being controlled," Maria added, "Someone or should I say, Something wants us to stay and follow this road."

"Shouldn't we need to go back then?" Fluttershy nervously asked, "Wouldn't it be dangerous if we keep going?"

"I think we would be in more danger if we head back to the gate. Whoever or whatever wants us here wants us to keep moving. As much as I would hate to say it, but we have no choice on the matter; we must press on."

"I agre- DARLING! APPLEJACK! You're bleeding!" Rarity screeched at the sight of her dwarven friend's arm.

"Oh this here?" Applejack checked her injury, "Is nothin' to fuss about. Ah've had worse."

"Absolutely not, Applejack!" Fluttershy raised her voice, "An injury like that, especially from wolves would most likely leave an infection without proper treatment." At that, the pink haired wood elf began to cast healing magic on the arm.

"Wow, Ah never thought Ah'd see somethin' like this in mah life."

"Girls, I think we should move," Spike suggested nervously, "I don't want to stay here and wait to see if these guys won't budge if we won't keep moving."

"I'm with Spike on this one," Rainbow Dash agreed.

As everyone began to move out (while keeping an eye at the wolves) Maria looked back with concern, "Well, so much for a welcome party."

The man in red closes his book and looks to us.
Well, this has been an interesting welcome. However we will have to cut it short for today. Here is where we will have to end our session.

Author's Note

Will they seen the end of the road? Will the wolves come after them? Or will they see something far worse? Find out next time in Hearts of Harmony: Into the land of Mists.

As always, let me here your thoughts and suggestions for where this journey will take them. What perils will they encounter? What faces shall they see? Til next time.