I was bored once again. Bored, bored, bored, bored, BORED!

Another day had passed, and Izzy had gotten back from her shopping trip. I was interested to see what she'd cooked up for our disguises, but she said we had to wait and see. I could figure that, as she had to configure the disguises around our physical features. And as we were all different sizes and heights that could be quite a complex concept to pull off. Nonetheless, I made my way around the top floor, trying to figure out what I could do to pass the time.

I glanced up at the sun, still floating high in the sky. Another lovely day, but I didn't think I could afford risking popping out. After all, that last time had been close enough with me getting almost spotted. I didn't massively fancy pushing my luck this time again, so I was going to simply look out of the window.

But it wasn't as if many unicorns were doing much out there. They seemingly wandered around, looking about with glazed over eyes or oddly lethargic as they went from place to place. I could hopped in front of them and waved my wings in their faces, and they still wouldn't have noticed me!

I sighed as I saw the others moving about, looking for things to do. It was just then I had an idea. I bounded down from the top level and began to turn the crank on Izzy's music machine. Sure enough, it began to play a familiar tune on it, one that I presumed all of us in the house knew.

After all, this was how we'd come to love this show and world in the first place. Although some are part of a newer intake, the majority of G5 Bronies were originally fans of Friendship is Magic, the series which came before our current timeline. And that theme had sort of become our anthem, the thing we rallied behind.

I continued to turn it until we were back at the start of the melody, before I stopped turning it. The machine had suddenly started playing the Generation 3 theme song. Blugh! The less said about that the better!

I slipped past the machine, and then suddenly spotted the doors down below. When we'd first arrived, Sunny had expressed interest in it, and Izzy had claimed that it contained her baking supplies, before switching her story.

But the fact she had so suddenly changed her story surprised me. I mean, I know the song that's coming up briefly references Cupcakes, but the existance of the basement here was too suspicious?

What if Izzy Moonbow was hiding a terrible secret? What if, under our snouts, there was something nefarious going on?

Oh, don't be silly! Of course there isn't anything going on! That's absurd!

But what if there was?

I quickly armed myself with my phone, and flipped the lid open. I then climbed onto the ladder and looked around before switching the torch on my phone on.

"Here we go," I said, and I began to descend into the basement. Each step took me deeper and deeper into darkness, and my eyes had difficulty adjusting to the light. It was the sort of darkness where if you close your eyes you have no idea if your eyes are open or not.

My hooves continued to touch cold metal, and I shone a torch down to see how far this ladder went. Only a few more rungs and I would be at the bottom of the ladder, and on the floor of the basement proper.

Once I had proceeded a bit further, I wrapped a foreleg around one of the rungs and shone my phone light around. A vast, cavernous space simply stretched out, seemingly forever. Stone walls could be seen in the distance.

I breathed in. "Be brave, Pipp. Be brave." Besides, I could always find my way back to the ladder quite easily. I continued on my way down, and once at the bottom put my phone away. I tried to attach it to my shoulder so I could use it as a shoulder mounted light. A shame Hitch hadn't brought a spare helmet from the mine. That would be useful down here, but the helmet was too big for my head.

I slowly began to look around, keen to find anything interesting down here. I stepped forward and looked about slowly, my eyes trying to adjust to the darkness surrounding me. I soon saw what looked like figures sitting around a table, so I went over to look.

I shone a light on them, and briefly jumped back at what I saw. Sitting around the table were a selection of skeletons, all posed doing different things. Above them was a banner, but the words were impossible to read. "Well, that's weird."

I made my way round them and headed towards a fireplace that was set against the wall, walking past what looked to be some sort of bizarre device for locking a pony in place. I shuddered at the thought. This place was too much like Cupcakes.

I made my way to the fireplace, seeing it had started glowing. I stopped in front of it, and suddenly the light shifted.

A skeleton was briefly visible in the flames.

I jumped back, but then spotted the skeleton was made of plastic. "Well, this is giving Zephyr Heights nightmare night parties a run for their money!"

I then spotted a television nearby, which had just turned on, and so went over to it. It seemed to be playing some sort of weird tape, but as I got closer the audio got more and more distorted, until it blasted a loud electric noise of static.

"Why is this happening?" I asked, and began to back away. Unfortunately, I'd forgotten where the figures from earlier were, and fell onto the table surrounded by the skeletons.

And seeing one of those in your face is not fun. I shrieked and jumped off the table, running for the ladder before stopping.

I could hear breathing behind me. Something was behind me.

SOMETHING WAS DOWN HERE WITH ME!

I turned around, very, very slowly, to see who was there.

"Hey Pipp! Whatcha doin' down here?"

"AHH!" I said, before calming down. "Oh, it's just you, Izzy. Nothing to be worried about. I thought there was a monster down here with me- I've streamed enough horror games on my YouHoof channel to be familiar with the genre. But what is this place?"

"Oh, this? It's set up for Nightmare Night. I run a scare maze during that time and it gets a lot of business." Izzy's face shifted. "You know, Pipp, if you just wanted to come down here you only had to ask!"

I sighed. "I know. Sorry, Izzy."

"No worries," Izzy smiled. "Now then, let's go back to the top- unless you want the monster to get you!"

"What monster?" I asked.

"I have an animatronic monster chase the guests out of the exit. It took ages to rig up and program, but the results were pretty good if I do say so myself."

So yeah, after all that, it was quite nice to be back on the top again. I figured that, seeing as part of the day had passed, it was about time we got into our disguises and set off for the tearooms. Even if I couldn't really get onto my message system or find out what was going on, it was still a good idea to get a move on and get that crystal. After all, magic would make this a lot easier.

Luckily, Izzy agreed with this idea, and launched into a song. I could tell she'd been looking forward to this for a while, but things were a bit different. Misty agreed to fill in Zipp's choreography and moves, so that worked.

Before long, Izzy fitted us into all of our disguises, whilst teaching us how unicorns walk talk, hoop, strut. In short we were in the unicorn know, and would surely soon be unicorn pros.

I was quick to get my disguise fully fitted, which was a dress of sorts to cover my wings. Luckily, Izzy had put some more fabric in to avoid the odd effect from the dress yesterday.

That worked well for me, and a horn that fitted pretty well. Well, I'd much better have that than a glitter goatee. Oh, that's a whole other story. We even died Misty's mane to make her less conspicuous.

No, that's less conspicuous. If she's was less inconspicuous she'd be more conspicuous. Spelling with Pipp Petals!

After a while, we were outside, just waiting for Sunny and Izzy to finish the song. Sunny had mentioned something about songs getting stuck if we didn't get the words right, so it was vital they got the words right.

At last we heard the words, and the door slammed. Finally! Let's go get that crystal and get our magic!

Author's Note

We're halfway there now with this week's leg for of Pipp. =3