SS13: Outside Context

Markus groaned as the shuttle touched down. It had landed in the middle of a forest during the night cycle of this planet. He knew this was no jungle planet but was still paranoid by being surrounded by dense trees as alien forests and jungles were often more deadly than the other planets and death traps he had previously mined on.

Fortunately for now his mission was to explore, not to mine.

Markus would stand and stretch his arms before grabbing his equipment and leaving the shuttle. He found the fresh non-recycled air to be nice at least.

Markus would sigh. "You would think they'd want a future mining outpost near a mountain or cave instead of out in the damn sticks," he complained to himself.

He grabbed a set of glowing marker beacons from his satchel and began to walk in a random direction deeper into the forest. He would occasionally set a marker beacon down, leaving a trail back towards the mining shuttle as he ventured into the darkness.

Princess Luna had grown unbearably frustrated.

It had been a week since a great structure had appeared in the sky. Much to her chagrin the structure was practically invisible during the day, only barely seen during her night. She had made an agreement with her sister Celestia to only discuss the structure in private as nopony other than them had noticed it yet. Luna had made a wondrous discovery about the structure however. It was inhabited.

Luna often devoted the time of the night when night court was not in session to dreamwalking. She often peered into the dreams of sleeping ponies and replaced any nightmares she happened upon with comforting dreams. Luna discovered early that she was just capable of overseeing the dreams of the beings who inhabited the structure in the sky.

There were numerous species that inhabited the structure though they were all bipedal, and the dominant species referred to themselves as "Humans." These so-called humans appeared to be monkeylike, though with very little hair. Luna was shocked to find that their dreams varied more than the ponies whose dreams she oversaw. Some of the humans dreamed of wondrous fantasies, others dreamed of paranoia and violence. Tonight was different however.

Rather than the usual relaxing purple and blue colors most dreams had before inspecting them further, one was a violent red. Luna grew even more concerned as she had trouble accessing the dream, as if blocked by an invisible barrier.

Luna normally had very little difficulty when entering dreams, it had become second nature long ago. Too be unable to access this dream was an alien feeling. Luna was filled with a strange sense of dread as she gazed upon it.

"What secret does thou hide?" Luna spoke to the dream and paused briefly as if she was expecting a response.

The idea of being unable to access a dream was preposterous to Luna. She was the Night Princess and this was her realm outside of Equestria. Luna began to use an extensive amount of magic attempting to access the dream, and eventually the seemingly invisible barrier dissipated. Luna entered the dream, and gazed around in horror.

Corpses were laid upon corpses in a seemingly never-ending pile within a strange room that had red and black walls and floors. Many different inscriptions or runes littered the floor, drawn in blood. Three robed humans surrounded one of the runes while chanting incoherently.

All three slowly turned towards Luna. Two had crimson colored swords and the third was spinning a throwing bola.

Luna instinctively backed away but was knocked off balance when the third threw the bola and it wrapped around her front legs. She fell to the floor.

Luna quickly attempted to alter the dream but found herself unable to. In the panic she began to fire bolts of magic at her three attackers, though the three expertly dodged them and were sprinting at Luna.

Luna caught a close look at the closest human. His left hand was glowing an unnatural red and radiating magical energy. He held the sword in his right hand. She quickly stood up but found moving difficult with her front hooves wrapped together by the bola.

Luna would scream. "Cease foul assailants-"

"Fuu ma'jin!" The human screamed and slammed his glowing hand against Luna.

Luna fell to the floor convulsing. She could do nothing but panic. Whatever magic the human had conjured left her stunned.

She was unable to access her magic. She couldn't move. She couldn't scream. She couldn't speak. It was as if her own body refused to obey any command or instinct. Luna could still feel however.

The two attackers with swords briefly lightly cut into her sides while the third slammed a blunt object against Luna's head. After a few seconds of attacks that seemed like eternity to Luna, the three began to drag her to one of the runes.

The bloody rune somehow changed from red to white as the three humans dragged Luna to it. She attempted to move, scream, and even exit the dream with every fiber of her being and yet her body failed to do anything. The robed humans dropped Luna onto the white rune.

They once again broke into incoherent chants, when finally one of them kneeled in front of Luna and began to yell.

"Mah'weyh pleggh at e'ntrath!" yelled the robed human.

Everything went dark.