Fortunately you and your friends already did pick up the jade screws, mostly for historic value. At least that’s why you did. You mention their possible use as a weapon and are met with nods of acceptance.

The 6 Jade Screws are given to Princess. As a unicorn, she would best be able to launch the screws as a projectile. She puts them away in one of her saddlebags for now. After all, she’s always carrying around that Heavy Mace with her magic. Plus the Helmet and all that other stuff she’s carrying. It’s a wonder she isn’t more fatigued.

You seem to be having a hard time focusing. Even though your life is possibly in danger, you can’t seem to stop daydreaming. It’s very distracting.

While you try to gather your thoughts, you ask the others what to do. Amy mentions that balcony on the second floor you saw when you looked up in the foyer. If need be, she could help everypony down to escape out the front door if the group went upstairs. Considering you’re being chased, going up the stairs sounds like a pretty good idea.

While crossing the hallway to reach the stairs, you find additional paths splitting off to either side of the stairway’s base; forming yet another T-intersection. However, the stairs are located in an opened up space and you’re currently sitting ducks if something happened to round a corner, so you quickly lead the group upstairs.

Uh Oh… Looks like you all forgot water vapor rises. That balcony must have acted like a funnel for the fog. It’s so thick in front of you that you can barely see anything! Princess swears and scolds you for leaving the front door open.

You can make out that there’s three paths from the top of the stairs; straight, left, and right. Possibly with more rooms down each.

You decide to cross Amy and Twists plans together, which Princess says is just as well. The group probably took too long planning to make racing the shadow to the front a possibility.

At a reasonable clip, you and your friends continue down the hallway while also checking the rooms you pass by. All this while doing your best to at least outpace the monster behind you and trying to listen for signs of its location. You can’t hear anything, though. At least not yet.

The rooms aren’t completely empty. There’s black stains on the floor here and there. Tiny pieces of splintered wood or occasionally a jade screw. The stains always lead to the main hallway, as though something was dragged out. But the hallways itself shares no signs. You’ve also managed to get ahead of the fog. Must take longer to form this far in from the front door.

The hallway circles around to reveal a northern passage. Down that hall is what appears to be the back of a stairway leading to the second floor. The circular hallway also seems to circle back around toward the front door. But there’s no indication which way the shadow is coming from, if it’s even coming from that direction.

You look around inside the bathroom and the hallway outside of it, but can find no ventilation system present. Which unfortunately makes sense. Had there been one, the fog likely wouldn’t be as thick as it’s becoming. Also, the claw was wretched from your grasp when you encountered the Electric Shadow. Twist is also completely unarmed, but you at least still have your bow.

The most likely cause for the fog and your outburst are still steam and irritation at the humidity, respectively. But the possibility that something might be in the air sends shivers down your spine. Still, you can’t bring yourself to even approach the sink with the aim of pressing that nasty water to your mouth. It’s just as likely to be physically harmful as the theoretical air.

Upon asking for your friend’s opinions, you find they all diverge.

While they explain their positions, you ask Amy to draw up a quick map.

Princess says they should race back as fast as they can to the front door and outrun the shadow before it gets a chance to box everypony in.

Amy says the group should head further inside, around the hypothetical circle, and find another exit. If there isn’t one, use the building’s theoretically linked hallways to double back and escape out the front, always keeping the shadow behind them. However, her plan hinges on her evidently having knowledge of school buildings and her belief of this being one.

Twist also believes that heading deeper inside is the right answer, but she thinks  they need to outmaneuver the shadow and check the rooms. She says she’s been looking into all the rooms the group has passed already and they’ve all been empty, but believes there must be something left behind. That there has to be a reason to be inside this building. Amy and Princess say that’s wishful thinking, but they are each looking for something, right?

You regrettably can’t even imagine what an awesome vacuum would look like. Amy shakes you back to reality with her doodle of the known layout. Obviously not to scale.

While trying to decide what to do, you imagine a very specific scenario that certainly would be beneficial. However, in the very likely even that doesn’t happen, you decide it’s best to focus on the situation at present.

You summarize the predicament to your friends and the trio give one another forlorn looks. They unanimously vote against going so much as near what will likely be another shadow creature.

This being the case, it looks like some careful navigation is in order. Navigation of a floor plan you aren’t familiar with. Grea~t.

Let’s see here… You’re located at roughly the far left of the circle that itself was down a hall north of the entrance. The entrance had two other paths to the left and right, facing toward the inside away from the outer door. The source of the sound would likely be along that right hallway back toward the entrance.

However, in the time it took you to realize these things, you’ve once again become aware of the sound slowly changing location. It’s quieter now than before, but it’s moving. Whatever it is sounds like it’s headed toward the entrance. Your friends are not yet aware of anything beyond your telling them to keep quiet.

After doing your business, you get up and flush the toilet. You sort of hobble a little to get used to the pain in your hoof, then try walking a little more regularly. Looking around the bathroom reveals neither a fountain nor a box of any kind. There isn’t even a mirror, though you can tell where one used to hang. However, something seems out of place.

You signal to the girls to keep quiet and slink about the bathroom. At the far end, furthest from the door, you can hear a faint noise. It almost sounds like gas escaping, or a snake hissing.

You quietly turn around, back up toward the urinal, rear up, and kick the piece of crap as hard as you can! Unfortunately, or fortunately as you would later find out, the urinal is made of a harder stone than you realized and does not shatter. Instead, an intense pain flares up from your right hoof and you fall to the floor screaming in agony and frustration. Your friends quickly enter, confused, and Twist shoves a hoof into your mouth to muffle the noise. At this point your eyes well up with tears and you start to feel pretty stupid about what you just did.

For the second time now you’ve accidentally hurt yourself, this time a little more seriously than a simple nose bleed. Your damaged hoof is going to noticeably slow you down until it heals, which probably won’t happen until after this little adventure is over. If you don’t start being more careful, you’re going to wind up killing yourself without the aid of any dangerous shadows or whatever else might be lurking about.

Once the pain subsides enough that Twist can retrieve her hoof from your mouth, you reluctantly explain what you did, to which Princess throws her hooves up and walks back out of the bathroom in apparent frustration. Twist and Amy help lift you up, walk you over to a stall, and sit you down before backing away and out of sight. They’re still in the bathroom with you, just off to the side.

You noticed something out of place when you were sat down and look down into the toilet bowl to investigate. Strange though it may be, there’s water in the bowl. You relay this information and ask somepony to flush a toilet, which they do, and in turn tell you that the toilet seems to be fully functional. They also check the faucet at the sink. While water does flow from it, it looks and smells pretty bad. There’s no way it’s drinkable. If that urinal had broken when you kicked it, you’d have been showered in foulness the likes of which no pony should ever have to live through.

Either way, this building has running water.

You blink absentmindedly and try your hardest to think. Event after event crosses your mind, but try as you might, you have no recollection of ever using the bathroom since this adventure began.

… That’s impossible! Surely this must be some kind of oversight! A gap in your memories, something! It’s been almost a day and a half!

You casually ask your friends when the last time they’d gone was, to which they reply just before you woke up this morning. Amy goes as far as believing she accidentally woke you up when she walked past you after coming back. Princess says she thought you’d gone before they left too and asks why you’d bring this up so suddenly. After all, moments before you reminded everypony about the possible dangers in here.

Hanging your head in embarrassment, say you have to go to the bathroom. Amy relays her belief that his building may have been an old school. If so, there should be a number of bathrooms, or at the very least one set. You’re about to excuse yourself when Amy takes the lead and waves for everypony else to follow.

As the group heads to the right around the circular T-intersection, you become aware that viability is deteriorating and the humidity is raising. You take your blanket-cloak off before it gets too wet and sweaty and put it away; the others seem to have already done this. You wonder if maybe leaving the door ajar was a bad idea. If this “fog” gets much thicker, you’d never see an attacker coming.

At roughly the quarter mark of the circle, Amy waves again and points to a doorway that appears to lead a public restroom. You nod in thanks and take a few steps inside. There are urinals present, so this must have been a male bathroom. Or possibly a unisex bathroom, though you’ve never seen one of those before, outside of a Porta Potty anyway.

Of course the stalls have no doors. The only doors you’ve seen were the outside ones. What is with this place! Why are all the doors gone?! Who steals a bathroom stall door?! What good is it?! I mean, of all the insensitive, inconsiderate-!

…

It occurs to you that the extreme humidity is beginning to negatively impact your judgement, making you incredibly irritable. You’re going to have to be careful with your thoughts for now.

You can feel your face heat up and you physically shake your head “No!” to yourself. Being the present center-of-attention, your friends witness this in confusion. You try to brush it off as a nervous twitch, but your increasingly nosy friends can’t help but notice your face is red as well.

You laugh anxiously and remark that it must be the heat in here. It’s so humid! Amy strongly disagrees, saying it’s much more comfortable in here than the frigid temperatures outside.

In an effort to change the subject, you duck down a little and glance around. You ask if the others know whether or not anypony else is in here with them. As you figured, they too drop down lower and glance around silently.

The four of you are still at the T-intersection of this hallway that likely circles around, lined on either side with doorways. The center path would take you back to the entrance, where there are two more paths and the door is still left ajar.

You come out from around the corner and call out to get your friends’ attention, inadvertently startling them in the process. Twist goes so far as to scream like a foal and begin shaking in hysterics. Upon realizing it’s you, all three rush over with fanfare and Twist gives you a hug.

They saw you draw the giant away and thank you for it. You in turn thank them for saving you from the electric shadow, to which Amy and Princess point to Twist.

As it turns out, after you were grabbed by that monster Twist had hurled her wooden staff like a javelin and clocked the shadow right in the temple! All right, Twist! Amy had then rushed forward to retrieve you and Princess, as you remember, had ushered you outside.

You thank them all again for rescuing you, especially Twist. You’re suddenly very glad she came along. Who knows what would have happened without her?

And because it took such a ridiculous amount of time to update that with no excuse, here’s an alternate update. This one is under the assumption things went much differently then they have so far and you’re controlling “Amy” in the same situation.

Keep reading

You begin to mull around the idea that maybe there’s some mystical elements involved here. Not like the Elements of Harmony, more like fire, ice, electricity, et cetera. If that were true, what would it mean? How would you be able to use that?

You can be pretty sure that the fog is just water vapor. Cold air outside mixing with the hot air inside. If you closed the door it would probably dissipate. Of course, closing the door all the way presents its own dangers.

You can’t locate the source of the heat, as it seems to come from all around, sans outside. But the warmth takes hold of you and you’re once against drifted into fantasy land with the giant shadow. Trotting together, watching the sunset, it attacking your town. You give yourself a good slap across the face and refocus. Ow! That was a little harder than you intended.

You’re fairly certain the echo was your friends, but just the same you quietly head down the center hall behind them and peek around the corner to get a visual.

…

Yeah, it looks like it’s them. They don’t see you yet, though. They’re looking around at the doorways. There’s quite a few. The hall you went down ends in what appears to be a circular T-intersection and doorways line both sides. No doors; just doorways. Doors were probably removed like everything else.

Keeping the door slightly ajar, you stealthily creep across the room with as much swagger as you can muster. As you reach the far end of the room you try to picture Amy. Spry, athletic build not uncharacteristic of a pegasus. Lot of heart; lot of fire. But you can’t help but feel she would probably wind up cheating on you. N-not that you were thinking of going out with her or anything!

Now that you’re inside, you see there are two more hallways; one to either side of you. You can hear multiple sets of hoof steps coming from the hallway that shadow slipped behind.

In a moment of clarity you’ve lacked as of late, you look around the room for architectural signs. Regrettably, just about everything is gone. You can see signs on the floor where furniture once sat, a few pieces of splintered wood and dirt, but little else. In addition to the light from outside, this building seems to contain a dim light source that makes seeing possible without any aid, but you can’t make out from where it originates.

Looking up, you can see the floor above you, complete with railings still intact. They appear to be made of a metal, but it’s hard to tell from this distance. Everything you can see has a black/gray dingy coating to it. There’s also a… fog of some kind. It seems to be getting worse and coming from the door being open.

Continuing with this new-found focus, you listen carefully to the hoof-steps. It sounds like three different sets. Working off that alone, chances are the shadow you saw pass around the corner was just your friends.

That thought, even if wrong, relieves you enough for the moment to realize it’s strangely warm in here.

You slowly open the door, expecting it to creek loudly like in the movies. It’s quiet, though.

You peek your head inside first and look around. The foyer is somewhat smaller than you’d expect compared to the hall you first entered from. There’s a hallway straight ahead and the first thing that grabs your attention is the shadow pass around the corner, and out of view.

The unease that should be setting in is replaced by confusion at how in Equestria you’re going to tell the others that you’ve fallen for a giant shadow pony.

While the giant is still disabled, you run out into the snow and head for the semi-circular building. You glance back one last time at the giant and sigh. Sorry…

Upon arrival, you find what appears to be 4 or 5 sets of tracks in the snow heading north-east. That electrical thing must have followed them! You race after the tracks, but find they reduce to only a clear 3 after about halfway. That would mean the electric shadow gave up and went back to the semi-circular building. You continue onward, following the tracks toward the building with the high roof.

Puzzle complete!

After reaching the building you find it to be much larger than any of the others. It’s base alone stands taller than the long building to the south of you. The roof only adds even more height.

The 3 tracks lead right up to the doorway, so your friends must be inside.