Dead Week

Totality flipped through the card catalog in the academy library. It was pretty straight forward. There was really only one term to search. After cycling through everything under ‘Runic Arcana,’ only one result stuck out as useable for translating. Perfect, she thought. This’ll be easy. She rubbed her hooves together and plucked the card out of the drawer with her magic.

She checked the location for the book as marked on the card but couldn’t find it. “Oh, wouldn’t you know it,” she muttered to herself in a monotone. “Not here.” Totality zipped over to the front desk where a kindly looking older mare unicorn was sorting incoming books.

“Excuse me, could you help me find this book?” asked Totality, floating the card up before her.

The librarian adjusted her glasses and levitated the card forward and back until it was within her range of focus. “It’s checked out,” she replied simply. “Sorry.”

Totality raised an eyebrow. “You… already know that for sure?”

“Already looked for it once for somepony who came in asking about it. I couldn’t find it then and I haven’t seen it in the return box. It’s still out, I’m afraid.”

“Well, shit- I mean… shoot.”

“It’s okay, dear. You can say ‘shit’ in the library. As long as you’re quiet.” She said this like a mother consoling their foal after they dropped their ice cream cone.

“Thanks… I just really needed that book for a report. Could you maybe tell me who checked it out so I could peek over their shoulder while they read?”

The librarian laughed. “That’s exactly what the other pony wanted. Mossy Boulders has it.”

“Oh, thanks,” replied Totality, then her brow furrowed in confusion. “Wait, the groundskeeper?”

“That’s him.”

“Okay,” she nodded slowly. “Thank you.” She turned away bewildered. Mossy, she wondered. He wasn't a student, and wasn't he an earth pony? That didn't make any sense. He didn't even have the opportunity to steal the grimoire, much less use it.

Totality went straight to his quarters, which were apart from all other buildings on campus, a little hut along the edge of the park. She knocked on the door with no real game plan, expecting no answer from within. But in a moment a tan mustachioed earth pony pulled open the door and she was somewhat caught off guard.

There’s no way this is our guy, she thought, looking at him up and down. Just be direct and turn around. This is a dead end. “Um… Hi? This is going to sound strange, but did you check out a book on runes from the library?”

Mossy’s eyes bulged. “Didja find it?” he exclaimed.

Totality cocked her head to one side. “F-find it?”

“Yeah. Damndest thing. Went missin’. Cain’t find it nowhere. It’s almost due. Gonna have to pay fer it ‘less it turns up real quicklike,” he groaned.

Missing, she thought. If it was really almost due, Mossy had checked out the book well before it became a necessity for translating the grimoire, therefore that couldn’t have been his motive for acquiring it. Just as she thought, this in addition to everything else that didn’t add up, it meant he had nothing to do with this.

“Do you know when it went missing?” she asked.

“Couple days ago,” he shrugged.

The same time the Grimoire disappeared. What an interesting timeline for such an interesting item to go ‘missing,’ she thought. Then she remembered what the librarian had said about the other pony’s interest in finding who had checked out the book. That’s what happened. The suspect tried to check out the Runic Arcana book after Mossy had already done so. Then they tracked it to Mossy and stole it from him.

“So why are ya here?” asked Mossy.

“Oh… I wanted to see if I could use that book for a report but it sounds like it’s gone.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“Well… sorry to bother you. Hopefully it will turn up.” She started to leave but then stopped. “But if you don’t mind my asking, why did you even check out such a book?”

Mossy’s eyes fell to the floor and he gestured behind him to a large stack of books on a coffee table. “I feel sorry for the old unpopular books, y’know. Their days till they get tossed in the trash are numbered. I like to think if they get checked out again it extends their life, like feedin’ a parkin’ meter er somethin’.”

“Oh,” she nodded. “I thought I was the only one.”

Totality returned to the library counter and thankfully found the same librarian as before, performing the same task as before.

“Hi. Me again,” she waved. "This is going to sound weird, but you know how you told me about a pony before me who asked about the Runic Arcana book when it had already been checked out? Do you know who that pony was?

The librarian shook her head. “Oh, I don’t know her name.”

So it’s a her then, she thought. Now we're getting somewhere. "Was she a unicorn?"

"Yes."

“Do you remember her mane, or what color her coat was?”

"Uh… Sorry, I'm afraid I don't… Oh, but I remember that her cutie mark had a moon."

"A moon? Okay, thank you." Totality turned away and exhaled. Female unicorn with a moon cutie mark. That narrows it down to what? A quarter of the school?

"It's not looking good for the Hazy theory,” sighed Totality, tapping her hoof anxiously on the little umbrella table. “The evidence is leading us away from her."

"Then let's just follow the evidence," shrugged Gamma.

"Okay, off the top of your head, who was in either of those classes that matches the description of a female unicorn with a moon in her cutie mark?"

“Professor Moondancer has a moon and she taught one of the classes I was in that day.”

Totality thought but quickly shook her head. “It’s not Moondancer. She already knows where to get her hooves on material like that. If she wanted to, she could trot right down to the restricted section of the archives and take her pick. Also, I would think the librarians at the academy would know her by name.”

"That's true," he agreed, his eyes launching up into the sky to think deeper. "Well, the rest are Spider Phase, Orbit and Brassy Cogs and then there's another one with a half moon. I don't know her name."

"You're sure that's all of them?"

"Pretty sure,” he nodded confidently. “I notice cutie marks."

"Any of them have a clear opportunity? Did they sit next to you or interact with you on that day?"

"No."

"This feels hopeless," groaned Totality. The prospect of shaking down a hooffull of rooms on scatter shot sounded not only daunting, but seemed to run a real risk of turning up nothing. "Well, did you come up with anything at the archives?"

He looked back at her. “There were no new signatures for the stuff I’d looked at, and the most recent signatures before me were from over a year ago. I doubt she did the research. She probably knew about the catacombs location via oral tradition. I went ahead and looked at the designs again because I remembered something I wanted to see down there when we went but it mysteriously wasn’t there. Then of course we got distracted and it wasn’t really on my mind anymore.”

“What was it?”

“The torture chamber. According to those designs, we went right past where the entrance should have been at about the midway point of the center corridor on our right. Then it occurred to me that the dungeon was still operating as a dungeon up through the time when physical torture was abolished. When that happened, every torture chamber in the kingdom was ordered to be sealed and left abandoned. I’d thought that the dungeon had been converted before that time and maybe we could just walk right in, but no. They sealed it. That’s why we never saw the door.”

“That’s really interesting, but how is it relevant?”

“I was thinking about what I’d do if I was doing rituals down there and I knew that somepony had found my leftovers. I’d have to move my base of operations, but to where? I’d want to keep it on campus, but there is still no better spot if I’m doing a big project. That dungeon has everything I need: pony remains, holding cells, storage, and until recently, privacy. If I lost that privacy, I can only see myself doing one of two things: quitting while I’m ahead, or moving to an even more private location within the dungeon, and it doesn’t look like our suspect chose the former.”

“You think they set up in this torture chamber?”

“I’m saying that’s what I’d do.”

"Do you want to check it out?"

Gamma took a deep breath. "Yes, but also no, but also… yes."

"Yeah, my thoughts exactly."

Totality and Gamma stood at the edge of the park looking around suspiciously for anypony who might be watching them. When she thought it was clear, Totality aparated the both of them onto the dark stairs below.

They clopped carefully down the steps under the lights of their horns. The place was now creepy in a bad way, with the possibility of danger around every corner. What if they dropped right in on the perpetrator while exploring? The two stayed close to each other as they entered the hall, scarcely breathing.

Suddenly Totality felt a crunch under her hoof. She gasped at the horrifying and very familiar sound. Instinctively she put a hoof to her face to check her glasses and found that they were still there.

"What happened?" asked Gamma, mildly alarmed.

"I stepped on…" Totality took a step back and looked down at the stone floor to see a pair of mangled glasses with one lens broken out. The taped up bridge made the eyewear instantly recognizable.

"Those are Moondancer's glasses," gasped Gamma.

"So they are… What are they doing down here?"

Gamma shook his head. "I don't know, but I can't think of any nice explanations."

“Let’s keep going,” whispered Totality. “Hopefully this will be a short misadventure and we can just look and get the hell out.”

The two continued down the hall, quiet enough to hear rats skittering in the corners. “This has to be it,” breathed Gamma, coming to a stop at a bodiless clearing on the wall. The word ‘Sleigher’ was scrawled in red across it.

“See the arch?” Gamma pointed to the rough but clear stone outline of the door that no longer was. The shape was perfectly flush with the wall but slightly lighter in color. “Bring me inside too, but if we have to run, please don’t forget to take me with you.”

In a different situation, Totality would have laughed at the remark but instead just nodded. “Okay. Here we go.” She flicked her horn as they braced for whatever was on the other side of the wall. The two of them blinked in and out in an instant but did not move from their spot.

“What the…” she muttered.

“What happened,” asked Gamma.

Totality cast the spell again, but the same thing happened. Then she did it a third time, but still they stood in the hall. “I can’t get in. It’s like there is no room there. Could it be completely filled in?”

Gamma shook his head. “No. That doesn’t make sense.” He paused to ponder this strange development. Then he bit his lip. “Let’s just get out of here.”

The sun began to set on another day where a black hat necromancer still prowled the academy campus unfettered and unseen.

Gamma and Totality sat outside for dinner, picking listlessly at their food.

“If this really is the worst case scenario that we’re fearing," began Gamma, "raising an alicorn with no remains, that’s gonna take a lotta ponies. And I am about ready to throw in the towel here and tell the school everything.”

Totality shook her head in alarm.“No, Gamma, don’t do it.”

Gamma rubbed his face with his hooves. “How can you be so cavalier about all this?”

“How can you be so willing to throw your life away?”

“Ponies are going to die if we don’t stop this,” he hissed.

“I understand what you’re saying, but this is a big project for a lone pony to pull off. It’s a logistical nightmare. Imagine prepping everything, getting the supplies, the blood, abducting and holding like a dozen live unicorns somehow.”

“Yeah, that’s why it has to be in that torture chamber,” he muttered before scooping the last of the taco salad into his mouth.

“All I’m saying is that we still have time and we don’t have to cross that bridge yet.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “But I don’t know where we go from here.”

Totality’s eyes fell to the table. She didn’t know either. Their best leads had more or less fizzled out, leaving behind obtuse guesswork. As of right now, it seemed that they were just delaying the inevitable while ignoring what appeared to be a real growing danger.

Gamma pushed the edge of his plate down with his hoof, causing the other side to wiggle up and down like a seesaw. “My, um… roommate’s gone tonight and tomorrow,” he said absently, his one visible eye darting around nervously.

Totality looked up from her plate.