Esquestria: The House of the Sun - A pony cultist experience

You decide on a... professional (non)-disclosure, so to speak.
Obviously, you tell the full truth about the Dreamlands. You have found rescued dreams, so there is proof that Princess Luna is active there. You also decide to reveal the... dangers you have seen there.
You also mention that you met two mares, Rarity and Twilight Sparkle, over this last month. And, rather grudgingly, you decide to forgive your servant who lost you some bits.

It feels a bit like talking to yourself, and a lot like simply knowing that there is somepony right behind you, looking straight at the back of your head.

You think about choosing your words carefully, but in the end the choice is practically laid out before you. There is no reason to lie, and no proof that any lie won't be seen through when you think about it. You will just omit what is honestly unimportant and say your piece.

"I have located a way to the Dreamlands, and I am confident that I can show others how to get there," you start, "and I believe… No, rather, I am sure that Princess Luna is also active in there. I stumbled upon some dreams that have been… it's hard to know what word to use. Dreams that had suffered an intervention? Whatever it was, I haven't seen the Princess directly, nor have I ever felt her magic before, but I know that it was her doing."

You think back to your travel through the dreamlands, a soft tremor running through your body as you try to remember enough, but not too much.

"There are also things in the dreamlands… things I have never seen before," you hesitate, "I don't even know how to begin to describe them. They seemed to be made of solid smoke, and were trying to make their way into dreams, and…" you look at the other five ponies, each looking at you with a different expression between incredulity and curious attention, "whatever they were, whatever they are, take my advice for it. They are dangerous, or at the very least they are extremely wrong."

Wrong, that is the word you should have used from the start. No other description would have done any amount of justice. You force the memories to go somewhere else, not wanting to dally on it, and continue your report.

"Apart from that, I've also located two of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony. One of them is a white unicorn named Rarity, and I believe I am starting to get on good terms with her, but nothing too deep," you try to sound as neutral as possible on the matter, "the other is another unicorn, a purple one, Twilight Sparkle, who if I recall correctly was the leader on the Nightmare Moon situation. But I just met her in passing."

You see Copper raise an eyebrow and give you a curious nod.

"Apart from that, the only thing of interest is that I've acquired a curio that seems to be strong with Heart. I'll be studying it soon, to see if it yields any useful knowledge."

And with that, you finish your report, a sigh of relief leaving your lips before you realize it, as the pressure of the woods seem to lessen around you. The dark trees seem a little straighter now, the leaves a little bit more noisy. You no longer feel like you are near the center of someplace that isn't supposed to have any center at all.

Snap.

The six of you hear it, your heads turning towards the source of the sound, at the same time as some other part of your brains seem to wake up. A light buzz inside your heads, or at least your own, that isn't enough to annoy you, but is more than enough for you not to be able to forget it is there.

You think you hear the sound of a hoofstep, muffled by leaves, and you swear that you can almost see a shadow or a silhouette, but whenever you think you finally have your eyes on your Master, you realize you are looking at the bark of a tree, or the shadow of a stone, or something else with large wings.

"Follow," you hear, in that same un-same voice, heavy with secrets.

And without a word, the six of you stand up and head deeper into the Woods.

The forest grows progressively darker around you as you walk, and soon you cannot see any further than your own snout. You stumble through roots as often as you make straight steps, and the sound of brushes being forced aside and of short grunts and yelps of your fellow compatriots making their way near you soon fills your ears. The buzzing of the Woods itself seems to grow stronger as well, and you swear that you can feel something landing on your body a few times, but it is gone before you can swat it away.

You are sure that you would have lost yourself, being deeper in the Woods than you have ever been before, if it wasn't for the sound of your Master's voice guiding you.

"The news you bring are of both good and bad tidings", the voice comes from the blinding darkness, always just a few steps ahead of you. It has a curious property that doesn't seem to quite cut through the buzzing of the Woods, but rather that it use its cacophonous chorus to its advantage.

"Comet Feet, results must be presented whether if the base material is useful or not. Expand your search elsewhere if you believe to be adequate, or become yourself the only instrument that we will need. Do either, or seek a third choice, but soon will come the day when conflict will be the only solution."

A snap of a twig, dry and echoing, comes from a few hoofsteps ahead, marking the direction you must go. You nearly fall on your face as a root that wasn't there entangles one of your legs, but you quickly shake it off.

"Starry Dancer and Copper Secateur, expand your webs. There are agents of law in Ponyville who, despite being paltry themselves, serve as alarms to more dangerous foes. And we are still far from having followers on every corner and shadow of the town itself, so continue your strides in that direction."

"Windy Flakes, you too must present results. Our gatherings will soon see greater numbers and frequency, as more minds begin their searches for the truth. It won't do for us not to have a suitable location for such."

A leaf that feels like both paper and fur brushes against your face, making you close your eyes in reflex, and it is only several steps later that you realize you are no longer tripping over roots, and that the moonlight is bathing you once again.

"Jade Whistle and Velvet Covers… the six of you must look carefully now, but this knowledge will also be relevant to the next step you two in particular must take."

You blink a few more times, the soft moonlight somehow coming as a glare for a few moments, until your eyes adjust, and you can take a proper look at your surroundings.

The place is too large to be a clearing, so perhaps "opening" would be a more adequate term. The Woods are all around you and you can see it in the distance, but its borders are far away. You have the impression that this is the imitation of a gap in a forest in which you would find a lake, but as expected you see no such thing, only black dirt covered in leaves.

The Mansus itself is also far, you can see its floating stairs and connected floors in the distance, the Glory itself a pinprick against the darkness of the night. You are farther away from it than you think you have walked, although you know such a thing means little within this place.

But one thing is for sure. You know you will never be able to find your way back here again, unless your Master guides you once more.

"The secrets that you are learning, although there was a time they were not secrets, are undeniable, and there is a cause for that," you look around, and realize the voice is coming from underneath a large crooked rock, twisted and twice as tall as Comet Feet, the shadow underneath it not allowing you to see any trace of your Master.

"If you drop a rock, it falls to the ground," the voice continues, as the wind gains strength around you, pushing leaves towards the air, "if you scrape the correct branches of wood or hit certain rocks in the proper way, there will you see sparks that may start a fire."

The wind continues to grow in strength, leaves and dust and feathers and other things spiraling around the six of you in a dizzying pattern as your Master's voice speaks faster and faster.

"But there were times when the falling of rocks was beyond the comprehension of ponies, and the mysteries of fire were a secret of power. And much like the ponies from long ago struggled to master them, so to do you struggle to master the things which surround you within this place. But the Mansus has its laws, and they are as undeniable as gravity and fire… and due to the Mansus' connection to ponykind, those laws can be invoked in the Wake. The six of you do it every time, whenever your knowledge of Lore proves to be useful."

The wind slowly dies out, and you can see that the leaves formed a curious pattern on the floor around the six of you. Almost like a circle, but with each leaf carefully positioned in relation to each other, each branch and feather a line or inscription that you think you can write down in a way that will almost make sense.

"And even greater laws may be called upon in the Wake, if you but learn how to invoke them properly. This circle that you see around you is the very cornerstone of such a ritual, and it is enough to invoke only a single aspect of Lore. The six of you will learn to use it well, but for the two of you, Velvet Covers and Jade Whistle, there are greater tasks that involve this knowledge…"

The voice disappears from underneath the shadow of the crooked rock, this time appearing to come from nowhere at all, almost like a whisper.

"Jade Whistle, ensure that your followers are adept in performing this simple version of the ritual, for you and your followers will be called for when the time comes."

"And Velvet Covers… the knowledge that the alicorn Luna is active in the Dreamlands is most troubling, for it reveals that her mind is recuperating, and that bodes ill for us. In order to gain access to her dreams, however, we will need to perform a ritual capable of summoning two aspects of Lore. The patterns of that ritual are written in the very walls of the Mansus, should you reach it beyond the Woods. Or, you might find it written in books of old, transcribed by ponies who echoed down into ink what they could not understand. Whichever source you seek, it is instrumental that you secure that knowledge soon, lest the alicorn once again stokes the flames within herself, and the sight of her becomes blinding for us."

And with that final whisper echoing in the air, the voice disappears, gone from the edge of the Woods in which it seemed to dance for a little while, leaving the six of you alone.

You are not sure how long the six of you poured over the intricate pattern of leaves and dark sand, but you know that it will no longer escape your memory. The same way you know that as soon as you leave that place, a gust of wind will cause it to disappear as if it had never existed.

And after the six of you are done communing among yourselves on your next steps, you each go your separate ways. There would be no way to leave that place, except by going back into the Woods that surround you, and that would surely entail in each of you becoming lost.

And becoming lost, you know, is something one must do alone.

You wake up in your room.

Except that you don't.

You can feel it, the soft cushion underneath your body, the weight of your covers over you, the warm feeling of your husband next to you. Your whole body tells you that you are in your bed, and that you will see the same thing you always see every morning as soon as you open your eyes.

But something else, in your mind, tells you that you're not there.

Something else tells you that the life you are about to wake up to is but a dream, and you are not fully asleep yet to reach it.

"You saw them, didn't you?"

You hear a voice. That voice. Contemplating, wise, but with a tinge of curiosity that you are not used to hearing it carry.

"The things in the dreamlands, you saw them shuffling around, didn't you? Thirsting for the light that comes from ponykind, lusting for that spark of warmth. They are not from… around here, as you might have noticed. Quite abominable indeed…" you almost think you hear a chuckle.

Yes, you did see them. But what are those things? Why are they in the Dreamlands?

Where the hell did they come from?

"Oh, you mean you didn't realize it? You didn't notice it?" the voice seems almost surprised, "well, it does make a bit of sense actually… It would be asking a bit too much for you to do."

What do you mean you didn't realize? Didn't notice what?!

Hey! I'm talking to you!

"Do not worry, for you will learn. You must learn, in fact, if you are to understand. But just so you know…" you can feel a smile creeping on the voice, "the alicorns are ancient beings, and they know things that they sometimes choose to forget. Old things. Secret things. But if we reach the dreams of the alicorn Luna, though our goal in there will be another, we might just come upon such tidbits of knowledge, don't you think?"

"So do work towards it, Velvet Covers. You do have potential."

You feel a push, a soft sensation on the middle of your chest that seems to reactivate gravity. Your body suddenly feels far heavier upon your cushion, the blankets over you feel heavy enough to almost be smothering you.

And your husband is snoring, you realize with an annoyed thought as you finally open your eyes.

You have walked deeper into the Woods than you have ever before, and found a secret place that you will never reach again. That is the nature of the Woods, and this realization has somehow opened your eyes. Gained 1 scrap of MOTH Lore.

MOTH Lore is now level 2!

Maybe your Master is satisfied, maybe he is disappointed, maybe he just wishes for you to see. But regardless, the secret he whispered in your ear was like a small candlelight in a dark room. Gained 1 scrap of LANTERN Lore.

Your Master is now willing to whisper scraps of the second Level, you may now learn any Lore up to level 3 under her… him?