Cozy Glow and the Domains of Dread

Diary of Cozy Glow

To some, my name needs no introduction, I was once a pretty infamous villain back in my home realm of Equestria, and that was while I was still a child. My reasons for villainy are my own, but part of these reasons was that I felt an inherent sense of emptiness in my life, perhaps brought on by the loss of a close friend and I once believed that power and fame was the only way to fill that void in my heart. Anyone who is familiar with my story knows how it ends, the Monarchs of Equestria turning me and my co-conspirators to stone, and I feared I would remain there forever, trapped as a sentient statue, painfully aware of my own mind and my surroundings until the end of all life in Equestria, rendering me, Tirek and Chrysalis the only living inhabitants in a barren wasteland, cursed to be immobile and trapped in our own minds until the end of time. Though others say the Princesses always intended to release me when they felt that the time was right and that I was not meant to be trapped forever. Nevertheless, I would eventually be freed from my stone prison by Sunset Shimmer, an interdimensional traveler who was an old friend of Princess Twilight Sparkle, and as I would later find out, a former villain herself. Sunset took me to another world and we have been travelers through the multiverse ever since. Twilight Sparkle decided to chase after us, worried by what damage I could do to other world, rendering herself unable to get back to Equestria for a very long time, a decision she later regretted, as a tyrant named Midnight took the opportunity to take over Equestria in her absence.

I have to admit that at first, I only intended to use my chance at a new start to win power and glory for myself in the other realm, but with time I would realize that the glory that came with being a hero more than satisfied my hunger. My transformation from villain to hero is detailed in my journal entry from my time in the realm of Everglow. What’s important for this story is that not only did I become friends with Sunset, but me and Twilight went from bitter enemies to close friends as well. I was also reunited with a friend I thought I once lost, the same one who’s supposed death triggered my descent into villainy, Aurora. After dethroning the tyrant Midnight from the throne of Equestria, the four of us decided to leave, perhaps forever and have adventures in the multiverse. Twilight was at first hesitant, but after realizing that the realm she knew was gone and her legacy eternally tainted by Midnight, she decided that it was up to the next generation to fix her mistakes, and so she accompanied us on our adventures.

Most of my companions need no introduction, the former Princess Twilight Sparkle was known far and wide a prodigy of magic, nowadays in more than one realm, her strengths lied in academic knowledge and her knowledge of the magic of friendship. I must admit her bookish and adorkable personality had grown on me. Sunset Shimmer, once having been an ambitious noble with desires to rule Equestria, like I had once desired, she had been with time transformed into a champion of redemption, wielding both flaming sorceries and the light of her own soul as a weapon, her influence had more than once led to an evildoer changing their ways, like she had done with me, and she was not likely to give up on even the most hopeless of cases. I don’t quite know how I would describe my old friend Aurora, she had once been a shy and bookish earthpony when I knew her as a filly, not unlike Twilight. During our travels I had seen what she could really do, Aurora possessed an intense knowledge of alchemy, enabling her to create potions, bombs and enchanted artifacts, while she had grown braver with time, she still preferred to let others deal with social situations, not unlike Twilight’s old friend Fluttershy. Myself I had come along way since my villain days, a filly no more, I had long since proven my worth as a leader and a strategist. I had learned to wield a blade from my former lover, Night’s Blessing back in Everglow and I had a rudimentary knowledge of magic, though nothing that could match the might of Twilight or Sunset.

This tale was one of the more interesting adventures we had come across during our travels, a tale of horror, of love, loss, and obsession. It all began when Sunset opened portal to an unknown land we intended to explore, the portal closing behind her, something that hadn’t happened since we first entered the realm of Everglow all those years ago. I immediately knew what that meant, whatever realm we found ourselves in had weakened her magic enough so that creating a portal was no longer possible. I decided to look around and found that we seemed to be in some kind of dreary wood. Most of the trees were long dead, only dead leaves on their branches, the trees were unusually close together and the canopies unusually thick. The sky above us, the little of it we could see appeared to be overcast, clouds and dead leaves blocking out most of the light of the sun, leaving only a dim light to illuminate the woods, A mist enveloped our environment, making it hard to see where we were going. I could swear that sometimes I could see shapes in the mists, it gave me shudders.

Aurora, seemed quite uneasy in this environment, which made sense, she had been trapped in a cursed forest similar to this one for many years. Aurora now appeared in a humanoid form, humans were a species we had encountered before, and it wasn’t unusual that Sunset’s portal spell would grant us such a disguise in order to blend in. The human form I would appear in was usually that of a short young woman with a doll-like face and curly artic blue hair, Aurora said that I would look like a porcelain doll if it wasn’t for the confidence I carried myself with and the rapier by my belt. Often, I would wear chainmail armor, preferable elven made, but for this trip I decided to travel light, using only a simple set of leather armor for extra mobility. Aurora, as she appeared before me was also in the form of a young woman with scarlet eyes matching my own, but she had braided blonde hair, a pair a glasses resting on her face, and she was clad in the simple working clothes of an alchemist, numerous vials and canisters hanging from her belt. Aurora, frightened by these seemingly haunted woods decided to rest her head on my shoulders as we walked, following the light that Sunset and Twilight had conjured in front of us, their usual radiant light spell now giving off only a ghostly dim glow, something about this place both weakened and corrupted our magic.

Sunset was currently in the form of a humanoid woman, note how I didn’t say human, for her ears were pointy, a mark of the long-lived species called elves. She still had her usual flowing red hair with yellow stripes but with the ageless facial features common with elves, with an olive skin tone that contrasted with my pale freckled-covered face. Sunset was clad in white robes that were unusually clean despite traveling through mud and dirt, as magic was used to keep them looking immaculate. Twilight appeared to take the form of an elf, just like Sunset, with an equally ageless face, her long straight dark blue hair with pink stripes could be seen spilling out from her old pointy wizard’s hat, which was in the style of her idol, Starswirl the bearded. Twilight’s robes were purple, just like her coat as a pony, with stripes of pink on the rims of her long sleeves, matching her hair. She always carried her spell book attached to the side of her robes and she brandished a magical staff, which she sometimes used to focus her magic, but now was using it to aid her with walking.

I conferred with Twilight about my suspicions of how this land affected our magic, she concurred that she was feeling a lot weaker since we entered this realm and that indeed, there was something wrong with her light spell. Twilight conducted a quick ritual that would detect the presence of magic, which involved drawing several magical circles and symbols into the ground below, and she concluded that the land itself was permeated with dark magic, magic that was even denser in the mists surrounding us. Whatever they were, she told us that these mists weren’t natural, and clearly was the work of some great evil. I could sense a deep sense of fear in my very spine, but I was also excited, for I felt this was the start of a very thrilling adventure. After all, experiences such as these were the reason I decided to leave Equestria and accompany Sunset in the first place.

It was at that moment I caught the scent of death on the air, I decided to follow my nose to its source with my companions in tow. The foul stench led me to a human corpse buried in the underbrush. He was a young man, seemingly a peasant, his muddy clothes were torn and raked with claw marks. Crows had already pecked the body apart. The body was surrounded by paw prints, seemingly from larger than average wolves. Upon closer inspection, the man had obviously been dead for several days already. He held the crumbled envelope in one of his hands. The letter in his hands had a large “B” set into its wax seal, the parchment was worn and flimsy. It read:

Hail to thee of might and valor. I, a lowly servant of Barovia, send honor to thee. We plead for thy so desperately needed assistance. The love of my life, Ireena Kolyana, has been afflicted by an evil so deadly that even the good people of our village cannot protect her. She languishes from her wound, and I would have her saved from this menace. There is much wealth in this community. I offer all that might be had to thee and thy fellows if thou shalt but answer my desperate plea. Come quickly, for her time is at hand! All that I have shall be thine!

Kolyan Indirovich Burgomaster

I read the contents of the letter to Sunset, Twilight and Aurora. We came to a consensus that the dead man was probably a messenger, trying to get this message to someone, who we didn’t know, it was clearly a request for help, but he had been intercepted and killed by wolves on his way, perhaps just bad luck, perhaps by the designs of whatever unknown evil were behind the mists. We decided that we should seek out Kolyan Indirovich, who had to be from a village not too far from here. Sunset thought that perhaps helping in this matter was the reason fate had brought us to these lands. I had to agree that helping out whoever this Ireena was could be very exciting, and the Burgomaster’s offer of wealth to whoever helped Ireena out was quite tempting as well. More than anything I saw an opportunity to make a name for myself in these lands, which I guessed was called Barovia. Soon, the legend of Cozy Glow and her brave companions were to echo in the minds of the people here, as it did in so many other places in the multiverse. We found a road not too far away from the corpse, and I surmised that the road had to lead to whatever village he was from. The sound the howls of wolves could be heard in the distance…