S 2: The Dark Foundings

Chapters

Epilogue: The Mausoleum final part.
Prologue: The Mausoleum part 1
Black Winter
The Mausoleum part 2
Merchant
The Mausoleum part 3
Cursed Treasure of the Sphinx
The Mausoleum part 4
Trial against the Covenant

Epilogue: The Mausoleum final part.

From Vision's dim-lit camera footage, she sees that the projection screen is now showing blue static.

Just as her camera footage gets too close to the screen, it revealed a flashing glimpse of a ghostly face of a huge minotaur illuminating in bright blue lines.

"Gaaah. What is that thing?" Vision shrieked as she backed away in fear.

"THAT WILL BE THE UNDYING FEAR IN THIS MAUSOLEUM!!!!" The loud shrilling voice boomed throughout the underground chamber.

"Where are you?? Who are you??" Vision screamed as she frantically looked everywhere as her camera is rotating in all directions, 360 degrees.

Before she could see it, blue flames start to sprout out from the ground in a huge tall blaze where ghostly specters are coming out, screeching just as worse as the Windigoes back from the dark foundings of Equestria. Just as Vision turned towards her right direction, readjusting her camera footage, the ghostly minotaur face starts to come out of the screen as it is glaring at her with big insidious, white eyes.

"I AM THE GUARDIAN OF THIS FORBIDDEN, UNDERGROUND TOMB!!!" The giant ghost minotaur roared as the cavernous ceiling starts to crumble and shake violently.

"Wait, W-W-W-W-WHAT??" Vision shrieked in total confusion, not knowing that the ghost is trying to do.

Not a moment too soon, the ghostly specters started to circle around Vision above her as they lit up the all the dark corners of the Mausoleum. Just as the blue light is shining throughout the underground, revealing the rest of Vision's archaeological team, all of them dead just like her assistant.

With the team seen lying on the ground as rotten, putrid corpses, they were partially eaten as guts and intestines are already spilled out from their ripped out bodies while large pools of blood are shown spreading all over the cobblestone floors. Worse, when the blue wispy specters entered the corpses of Vision's team, they all reanimated as they all got back on their hooves only for them to all glare at Vision with angry, white eyes, shrieking and snarling.

Before long, the reanimated pony corpses are all seen with their faces engulfed with a bright, blue hue as they all are approaching Vision without mercy. Worse, the specters also flew straight into the caskets as the skeletal corpses of the deceased ponies came out and decided to confront Vision.

Seeing all the reanimated dead coming closer on her footage, Vision felt utterly confused and frightful that she is now excavating a living, underground nightmare.

"SHIT!! I-I-I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON HERE ANYMORE!!!!" Vision screamed as she tried to bolt out of the underground chambers.

"AFTER HER!! DON'T LET HER LEAVE THE FORBIDDEN MAUSOLEUM OF THE MINORAUSIUS ALIVE!!!" The ghost minotaur's voice bellowed in a high-pitched shrilling voice.

While on the run, Vision's camera now faces towards back to the bridge that she just crossed. As she is galloping as fast as Vision could, she could hear a loud screeching, cacophony of angry undead ponies echoing throughout the mausoleum.

As soon as Vision reached the stairs, several shadowy figures that she saw from across the lake earlier appeared from the dark corners when one of them charged towards her camera footage.

"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!" The shadowy figure roared as it is revealed that a gouged Viridian is seen trying to pin Vision down.

Through her footage, Vision struggled while underneath him as it shows a crazed, possesed pony screaming like mad on screen as Viridian is trying to strangle the daylights out of his former working partner.

"NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!!! STOP IT!!!" Vision shrieked as she is trying to pry Viridian's hooves off her neck.

Just as Vision is going in and out of consciousness, she feels a rock from her left and grabs it with her left hoof before slamming it into Viridian's temple.

With a few bashes into Viridian's skull, he falls onto Vision's right as she gets up. Once back up on her hooves, Vision sees that Viridian is completely lifeless for good as the blue specter came out of its mouth before disappearing into the darkness off-screen. Though, the other blue ghostly wisps are closing in on Viridian as she hears them all screeching in fury, forcing her to make a mad dash to the catacombs.

Just as she sees that the wisps stopped chasing her, Vision catches her breath inside the catacombs for a few seconds trying to figure out what to do since this excavation is going down south to Tartarus, while her camera footage facing the ground.

"I-I-I've got to get out of here!!" Vision muttered in traumatized fear as she put her face at her own camera footage.

"To every pony, if you're watching this, stay away from this Mausoleum. I don't know what to make of those terrifying apparitions that appeared from the ground, but now that my team is dead and possessed by those dreadful ghosts, I probably won't be able to make it after this recording."

"RYAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!" The echoing shriek boom behind Vision, as she frantically turned her head back on the camera for a moment.

"There is some minotaur ghost out for blood right now, whoever it was. Well, I think this Minorausius guy is not very happy with us doing our operation down here. Other than that, I didn't realize that my job became my undoing until the last minute. So Professor Fossil, please don't come down here and please apologize to my family for me."

Just as Vision takes her face away from the camera, the footage then shows the doorway leading into the hallway out of the catacombs.

The moment Vision walked towards the hallway past the coffins, she could hear the catacomb's cavernous ceiling shake violently as she sees falling rocks coming down from above on her camera.

*SMASH!!!*

*BAM!!!*

*CRUMBLE!!*

Vision screamed as she frantically ran while trying to evade the falling rocks and debris shattering on the floors. At the same time, Vision hears loud flaps of coffin lids opening up by themselves as she continues to hear more of the ghostly specters shrieking.

She can't bear to see what is happening to the catacombs while making a run for it for Vision assumed that the restless spirits in the mausoleum are still after her.

Once Vision makes it into the hallway, she gallops up the stairs while seeing a glimpse from her camera footage that a thick, blue smoke is flowing upwards right below her hooves.

"EREYAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!" The screeching voice bellowed, coming from within the blue thick smoke, making Vision pant in terror.

Just as soon as Vision makes it up to the top end of the stairs, she sees on her camera that the entrance to the Masoleum is closed shut as a metal gate is barring her from going outside.

"SHIT!! NO!!! NOT NOW!!!" Vision screamed as she drops the camera before pounding on the metal gate with her hooves.

"SOME PONY!! ANY PONY!! HELP ME!!! LET ME OUT!!! LET ME OUT!!!"

Despite the loud banging she is making, Vision couldn't see any pony nearby nor is she able to get any creature's attention. Who could rescue her now?

With the camera showing Vision banging on the metal gate from its left, the blue, ghastly fog came out from the stairwell on the right as it is slowly approaching the frightened pony from behind.

Just as soon as Vision turned around to face the blue, encroaching fog, she started to pant and sweat intensely in fear.

"NO!! NO!! PLEASE MERCY!!! PLEASE!!! IT DOESN'T HAVE TO END THIS WAY!!!!" Vision screamed, begging for her life as she is crawling backwards up against the metal gate. "I'm just an archeological excavator. I MEAN NO HARM!!!"

Ignoring her pleas for mercy, the blue fog flowed through her as some of it spewed past the metal gate off-screen. In just one minute while Vision is inside the blue smoke, a huge ghostly blue, Minotaur hand reached out form below the stairwell and grabbed Vision by her neck.

"NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" Vision screamed as she is being grabbed against her own will. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

Just like that, the ghostly hand pulls her back into the stairwell as Vision disappeared from the camera. While off-screen Vision's screams echoed throughout the mausoleum before the shrilling noise faded away.

One hour later........

From another camera footage, it shows that Professor Fossil is up on deck of an airship that is heading straight towards the excavation site near the mausoleum, along with a team of security guards and a reporter pony all on standby.

Just as the airship landed, Fossil and her crew disembarked only to see that no pony is here to greet them, much to their confusion.

"Vision, are you here? This is Professor Fossil!!" The archeological earth pony announced herself. "Hello?? Where is every pony?"

"Professor, over here!!" One of the film crew members spoke off-screen.

Just as the camera footage turns towards the entrance of the Mausoleum, the professor approaches the entrance only to see that it is closed off.

"That's weird. I could've sworn that Vision Scroll already had this place secured first." Professor Fossil thought.

Before they knew it, a severed pony head came burst through the metal gate, forcing it to open. But once the pony head rolled towards Professor Fossil's hooves, the gate shuts itself immediately.

"WHAT THE??" Professor Fossil exclaimed as she sees the severed head of Vision Scroll right in front of the camera. "SWEET FAUST!!! What happened here??"

Just as the camera pony turned around along with his recording footage, it shows that Professor Fossil picks up recording camera that was inside the mouth of the severed head of Vision Scroll with her hoof.

When Professor Fossil looks into Vision's camera, her eyes widened with disbelief as she turns towards the camera footage.

"Every Pony, we're going to need to put this excavation on hold for a while." Professor Fossil said as the camera shuts itself off.

*End of Footage.*

Prologue: The Mausoleum part 1

In the broadcast footage of Equestria's Daily News.......

"Greetings every pony, we are now on the air as we initiate a broad cast of what Professor Fossil has uncovered in the excavation site down at an underground Mausoleum in the Everfree forest." The reporter announced.w

"So Professor Fossil, what kind of leads did your team uncovered so far?" The anchor pony added in.

As the next camera turns on, it now shows Professor Fossil holding a clipboard of several notes before she faces the camera.

"Oh, what we have here is several ancient tapes that were written by ponies dating back to the early years after the three pony tribes united during their first Hearts Warming Eve."

"And what tapes intrigue you the most so far?" The reporter asked from off-screen.

"Well, if you really want to know. All I can tell is that, most of them have a dark outline in what some of the ponies and the Pillars of Equestria had been through. I'm just grateful Rockhoof isn't here right now. He wouldn't restrain himself like last time." Professor Fossil continued, feeling skeptical after what the huge Earth Pony did when he first showed up in his old hometown. "Ponies that were trapped in the void for more than a thousand years and released recently is not a normal thing that every pony sees everyday."

"Hehehheheh!! Well, I'm pretty sure that the Pillars of Equestria will be occupied elsewhere for now." The reporter giggled.

"As of now, I'm at the Canterlot Museum trying to keep track of the inquiry of archeological team in the underground Masoleum." Fossil continued.

"Wait, you mean you're not at the excavation site?" The anchor pony asked, feeling a bit shocked.

"Not this time. I have another mare in charge of the Archaeological team there."

From the footage of the camera, it then shows some pony holding it as the archaeological team is unearthing several old tapes found inside the Mausoleum throughout afternoon.

On the table, there is 5 mysterious dusty tapes that one unicorn mare is brushing gently with her little duster. As the camera faces her, she is seen as a light-brown unicorn, yellow mane, and with the cutie mark of an orb with a scroll in it.

"Hi, every pony. My name is Vision Scroll and I happened to be an archaeologist that is in charge of the excavation site near the Mausoleum. One of my associates uncovered this strange tomb in the Everfree Forest below the Castle of the Two Sisters about three days ago. He made his report to me and Professor Fossil, so I went down here with my team to uncover what kind of secret history was kept hidden in the Mausoleum."

As the camera turns towards Vision's team, they are seen up close as they continue to carefully gather the scrolls, documents, ancient texts, and dusty video tapes. There is about 10 ponies working down here with Vision Scroll as they setup a perimeter of yellow tape around the tomb before establishing their site. In the middle of the site, the mausoleum is seen as a tall and wide large tomb bearing the structure similar to that of a house made of concrete. Surrounding the tomb, they have tents setup, ponies bringing in buckets of water from a nearby stream, and bringing out crates filled with cleaning materials and tools to preserve the old artifacts.

With Vision's camera seeing herself checking on the paperwork, she is then greeted by an earth pony as the camera turn to face him. He is seen with a dark-green skin color with a grey mane, bearing the cutie mark of a magnifying glass.

"This is my associate, Viridian Watcher. We both have been working together with Professor Fossil for 5 years before we started our own team of Archaeologists." Vision announced as she turned towards the earth colt. "So Viridian, how are you able to find the underground mausoleum?"

"Well actually, the Young Six stumbled upon it when they were doing another detour at the bottom of the cliffs near the CastIe. It wasn't long before they came to my house before they explained it all to me. So, I had them all leave the forest so that they won't interfere with our excavation here." Viridian explained briefly.

"I see, well because the tapes are all dusty and extremely fragile to handle, I'll try something else instead just to uncover what is recorded in their footage." Vision replied as her horn starts to lit up in a glowing-blue hue.

"What are you doing?" Viridian asked feeling nauseous on what Vision is up to.

"It's okay, Viridian. My projection visionary footage spell will show us everything that these tapes have in store for us." Vision said as she shoots out her magic at the first tape on her left near the edge of the table. As Vision's spell struck the tape, it opens up a magical tv screen that comes out of it for her and Viridian to see.

Black Winter

Through the first camera footage, there are four pegasus trying to fly towards their destination with one seeing everything through his 1st person view.

The first pegasus up front is a mare with a yellow-green coat, a blond mane with the red stripe, and with the cutie mark of a red 'X.'

The second pegasus is a colt with the white fur coat and dark-blue, grey mane, and with the cutie mark of a light-blue snowflake.

And the third pegasus is a mare with the red-pink coat, orange mane, and with the cutie mark of a blazing totem.

While on the air, they are flying through the night sky only to see dark clouds a distance away as they are heading towards a snowy forest towards the north. The moment the camera turns towards the very pony holding it, the footage then shows that he happens to be a colt pegasus in a orange coat, blue-purple mane, and with the cutie mark of a blazing orb with white wings.

They're all wearing winter coats and hats to keep themselves from freezing. However, with the snowy breeze intensifying, the pegasus may need to seek warm shelter within the hour.

"Hello, everypony. My name is Solar Wings. I am with a group of pegasus that just flew from our village in the south 30 km. I am with the yellow-green pegasus Anglax Avia, the white pegasus Rising Snow, and the red-pink pegasus Flashkin Relic. We are flying above the forest trying to meet up with Commander Hurricane to celebrate the 15th Heart's Warming Eve with him and the other pony tribes at the new Main Hall establishment in Equestria. But somehow, we did not notice that a natural blizzard just came into view, coming down from the Mountains east of our route. Believe me, the Windigoes did not create that storm this time, it is just only a natural phenomenon since winter just came around the corner."

As he turns his camera towards the front, Solar sees that more grey clouds are coming in from both west and east.

Upon noticing it, Anglax raises her hoof up high as if she is ordering the group to stop while still in mid-air.

"Heads up every pony. It seems that the blizzard is heading into our direction. We need to a safe place to crash for the night." Anglax announced to her fellow pegasus.

The moment she sees to her left, Anglax discovers something in a open clearing from the middle of the forest. "It looks like there is some lodge where we can stay at for the night."

When the camera faces to the direction where Anglax is seeing, the footage now shows a wide cabin in an open field near the snowy forest. As all four pegasus dived down from their flight, the huge grew clouds are closing in the moment they landed in front of the cabin.

As Solar Flame came up to the cabin's front door with the camera up close, he knocks a few times with his hoof announcing his presence.

"Hello? Any pony there? Where here to seek shelter from an oncoming blizzard heading this way."

With no response, Solar felt paranoid not knowing if any pony is home or not. Though, he needs to make a quick decision as he hears Rising Snow sneezing from behind for the cold temperature is dropping in abruptly.

"Please. We're only going to be here until the blizzard dies down." Solar spoke, trying to knock on the door again.

"Uh, guys!! You got to come take a look at this." Flashkin voice spoke from Solar's right.

When Solar's camera turned to face Flashkin, he sees that the red-pink pegasus is seen something grim through the window of the cabin. The moment the camera peeks through the window, they see that there is no pony anywhere inside the cabin now. When Solar tried to push the front door open, it didn't budge; it was already locked.

Feeling desperate for shelter, Anglax takes out a wood axe as she breaks down the window for forced entry.

"Anglax, are you crazy!!! What if the owner is still out there??" Flashkin.

"Well unless you want to sleep out in the snow and freeze to death, it's now or never that we seek shelter here." Anglax replied in a stern tone before she was the first to come through the window. "We'll compensate him before we leave this place."

With no other choice, Flashkin comes in next bringing Rising Snow with him before Solar goes in last, prompting him to turn off the camera for the moment.

As soon as the camera turns back on, it is now placed on top of the table facing all four pegasus as they are now sitting on the couch in the living room catching their breath and regaining their warmth. However, with the big blizzard happening outside it will be a matter of time before the inside of this cabin will get cold too. So, Anglax brings out a firestarter and a box of matches from the cupboard in the kitchen while Flashkin finds firewood in a nearby closet next to the fireplace.

The moment Anglax and Flashkin setup the firewood in the fireplace, the female pegasus lit it up as the wood is set aflame while having the grate is placed in front to keep the sparks from coming out. In just a few minutes, the flaming wood was able to bring warmth throughout the cabin as Flashkin makes a gentle breeze from his left wing to conserve the flames.

As for Solar and Rising Snow, they both went back to their seats while Anglax went to the cupboards to find some food. Eventually, she found a collection of veggie food cans. Starving, Anglax was able to use a can opener with her mouth before she passed out the food cans to Flashkin, Rising Snow, and Solar. After that, they all ate their food cans on the table as they go over their current situation.

"We should be grateful that the Wendigos aren't here anymore since Clover the Clever already saved our leaders from the creature's curse." Flashkin spoke out clearly. "However, we're still in the northern section of Hurrricane's territory, which only minor blizzards take place only once a month."

Hearing this, Anglax takes out her map to see how far are they from the Main Hall.

"It seems that we're still in the snowy forest of Leafenwreath, which happens to be 69 miles southeast from the Main Hall that Commander Hurricane is at." Anglax announced as she is making notes in her journal on the table. "As of now, we are inside an unknown cabin in the middle of a forest clearing. I think we can leave tomorrow since this blizzard will only last until tomorrow morning."

"You know guys, we should've at least taken the same path like Commander Hurricane did. He already reminded all of us to use the path down south where the frozen stream was at, near the foot of Mount Calisten." Rising Snow berated as he pointed his hoof at the southern part of Anglax's map. "And yet, whose idea was it to continue to fly up north over Leafenwreath forest?? He already warned us that hardly any villages live up north of here since 25 ponies suffered from frostbite since the past year. There isn't any pegasus villages up north anymore."

"I do apologize every pony. I thought the small blizzard was already over since yesterday." Anglax spoke up, feeling guilty of her immediate decision. "No matter, we will make it together by all means despite such miscalculations."

"Well, I'm glad Commander Hurricane isn't here to see what we just did. He would've been very disappointed in all of us." Rising Snow said, trying to have every pony keep themselves together.

"Anyway, it's already dark outside."Solar continued as he heard the freezing wind making a big 'whoosh' outside of the cabin. "Let's try to get some rest here. Tomorrow, we continue with our trek."

After Solar finishes his statement, he sees on his camera that Anglax and Rising Snow both went on the couch to get some sleep while Flashkin went to sleep on a nearby bed in another room adjacent to the fireplace. For Solar, he wend to sleep on the floor as he turns off his camera.

As the morning kicks in, the camera turns on again as Solar now sees himself goes up to a nearby window next to the door.

With the shady darkness looming across the open field, Solar sees that the sun is about to rise. However, as soon as Solar zoomed his camera lens forward past the window, he saw something creepy a huge distance away from the cabin.

It has a dark silhouette of a huge creature with scary red angry eyes walking on two legs and has long, arms with razor sharp claws being raised up high.

The unknown creature made out a low growl as it is wandering all over the open, snowy field the moment it came out of the forest. As it started sniffing in the sky, Solar couldn't get a good look at it because his skin started to tremble in an unknown fear that it might be hungry for a grim reason.

However, Solar did see that the creature raised its what is assumed to be huge bat-like wings with small talons jutting from its edges.

Before Solar could say anything, some pony voice rang out.

"Hey Solar, what are you doing?"

Feeling startled, Solar freaked out for a bit as he jumped up with his wings spread out in a panic. As his camera turned towards the voice, he sees that Anglax was the first to wake up from her sleep.

"Good God!! Anglax!! Don't scare me like that!!!" Solar exclaimed in fury. "I just saw something out there."

"Saw what??" Anglax asked in confusion.

When he realized that Anglax is staring at him dumbfounded, Solar looked back at the window only to see that there is nothing there right now.

"I could've sworn I thought I saw something scary out there." Solar thought, feeling confused as Anglax is.

"Well, I did heard that some strange huge bat-like creatures called Frost Sky Haunts were roaming around Leafenwreath forest during sometime before Equestria was founded." Anglax pointed out before she makes her disbelief clearly. "I heard horrible stories about the Frost Sky Haunts from my mother when I was still a filly for they used to be the most fearsome hunters prowling around the snowy mountains of Frostvant. But most of them don't show up very often in the North since Hurricane was able to defeat most of them 15 years ago long before he became leader of our pegasus tribe. So I can assure you that it's just your imagination. Anyway, the others are already awake. We'd best be going. Right?!"

"Uh, yeah. Sure." Solar replied, trying to stay in control of his breathing.

Solar can't figure out what was it that he saw just now out in the snowy field. However, for some reason, it may be stalking them. He can only hope is just his imagination, like what Anglax said. As Solar turns off the camera, the screen goes black as he is helping the others repack their food and their clothing off-screen.

Two Hours Later........

As soon as the Solar's camera footage goes back on, he is now flying 100 feet above the Leafenworth forest once again with Anglax gliding with her spread out wings from his right. For Rising Snow and Flashkin, the camera screen turns to see a full glimpse of them flying through the clear white sky as they all continue their flight towards Commander Hurricane's rendezvous.

The moment Solar's camera turns back to face Anglax, he can now see that the clear, white sky is now looming over the horizon as the huge Sun is shinning forth its beautiful rays despite the small cold breeze coming from below and from the snowy mountains on the left.

"How much further are we from the new Main Hall establishment?" Solar said as he asked Anglax, who is currently holding the map while flying in the air.

"Well, now that we are heading down the east from the cabin, I'd say we are like 47 miles closer. We should be there in half an hour." Anglax assumed.

"That's great. Though, I'm still feel nervous about seeing Commander Hurricane now. I heard he doesn't appreciate late attendance from ponies like us. Besides, we already have received our invites like about 44 hours ago. He is still expecting us because we have to help him get things organized at his first weather station at the rendezvous." Solar explained in a nervous tone.

"Hey guys, what is that up ahead?" Rising Snow's voice spoke from behind Anglax and Solar.

Confused, Solar adjusts his camera lenses up ahead 50 knots past Anglax. The moment he sharpen his focus on his camera footage, he saw the huge bat-like creature flapping its huge wings and is heading towards them.

"SCREEEEEEEEECCCCCHHH!!!"

"GAH!!! MY EARS!!!" Anglax screamed in confusion as she held her ears with her front hoof.

For Flashkin and Rising Snow, they both struggled to stay on the air while holding their ears up with their front hooves.

"WHAT THE HAY IS THAT THING??" Rising Snow grunted as he tried to face the source of the strange creature's noise.

"No way!! It can't be what I think it is!!!" Anglax muttered in fear as the huge winged creature is flying towards them.

"BREAK FORMATION!!! IT'S HEADING STRAIGHT FOR US!!!" Solar shouted as his camera shows the bat creature raised its huge claw toward his face.

"GRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRHHHHH!!!" The huge bat roared as he went straight for Solar.

Off-screen, Solar took an immediate dive down as he dodged the bat's attack by a mere foot of his mane while Anglax, Rising Snow, and Flashkin flew off course in different directions, trying to veer away from the rampaging creature.

The moment Solar ascend back up to face the creature with his camera, the bright sunshine illuminates the monstrous bat attacking them. The huge bat creature is now seen with white-muscular skin in a huge pale pygmy bat face with saber tooth fangs, pointy ears, and with green, glowing evil eyes glaring with a killer-instinct.

"Oh Hurricane, help me!!!" Anglax muttered in fright as she tried to flying around it. "It seems that there is still a few Frost Sky Haunts left. I guess I was wrong!!! I could've sworn they were already hunted down by Hurricane's men towards extinction!!!"

"AT LEAST TELL US SOMETHING THAT IS REAL FOR FAUST'S SAKE!!!" Rising Snow snapped, feeling flabbergasted towards Anglax's unclear facts about the monster.

"We'll figure something out later. Right now, WE HAVE TO LOSE HIM!!!" Solar shouted out loud as he flew aggressively towards the east.

Hearing this, the rest of the pegasi descended into the forest as they dived down to the east in separate directions before the footage shuts itself off.

While off-screen, the Sky Haunt starts growling and screeching from over a mile away.

Footage turns on again......

In about 10 minutes of flying low below the trees of Leavenworth, Solar now finds himself landing on the snow once again as he galloped towards a small hill, panting and out of breath as he jumped down to huddle themselves into a huge thicket inside a cave below.

"SCREEEEEEEEEEEECH!!!!" The shrieking noised boomed again, making Solar tremble with panic.

Nevertheless, Solar kept his breathing under control as he held his mouth with his left hoof in trying to avoid panicking.

With his fellow pegasus flying in separate directions, Solar can only pray that they managed to find a safe place to hide in order to evade the hostile beast.

As Solar burrowed himself inside the thicket, he reached down into his winter jacket and pulls out a medium-length iron sword before holding it up to his chest. For his footage, Solar slowly lurches his camera forward in trying to see what is in front of him, outside of his current hiding spot.

Before he knew it, the huge Sky Haunt landed on the ground as both of its feet are seen right outside of Solar's hiding spot. As Solar could hear it sniffing and grunting, it started gnashing its teeth before snarling in trying to find its prey. With Solar holding his sword, he tried to stay still so that the beast will not hear any rustling coming from the thicket inside the cave.

The next thing he could see is that the beast walked to its left before disappearing back into the thick snowy forest.

"Anglax, Rising Snow, Flashkin, where are you??!!" Solar thought to himself as he is concern for the safety of his pegasus friends.

He also tried to hold his breath in for a few minutes just in case the beast didn't walk too far from his hiding spot. Solar couldn't tell whether to keep moving undercover or just hide. However, with his friends still out there it is now or never that he needed to regroup with them before they fly to Hurricane and warn him of this monstrous threat.

In a slow movement, Solar crept out of his hiding spot as he tiptoed through the woods with light steps from his hooves. From tree to tree, Solar noticed that most of the trees just turned from white bark into insidious, dark oak as if the forest is getting cursed by the beast's presence. With beads of sweat coming down from his face, Solar felt anxious that the Frost Haunt may have done something to the forest just to make his trek to the Main Hall more dangerous.

Nevertheless, Solar hid behind each tree while holding his sword with his mouth as he turned his camera around the dark bark to see where the creature is.

In a slow peak, the camera could see nothing but dark oak trees everywhere. However, in the next second, Solar sees through the footage that Flashkin is making a leap with his wings as he is now being chased by the creature. Unfortunately, he isn't able to get very far as the Frost Haunt flew up higher above the poor pegasus before jumping on top of his back.

"NO!!! NO!! NOOOOOOO!!! AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGHHHH!!! URGHK!!!" Flashkin screamed as the Frost Haunt chomped on his skull.

Just like that, Flashkin's head gets ripped off from his body before it collapses onto the bloody snow. With his friend dead and headless, Solar felt tears coming out of his eyes as he tried to scamper further away as he is unable to look back.

"Sweet Faust, Flashkin. I'm sorry!!" Solar thought as he flapped his wings and glided above the snow but below the top of the trees.

"ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAARRR!!" The Frost Haunt bellowed as it let out an invisible shock wave that past Solar instantly.

He didn't know what the creature is trying to pull off with letting out such screech, not when feeling the chilling vibration flowing through his mane. However, Solar's camera starts to show the black oak trees start to sprout out roots coming out of the snow and dirt as they pointed straight at him like tentacles.

Frantically, Solar swung his sword left and right as he cut down the living roots. But two more rise in its place, freaking out and overwhelming the scared Pegasus as he was forced to spread out his wings and flying high.

Though once in the air, Solar's footage then sees Rising Snow spinning aggressively as he desperately brings out a tall twister of snow and ice coming out from below where he came out from.

With the snow twister shielding Rising Snow, he flew towards the west in trying to freeze every tree in hopes of stopping its roots from grabbing him. Seeing this, Solar just got an interesting idea, though it may be risky by all means.

"RISING SNOW!! OVER HERE!!!" Solar called out to the white pegasus, getting both his and the creature's attention at the same time.

Just as he started to hear the Frost Haunt's screeching coming in from behind, Solar flew straight towards the snowy twister as he held his blade tightly with his mouth. Once inside the twister, Solar ascended 5 feet as he could see the creature closing into both of them through his camera footage. With Rising Snow in full control of the twister he is created, Solar gets ready to strike back at the Frost Haunt in order to avenge Flashkin.

"SCREECH ON THIS!!!" Rising Snow roared as his snow twister slammed into the flying monstrous beast, making it stagger.

With only one shot, Solar seizes the opportunity to dive past the Frost Haunt as he swung his sword at the creature's neck. With its head coming off, the Frost Haunt falls straight down as Rising Snow's twister ceased to spin any further.

*THUMP!!!*

As Solar and Rising see that the beast crashed into the snow, they both descended from their flight just as Anglax finally came out of hiding from within the snow.

The moment Solar's footage gets closer to the dead bat monster, Rising Snow couldn't help but laugh hysterically in triumph.

While Anglax is seen feeling impressed by how Solar and Rising worked together to bring the creature down, Solar felt shaken by how they lost one of their friends before hoof.

The moment Rising stopped laughing, Anglax came up to him for another question.

"Rising, when did you learn how to spin around like that??"

"I used to do weather control back at our village 10 years ago. My father taught me how to do it since it was the only way to catch these cretins off-balance while out on the air." Rising Snow explained.

"If that we're to be true, THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU DID IT SOONER TO SPARE FLASHKIN??" Anglax shouted at Rising Snow out of disappointment. "Flashkin is dead because you just had to do it until the last minute."

"Anglax, please. I didn't think it was a mistake to split up like that." Solar said, trying to calm the angry pegasus mare down.

"We might as well bring that head with us as a trophy since the hunter became the hunted, wouldn't you say." Rising Snow spoke as he wanted his friends to up hold a prize for their survival.

"Well, we also need to report to Commander Hurricane about this once we..........." Anglax suggested before she starts to hear a growl, much to her confused and terrified look in her eyes. "Uh guys?!"

"What??" Solar and Rising asked feeling confused as Anglax pointed her hoof straight behind the two.

As soon as Solar's camera footage turns to see what Anglax is seeing, he and Rising saw in horror that the Frost Haunt's headless corpse just came back up, with its severed neck bleeding black.

Suddenly, three black, spiky tentacles came out of its severed neck as they all punctured the ground. Before they knew it, the tentacles came out only for Solar to see on the footage that they all pierced Rising Snow from both his sides and straight towards his throat.

Choking in pain, Rising Snow's eyes turned white as blood came gushing out of his mouth before he went limp. With Rising Snow dead and impaled, his corpse is now hanging several feet off the ground, skewered by the black spikes.

"OH FAUST HELP US!!!" Anglax screamed in terror as she takes to the skies in a jiffy.

For Solar, what he sees next on the footage is that the headless Frost Haunt starts to have black goo come out of its severed neck as it covers its entire body and its huge wings into a huge black oozing monstrosity. Not a moment too soon, it disappears into the black oozing ground as it starts spreading towards every tree around it.

In a fright, Solar takes off to the skies once again as he desperately tried to fly towards where Anglax is at.

"THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!!!" Solar shrieked as he starts to hear the entire forest rumble violently below him.

The moment his footage looks down while Solar flying through the skies, he sees that the snow is being flooded with black ooze too. In the next second, several trees that came into contact with the black ooze tore themselves apart as the same spiky tentacles came out from the shadowy bark as they spew out wildly into the air.

"ANGLAX!! EVADE!!!" Solar shouted out towards the female pegasus who is seen at the front of his camera footage.

Hearing this, Anglax and Solar did various barrel rolls as they glided 100 feet above the trees moving left and right in avoiding most of the sprouting tentacles from below.

Unfortunately, the black, spiky tentacles started to anticipate Anglax's wind speed and evasion as they sprouted up on both her left and right in a flash, catching the female pegasus off-guard.

Before Anglax could fly backwards, the tentacles grabbed her by the wings.

"OH FAUST!!! NO!!!!" Anglax shrieked as she is being restrained by her wings as the tentacles held on them tightly while she struggled helplessly by its binds.

"HANG ON, ANGLAX!! I'M COMING!!!" Solar shouted as he made a mad flying dash towards the bounded mare.

Unfortunately, as soon as Solar got closer, a giant monstrous bat-like face made up of black ooze came out from the forest below, glaring hungrily at Anglax.

In a chilling fright, Anglax's eyes widened in palpable terror as the giant bat face approaches towards her.

"SOLAR, HELP ME!!!! I DON'T WANT TO DIE!!!!!"

Frantically, Solar came up to Anglax as he used his sword to cut off the tentacles binding her. However, one of them whipped Solar across the face, making his camera footage glitch for a moment as he staggered backwards while still flying. At the same time, Solar loses his sword as it disappears into the black, oozing forest below him.

To make matters worse, the giant bat demon's face opened wide as its long rows of sharp teeth reached out above and below Anglax.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" Anglax screamed in a very loud pitch before meeting her doom.

*CHOMP!!!*

With just one chomp, the giant bat's face clamped his teeth shut as Anglax disappeared into his maw, with her wings torn apart by the black, spiky tentacles. As a result, the giant bat started spewing out a huge fountain of Anglax's blood coming in-between the gaps of its huge, gnashing teeth.

"ANGLAX!!! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Solar screamed in horror as all of his friends turned into chunky, meaty fodder for the bat demon.

Now that he is the only one left, Solar frantically tried to fly away back to where he came from. He wasn't sure if it really is a Frost Sky Haunt or not. In fact, it may not be a Sky Haunt at all; it might be something that is far worse than one to begin with.

Unable to think on what he's really dealing with, Solar can't really fend himself against such a monster no more. It will be a matter of time before he is next.

Speaking of which, Solar could feel that the black tentacles grabbing him by the wings as he felt it's firm grip intensifying. Despite all the grunting and struggling, Solar isn't able to fly anymore as the tentacles are pulling him towards the oozing, demonic bat face.

Realizing that his time is up, Solar takes out a dynamite stick from underneath his winter coat and held it to his chest with his right hoof while his left wing takes out a match from his left coat pocket before lighting it up.

As soon as Solar's camera footage turns around to face the huge, hungry bat face, Solar lit the dynamite in front of his face as the monster opens up its jaws really wide.

"Oh Commander Hurricane, please forgive us!!!" Solar muttered in fear as he meets his doom in front of the relentless monster.

Just when the monstrous bat face closed in towards the footage, it immediately goes black as Solar gets swallowed into its huge maw but not before Solar's dynamite fuse is set off. Once the fuse disappears into the dynamite stick, it blew up along with him and the voracious, oozing monstrosity.

*BOOM!!!*

*FZZZZZZZT!!!!*

As the dynamite exploded, the whole footage started to phase out in a static screech before it turns off itself.

*Footage Ends as the screen turns white!*

The Mausoleum part 2

From the camera latched onto a nearby tent...........

The unicorn archaeologist mare couldn't help but feel horribly stunned before writing down the findings from the first VHS tape.

With heavy sweat coming down from her face, Vision Scroll felt paranoid upon learning that there are still dangerous creatures deemed far more worse than just the Windigos. Nevertheless, she also felt intrigued by such ancient lore. After writing down the notes of the 1st footage onto the first page of her logbook, she turned towards the Mausoleum to see what lies beneath the surface.

The moment Vision gathered her camera and her tool bag while her camera sees the footage from her right as she makes her way to the Mausoleum's entrance. As Vision enters into the tomb, she looks down to see a staircase spiraling down like 35 feet below the surface as it leads into a descending darkness.

With her magic, Vision lights up her horn before making her way down the spiraling staircase.

As the footage turns off and back on in just 20 minutes later, it now shows that Vision has reached down to the end of the staircase. The moment Vision could feel the ground floor inside the Masoleum, Vision's light now reveals the, underground catacombs, which happens to be a dark hallway filled with old, dusty coffins buried in cobwebs and dirty statues seen from both sides. High above towards the ceiling, Vision saw shadowy giant skulls of unknown creatures looming over the coffins. For the walls, they show countless pony skulls that made Vision feel a chill crawling up her spine.

Taking a deep gulp, Vision shines her light magic forward only to see that no pony is there at the underground level of the Mausoleum.

However, the mare could feel a dreadful chill coming out from the other side of the dark hallway. From where Vision is standing, behind the staircase that she went down from, she could hardly see anything from within the pitch blackness.

Just when Vision is about to advance forward into the hallway filled with dusty caskets, she just felt a hoof touch her shoulder.

"EEEEP!!!!" Vision yelped as she jumped forward, making herself turn around at the same time as the footage violently shook to her right.

Once the footage is stable, Vision could see that her assistant Viridian Watcher appeared before her at the staircase.

"GOOD GRAVY FAUST!!! Don't do that!!!" Vision shouted, feeling startled by her assistant's presence.

"Well, I was about to check up on you after I discovered an old scroll that one of our associates found from Masoleum. But you just took off down here." Viridian explained briefly.

"Okay. After I saw through the footage of the first tape, I couldn't help but wonder if those ancient horrors still exist today." Vision replied, feeling nervous about her findings.

"I did some careful analysis with the old scroll and I just discovered that it was published by Mage Meadowbrook." Viridian explained further. "She did described that Mage used an anti-virus to stop a huge crisis from spreading as if one of her cures were to be a weapon."

"Mage Meadowbrook??" Viridian spoke in confused disbelief. "Can I see it, please?"

As the next footage unfolds through Vision's POV........

The camera now shows Viridian inside his tent as he presents the scroll up front. The old scroll is seen inside a tall glass case on top of a small round table with old inscriptions written by hoof.

With the camera peering closer to the scroll and without having its lenses touch the glass, Vision takes notes from it the best she could in the next page of her logbook.

After she is done with her writing, Vision turns towards the second VHS tape next to the scroll. As the unicorn mare approached the tape, it started glowing red by itself. At the same time, the scroll started to resonate with the tape as it starts glowing in a green hue.

In a surprise, the scroll inside the glass case starts to shoot out a harmless beam at the tape.

"Vision, what is happening to the two artifacts??" Viridian asked, feeling confused.

"I think the scroll that Mage Meadowbrook wrote down might have something to do with the footage on the second tape." Vision said as she made a careful observation with the two lights shinning towards each other.

With Vision's horn aiming at the converging lights, she shoots out another beam of magic in-between as the unicorn starts out another footage while Viridian stood by to watch........

Merchant

At the start of the 2nd footage, it now shows the face of Mage Meadowbrook as she is now seen writing down her journal entries into one of her scrolls while inside her huge medicine cart.

As Mage could feel the calm breeze flow through her mane from the open window, she makes her personal statement while sitting down in front of her table and writing down her findings.

"If ya all read this, do not try to fall any scamming vendors at the southern shoreline." Mage said to herself as she takes a deep breath before starting her recent findings.

"Six weeks after curing the disease at Mareidian, I have received a report from my mother about a drug dealing merchant operating in the Southern Docktown of Whirling Seashell. They said that he is selling bogus drugs that are seen in small vials of red liquid. They call it the Flaming Rush." Mage explained as she wrote down the first entries in her blank scrolls. "At first, the merchant claimed that the Flaming Rush is meant to boost a pony's adrenaline and endurance during their working shifts to help succeed in reaching their labor quota. Before then, the ponies working at the docks in Whirling Seashell have been struggling to handle the goods for export since the trade routes coming into their town from the City of Earthsterdam have been overwhelming over the past 6 years. It was very hard, stressful work for them to load the food and supply crates onto the cargo ships. There is only about 1,000 ponies living there and only like 200 working in Whirling Seashell's dock warehouse, which isn't enough horse power to transport the goods overseas before meeting their deadlines. So, the merchant started distributing the Flaming Rush into Whirling Seashell at a discount price."

After writing down her first journal entry into her scroll, Mage Meadowbrook goes to a small crate full of vials.

As the camera then shows Mage facing her at the front as she takes out a small vial of the Flaming Rush. It is shown to be a glass vial filled with red, bubbling liquid that looks like lava.

"I was able to get a hold of a small via of Flaming Rush from a unicorn mother of two like three days ago. You should've all seen the look on her face. She had internal bleeding beneath her skin as blood started to seep from her eyes. At the same time, some of her skin started to fester in fleshy boils. It was so scary. Worse, half of her mane was missing. She just collapsed right in front of my wagon right after she gave me that vial all because she took one sip of the Flaming Rush just to gain a boost of adrenaline energy to bring 10 crates onboard a transport ship. When I used my equipment to perform an analysis test on the Flaming Rush, it turns out it's actually in the guise of a lethal virus known as the Nex, the A12 Nexoidianus Aquarite Virus that was made up of a dangerous compound mixed with steroids and flesh-eating venom, which is carried by a very dangerous sea serpent known as the Angler Leviathan. If the Nex Virus is left untreated, the victim will start to cough up blood for 8 to 10 minutes. In its second stage afterwards, the victim will suffer festering boils as the virus will dissolve their flesh, letting blood spill out from their wound before collapsing in bleeding agony for one hour. In the third and final stage, once the hour has passed, the virus will then put the victim into cardiac arrest, killing them instantly as some of their skin will dissolve into a bloody mess. " Mage reported in as she felt disgusted by such a horrendous effect. "From what I learned about Angler Leviathan before it's connection with the Nex Virus, the creature lives in the southern oceans of Cthulhu Square. I rather not say too much about the Angler Leviathan except that pony sailors told terrifying stories about them. Well, because I was near the beach at the time I met her, I was able to cure the poor mare by using an anti-virus made up of a white special sea weed that I managed to harvest from the nearby shoreline; known as the Glaciusteim. After the mare went on home, I gathered about 200 pounds of Glaciusteim and mixed it all inside a dozen barrels filled with water."

Once Mage Meadowbrook makes her second paragraph of the cure that she uncovered, she pulls out a map that will lead her to the docktown that is suffering from the Nex. As soon as the map is on the table, Mage marks the spot with a pin before she continues with her intentions.

"I heard that 25% of the ponies living in Whirling Seashell have already succumbed to the Nex. So, my top priority right now is to stop the scamming merchant from leaving the docktown. Otherwise, he'll do to the other towns and cities what he did to Whirling Seashell." Mage Meadowbrook vowed in determination. "I may not be a fighter, but I will save as much ponies as I can before the entire docktown is completely dead."

In the next footage, the camera is now placed on top of the medicine cart as it is showing Mage Meadowbrook hauling her cart down a straight road leading towards the docktown which is mere distance away.

As Mage gets closer, she sees the fog shrouding up ahead at the end of the road. The moment Mage gets closer, she then spots a shadowy silhouette of a lighthouse that is rendered completely silent. With no flood light shinning from the lighthouse, Mage sees that as a warning that most of the ponies living in Whirling Seashell aren't feeling well in doing their jobs.

Once Mage spots the entrance to the docktown, she felt nauseous as the blue-earth pony mare started to sniff a dreadful odor as if more ponies fell victim to the Nex. Speaking of which, her camera spots a dead pony that is already seen sitting down up against the signpost as its lower jaw shows blood dripping from its exposed flesh and that the skin from its upper chest melted away, revealing the bloody ribcage dripping red liquid onto the ground.

Mage nearly vomited after seeing the pony corpse dissolving into a bloody mess.

Upon looking past the sign post where the bloody pony corpse is at, Mage then sees more pony corpses with similar exposed, disintegrating flesh wounds dripping blood onto the paved roads. Unable to stand such a horrid stench and decay, Mage immediately puts on her Healer's Mask as she advanced cautiously towards the docktown square.

With her camera footage showing everything from the upper right edge of her Healer's Mask, Mage goes back inside her wagon to arm herself with the cure for any pony that is still struggling to stay alive during the Nex Virus Outbreak.

Now that the Glaciustein in her possession, Mage equips herself with a barrel strapped to her body with a hose attached to it filled with the liquid cure. In addition, Mage straps a sling over her body, with a cache of gas vials and attaches two aerosol spray cans next to the barrel, all of it filled with the Glaciustein as well.

Once Mage is fully equipped with the cure, she then gets out of her wage as she advances towards the silent docktown of Whirling Seashell, turning off the footage for a moment.......

After trekking through the docktown for 15 minutes, Mage turns the footage back on as she finds herself in-between the buildings surrounding by a thick, ominous fog. With the fog spewing all over the docktown, Mage can only squint through her Healer's Mask as she can only see things from about 20 feet away.

Unfortunately, most of the inhabitants already succumbed to the Nex Virus as the bloody corpses of exposed flesh and disintegrating skin kept piling up the streets. It was a living nightmare as if the Nex Virus were to spread out beyond control.

Ultimately, Mage comes across a nearby Inn where she finally sees the pony survivors holding onto their fillies and loved ones as they are struggling stay strong against the Nex Virus that is slowly infecting them with the same internal bleeding and boils that nearly claimed the unicorn mare earlier.

With nothing to hold back, Mage started spraying the liquid Glaciustein to every pony inside the inn. After that, the ponies where able to breath normally as their boils and internal bleeding started to disappear in the next minute or two. So far, only 60 ponies have been cured inside the Inn.

As the ponies thank Mage for her aid, she still is concerned with the Merchant that selling her illicit drugs into the Inn.

"Does any of you know who is this Merchant giving out the so-called Flaming Rush? Any details or any identity??"

For a few minutes of silence, Mage is approached by a red mane stallion dressed in a grey trench coat, whom came out of the 60 cured ponies.

"I take it you must be Mage Meadowbrook. My name is Anchor Hauler, the mayor of Whirling Seashell." The red-mane stallion spoke in a cautious tone.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hauler." Mage replied nervously. "Is any pony else still clinging onto life in the other buildings apart from the Inn?"

"I'm afraid not, Mage. They all collapsed inside their homes and on the road after coughing up blood for one minute. Just like that, they all died instantly." Anchor Hauler said, feeling sorry for himself after losing so many of his people. "It's been about two weeks since we have been visited by a merchant who calls himself Blacksnake Bargain. He came here by boat as usual for he makes his appearance down by the docks north of here. Though, I really should've listened to my wife when I had the chance."

"She knew this was going to happen?" Mage asked, feeling concerned over how this venom drug started spreading.

"We missed like over 10 deadlines last year which resulted in the loss of our wages used to pay for the shipment costs. We're not able to earn enough bits to pay for the cargo ships that come by here to pick up the exported goods. As a result, they terminated 3 of our service contracts due to the lack of payment. So, I was desperate in trying to make up for it by reaching out to a nearby earth pony merchant broker who calls himself Blacksnake Bargain." The mayor added in. "My wife, River Rise, was the manager of the Whirling Seashell's dock warehouse; she was in charge of relabeling and sort out the exporting goods before shipping them overseas. Blacksnake promised that he would help our dock workers succeed in meeting the next deadline by sell the Flaming Rush drugs at a cheap price. However, my wife doesn't think that his so-called drugs would improve the exporting process. Regardless, I had to rely on the Flaming Rush just to help improve every ponies' mare power. Of course, you already knew what happened next."

"MAYOR!!! YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!!!" One of the cured earth ponies shouted he is seen on Mage's footage coming into the entrance of the Inn.

As soon as Mage and the Mayor turned towards the entrance, Anchor's eyes widened with fright. When the earth pony moved aside, a sickly pale-yellow earth mare came out from the shadows as she is seen with tears of blood seeping from her eyes while clutching her bloody chest with her right hoof before collapsing onto her left.

"A-A-Anchor!! H-h-help me!!!" The sick mare gasped as went in and out of consciousness due to blood loss.

"SWEET FAUST!! NO!!! NOT MY RIVER RISE!!!!" Anchor cried as he struggled helplessly while being held against his own will by the other earth colts.

When Mage cautiously came forward while wearing her healer's mask, she sees that the collapsed mare's exposed chest is already peeling off flesh from her body as blood is dripping from her mouth, making her unable to breathe.

Dauntless, Mage takes out a vial filled with Glaciusteim before pouring it into the mare's lips, allowing her to drink the liquidity cure. Once the vial is empty, the mare lets out a hoarse gasp of air while her chest started to seal itself up.

Relieved, the ponies let the mayor go as Anchor Hauler cried out of relief as he comforted his wife while apologizing frantically. However, even though Anchor's wife just got cured, she fell unconscious due to lack of energy. No that it matters, she was able to breath normally.

As Mage's footage is showing Anchor comforting his wife, she approached him and makes out another suggestion.

"Mayor, I think you and your people need to leave now. It may be hard since your dock town is the only place to bridge in the overseas trade route of exports but since you made an unnecessary risk that is costing you and your people, the least you can do is start over again once this horror is over."

In silence, the Mayor looked at Mage in a stern, confused expression for a few minutes before turning to see his wife sleeping peacefully. Taking a deep breath after bearing witness to the decimation, death, and decay happening in his hometown, Mayor Anchor makes one final request.

"Mage Meadowbrook, please stop Blacksnake. You're right about one thing, I have to start over again. But as long as Blacksnake is here, my home will not be safe. He's last seen venturing into my wife's warehouse which leads to the docks where we conduct our shipment operations in exporting Earthsterdam goods overseas."

"It will be done, sir. Just get your people out of here while you still could." Mage replied as she turns off the camera footage latched onto her mask.

As the footage turns on again, Mage sees through the camera that the Mayor, his wife, and the survivors left Whirling Seashell for they made their way out down the road that she came from.

Once they all disappeared into the dense fog, Mage puts on her healer's mask again before heading down to the dock warehouse and the pier. At the entrance of the warehouse, Mage continues to see more dead ponies lying on the pavement as their bloody ribs are being exposed and decaying near the huge, wide structure.

Even when venturing inside the warehouse, it gets worse even further as Mage's camera footage shows that bloody skeletons of dead ponies are hanging upside down by ropes hanging them by their left or right hind hooves. Through the dim light inside the warehouse, Mage sees huge bloodstains dripping all over the structure's interior walls. The Mystical Mask couldn't imagine what would happen if she did not came by in time to save every pony inside the Inn.

With the warehouse's interior having a huge space of 150 ft high and 200ft wide, Mage could see through her footage a massive stack of possibly 500 sealed crates of food that aren't shipped yet, with more dead, mutilated ponies lying up against them. Other than that, the cranes seen at Mage's right were left untouched as the control tower operating them are completely abandoned, possibly because the operators are likely killed by the Nex virus too.

As much as Mage would grief for not delivering the cure to the sick ponies in time before their demise, she still has to stay strong for their sake if she were to avenge this entire town from the ravage and devastation of the Nex Virus.

While making their way through the two rows of the sealed crates in trying to hunt down the perpetrator Blacksnake. However, Mage started hearing faint, bone-chilling shrieks coming from outside of the warehouse.

"Oh Faust. I hope it isn't what I think it is!!" Mage muttered in fearful anxiety.

If Mage were to face an Angler Basilisk, it may be the last thing she would ever encounter. Other than that, Mage couldn't help but question if this Blacksnake had anything to do with those creatures.

As the shrieking continues, it gets louder every time Mage hears it. In fact, just as Mage reaches to the other side of the warehouse, she saw a scary glimpse of some huge head of a snake peering from the roof window panels above her.

"GAAAAHH!!!" Mage yelped as she jumped backwards, making her footage shake a bit. "W-W-W-What the hell is that??"

With chilling sweat coming down from Mage's face, she is starting to think that something frightening is waiting for her outside of the warehouse. Well, it is now or never as Mage cautiously approached the exit which happens to be a metal door with the handle shown at its left edge.

The moment Mage reaches out her hoof grab the handle, she heard one of the crates crash onto the floor behind her, giving the earth mare quite a startling gasp.

*CRASH!!!*

"WHO'S THERE??" Mage shouted as she frantically looked up and down with her camera footage.

With one of the crates seen completely smashed on the floor upon impact, Mage couldn't tell who knocked it down since the warehouse is still dark due to the looming shadows from the ceilings.

Taking a deep breath, Mage turns around to face the door again as she slowly opened it with her right hoof.

Once the metal door opens, Mage sees a long, metal gangplank that leads straight to the pier outside. With the sky completely shrouded with dark, misty fog, Mage could barely see through her healer's mask. Nevertheless, Mage tried desperately to find where Blacksnake is at by walking down the pier.

As soon as Mage sees the pier touching the black, murky waters, she sees on her left that a small merchant boat has its mooring lines attached to the pier's cleats. On her right, Mage could see one of the cargo ships docked alongside the pier, with a metal ramp leading up to its main deck.

When Mage approached the merchant boat, it had a small flagpole that shows the insignia of a black python. At the boat's bow, Mage saw through her footage that one crate is shown with the same Flaming Rush vial on top of its wooden lid.

"There's no doubt about it. This is definitely Blacksnake's boat." Mage thought in a positive presumption. "Well, it's time I shall end this."

As she sternly took a deep breath, Mage takes out a torch from underneath her dress as she raised her hoof up high in attempting to hurl it towards Blacksnake's merchant boat. However, before she could burn the boat, Mage heard an angry, disturbing voice coming from behind her.

"HEY!! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING TO MY BOAT??"

Feeling jumpy, Mage turns her camera around to see, through the light of her torch, an unidentified pony wearing a black cloak covering his face and his whole body. Before the cloaked pony could come any closer down the docks to where his boat is at, Mage stood firm as she is about to extend her hoof towards the little vessel while still holding her torch.

"I take it you must be Blacksnake. Well, I'm already well-aware of the wrongdoings that you shamelessly caused in this docktown." Mage spoke in a stern, but chilled voice. "So, it's time I shall put a stop to this!!!"

"DON'T YOU DARE!!" The cloaked Blacksnake snapped. "I happened to be a rogue trading merchant that came from Chuthlu Square. I already worked very hard to earn my profits and to fund my earnings to my Master and his patrons."

"Well, I don't know what you're talking about." Mage continued, despite Blacksnake's protests. "Besides, you don't realize that you just killed this town!! So, if I were you, I'd rather start with a different vendor that sells things that aren't lethal or hurtful."

"NOT A CHANCE!!!" Blacksnake roared from underneath his cloaked breath as he charged towards Mage at full, galloping speed.

Startled, Mage's camera sees the mad cloaked pony leap towards her, pinning the Mystical Mask to the ground on top of the pier. As the cloak comes off, Mage's eyes widened to horror as she sees something terrifying through her healer's mask.

Blacksnake's face is seen with big, yellow furious snake eyes with a small angler antenna coming out of his head. It hissed at Mage as he opened up his tall jaws, revealing two long fangs coming from his upper jaw. She barely had any chance to grab Blacksnake's jaw from reaching her when its fangs punctured Mage directly into her left shoulder blade.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!" Mage screamed in pain as she felt the Nex Virus entering into her bloodstream while feeling the burns flowing underneath her skin.

Frightened, Mage frantically pulled out a gas vial of Glauciustem from her belt as she held it with her left hoof. As Mage growled in pain, she shoved Blacksnake's huge jaws away from her with her right hoof. In fury and in fear, Mage shoved the gas vial straight into Blacksnake's maw as he started to choke on it before it shattered into a million glass shards as the Glauciustem gas exploded all over his face.

"GUUUUYYYAAAAAA!!!! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!!!" Blacksnake gagged as he started to shrivel into a bleeding husk while the Glauciustem gas is spewing out smoke coming from his mouth and ears.

"You might as well face the wrath of the anti-virus!!" Mage angrily shouted before she coughed while feeling her skin fester in boils.

While seeing Blacksnake gag and cough with the gaseous anti-virus flowing through him, Mage gets back up on her hooves and shoves the half-serpent, half-pony straight into his own merchant vessel

Once Blacksnake slammed face first onto his boat, Mage grabbed the torch behind her as she immediately threw it into his vessel. With the boat set aflame, Blacksnake screamed in burning agony as Mage then detached her barrel full of Glauciustem liquid and lifted it above with her two front hooves.

Before Blacksnake could see it coming, Mage hurled the barrel into his merchant ship. Once the barrel crashed into the vessel it exploded into a huge mushroom cloud of white exploding gas that sent Mage flying backwards into the warehouse, making her camera footage go up in static for a few seconds.

As soon as Mage's camera footage readjusts itself, she sees that Blacksnake's boat sank into the watery depths below the pier. However, it wasn't long before Mage could hear an furious, hissing roar coming from the dark mists of the ocean itself.

"Oh Faust, it's the Angler Leviathans!!!" Mage muttered in fear.

It wasn't long before a huge long neck sprouted from the ocean as Mage could see ta shadowy sihoulette of a giant snake head approaching her with hostile intent through her footage. Behind the approaching giant snake head, the whole pier was ripped apart by three more shadowy giant sea serpents that came out from the ocean.

With no time to think anymore, Mage immediately made a dash back into the warehouse as she hears the bone-chilling screeches of the giant serpents vibrating throughout the building.

With glass shards shattering from above and with crates toppling on top of each other before crashing onto the floors, Mage ran and leaped in hopes of trying to dodge most of the falling hazards as she is trying to escape the destruction of the warehouse and the pier. However, Mage could feel her energy draining faster not because of her deteriorating stamina but also because of the venom that Blacksnake injected her with.

As much as Mage would try to stop of take a break, she can't yet; at least not until Mage is out of the snake's reach. Despite the venom slowly corroding her, Mage isn't going to give up. Her mother and her ponies are all still counting on her. In fact, Mage still has one vial of Glaciustem inside her wagon.

Though, Mage can only hope to run towards the wagon as fast as possible before the Nex can claim her the way it claimed so many innocent lives in Whirling Seashell.

With the crates continue to topple over, Mage moved right and left to avoid the falling objects. However, one of the Angler Leviathans is closing in from behind as Mage could hear its loud screeches increasing.

As soon as Mage ran out the exit of the warehouse and towards the town, she is starting to feel nauseous as she is about to vomit blood while wearing her healer's mask. Instantly, Mage started to gag, forcing her to take off the mask as she started to vomit short bursts of her blood, making her slow down.

It may be the end of Mage as she is collapsing forward onto her own front hooves, with her mask off and landing on the ground behind her. As a result, the camera footage on the mask then shows Mage collapsing onto the ground due to her festering injuries

"HUUUUUUURRRRRRLGH!!" Mage gurgled as she vomited blood onto the ground in front of her.

As she struggled to breath, Mage fell on her stomach as she rolled to her side while her camera facing the huge face of an Angler Leviathan glaring at her with an intent to kill. It had the same features that Blacksnake does except it had small fins coming from from its cheeks and with a long, forked tongue reaching out 6 feet as it starts hissing at Mage. Instantly, Mage felt another sharp pain coming from her left hind leg as the giant serpent bit down hard, making her scream more.

"M-M-M-Mother!!" Mage wheezed in pain as blood came down from her lips while her festering wound is letting down blood onto her dress as some of skin is slowly dissolving, while feeling her left hind leg become afflicted with the same excruciating results. "I-I-I-I-I'm sorry!!!"

Just before the Angler Leviathan could finish Mage off, a barrage of magic missiles came shooting at its face. With the creature facing the full brunt of magic blasts, it screeched in pain as the Angler Basilisk retreated back into the dark fog.

Even though the beast finally disappeared, Mage went limp as she closed her eyes and went unconscious due to her blood loss and injuries, Mayor Anchor and several unicorns came up behind her.

"There she is!!" One of the unicorns shouted as he came up to a critically injured Mage.

"Hang on, Mage. I have the cure that you made for us!!" Mayor Anchor said as he came up to Mage Meadowbrook.

Just as Anchor poured the vial of Glaciustem into Mage's mouth, the other unicorns and earth ponies ran past them both as they disappeared past the camera footage.

*Footage Ends as the screen turns blue.*

The Mausoleum part 3

Right after the second tape ended, Vision's camera footage shows that the beams converging from both the tape and Mage's scroll disappeared. All at the same time, Vision Scroll finished writing notes from the second story.

"So afterwards, Mage was bed-ridden inside the docktown Inn for one week just to recover from her dangerous encounter with Blacksnake and the Angler Leviathans before moving on. And for Mayor Anchor and his surviving townponies, right after driving the Angler Leviathans away from Whirling Seashell, they filled out a report to Earthsterdam about what happened as well as seeking aid to help in meeting their deadlines successfully. They responded by sending in assistant managers and a lead team to aid Anchor's wife while operating the dock warehouse, while handing out more job openings to the neighboring villages and towns within a 30 mile radius."

As soon as Vision is done writing all of her findings down in her journal, she immediately heard a violent rumble coming from inside the Mausoleum.

"What was that??" Vision yelped as she almost fell on her back while still inside the tent.

Speaking of which, Vision's assistant isn't nowhere to be seen. She last saw him examining another artifact which happens to be an old hoof-mounted crossbow inside a long, wooden weapons crate before he went to take five. However, that was like a half an hour ago before Vision finished with the second footage of Mage Meadowbrook's recording tape.

As soon as Vision came out of her tent, more rumbling started to flow throughout the excavation site as most of the archaeological team is losing their balance before falling on their backs.

In a fright, Vision sees that one of the tall, glass cases is about to fall due to the vibrating rumble coming from below the crypt. Just as the glass case is about to crash straight into the ground, Viridian was able to leap forward past Vision as he held it with both of his front hooves the moment he landed on his stomach.

Just as the rumbling stopped, Vision felt relieved that her assistant just saved one of the artifacts from breaking due to the ground shifting unexpectedly. However, Vision still felt concerned for the rest of the artifacts that are being secured outside of the tent.

As Vision's camera footage changes, it now shows her and Viridian trying to check on every pony in the vicinity. However, the entire excavation area fell under total silence for their entire team is no where to be seen.

"Where is every pony?" Vision asked anxiously as she turned her camera to the left and right while searching every tent in the area.

Unfortunately, Vision's blood starts to chill out of concern because she then sees through her camera that no pony is inside their tents either.

"This is getting really weird. Well, Professor Fossil is going to come down to check our paperwork somewhere this afternoon. But if she notices that most of my team is missing, things are going to get out of hoof!!!" Vision spoke in a frightful tone. "Something really weird is going on here!!"

Just before Vision could get a sitrep, she did noticed that her assistant Viridian is nowhere to be seen after he saved one of the artifacts from being destroyed by the small quake.

"Viridian??" Vision asked as her eyes widened with confusion. "Viridian, where are you??"

In a few minutes of silence, Vision frantically spun the camera around while trying to find Viridian. After scouring around the site for a few minutes, Vision went to her assistant's tent to see if he is there. Then again, when looking in his tent, Viridian is no where to be seen.

Although, inside Viridian's tent, Vision sees that, through her footage, he left behind a note on the table. But as soon as Vision examines the notice, she started to sweat underneath her breath.

"You should not have came here!!!!" The note says for it is written in a disturbing message. "This mausoleum isn't to be explored."

At first, Vision thought it was some sort of prank that was left behind by a group of random ponies since she already has full authority and approval from Professor Fossil to setup the excavation in the tomb.

However, since her entire team just vanished, Vision Scroll felt anxious to see what is going on inside the Mausoleum that is making this disturbing occurrence erupt.

"What do I do?? WHAT DO I DO??? Vision muttered in a panic, holding her hooves up to both side of her head.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHH!!!" A loud, bone-chilling scream erupted from inside the masoleum.

"VIRIDIAN!! IS THAT YOU??" Vision shrieked as she frantically grabs her camera, her satchel bags with the tapes inside, and her flashlight as she ran towards the source of the disturbing screams.

Once inside the mausoleum, through Vision Scroll's camera footage, she now finds herself back into the very same catacombs that she just came by a half-an hour ago. While taking a few deep breaths, Vision walked down the hallways as she feels the breeze skimming from another hallway where a doorway leading to another stairwell awaits for her.

With her flashlight shinning towards the direction that she's walking towards, Vision felt paranoid about what is going to become of her team.

Regardless, Vision has to investigate the matter herself since no pony else is able to since they're all missing from plain sight.

As soon as Vision makes her way down the second stairwell, she finds herself in a small room. Through the illumination of her flashlight and her camera, Vision sees several open chests filled with dusty artifacts that haven't been taken out yet.

Even though Vision wanted to secure them for further research, she still is aware that the safety of her team is more important than just the job that they're expecting to do!!!

Before Vision could move on to find Viridian and the rest of her team, her satchel started to glow again. Without doing anything, one of the VHS tapes started to hover on its own as it came out of Vision's satchel as it flew straight towards one of the chests on Vision's right.

The moment the floating tape is hovering above the chest, one of the dusty treasures started to float as well for it is glowing in a brown, lighting hue.

With interest and with anxiety, Vision reluctantly sees that the floating artifact resonating with the floating tape is seen to be a huge relic in the shape of a golden ankh. Not a second too soon, the tape and the dusty ankh started to both shoot a beam at each other as they both form up a small projection screen for Vision to see through her camera footage.......

Cursed Treasure of the Sphinx

*Footage turns on.*

As the camera turns on, it shows a brown male unicorn colt with the cutie mark of a sun locket whom is holding onto the recording device with his magic while lighting up his horn. In a full recording picture, the unicorn is also wearing a tan vest with a backpack harness onto his back which is filled with climbing gear.

From the background of the footage, the unicorn finds himself coming out of the train the moment it stops at a train station that is surrounded by a huge sandy dune landscape. Before he makes his way to one of the stagecoaches, he makes his introduce while facing his own camera.

"My name is Vindictive Dial and I am assigned to recover a lost treasured relic that once belonged to the Sphinx. Legend has it when the Sphinx flew away into the unknown, the evil creature accidentally left behind a sacred relic in which she never came back for, blinded by humiliation." The unicorn colt spoke in his private announcement. "They did say that Somnambula already recovered it right after she brought the Prince back to his father, the Pharoah. However, some unknown incident happened to her that forced Somnambula to hide the Sphinx's lost relic somewhere deep within the deserts of Colstanbul, in which I have arrived just now."

Through the footage, Vindictive went up to the stagecoach, he paid the driver 600 bits as he embarks.

With the camera footage now showing the inside of the stagecoach, Vindictive sits down on his seat as he continues with his speech as he explains briefly on his assignment.

"Putting the past aside, I happened to be a treasure hunter hired by the museum of the city of Somnambula to finish up where the Pillar of Hope failed. In fact, my team will be waiting for me at the possible location of where the lost artifact is last sighted." Vindictive explained as the camera footage shows him taking out his map with his magic.

With Vindictive's camera showing the map, it is seen with as an old, wrinkled cartography where the city of Colstanbul is located at the upper right corner, a group of pyramids are seen at the left edge, an Oasis located in-between Colstanbul and the pyramids, and line roads connecting to each other. For the rest of the map down south, it is only seen with wavy lines which indicates that it is mostly the sandy dunes that have yet to be explored.

"Right after Somnambula disappeared, my contractor was able to uncover this old map from the very city that was named after her one year ago. And after I made careful examination with it, I did manage to pinpoint the possible location where Somnambula might have left the Sphinx's treasured artifact at." Vindictive explained as he laid the map on the table.

While looking down at the south side of the map, Vindictive takes out a professional compass with a pencil attached to its attached holder as he uses a small paper that shows the coordinates of Longitude of 58 and Latitude of 169 before using them to hold it in place directly at the spot. As Vindictive uses the compass' knurled knob to adjust the distance around the coordinates with his telekinesis magic, he carefully draws out a small circle with the diameter of 1.5inch.

"This map included a small piece of paper that shows the coordinates on where I should look for the lost artifact. From the coordinates given to me, along with this map, the Sphinx's lost artifact may be hidden somewhere in an abandoned cathedral, which was 15 miles west by southwest of Colstanbul. It was built like 700 years ago before it was completely buried underneath the sand. Though, I have still yet to comprehend the history behind the construction of the cathedral since most of the historical documents that describe it have been destroyed for some unexplained, grim reasons. Well, I don't want to waste too much time trying to figure out the main purpose of the old cathedral. If we're able to find the Sphinx's lost artifact there, then we may be heading towards the road of wealth and fame!!!" Vindictive added in as he smiled with overbearing confidence. "Anyway, I'll be meeting up with my team in 2 hours. So, I might as well rest up for our treasure hunt down at the buried cathedral."

After he finished explaining his intentions, Vindictive turns off the camera footage as he catches some Zs.

Two hours later, just as the camera footage turns back on again........

From the Vindictive's camera screen, he wakes up to see that the stagecoach has stopped. With no time to waste, the unicorn treasure hunter opens up the doors before coming outside of the stagecoach. Instantly, a bright sunshine awaits for him as the screen was blind-sighted by its illuminating flash, forcing him to cover his face with his right hoof.

From the bright, blurred vision on his camera footage, it shows a group of five pony silhouettes a mere distance away over the sandy dunes. Regardless, Vindictive puts on his hat to block the sunlight from blinding him before he makes his trek across the dunes, while hearing the stagecoach leave as they make their way back to civilization.

As Vindictive approaches the ponies across the dune, he and his camera footage see a campsite over the sandy hills before greeting him up close.

"Hey, little bro. How have you been??" A unicorn stallion twice as big as Vindictive spoke. As he smiled, the unicorn is seen in a red-orange skin color with black mane, bearing the cutie mark of a pickaxe piercing a small piece of rock.

"I was about to ask the same time, Axe Rock." Vindictive smiled as they both embraced each other in their hooves.

With a few giggles and laughs, Axe Rock leads Vindictive down to the campsite along with four other ponies.

"Vindic, I'd like you to meet my marefriend, Gemstone Grabber. She is known for mining gems in Saddle Arabia. I met her during a mining expedition there 5 months ago. She did liked how I managed to find the gems that she enjoys gathering for the store that her father currently owns." Axe Rock said as a female red earth pony came up to him.

With the camera showing Gemstone's face, she bears the cutie mark of an eagle's claw holding onto a green gemstone.

"Hi there. You must be Vindictive Dial." Gemstone glee with excitement. "I heard about your latest assignment from your employer. Well, I do have the equipment ready for use. Mining and digging out buried treasure is my specialty. I take it you're able to uncover a lead on where the Sphinx's treasure might located at right?!"

"Well, from the map that my contractor gave me, the sacred relic that we're looking for may be inside an ancient, buried cathedral." Vindictive explained as he showed Gemstone and Axe Rock the map while unfurling and holding it with his magic. "From where we are right now, we should be 4 miles eastbound towards the site. Anyway, who else is going to join us on this expedition?"

Before long, three more ponies came out of their tents to meeting Vindictive. As they made their appearance through Vindictive's camera; they introduce themselves to Vindictive.

"My name is Green Sky Lantern. I happened to be a journalist that enters logged in entries whenever we uncover treasures buried below 6 feet under." The pony spoke as he happens to be another earth pony colt with brown fur, green mane, and with the cutie mark of a lantern that is glowing with emerald lights.

"I am Star Dwarf." The second pony spoke as he is seen as a pegasus colt with yellow fur, white mane, a grey beard, and with the cutie mark of a gem cart. "I happened to be a prospector that works in the town of Somnambula. I did my part in mining for Glowpaws before sending it to the town as a tribute to pay respects to the Pillar of Hope."

"And my name is Driller Pitch." The female unicorn spoke as she is seen in amber red fur, black mane, and with the cutie mark of an automatic drill. "I help setup underground tunnels in Dodge Junctions as well as drilling into ore veins."

"So guys, are you all able to understand what we're assigned to?" Vindictive asked, trying to make sure that every pony is aware of what he is up ton.

"We do." All 5 ponies responded in unison.

"If we secure the Sphinx's lost treasure, how should we share our spoils?"

"I don't know, maybe 50, 50?" Star Dwarf answered reluctantly.

"It probably depends on how much wealth are we able to find in this so-called cathedral. Well, from the past 3 years of my prospecting career, most of the ancient religious architectures had treasured items that are worth over 10 million bits for each piece that is secured." Green Sky spoke in confidence. "I'm pretty sure there will be more than enough for every pony in our team, if we can bring it up to the surface. We'll split it all by a 100 grand each."

"That sounds wicked!!!" Driller cackled with excitement. It's been so long since I made any drilling operations back at Dodge Junction. Most of my time over the past 3 years, I was a manager in this one Drilling operation there until most of the veins dried out there. So, now that I'm here, I'd say we'll take advantage of what we can find at the underground cathedral. I already setup the elevator scaffold about one week prior to our meeting. Also, I already sent in a team of cavern explorers to make a brief report down below but that was 24 hours ago; they still haven't came back yet."

"That's weird. Well, there is one way to find out. Every pony, mount up. We'll be starting our underground treasure hunting expedition in the next hour!!" Vindictive announced as he sees all six ponies went to their tents before turning off the camera footage.

As the footage comes back on in one hour, Vindictive sees through the camera that Axe Rock, Gemstone, Green Sky, Star Dwarf, and Driller are all seen carrying backpacks equipped with climbing ropes, mounted shoulder cameras with flashlights, and with pick axes.

With Vindicitive taking the lead, he turned towards a tall, wooden scaffold holding an elevator made up of metal. At the side of the scaffold, the solar panels are activated for they have wires attached to the elevator, giving it power for the machine to go up and down.

No time to lose, Vindictive's team all went inside the elevator as Driller, who was the last one in, presses onto the "down" button as they all feel the elevator taking them below the surface.

In just a few minutes later, the elevator downs open up to reveal a huge, dark chamber that is 1,000 feet both high and wide. Once they ventured out of the elevator, they could feel their hooves touching the stone floors. All around them, there is unused construction lights placed all over the floor, with them aiming towards one direction.

Though, Vindictive noticed that the lights are all attached to a huge generator which is seen left of the elevator shaft.

Before he could say anything, Axe Rock went up to the generator and turned on its power. Once the construction lights turned on, they all shined their light towards the direction that is facing the elevator.

As the lights illuminated a huge circular spot, they reveal only the tall entrance of the underground cathedral, with the rest of the exterior structure still shrouded with an enveloping darkness below the surface. At the front, the entrance of the cathedral is shown to have a tall arch with small, colorful glass panes above the doorway. For the doorway, it was seen to support huge double doors made up of iron cast metal with two handle bars used to open it up from the outside.

However, the double doors are already seen to be wide open once Vindictive's flashlight shined upon it while seeing it through his camera footage.

By the time Vindictive first came through it, he saw a construction helmet lying on the floor a few feet away from the open doors as the light was shinning on top of it. As for the rest of the interior, it is still pitch black. When Vindictive went further in, he could hear the rest of the team follow him from behind.

In a creepy atmosphere, Gemstone felt a dreadful chill as she could hear a ghastly, gibberish voice flowing through the darkness above her and Axe Rock.

"Did you guys hear that??" Gemstone asked, feeling a bit disturbed as she started to look through her own camera footage.

"I didn't hear anything." Driller replied, feeling confused on what Gemstone is getting at.

"It's okay, my dear. I'm pretty sure its just the a small breeze coming from above the surface." Axe Rock spoke, trying to calm his marefriend down.

"Well, we haven't gotten far yet." Vindictive said as he turned his camera to face his team. "There won't be anything down here to worry about. Right?"

Through the footage of each pony team member's camera, they could only see the floor with their flashlights. However, in just a few steps forward, they soon see skeletal remains of deceased ponies lying on the concrete floors inside the cathedral and from underneath the seats. Speaking of which, the flashlights show that most of the seats have been seen either to be toppled over or seen broken beyond into scraps of wood.

"I wonder what happened to this place that made the cathedral get sealed off centuries ago?" Driller muttered in chilling confusion.

"I don't know for sure either. However, I did hear a rumor that a group of ponies down here failed to contain a vile demonic spirit before it possessed one of the priestesses that used to work down here." Gemstone murmured in anxiety.

"Well, I don't have time to listen to any superstitions. Besides, I already made my promise to the museum of Somnambula before they sent me down here." Vindictive said sternly before he almost stepped on top of a pony skull. "WHOA!! That does seem startling."

"We all might as well watch our steps, every pony." Driller said with a fair warning to the team.

With the pony team making their way through the cathedral's main hall, they reached a wide set of stairs that lead up a few feet where Gemstone's and Axe Rock's flashlights reveal an organ piano untouched as it is seen covered up in cobwebs and dust.

Since most of the interiors of the cathedral's main hall is still condensed with pitch blackness, the team can only see what their flashlights are shinning on through their camera footage.

However, the moment they approached the organ, Green Sky sees through his camera footage and his flashlight that a small paper on top of the organ.

"Guys, I think I found something on top of the organ keys." Green Sky whispered before Vindictive came up to him.

Through Vindictive's camera footage, he uses his magic to lift the small paper before reading it.

"I am the emotion that is reverse of hope. I am the one that makes others suffer through a certain sadness. What am I?"

"That's sounds pretty grim for a riddle. I wonder what could that mean?" Vindictive thought.

Through Star Dwarf's footage, he spots something lurking in the shadows behind the old organs. It looked like a shadowy blur. Before he could get a closer look at it with his flashlight, it disappeared behind the organ instantly, nearly spooking him.

"Guys, I think there's something behind the organ." Star Dwarf exclaimed in a shivering tone.

With interest, most of Vindictive's team were following Star Dwarf as they circled around the organ. Through Vindictive's camera footage, his flashlight sees a wooden trap door that is already left wide open with a ladder sticking out from the thick darkness below.

While most of the team went down to check out the floor below the trap door, Driller of them starts to hear more ominous whispering coming from behind the ears.

Through Driller's camera footage, she was getting a side-tracked by the voices entering her head.

"Driller!! Are you looking for us??"

"Who's there??" Driller gasped in startled confusion.

"It's me, Scrapper Sparks, the team leader in charge of the group you sent us down here!!!" The voice whispered intensely. "We're over to the other side!!!"

"The other side of where??" Driller asked, feeling more confused and disturbed as she frantically looked up and down with her camera footage.

"This way my dear!!!"

As Driller's camera footage is moving and shaking frantically, she starts to wander around the thick darkness within the cathedral's main hall until she catches a shadowy glimpse of an earth pony at the far eastern corner of the huge area.

Before Driller could come any closer, the shadowy pony silhouette pranced to her left as it disappeared into another doorway up on the eastern interior walls within the shadows of the cathedral.

She felt nervous not wanting to decide to go after the source of the whispering voice or regroup with Vindictive's team. Well either way, because she is being held responsible for the previous' team's safety, Driller may need to take her chance to investigate the unexplained disappearance of Scrapper's group. So without any seconds to spare, Driller cautiously walked towards the doorway that the pony silhouette disappeared into.

From the footage of Vindictive's camera, he sees that most of his team went down the ladder before they continue to look around the room below the ground floor of the cathedral, unaware that Manager Driller is not with them.

In one minute of surveying the underground room with their flashlights and their recording camera footage, Axe Rock sees through his footage a tunnel from his right as he started waving to the rest of Vindictive's team.

"Every pony over here!!" Axe Rock spoke out.

Just as Vindictive approaches the door that Axe Rock as standing at, his footage sees an inscription above the door imprinted in a arch label made of stone.

Inside pandora's box spills out an emotion where wealth consumes and corrupts!! Once it possesses the obsessed, selfishness kicks in. What am I?

"Wow, another riddle." Vindictive thought as he sees Axe Rock slowly pushes the door open with his hoof. "This keeps getting better doesn't it?"

With Axe Rock the first to venture into the tunnel, they see a shadowy brick interior wall with small pony bones lying on the floor. The moment Axe Rock makes his way through the tunnel, he then sees a dark room at the end, with Gemstone and Star Dwarf following him from behind.

When Vindictive comes into the tunnel next, with Green Sky following behind, his camera footage soon approaches the room that Axe Rock went into as the light unveils a floor made up of stone and hardened dirt. Though, it wasn't long before a piece of golden coin was spotted underneath the little light.

"Guys, I think we may have found some treasure down here!!" Vindictive muttered in delight as Axe Rock was the first to discover the treasure room below the ground floor of the Cathedral.

From Driller's camera footage, she then goes up a ramping stairwell where the second floor of the cathedral awaits her.
With the breezing voices intensifying, they are luring Driller to uncover the fate of her first surveying team.

"Something doesn't feel right here!!" Driller thought as she could feel a dread entering her brain. "Maybe I should tell the others first."

"Fret not, Driller. This will be resolved very soon!!!" The voice whispered in a alluring tone.

Taking a big gulp, Driller walks through the balcony as her footage sees a dark shroud from the Cathedral's interior ceilings above her. Before long, Driller could see a light torrent of grey mist coming from a doorway that is glowing with red and yellow dim candle lights.

"What? What could that be over there??" Driller asked to herself as she approached the ominous glowing room.

As soon as Driller enters the glowing room, she sees on her footage that some small glass cage is seen in the middle. Inside it is a skeletal pegasi covered up in dried bloodstains. Driller couldn't see what to make of it. However, as she peered her camera downwards while trying to examine the skeleton inside the cage, she sees a small red diamond that is glowing orange by a dim speck.

Just as Driller got closer to the glass cage, she hears the door behind her slam shut.

"WHAT THE??" Driller gasped in utter confusion as her camera turned towards the door that just closed on her."WHAT'S HAPPENING??!!"

"YOU ARE MINE!!!!" The chilling voice boom, startling Driller in an alarming rate.

"WHAT'S GOING ON HERE!!! LET ME OUT!!" Driller screamed as she frantically pounded on the door. "ANYPONY!!! SOMEPONY!!! HELP ME!!! HELP ME!!!"

When Driller's camera footage turns back towards the glass cage, the red diamond is seen floating outside of the glass cage. This time, the diamond starts to glow bright orange as it is starting to accumulated strange black energy from all around the room.

Instantly, a shadowy glitch of a pony is starting to come out of the diamond as it lunges towards Driller's camera footage. Upon impact, the camera shook as Driller screamed in fright as she feels herself getting pulled up to the dark ceiling.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" Driller screamed as she felt an invisible force dragging her wildly upwards, back and forth while her shoulder-mounted camera drops to the floor.

While off-screen as the camera footage only shows the glass cage, Driller continues to scream in fright before the whole room gets drowned with with demonic screeches. In just one minute, the room fell silent as the camera turns off itself due to low battery.

From the footage of Axe Rock's camera, it now shows that Vindictive was able to use his magic to illuminate the underground room. Once the room lit up, they now see that a mountain of bits and glowpaws are appeared in the middle of the room. Surrounding it, there is golden vases and glass cases filled with jewelry made up of white diamonds, topaz, rubies, and sapphires, much to every pony's excitement.

"Oh thank the Mighty Faust, we just uncovered the cathedral's jackpot!!" Gemstone squealed in delight.

"We're so rich!! I don't think we could do this without you, Vindictive." Green Sky chirped in happiness.

"Feel free to take whatever you want from her. But I'm only here for one thing only." Vindictive said, as he sees through his camera footage that most of his team started to dig into the bits and into the cases of accessories.

With seeing them all distracted, Vindictive turns his camera towards the top of the mountain of glow paws and bits where he now sees a small chest. Once he approaches the chest, Vindictive's camera uncovers another inscription on top of its lid.

"What used to belong to the Sphinx, possess essence that will undo happiness and hope!!! What am I?!"

Curious, Vindictive takes a deep breath before he uses his magic to carefully remove the lid of the small chest. Once the lid is off, inside the chest is revealed to be a golden opal with a small red drawing of the Sphinx herself, glowing yellow. Inside the opal, there is a small mist of pink-reddish colors. There's no doubt about it, this is definitely the same treasure that Somnambula was forced to abandon in this cathedral, same sacred object that the Sphinx left behind.

However, right after Vindictive used his magic to retrieve the Sphinx's golden opal and put it inside the pocket of his vest, it wasn't long before he heard Axe Rock walk up the mountain of bits and glowpaz. In fact, his unicorn brother appeared right next to him as the camera footage shows Axe's face smirking with obsession as he looked at the glowing, yellow light inside Vindictive's vest and then towards him straight in the eye.

"Axe Rock, what are you doing??" Vindictive said, feeling disturbed by the narrow look on his brother's eyes.

"It seems that you finally found what you're looking for, brother. I can't thank you enough for helping us find all this treasure for us. But now that we found what we all desired, I have to change my plans." Axe grinned as he used his magic to pull out a War Axe from his backpack. "I have no further use for you, Vindictive Dial."

"Say what??" Vindictive exclaimed as his footage sees that his brother is about to hack him with his axe. "HEY!!!"

Just before the axe head could hit Vindictive in the skull, his horn lit up as he conjured a barrier shield to block Axe Rock's attack instantly. At the same time, Gemstone noticed the shouting coming from Vindictive as she sees that her coltfriend is going crazy from off-screen.

"AXE ROCK, WHAT ARE YOU DOING???" Gemstone shrieked as she lunged at him in trying to grab the axe from his magical grip. "HE'S YOUR BROTHER!!!!"

"I could hear a voice ringing in my head!!" Axe Rock hissed as his eyes started to turn into a bright yellow color. "It wants me TO HAVE IT!!!"

"GET AWAY FROM ME!!!" Vindictive shouted as the whole treasure room is starting to rumble violently as sand started to spew down from above.

As Vindictive jumped off the mountain of bits and glowpaz, he turns his camera to see that Axe Rock and Gemstone are both struggling over the war axe. Before he could see it coming, Axe Rock breaks free from Gemstone as she slips backwards down the pile of bits, falling onto the floors.

For Star Dwarf and Green Sky, they heard Axe Rock going crazy as the two ponies turned around to see through their footage that the rogue unicorn leaps down the mountain pile of treasure before chasing after Vindictive, who ran out of the treasure room.

"WHAT THE HAY IS GOING ON HERE??" Star Dwarf shouted in frightful confusion.

Just as Star Dwarf sees Gemstone chasing after Axe Rock and Vindictive through his footage, he notices that most of the treasured vases started to resonate with a red-purple hue. Before they knew it, all the vases started to break apart by themselves as a swarm of floating, flaming balls started to fly up above the ceiling of the treasure room.

"That can't be good!! Green Sky exclaimed as he sees on his footage that one of the floating flaming balls get closer below eye level. "Let's just get as much as we can and get out of here!!"

Frantically, Star Dwarf and Green Sky grabbed only a handful of jewelry and glowpaz and stuffed them into their backpacks. The next thing they see through Star Dwarf's camera footage is when one of the flaming, flying balls came up to him.

In an alarming, sudden flash, the flaming ball transformed into a huge silhouette of a flaming dragon face that roared horrendously at the screen really loud. Upon seeing the dragon sihouette fiercely up close and in person, Star Dwarf and Green Sky both screamed in a palpable fright.

"GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!!"

"GAAAAAAAAH!!! RUN!!!" Star Dwarf screamed in terror as he and Green Sky made a mad dash towards out of the treasure room.

Through Vindictive's camera footage, he gallops towards the ladder as he could hear his crazed brother ululating and panting while hearing his hoofsteps get closer. Then again, Vindictive summons his magic shield to stop Axe Rock from hacking down on him with his war axe.

"PLEASE STOP IT!!! YOU ALREADY HAVE MORE THAN ENOUGH SPOILS TO SATISFY YOURSELF, DON'T YOU??" Vindictive shrieked in a panicking tone.

"Nice try, Vindictive. But I WANT THAT PRECIOUS OPAL FOR MYSELF!!!!" Axe Rock said in a disturbing loud screech as he continues to bear down attacks onto his brother's shield repeatedly. "NOTHING ELSE MATTERS ANYMORE!!!!"

"AXE ROCK, PLEASE FORGIVE ME!!!" Gemstone screamed as she grabbed a nearby rock from the floor and smashed it at the back of her coltfriends head.

*BAM!!!*

Upon impact, Axe Rock gets knocked out cold as his magic disappeared, losing control of his war axe.

*CLANG!!!*

With the war axe hitting the stone floors, Gemstone started to pant in fear that something must've happened when Vindictive opened up the small chest containing the opal.

"I don't understand. He never even for once hurt me at all." Vindictive gasped as he tried to take a breather after being chased by his crazed brother.

"I think it might be something to do with whatever is inside that little chest box." Gemstone said in a grim tone.

"Hey wait... I think the two riddles might have something to do with the golden opal." Vindictive pointed out as he went over the two riddles that he just read from the door arch before they went into the tunnel leading to the treasure room and the little sign on the treasure box's lid.

After digging into some thought from the two riddles, Vindictive's could feel his face sweating profusely in fear.

"Uh oh. I think I know they both means." Vindictive exclaimed in horror. "The golden opal that the Sphinx left behind was no accident. She deliberately to left her golden opal behind as a way to get revenge on Somnambula one day, which is already enchanted with her dark magic."

"Then that the Sacred, treasured Relic that the Sphinx left behind is actually........." Gemstone added in.

"THE GOLDEN OPAL OF DESPAIR!!!" Vindictive and Gemstone exclaimed in a fearful unison.

"And if it is exposed, it will drive nearby ponies mad with GREED!!!!" Vindictive gasped, realizing that the opal was what making his brother go crazy with attempted murder. "This isn't good. What have I done??!!!"

"RUN!!! RUN!!!!" A terrified, booming voice echoed from the tunnels behind Vindictive and Gemstone.

As Vindictive and Gemstone turned their cameras toward the tunnels, they both see on their footage that Star Dwarf is flapping his wings frantically while carrying Green Sky. Behind them, an encroaching thick fog of flames is chasing them as it starts snarling and bellowing with the voice of an unidentified monstrosity.

"WHAT THE FAUST IS THAT THING??" Gemstone gasped as she sees the flaming fog come closer out of the tunnel.

"I don't know, let's get out of here!!!" Vindictive shouted as he used his magic to carry an unconscious Axe Rock before teleporting himself back to the Cathedral's first floor.

After Vindictive disappeared from her camera footage, Gemstone faces it towards the ladder as she uses her hooves to immediately climb. At the same time, Gemstone could hear frantic flapping of Star Dwarf's wings for he flies past her off-screen. However, as soon as Gemstone looks up with her camera, she sees that a flaming dragon head silhouette shoots past her and struck Green Sky in the back as it bursts through his chest before it disappears.

"AAAAACK ARRRRULLGH!!!" Green Sky gasped and gurgled before going limp as a pool of blood and entrails came out of his chest.

"NO!!! GREEN SKY!!!!" Gemstone and Star Dwarf screamed.

In a spooked reaction, Star Dwarf ended up losing his grip on a dead Green Sky as he sees through his camera that the brown earth pony fell straight down as it disappeared into the red, flaming fog before the corpse exploded in a flaming combustion.

Unable to look back, Gemstone kept climbing up the ladder in a jiffy while Star Dwarf flew out of the trapdoor as tears came down from his eyes.

Back at the first floor of the Cathedral, through Vindictive's footage, he sets the unconscious Axe Rock down on the floor as he helped Gemstone climb out of the trapdoor.

With Star Dwarf landing on his hooves, he came up to Vindictive just as he got Gemstone out before closing the trapdoor with his hooves.

"What the hay just happened in the treasure room??" Vindictive frantically asked as he faced Star Dwarf.

"I don't know!!! Most of the vases down there broke apart on their own. The next thing I saw is when a swarm of flaming dragon-like faces came out of the broken vases and started to attack me and Green Sky." Star Dwarf replied, feeling both exhausted, frightened, and confused. "Well, I still have some of the collected treasure inside my backpack."

"Same goes for me." Gemstone added in, trying to catch her breath.

"Well, I think I probably should've only took what was in that treasure room instead of the Opal of Despair." Vindictive murmured in embarrassment, as he closed the small chest containing the Sphinx's relic.

"Say what?" Star Dwarf.

"It was actually the name of the sacred relic that the Sphinx left behind." Vindictive continued. "I'm sorry every pony. I should never have opened the chest containing it."

Before any pony could say anything else, they heard another chilling roar coming from outside the Cathedral as it's interior, cavernous walls started to rumble.

"WHAT WAS THAT??" Gemstone gasped. "I'm scared!!!"

Just as Axe Rock regained his consciousness, he gets up feeling a sharp pain coming from the back of his head.

"UGH!! What happened?? Where am I??" Axe Rock spoke in confusion while being comforted by Gemstone.

"Axe Rock, I don't think there is anytime to explain. I think we better........." Gemstone said before she heard something that interrupted her speech.

*SPLAT!*

Through her camera footage, the red earth mare sees a pile of bloody entrails and intestines hit the floor several feet in front of her.

"EEEEEEEEEEKKKKK!!!!" Gemstone shrieked as the blood almost splattered on her chest. "W-W-WHAT IS THIS??"

*SHOOM!!! BAM!!!"*

When Vindictive's camera turned towards the sudden explosion, he sees that the trapdoor Star Dwarf just came shooting out as a tall pillar of fire exploded, making the wooden frame hit the dark ceiling above before it crashed onto the floor in a big mess of splinters and nails.

Not a moment too soon, the flaming specters came flying out of the exposed trapdoor as they ascended up to the cathedral's ceilings and circled around the main hall. With their glowing flames illuminating the ceiling and the walls, they reveal huge stained, glass windows of giant flaming ghost dragons.

The dragons in the stained glass windows are seen made out of bones that are set aflame as their faces to pointing upwards as if they are trying to fly out of the abyss.

As Vindictive, Axe Rock, Star Dwarf, and Gemstone looked up in confusion and with horror, they see a shadowy glimpse of a Sphinx flying past the stained glass windows, uttering an earth-shaken roar.

"HOLY FAUST. THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!!!" Axe Rock screamed in confusion.

Before they knew it, most of the Flaming ghost dragons on the windows started to resonate as their eye sockets start to glow in an ominous orange. Instantly, the orange glowing eye sockets start to shoot out red-orange beams to the center of the ceiling.

Just as soon as Vindictive's camera footage faces towards where the beams are heading, they reveal that the corpse of Driller Pitch is seen hanging upside down chained up as three metal hooks ripped her chest apart, exposing her insides. When Vindictive looked at the bloody entrails that landed near Gemstone and back at Driller's hanging mutilated corpse, he started to hyperventilate out of fright.

Before long, the lights that the stained glass windows are shooting out also reveal more pony corpses hanging upside down in a similar display of horrific affection.

"OH FAUST IT CAN'T BE!!!" Star Dwarf gasped as his eyes widened with fear, as he recognized the corpse of Scrapper Sparks for he is seen as a red-yellow earth colt with the cutie mark of a metal piece has sparks shooting from its edges. "IT'S THE MISSING TEAM THAT DRILLER SENT IN EARLIER!!!"

Suddenly, the stained glass windows all started to shoot out more red beams as they all hit floor in the middle of the main hall. Before they knew it, a huge fiery portal appeared and what came out of it is a huge bone dragon encased with ghastly flames.

"WHO DARES TAKE THE RELIC OF THE SPHINX!!!!" The bone dragon bellowed in fury.

"RUN!!!!" Vindictive screamed as he, Gemstone, Axe Rock, and Star Dwarf made a run for it to the exit of the cathedral.

"NO PONY DARES TO VIOLATE THE CATHEDRAL OF THE FLAMING GHOST DRAGON LORD AND RAID HIM OF HIS TREASURE!!!!" The bone dragon roared as he slammed his right dragon claw on the floor, causing a huge shockwave that sends most of the ponies flying towards the door.

Upon impact, Axe Rock was the first to crash into the front door of the Cathedral as its frame broke apart at the same time. For Vindictive and Gemstone, the unicorn sees through his footage that he was sent flying forward second as he landed a few feet behind Axe Rock while Gemstone crashed onto his right. .

As for Star Dwarf, he landed forward on Vindictive's left. The moment they all got up on their hooves, Vindictive's footage turns to see an enraged ghastly, flaming bone dragon crawled out of the cathedral as it ripped apart the doorway and its front walls with its mighty undead strength.

"SHIT!! EVERY PONY GET UP NOW!! IT'S STILL AFTER US!!!" Vindictive shouted as he was helping Axe Rock and Gemstone get up on their hooves.

Unfortunately, by the time Star Dwarf was on his feet, he was met with a huge torrent of black fire that swallowed him whole, making him unable to scream as he disintegrated into a pile of molten ash.

"MOVE IT!! QUICKLY!!!" Vindictive yelled as he sees Gemstone and Axe Rock galloped further towards the elevator.

As soon as all three remaining ponies reached the elevator, they went inside while Axe Rock pressed on the button taking them all back up to the surface. However, just as they reached 10 feet closer, they could hear the dragon banging its sheer boned mass on the scaffold supporting the elevator, making the structure rock back and forth as the three ponies struggled to hold on.

"WHAT DO WE DO??" Gemstone shrieked as she was held on tightly by Axe Rock. "I DON'T WANT TO DIE LIKE THIS!!!!"

"BROTHER, DO SOMETHING!!!" Axe Rock screamed as he is trying to hold onto Gemstone.

Unfortunately, the scaffold is soon breaking apart from below. In just seconds, the scaffold breaks apart as the elevator they're all in is plummeting back down to where the underground cathedral is. With no time to think, Vindictive lights up his horn as he is about to teleport himself, Gemstone, and Axe Rock to the surface.

However, he immediately felt a sharp stab coming out from his back as Vindictive's footage sees that a huge flaming boned dragon tail came out of his chest. Seeing this, Axes Rock and Gemstone both gasped in horror for Vindictive gets impaled by the Flaming Ghost dragon as they hear it making huge wings flaps.

"VINDICT!!!!" Gemstone shrieked as her eyes widened with terror.

"NO!! BROTHER!!!" Axe Rock screamed as he sees that his younger brother is heading towards death's door.

"A-axe Rock. G-g-gemstone!! I-I-I'm sorry!!" Vindictive gasped as he feels blood pouring out of his mouth.

Before Gemstone or Axe Rock could say or do anything, Vindictive succumbed from his wounds as the flaming dragon pulls its tail out from behind. Just as Vindictive collapsed dead on floor, the elevator falls straight down on the ground as it crashes and rolls violently as the camera footage started to go in and out of static. At the same time, Axe Rock and Gemstone both started screaming in horror as they both feel themselves spinning violently while inside the rolling, dismantled elevator.

*CRASH!!!*

"AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!"

*BAM!!!*

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

*THUD!!!*

"AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!!!!"

"KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!"

*SMASH!!!!*

*FZZZT!!!*

In the last recording of the footage, the camera's flashlight now sees the shadowy wreckage of broken metal parts that came from the destroyed elevator. Closer to the camera, it shows the corpses of Axe Rock and Gemstone seen face flat on the ground while holding their hooves together as it turns out that they both are crushed to death by the fallen elevator as the sheer weight of its top broke both of their backs.

As the blood of the two dead ponies are seeping out and spilling down a small stream of blood underneath the Opal of Despair, which is now lying on the ground and up close to the footage, a thunderous roar is heard from the pitch blackness off-screen.

*End of Footage as the screen turns black.*

The Mausoleum part 4

From Vision's camera footage, the Ankh stopped resonating as it landed on the floor with a little "Thud." Now getting back to her search for her missing assistant and her archaeological team, Vision Scroll goes further down a ramp of stairs that soon lead to an underground cave within the Mausoleum.

With her flashlight facing straight towards where her camera footage is aiming, Vision could see stalactites from above her as little drips hit the ground. From where she is going, Vision makes her way across some sort of bridge made up of red-grey bricks filled with cement.

"I wonder how much further is this underground Masoleum stretching from??" Vision thought as she takes out the map of the underground tomb she is currently in.

Because Vision still has yet to cover up everything in the Masoleum, her map is still in a work-in-progress meaning that it is still unfinished. Other than that, Vision could feel an ominous breeze coming from underneath the bridge while holding up a lantern with her magic.

As Vision turned her camera to her left while walking across the bridge, she could see a lake that is pitch black. From the other side, Vision took notice of a shadowy pony figure walking on the edges close to the lake while seeing more dusty caskets laying inside huge, rectangular holes, at least 3 feet above the ground.

"This looks really weird." Vision thought as she continues to see the shadowy figures standing in front of the caskets muttering in some sort of chilling gibberish.

Before long, Vision is starting to hear a chilling voice coming from the other side of the bridge.

"Vision, are you here?!"

"Viridian, is that you?! Where are you?? Where are the others??" Vision called out as she galloped towards the end of the bridge, trying to investigate the source of the fainted voice.

"Please help. There is some creature here trying to hinder our operation!!"

At first, Vision felt hesitant to go further beyond the bridge. It may be a trap. In fact, Vision felt kind of lost not knowing if she were to see what is happening to her team or not. However, since it's only just her now, it's now or never Vision only has one hour left to bring her team back before Professor Fossil arrives.

With no other option, Vision walks off the bridge as she is now going through the cobblestone floors leading to a dark hallway and into a round room only to find a black sinister line drawing of a minotaur's skull, there moment her flashlight is shinning on the ground while holding her camera to where it is currently facing.

"I beg of you. Don't let him eat us!!!" The frightened whisper shrilled into Vision's ears.

"Who is trying to eat you??" Vision shouted back in confusion.

With no pony answering back, Vision felt a cold chill into not thinking clearly on what the chilling voices are telling her. When Vision uses her flashlight to face the walls all around her, she all sorts of huge words that are written in blood, much to her dread.

NO MERCY!!!
NO ESCAPE!!!
DEATH AND DOOM TO ALL INTRUDERS!!!

"What in the name of Faust is this??" Vision muttered as she felt a shivering, sweating chill coming down her neck while continuing to see more disturbing messages up on the dim lit ceilings.

IT'S OVER!!
TARTARUS IS UPON YOU!!!!
NO HOPE.
YOU'RE DEAD!!
HE SEES YOU!!!
HE'S EVERYWHERE!!!!

Before Vision could venture any further, she started to hear a huff coming behind, assuming it is somewhere at her right. Just as her camera turns towards the source of the huffing, Vision could see that her assistant Viridian Watcher is just sitting on the floor in front of a magical projection screen.

"Viridian, are you okay??" Vision asked as she approached him while her camera gets closer to the sitting pony. "What is going on here?!"

Just as Vision makes a light tap on Viridian's left shoulder, he falls backwards as the camera shows a disturbing sight.

Viridian's face is now seen that both of his eyes got gouged out with blood coming out of his sockets and that he laid motionless as both of his hooves spread apart, lying flat on his back.

"SWEET FAUST!!! WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE??" Vision panicked as she stumbled backwards before falling on her flank.

Before long, Vision hears the magical screen flashing as if it were to be a lamp trying to turn itself on. The moment Vision faces her camera towards the screen, it then shows a footage of a young grey unicorn dress in a blue wizard gown.....

Trial against the Covenant

*Footage turns on*

As the magical camera projection screen unravels, it now shows a young grey unicorn with the white mane who is none other than Star Swirl. The moment he faces the camera, Star Swirl writes down his latest log entry while going over his previous trials as the Wizard's apprentice while inside a cabin. As he hears the cabin rock smoothly and the splashing waves coming outside, Star Swirl can presume that he is inside a huge ship that is sailing through the calm oceans.

"For my log date I, Star Swirl, have made my way down to the forest of Redwood to meet up with my new contractor at the request of my master. Over the past 2 years of apprenticeship, I have created about 17 new battle spells to fight off against the dark arts. With it, I have went through 5 trials as I advanced further as my master's apprentice where he and I both faced off various unicorns infamous for their use of forbidden arts of Dark Magic. As of now, this will be my final trial before I move on to a Wizard Initiate."

The moment Star Swirl cleared his throat, he pulls out a map of the Redwood Forest. With the map showing on Star Swirl's footage, it shows a 5 by 5 paper that reveals red trees that surround a small village with a small road leading to a river stream at the southern edge.

"From what my master told me, the village inside Redwood is constantly besieged by an evil Covenant that was kidnapping village ponies, killing any other pony that stands in their way. The village mayor is in desperate need for my aid. At the same time, I will also be meeting up with an accomplice who knows well about the environment of Redwood Forest. This is happens to be my very first trial where I have to take part in without my master for he is trying to catch up on the paperwork dating back 3 weeks ago back at his study. Anyway, I have to get ready for the drop off. The ship will be docking at the Port Zuluberg."

Once Star Swirl finished his speech in front of his camera, he turns it off. While off-screen Star Swirl packs up his bags before leaving the ship's cabin.

The moment Star Swirl's camera turns on, his footage now reveals that he is out on deck along with a large group of passengers facing the starboard side as they are preparing to dock. Once the ship slows down, the crew secures the vessel with their mooring lines before two of them bring out the gangplank. As soon as the ship is held in place, the crew sets up the gangplank as it bridges connects itself from the vessel to the pier, allowing the passengers to disembark from the ship in a single file line.

For Star Swirl, he makes his way down the gangplank before being escorted to the entrance of Port Zuluberg. For his footage, Port Zuluberg is shown to have tall buildings made up of stone masonry with wooden roofs supported by beams stretching out in 45 degree angles from the structure's framework. Looking closely, most of the tall stone buildings are built in different heights with ponies being seen through wide stone mullions.

Since it is not his business on what every pony is doing inside those structure, Star Swirl moved on as he makes his way through the main streets of Zuluberg. Down the cobber stone roads, Star Swirl sees various ponies carrying all sorts of supply carts to and from the pier, which are filled with plants, building materials, food, and water.

Fillies are seen playing near the stone-built houses while being watched by their mothers. Patrols of 4 to 5 town guards are making their way down the road, usually armed with spears and wearing metal helmets and breastplates.

As Star Swirl turns left while navigating further down Zuluberg holding his camera, he makes his way towards a tavern. The moment his footage looks up for a moment, the camera shows a wooden sign above the tavern's double doors is named "Jester's Corner" considering that it is the name of this place.

Before he could be let in, an earth colt who happens to be a bouncer working here stops him at the entrance.

"Hello newbie. What's your name and what business do you have here?" The earth colt bouncer grunted as he is seen in a muscular dark-red skin color with a blue mane.

"M-my name is Star Swirl. I was told to meet up with some pony in Jester's Corner for an important, private meeting." Star Swirl stammered for a bit as he takes out his contract from his sack to show the bouncer.

"Mmmmmm. Let's see!!" The bouncer said, feeling curious about what the contract that Star Swirl gave him.

The moment the bouncer takes the contract from Star Swirl with his right hoof, he skim reads it from top to bottom before facing the young unicorn up front. "Wait for moment!!!"

Just as the bouncer disappeared into the entrance, Star Swirl stood there taking a few deep breaths. He isn't sure if the bouncer is going to let him in or not. Maybe his client isn't at Jester's Corner at all. Maybe he or she is somewhere else in Zuluberg.

In just a few minutes, the bouncer appeared again from the entrance as he gave Star Swirl quite a happy grin on his face.

"Okay young man. Come right this way." The bouncer spoke as he pointed his hoof towards the tavern's entrance.

The moment Star Swirl enters the tavern, he turns off his footage as he passes by the bouncer.

Camera footage turns on.......

Through Star Swirl's camera, he finds that the inside the tavern has all sorts of roughneck ponies both pegasus and earth ponies grunting and chattering towards each other on various round tables.

Star Swirl couldn't help but feel a bit disturbed when several earth pony colts are staring straight at him with hostile look in their eyes. Some of them are holding knives and daggers with their hooves on top of the tables their sitting towards.

While cautiously being escorted by the bouncer, Star Swirl could also see pegasus brutes slumped up against the walls as if they are drunk into a total stupor. On his right, he sees some griffon playing the piano with tense movement coming from his claws as if he is being pressed in doing so by the manager of this tavern. Before Star Swirl could let his curiosity get a hold of him, he felt a light shove coming from behind him. Feeling the push, Star Swirl turns his camera to face the bouncer.

"Hey. Don't try to stop for anything, Star Swirl. This is not a safe place for an underage wizard like you." The bouncer spoke sternly as he made a short glare at the unicorn's camera footage. "Just walk."

With no time to spare at the Tavern of Jester's Corner, Star Swirl continues as he is lead by the bouncer in a small room next to the bar counter.

Once Star Swirl walks next to the bar counter, the bouncer raised his left hoof as if he is telling the unicorn to stop for a moment. As Star Swirl looks at the bouncer again, he sees that he is talking to the bartender at the counter, who happens to be a female pegasus in yellow colors both fur coat and mane.

He didn't know what either of them were saying. But in just one minute, the bouncer turns around to face Star Swirl.

"Okay unicorn, the pony who want to meet is down the hallway to the door on your right." The bouncer told Star Swirl before making his way back to his post. "If you have any questions, feel free to ask the bartender Golden Shinebeer."

As soon as Star Swirl sees the bouncer disappear off-screen of his footage, he takes a deep breath before heading towards the room that the earth pony colt was talking about.

Down the small hallway, Star Swirl reaches to the door on his right. The moment the door opened, he soon comes face-to-face with a white female pegasus with a violet mane wearing a sliver cloak, with the hood falling behind the back of her head, bearing the cutie mark of a breeze of silver wind. She is seen sitting on top of a chair while holding a wine glass with her left wing, taking a light sip from it. On her chest, she is wearing a harness that has several silver stakes strapped to it.

Next to the female pegasus, is an earth pony colt wearing a tall, brown pointy hat, seen in a light-brown skin color with crimson red mane, bearing the cutie mark of a Cedar Tree.

Feeling intimidated by such an appearance, Star Swirl reluctantly sat down on the chair to his right before they make their introduction.

"I take it you must be the Apprentice Star Swirl. My name is Cedar Arbor, mayor of Redwood Village and the pegasus mare sitting next to me is Silver Storm." The light-brown earth pony spoke.

"It's been an honor to meet you as well, apprentice." Silver Storm added in as she tried to greet him with a hoof towards the unicorn. "Hesitant to shake hooves, are we? Well, I happened to be a witch hunter that was also recruited by Mayor Cedar about three days ago. I came down here from the City of Tiamat Star which lies to the far west of Canterlot."

"Well, I can't say I was thrilled to see you both here. Well, do you know what has ever become of your village now, Mayor?" Star Swirl asked.

"From our recent encounters, they call themselves the Covenant of Belial." The mayor announced in a grim tone. "They happened to be a group of hostile unicorns both male and female that have been operating near the borders of Omni Blair Forest, which is ground zero for episodes of witchcraft."

"Last year, there used to be a wall that sealed up the borders between Omni Blair and Redwood. However, the Covenant was somehow able to breach the walls using some very powerful, bombarding dark magic. The garrison unit stationed there was massacred instantly after the walls have been breached." Silver Storm added in. "Worst of all, Cedar's village was 15 miles closer to the walls. In about one day after the breach, the Redwood village became under attack by the Covenant of Belial as the mares and their children were being forced to hide inside their houses. The pony villagers made several attempts to sneak past the Covenant to warn Zuluberg but they all failed; the Covenant had our village completely surrounded and isolated from any chance of seeking help. Therefore, Redwood is currently taken over by the evil Covenant."

"Well, how did you and the mayor get past them?" Star Swirl asked out of concern.

"You see this cloak that I'm wearing, it was given to me by my instructor for it is meant to allow me to get past my enemies as if I was a misty shroud. It's known as the Sliver Ghost Cloak." Sliver Storm said, answering Star Swirl's question briefly. "With it, I was able to rescue the mayor before I brought him here."

"That's pretty impressive. Though, I still have yet to comprehend on the current fate of the trapped villagers." Star Swirl said, feeling impressed before coming up with a dreaded remark.

"Well, most of my villagers were helpless for we are only but a tribe of peaceful earth ponies that have been isolated from civilizations for far too long." The mayor said, feeling guilty. "I was desperate in trying to escape my besieged village to find help but I was threatened constantly. Of course, that was before I met this witch hunter and we both escaped together. Though, I'm still feeling concerned for my children after my wife got killed and taken away."

"Fret not, Mr. Mayor. We'll get your village back by all means." Star Swirl spoke in determination and confidence.

Before Silver Storm or Cedar Arbor could say anymore, they and Star Swirl start to hear a lot of shouts, crashes, and tumbling coming from outside their private room.

"Oh great. Looks like they're having another drunken bar brawl again." Silver Storm muttered in annoyance.

Not a moment too soon, the door leading back to the hallway was forced open as two earth pony colts are wrestling each other on the floor, both grunted and snarling as they both started throwing hoof punches at each.

"Let's get out of here!!" Star Swirl suggested as his horn lit up.

In a flash, he, Cedar, and Silver Storm enrapture themselves inside the unicorn's spell as they made themselves disappear and reappear outside of Jester's Corner, making the footage stop recording at the same time.

As the footage turns itself on again.......

The three ponies now find themselves at the gate leading to the outskirts of Zuluberg as Star Swirl, who is again holding the camera from his chest, sees the mayor approach the gate guards to be let out.

For a few minutes, the guards felt reluctant. But when Star Swirl could see that the mayor is referring his unclear speech towards him and Silver Storm, the one of the guards opens up the gate, allowing all three ponies leave to venture towards Redwood Forest.

Once Star Swirl and his two companions make their way to the east, after walking 5 miles away from Zuluberg, they soon approach a creepy forest filled with bare trees made up of dark-red bark and with branches that are bending over.

On the ground within the forest, it was shown to have light-red mist and with small flames jutting out of the earth. It's as if the forest is cursed by an evil presence.

With a dreadful chill, Star Swirl couldn't help but wonder if this forest is where he would find the village that is being threatened by the Covenant of Belial. Before he could proceed any further, the young apprentice sees that the mayor appeared from his left, as what his camera is currently showing.

"Feeling anxious are we?" Mayor Cedar spoke hesitantly. "Well, I don't blame ya. But the Covenant favors the forests as part of their hunting grounds, their territories. Once they claim part of the forest as their own, the Covenant leaves behind an environmental curse that afflicts the Redwood forest into what you see before you."

"So the hunter becomes the hunted, eh?!" Silver Storm said, feeling disturbed.

As the three ponies get closer to the cursed Redwood Forest, Silver became the first to notice something hanging from one of the creepy, bare tree branches.

"Star Swirl, check this out." The witch hunter said in a whispered voice.

When Star Swirl turns his camera towards Silver's voice, he sees along with the footage of a small, black pony figurine that is revealed to have all four of its hooves stretched out to all directions like an "X" shape, with its tail hanging in between the two small hind hooves stretching downwards. As a matter of fact, several more black pony figurines are also dangling from the branches of the other trees behind the first one.

"What is that supposed to be, Silver Storm?" Star Swirl asked.

"This is how they mark their territory from within the cursed forests." Silver replied. "We need to keep our voices down. They'll be watching and hearing us from within those trees."

*SNAP!!*

"It's them. Time to hide!!!" Silver spoke in a hushed tone as she used her silver cape to drape over both Star Swirl and Mayor Cedar underneath its huge, wide cloth.

As all three ponies hide underneath the stealthy cloak, they go to the ground as Star Swirl's camera is placed on the red-misty dirt.

In a few minutes of silence, the camera sees the hooves of one pony appearing from behind one of the shadowy dark-red trees as it turned around as if this pony is surveying the edge of the forest. Just for a moment, another pony came out from a dark-red tree adjacent to the one where the first pony appeared as the second one is seen to be a unicorn mare wearing a black cape with her chest showing the symbol of the same figurine dangling from the tree branches.

Smirking, the female unicorn flapped out her cape to reveal a earth pony mare completely bound and gagged against her own will while holding the mare with her magic.

"MMMMMMMRRRRRPHHHHH!!! MMMMMMMMRRRRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!" The earth mare grunted in frustration as she struggled helplessly under the bindings of the unicorn's magic.

"Such delightful fresh meat!!!" The female unicorn hissed in delight as she turned towards the first pony, who happens to be a male unicorn wearing the same cape and bearing the same symbol as well. "Is our pet ready to feed?"

"I wouldn't be grateful any other way!!!" The male unicorn ululated as his horn lit up in a black and red hue.

The moment the male unicorn faced the opposite direction of the bound earth mare, he shoots out a beam of dark-red magic as it opens up an orange-flaming portal above the red-misty ground.

While hiding beneath Silver Storm's magical cloak, Star Swirl felt utter horrified that the poor mare is about to met her fate by whatever lies beyond that portal. Before he knew it, through his footage, he could hear a deep bellow coming from the portal as if there is some gargantuan creature growling horrendously.

"GROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLWUUUUUUUUUUUUURRR!!!"

He held his mouth shut while bearing witness to the terrifying outcome unfolding for Star Swirl cannot risk compromising himself and his two accomplices.

Before they knew it, the gagged earth mare started to sweat in fear while making muffled screams as her eyes widened with terror. Instantly, a huge claw made up of black stone skin came out and grabbed the helpless mare.

"MMMMMMMMMMPPPHHHHH!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" The earth mare shrieked as she made muffled screaming while being held by the huge black stoned claw.

Once the evil unicorn disengages her magic holding onto the bound, gagged mare, the pony gets pulled back into the vortex. Instantly, a massive wave of blood and guts came out of the orange-flaming portal as it flooded the red-misty ground with the poor mare's remains.

"YES MY MASTER!!! FEED!!! FEED!!!" The two crazed unicorns chanted as they could see two red beams shoot out towards the ponies. "FEED AND MAKE US STRONGER!!!!!"

"RRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHH!!!"

Once struck by the two red beams, the unicorns started to mutate as Star Swirl's camera sees their skin change color underneath their black capes and with their eyes lighting up in an ominous red-orange color.

They were both laughing to themselves in triumph when all of a sudden, tusks start to jut out from their cheeks and that their tails are scrunching themselves up only to transform into a barbed version. In Star Swirl's confused horror, the unicorns are turning into something more diabolical.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" The two unicorns cackled as they both galloped away off-screen, disappearing back into the dead oak trees.

Seeing all this, Star Swirl felt disgusted and frightened at what the Covenant unicorns did to the poor mare as he almost lost his lunch. In a reaction, Star Swirl held his mouth in trying to avoid vomiting while hiding from plain sight. For a few seconds, Star finally gasped for air before hearing the witch hunter call out to him.

"Okay Star Swirl, the coast is clear." Silver Storm spoke as she pulled her cape back, letting Star Swirl and the mayor come out of their hiding spot.

"Was that really what they did to those poor ponies in your village when they abducted them?" Star Swirl asked the mayor. "Offering them as a sacrifice to something terrifying in that vortex and granting them mutating powers in return?!"

"Not quite. This is definitely something new. Before that, the Covenant kidnapped my villagers to serve as their slaves." The mayor replied. "Wait, if they just started doing this then does that mean........?!!"

As Mayor Cedar started to gathering in his thoughts after witnessing such a cannibalizing event, his eyes widened with panicked terror for he just started to mention something before meeting up with Star Swirl and Silver Storm.

"OH FAUST. NO!!! MY CHILDREN!!!!" The mayor freaked out as he started to make in immediate gallop down the Redwood trail leading back to his village.

"Mayor, wait!!! Where are you going??" Star Swirl asked as he started to follow the mayor while having his camera face the back of the galloping Cedar.

"Sorry Star Swirl, I already told my children to wait for me back at the village but if they get kidnapped by the Covenant now.........."

Horrified by what the mayor is imagining, he makes a run for it as he leaves a confused Star Swirl and Silver Storm standing right behind him only for a second.

"MAYOR!!! STOP!!! WAIT!!!" Star Swirl shouted as he tried to gallop after Mayor Cedar, while hearing Silver Storm flapping her wings and following him from behind.

After 10 minutes of running through Redwood, Star Swirl stops as he tries to take a breather the moment he loses track of the frantic village mayor.

"Dammit, mayor. We lost him!!!" Star Swirl huffed in exhaustion as he is taking deep breaths.

For Silver Storm, she landed on the ground next to Star Swirl on all fours while surveying their surroundings.

Just as soon as Star Swirl faces his camera towards the horizon and after regaining his stamina, he and the witch hunter soon find Cedar's village up ahead. However, the moment they got closer, the village is now seen completely in ruins for most of the hovels are already half-burnt, with dried bloodstains on their walls. For the area all around the village, there is all sorts of pony skeletons placed upright as they are being held by tall wooden stakes, with their bony hooves stretched out in an "X." There is also small flames spewing from the ground near several burnt hovels.

While Star Swirl and Silver Storm cautious make their way from the ruined village, they couldn't see any pony anywhere. It's as if it is too late to save the earth pony villagers from meeting the same fate as that poor earth mare earlier.

"This is terrible. With the mayor missing and with no survivors, I don't think were going to have any other choice." Star Swirl spoke with Silver Storm.

"What do you think were going to do then?" Silver Storm asked, feeling curious on where the apprentice is getting at.

"With the frantic mayor running off on his own like that, if something happens to him before we have the chance to act, we'll have to put this entire village out of its misery." Star Swirl suggested, much to Silver's overwhelmed affection.

"You mean destroy this village??" Silver spoke, feeling shocked at where Star Swirl is getting at.

"I have yet to try out a powerful, vindicating spell scroll that I am keeping inside my satchel. It's going to be a huge risk but it will have to be done if we can't save the mayor or what's left of his family." Star Swirl added in.

"What would that be??" Silver asked, feeling paranoid about the apprentice's intentions.

"It's not my place to say. My master gave it to me before I took the ship to Zuluberg. He said that the spell scroll will be used as a last resort to stop the Covenant's evil scourge from spreading outside of Redwood."

"Well, we might as well find the mayor and destroy the Covenant's original power source first."

"You mean the portal that they opened up just now?"

"Yes, but I am sensing a bigger power source that is allowing the Covenant members to open up that vortex here." Star Swirl murmured as he could see on the camera that there is red clouds spreading through skies as they start to rumble with black lighting from within.

Before long, Star Swirl's footage sees black-lighting beams all aiming towards one direction which lies somewhere within the middle of the ruined village.

"We'll seal up that portal once we reach the heart of the Covenant." Star Swirl said in determination to end the terror of the Covenant of Belial.

"Alright then, let's move!!" Silver Storm replied as she flaps out a part of her cloak to reveal a hoof-mounted crossbow.

Once the footage turns off and then back on, Star Swirl and Silver cautiously approach up against the wall of a burned hovel as they are sneaking towards where the black-lighting beams are heading towards. As soon as Star Swirl takes a small peak around the corner of the hovel, his camera sees a large group of unicorns all wearing black capes.

From the back of their capes, they are showing a circular sigil of a demonic face with red glowing eyes and two huge horns protruding upward. The sigil is shown to have a small inscription that says "Belial" on it. Seeing all this closely with the camera footage, Star Swirl glared with anger in his eyes as he can confirm one thing without a doubt.

"There is no mistaking it!!" Star Swirl snarled in a whispered, angry voice. "It looks like the Covenant of Belial is here at the village center."

As the vortex appears in front of the crowd of Covenant unicorns, they are all chanting in an ambiguous black speech that is making the ground shake lightly.

"Where's the mayor??" Silver Storm whispered as she turns on her own small camera footage, which is mounted on the top of her left ear.

"There!! Look!!" Star Swirl whispered as he noticed an angry Mayor Cedar being restrained by two unicorns, this time with their hooves.

In the midst of the gibberish, disturbing chant, the mayor is being dragged and dropped before the huge portal.

As soon as the mayor falls onto the ground, he is completely torn up and beaten brutally as Cedar is seen to have purple bruises and holes on his clothes. Now completely injured, Cedar struggled to look up with his left eye for his right eye is completely swollen with a bloody bruise.

"YOUR CHILDREN BELONG TO ME EARTH PONY!!! NOW YOU SHALL JOIN THEM ALL IN TARTARUS!!!" The huge, bellowing voice boomed as it is heard throughout the whole burned village.

"Y-Y-You!!! YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH THIS!!! NONE OF YOU WILL!!!" The mayor shouted as he croaked in anger only to feel a huge black-stone claw holding him up with his chin.

"HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!" The huge voiced cackled, along with the rest of the Covenant members.

"GO TO TARTARUS YOU MONSTERS!!! ALL OF YOU!!!" The mayor shouted as he is meet with a powerful jab into his jaw, with the claw jutting out from the back of his head.

"GAAG!!! UUUURRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!!!"

With the sharp jab piercing the mayor by his mouth, Cedar's eyes rolled back as he went limp. Just like that, the huge black claw pulled the mayor into the portal and it disappeared into a roaring fire that aimed upward above the group of covenant ponies.

The Covenant of Belial ponies are all howling and ululating in triumph over the fact that the whole village is now massacred much to their amusement!!!

Seeing all this, Star Swirl felt guilty for not saving the mayor or his family. Nevertheless, he and Silver Storm still have their mission to put an end to the Covenant's scourge. However, before the apprentice or the witch hunter have a chance to act, they heard something collapse behind them.

Just as Silver Storm's camera turned to face the source of the noise, she and Star Swirl spotted a unicorn member of the Covenant staring straight at them, blinking his eyes for a few times. Not a moment too soon, the unicorn starts to react.

"INTERLOP-----!!!" The Covenant member shouted only for his speech to abruptly end by a silver bolt piercing him in the throat.

Next to Star Swirl, Silver fired her hoof-mounted crossbow towards the Covenant member, killing him instantly as he fell to his side with blood seeping from his neck.

It wasn't long before the rest of the Covenant members heard one of their own shouts as they all turned their attention towards Star Swirl and Silver Storm, the moment the apprentice's and the witch hunter's camera started to face them. At the same time, the orange portal reveals a huge ghastly, black-skinned face with glowing red eyes, narrowing with hostility and delight.

"WELL, WHAT HAVE WE HERE?? OUTSIDERS AS FRESH MEAT? I'D BE DELIGHTED FOR A WONDROUS FEAST OF MAYHEM AND CONQUEST!!! SEIZE THEM!!!!"

"They're onto us!!!" Star Swirl shouted as he faces Silver Storm while lighting up his horn, ready for battle. "You think you can keep them busy while I conjure the spell scroll?"

"I'll do my best Star Swirl, but don't take too long!!" Silver Storm spoke as she unfurled her wings. "As soon as I'm on the air, close your eyes for a moment."

"Right!! LET'S GO!!!" Star Swirl shouted as he charged towards the group of Covenant ponies.

Just as the Covenant ponies are about to close into Star Swirl, Silver Blade flew right above him as she hurled a small round device from underneath her cloak.

Upon impact, the round device lets loose a huge blinding flash that is catching most of the Covenant ponies off-guard. Thankfully, Star Swirl was able to cover both of his eyes with his right hoof as the footage fizzled in a temporary light screen.

As for Silver Storm's footage, it shows that the camera is now above a group of disoriented Covenant unicorns for she is on the air.

Unable to see it coming, Silver dives bomb into one unicorn up front as she pivoted to her left and delivered a round-house kick with her hind hoof in his face, knocking the Covenant member off to the side.

Once landed, Silver circles around a rotation to face a female unicorn witch, who is also part of the Covenant. Snarling and blinded by the flash, the Covenant member is unable to see where the witch hunter is at. Regardless, the witch stupidly started to fire a black bolt without looking at where she is aiming.

Not wanting to regain her sights, Silver zeros onto her target as she flew towards the blind witch and struck her with a hoof punch right in-between the eyes.

However, now that two Covenant members are knocked out, the others snarled as they lit up their horns before they all aim at the flying Witch Hunter.

Flying into the air, Silver did a daring climb upward as she dodged several magic black beams coming from the Covenant members. Returning fire, Silver pulled back her cape and aimed her crossbow at her attackers, shooting them at will.

*TWANG!!*

*CHOOM!!*

*PEW!!**

With her crossbow shooting below her ascending position, Silver fires a payload of silver bolts as they struck the Covenant members in the faces or in their necks as blood started to gush out of their injuries.

After shooting down 6 Covenant members, both male and female, Silver did an aerial somersault on top of the 7th Covenant member, who is a unicorn warlock, that attempted to charge at her as he was met with both hind hooves slamming down on his skull.

*SLAM!!! CRACK!!!*

With the warlock's head shattering, the unicorn fell face flat on the ground as blood start to pour down his forehead, unable to get up.

For Star Swirl, as soon as the flashing light faded away from his camera footage, he runs to his right while his horn lit up in a white hue.

The moment three unicorn Covenant members glared at Star Swirl as they fired black flames, magic missiles, and red lighting only to be warded away by the apprentice's powerful shield barrier. Retaliation, Star Swirl swings his head and lets loose a mighty spell of Chain Lighting from his horn, giving all three unicorns a shock to remember in their grave.

*ZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!! BOOM!!!!*

As soon as Star Swirl's Chain Lighting spell struck a home-run on the three unicorns, they all disintegrated in pillars of blood and bones, leaving behind small craters on the dark ground.

The fight between Star Swirl and the group of evil unicorns is just getting started as he is soon approached by another evil unicorn warlock of the Covenant, appearing from the left of the screen.

The warlock jumped forward in trying to pin Star Swirl onto the ground only for the apprentice to teleport himself out of harm's way. As soon as Star Swirl reappear behind the unicorn warlock, he fired a huge blast of magic at the unicorn's face, sending him flying 15 feet towards a nearby burnt hovel before collapsing onto the ground.

Moving on, Star Swirl is trying to head towards the orange portal as he sees a glimpse of his master's spell scroll from his bag before facing back at his direction.

While Silver is flying low off the ground, she did a mid-air punch with her front left hoof at one Convenant witch before she even had the chance to fire one of her insidious spells. However, Silver felt a tug coming from her right, hind hoof as one of the Covenant unicorns was hissing as he is trying to grab her with his magic.

"LET GO!!!" Silver shouted as her right wing pulls out a steel dagger from her chest sling.

Instantly, Silver stabs the unicorn in the skull with her dagger while its being held by her right wing. Once she pulls the dagger out of the unicorn's head, she hurls it at one Covenant member that attempted to jump on Star Swirl from his rear.

*PSHINK!!!*

With the dagger hitting its mark, it struck the sneaky Covenant unicorn in its right temple before falling to his left.

Hearing the whizzing coming from behind, Star Swirl turns his footage to see a dead pony with a dagger lodged into its skull as it bled out.

"Don't look back, Star Swirl just go for it!!!" Silver's voice boomed.

Going back to facing his current direction, Star Swirl gallops closer to the orange, blazing portal as he swung his horn to the left and to the right, letting loose magical cuts that sliced the necks of two Covenant members that tried to close in from both sides.

Grunting and huffing, Star Swirl is putting his stamina to the test as he is greeted by another Covenant unicorn witch only to see that her tusks are showing from her cheeks, considering that it happens to be the same one that sent the poor mare to oblivion earlier.

"DON'T DEFY THE WILL OF OUR LORD BELIAL, UNICORN!!!" The unicorn witch grinned as she started gnashing at Star Swirl up close to his camera footage.

Just as the witch tried to jump forward at Star Swirl, he reacted by launching a huge magic blast from his horn.

*KABOOM!!!*

As soon as Star Swirl's huge magic ball hit the witch, her face blew up into a shower of blood and icky bits that sprayed all over the apprentice's face before the rest of her body was sent flying backwards, disappearing into the blazing portal.

Once Star Swirl reaches the portal, he takes out the spell scroll from his bag and unfolds it. After reading the inscription from top to bottom, Star Swirl uses his magic to put it in front of the portal only to be meet with a frightening sight.

The black, demonic face appears once again from inside the portal as it lunges itself out and towards a startled Star Swirl.

"GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!"

Freaking out, Star Swirl yelped as he fell backwards before he had the chance to enact the spell.

"YOU DARE TO CHALLENGE ME UP FRONT?? WHAT A FILLY FOOL YOU ARE!!! COVENANT DISCIPLES, ITS TIME TO USE YOUR REAL POWER!!"

"Yes, Lord Belial!!!" All of the remaining Covenant members replied in deep-voiced unison.

All at once, the Covenant members take off their capes as they all get engulfed by sprouts of green lighting-flames. While inside the lighting-flames, the Covenant ponies started to mutate as their eyes turned red-yellow, their horns transform into three horns instead, all their pony skins starts to burn out only for it to transform into a black-muscular mass as green veins start to flow through their bodies.

In the midst of their mutated transformation, all of the Covenant ponies stood up on two legs as their front hooves melted away to reveal two black arms and razor claws in its place.

"HOLY FUCK!!! They're all mutating!!" Silver exclaimed as she pull out a silver stake from a dead Covenant member.

Once the green lighting-flames all disappeared, an army of two-legged, three horned demons rose in the place of the Covenant members as they all snarled at both Star Swirl and Silver Storm, with their claws being engulfed with green flames. Before they knew it, one of the demons hurled a green fireball at Star Swirl.

Trying to stay sane, Star Swirl conjured a huge white shield barrier as the green fireball exploded into a combustion emerald sparks.

"Silver, get inside my shield. NOW!!!" Star Swirl shouted as he gave out an order to the pegasus witch hunter.

With no time to waste, Silver Storm took flight as she made a flew straight towards Star Swirl's barrier like a speeding bullet.

However, just as soon as Silver reached Star Swirl's barrier, her footage shows a glimpse of one of the demons opening his mouth to have three feelers come out of it, armed with razor pincers as they all zeroed into the pegasus.

Refusing to flinch, Silver aimed and fired her crossbow into the demon's maw.

*TWANG!!*

With just one shot, the silver crossbow bolt entered the demon's mouth as it pierce through the back of its skull, making all three feelers fall limp as the demon screeched in pain. Just like that, the demon fall backwards just as the Pegasus made it inside Star Swirl's barrier.

Without hesitation, Star Swirl makes his shield expand and then lets loose a massive light-screen explosion that sent all of the three-horned, two-legged demons flying in all directions as they hissed in pain.

Now that the entire Covenant of pony-turned demons are completely stunned, Star Swirl seizes his chance to fire his magic at the spell scroll on the ground.

Once Star Swirl's magic beam hits the scroll, a huge pillar of light slams into the red sky above Belial's portal and from above, a solar beam strikes directly on top of the portal as it is slowly sealing itself away from existence.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" The Lord roared in horror, realizing that his gateway to the mortal plane is closing up from the top. "He's trying to seal up my entryway. STOP HIM!!!"

For the demons, it wasn't long before they all see what Star Swirl just did to the portal bridging the world that the Demon Lord is at. In fury and hearing Belial's orders, the three-horned demons all face the two ponies as their claws lit up with green fire.

From Silver's footage, she sees them start hurling green jets of lighting-flames at her and Star Swirl. With a sudden reaction, she leaped at Star Swirl while he was trying to concentrate all of his magic to seal up the portal.

"STAR SWIRL!! GET DOWN!!!" Silver shouted as she flew towards him, tackling the unicorn apprentice as they both hit the dirt.

*SHAZAAAAAAAAM!!!*

*KABLAM!!!*

By a mere hoof, Silver and Star Swirl both dodged the barrage of lighting flames that struck the ground near the disintegrating portal.

From the loud blast, the unicorn start to hear ringings on his ears as he struggled to get back up on his hooves.

As for the witch hunter, she turned towards the advancing grey horned demons before pulling out a white grenade bearing a holy cross.

Just as they tried to charge while raising their claws up high above.

Before then, Silver pulled out the pin from her holy cross grenade and hurled it towards a group of 13 horned demons. Upon impact, the grenade went off with a blast of white flames that set the demons on fire, making them all screech loudly in agony as they disintegrated into grey dust.

"Star Swirl, finish that spell quick. I can't hold them off forever." Silver spoke as she unfurled her wings and descended into the red sky once more.

The moment Silver was in the air, she sees one tri-horned demon ascend into the sky as he let loose his demonic wings protruding from its back, snarling and hissing.

"GIVE UP, PEGASUS. YOU CAN"T ESCAPE FROM US!!!" The demon roared as he zeroed into Silver.

Seeing this on the footage, Silver reacts with a double kick with her hind hooves while on the air, slamming them both into the demon's skull as his teeth shatter before falling straight down.

However, on her left edge of the footage, a flying demonness swiped her claws at Silver, giving her a huge slash mark on her right cheek.

"ARGH!!!" Silver screamed in pain as she used her right wing to take out a flintlock pistol from her holster, strapped to her lower waist.

*BOOM!!*

As her wing makes one pull on the trigger, Silver shoots the flying demonness in the face, blasting off a chunk of flesh from her grey temple as the winged monster falls down second.

Back at Star Swirl's footage, he charged up his horn and aims it at the scroll as the beam bounced up towards the portal, continuing to seal the portal. Before he knew it, a huge clawed hand tried to reach out towards Star Swirl's neck.

However, Star Swirl lead his head downward with the connecting beam intact, hitting the huge claw and dissecting it as it falls in front of the apprentice's hooves.

With the severed claw on the ground, the Demon Lord Belial roared in pain as the portal is halfway closed.

The face of Belial is seen below the portal as he glared at the screen of Star Swirl's footage.

"THIS ISN'T OVER!!! I WILL RETURN ONE DAY!!!"

It was the last thing Belial shouted as the portal disappeared from plain sight.

Once the magic beams all disappeared, Star Swirl takes a breather as he sees that the scroll burned itself away into nothingness. As he looked upwards while turning around, he sees that Silver is struggling to hold back the enraged army of flying monsters.

With the spell's scroll still embedded inside Star Swirl, he shoots out a powerful white lighting bolt up to the sky.

Feeling the slashed wounds bleeding down on her chest and back, Silver is started to lose her strength as 5 more demons are closing in on her while hovering 20 feet above the ground. However, the moment she sees the huge white bolt heading straight into the sky, Silver could see that it will be her cue to pull out.

As Silver makes a nose dive towards Star Swirl, she hears a huge, thunderous lighting effect dancing around in the sky behind her. At the same time, the demons pursuing her from behind all screeched horrendously as their screams all drowned by the lighting in the sky.

Once Silver lands in front of Star Swirl, the entire ground starts to rumble immensely for place where the portal was at started to open up a massive vacuum vortex in its place. With the vortex sucking up everything, all of the ruined hovels and the winged demons started to get pulled away as they all disappeared into the void.

"UGH!!!" Silver grunted as she felt the vacuum trying to pull her, along with Star Swirl.

With her wounds fresh and her stamina dwindling, Silver used her wings to grab onto a nearby tree while Star Swirl teleported himself next to the witch hunter as he held onto the same tree.

The moment Star Swirl sees Silver on his footage, he lights up his horn as he and the witch hunter teleported themselves away from the sucking vortex, making the camera screen flash in static.

After several minutes of static, Star Swirl's footage readjusts itself as he and the witch hunter have reappeared back outside of Redwood Forest.

As Star Swirl regained his breath, he turns to see that the vortex is already gone as if nothing happened to the forest. Though, with the village already sucked away, Star Swirl's treacherous trial is now over.

Afterwards, he turns towards the witch hunter who is sitting in front of a nearby tree, not looking back.

"Silver, are you okay? It's over, isn't it?" Star Swirl said, trying to get the witch hunter his attention.

"Heheheh!!! Hahahaha!!!" A disturbing cackle occurred as Star Swirl tried to approach the witch hunter.

"Silver?? What's wrong??"

"HEHEHEHHEHE!! GYAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

"DA HAHAHAHAHAH!!! RAR!! RAAR!! RAAAR!!! GRRRRAAAAAARRRHH!!!"

Just as Star Swirl is 5 feet closer to Silver, she turns around only to reveal on his footage that her eyes turned yellow and set ablaze with small green flames, grinning maliciously at the apprentice.

As his eyes widened with fear and confusion, Star Swirl sees that a crazed Silver flaps out her wings and pounces towards the footage for she is pinning him onto the ground, gnashing her teeth as they became just as sharp as the demons she recently fought.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" Silver shrieked as she immediately attacked Star Swirl the moment the possessed witch hunter turns to face him.

"WHAT THE HIGH???!!!" Star Swirl screamed in fright as he held Silver's snapping jaws with both of his hooves. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?? GET OFF OF ME!!!!!"

"GARARAR!!! GARAAR!!!" Silver roared while trying to chomp down on the downed Star Swirl.

While struggling to save his neck from the crazed witch hunter, Star Swirl notices the green glowing light coming out from her injuries.

"RAAAAAAARRRRRGHH!!!!"

"GYAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!"

"It can't be!! Somehow, they are actually possessing her while I wasn't looking!!!" Star Swirl thought as he struggled to hold back the bewitched Silver from her advances.

*SNAP!!!*
*SNAP!!**

*GNASH!!! GNASH!!!*

"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACH!!!!"

"I'm afraid, you'll leave me with no choice then!!" Star Swirl grunted as his horn lights up.

Just as the crazy Silver is about to reach the unicorn's jugular veins with her jaws, Star Swirl fires a widespread ray of magic at Silver, sending her flying backwards into a nearby tree.

*FWASH!!!*

*BAM!!*

Upon impact, Silver slammed up against the tree at the back of her head, knocking her out cold.

For Star Swirl, he gets back on his hooves as he casts another spell at Silver. Instantly, the unconscious Silver is imprisoned inside a purple crystal block, not wanting to get attacked from behind, as he uses it to carry the witch hunter. Once Star Swirl's footage turns to face the road away from Redwood.

"When I get back, I'm going to need help in trying to exorcise Silver before moving on because it is one of the very spells that my master hasn't taught me yet." Star Swirl muttered to himself, feeling shaken by what Silver almost did when being possessed.

After taking a few deep breaths, Star Swirl moves on as he makes his way down the trail leading back to Zuluberg.

*The Footage ends as the screen turns blue!*