The Melody Of Moonlight Castle

Chapter 2: The Coffee Shop

  I had gotten to the café already and took a seat, Hope worked at this café, which is why she probably invited Kenji and Jack here...don't blame her, knowing the staff in a establishment is a good perk.

  Soon Jack and Kenji arrived and took a seat at my table as well, Hope had probably invited them for afternoon tea but it was an opportunity for me to get some answers on that castle. I layed out the papers and notes on the table while Hope went inside to get us some drinks.

"Any of you know anything about this?" I asked, hoping for one of them to have an epiphany.

"No...some old medieval castle?" Jack answered as I gave him a disapproving head shake.

"Ah! Is that Moonlight Castle? I read a lot about it in my old history books, its just the castle they used to hold national meetings right?" Kenji answered with confidence.

"It is...normally it would just seem like another rundown, abandoned castle. But this professor was so hung up about it for some reason, look at his research notes." I said as I layed the notes out in a pattern so they could read it.

"Huh...look! There's a page that has been torn in half, there's some sort of sketch!" Jack pointed out.

  And he was right, a note was torn in half across a notepad, it had half a sketch of something, without the second half you couldn't even tell what it was. But an easy solution to an easy conundrum, I quickly pulled out my pencil and started rubbing the graphite onto the part where it was torn off, it started showing some sort of sketch of a door, it had the words "Only way in" written on the side of the wooden door drawing.

"What do you think it means?" I asked everyone, hoping they had an answer but all of them shrugged.

"Hey, nice drawing!" Hope hollered at us, she had a tray of the drinks and was carrying over to our table.

"It's not mine, it was a professors...its about a place called Moonlight Castle." I responded unsure of what I was even trying to say because I just blurted it out.

"Moonlight Castle? That...sounds like-" She placed the tray on the table as she took a seat as well.

"What? Do you know it?" I turned to her as she sat down, she looked like she didn't want to finish her sentence.

"It's just, I don't know...my dad used to say his 'Melody' had gone to the Moonlight Castle. He always muttered that when he was stressed out, he never answered me with any straight answer, but that line was always consistent whenever he told me that." She looked around at us, we were slightly taken aback, this had been the first time she had said anything of the sort, she's never mentioned it to me or Jack in the years we've known her.

"Well this adds up to the mystery of why Berg's professor went there, they could be correlated in some way, I mean whatever's known about the place is vague and only done for the public, there hasn't been anything solid to come out of the Castle since it was abandoned." Kenji added on with his view.

"Does anyone feel like this whole thing is a bit coincidental?" Jack remarked.

"Moonlight Castle was a huge deal back in the day considering Equestria might be in ruins if they hadn't discussed a peace treaty before starting a war, ponies would've heard about it." I replied, obviously not appreciating Jacks sarcasm.

"Well...why don't we check it out if we're all so interested in its mystery and legend?" Kenji recommend with obvious boldness to show off his skill here and there if we went.

"I don't know...should we? I mean, we're exploring a rundown castle that probably hasn't been touched in centuries with the exception of the occasional grave robber." I bluntly replied to his idea.

"That's terrible..." Hope was slightly awed at my response.

"It's true, any word of something valuable in even the most sacred of places, some pony will have it in their mind to go robbing the place. Now, I just have to give into my curiosity and agree to Kenji's idea, we should travel there and check the castle out, why don't we leave tomorrow?" I offered.

"If you say so bro, lets go!" Jack with his usual enthusiastic nature.

"Well...I guess I would want to go, I want answers to what my dad said to me." Hope gave in to the idea.

  We all cheered and gave a toast to the plan with our drinks and finished them off before heading our separate ways back to our houses to prepare for the journey ahead of us tomorrow, it wouldn't be easy so I told the whole gang to pack what you would when going to say, mountain climbing...because not all of us are pegasi and to be frank, venturing to a centuries-old castle without a guide or it being marked as a tourist destination isn't exactly considered "safe" by any standards.

  I quickly dashed up into my room and dusted off my old travel saddlebags, I hadn't used it in years because I got caught up in my little works and started to not have much reason to travel considering I didn't have much of a hometown to visit, always wondered how my parents are reacting to me being gone forever from their lives, its food for thought for myself really...I packed my whole little collection of survival tools because I was into that stuff at one point in my life, a simple mouth-held survival hatchet, it had a handy little firestarter in its handle which crossed out my need for carrying one seperately. Next was a simple collapsible tent, wasn't big but could fit four ponies if need be. Next was food, I packed apples, trail mix (my kind), cider, water and my personal stash of snacks and candy (because I can).

  I put aside my bags once everything was stuffed in and packed, it was only 4:30 in the afternoon and the sun was still out...great, everyone knows the feeling of waiting for something that's so close and the last few hours of waiting for it, and if you're like me, those hours are torture.

  I decided to spend the rest of my time in my workshop, I continued my work on an amulet, it was of course no normal one...it had some semblance of magic in it, the nicker is what type? I've asked around everywhere, shaman's, witch doctors, ponies who are an expert in the field of magic in general and my own read through of books regarding the subject, nothing...absolutely nothing. None of them had any idea of what type of magic was used in the makings of this amulet, they had never seen this type before, all they could say was this was some type of Spiritual Magic, a field of magic that had faded away decades before and had been eradicated from the world, but apparently this thing is still here. And it's the reason I'm here in the first place.

  It was made with wood and metal parts together, I've found no type of mechanism actually in the amulet, but the ring around it still makes it open but the magic seems to have dissipated from it, like it was a one time use thing, I'd rather not risk breaking into something that uses magic that hasn't been seen in decades, don't know what might happen, I may be curious but I'm not one to want to die so soon, what's left in it is the three refined crystals that make up my Cutiemark on the front side of the amulet, but I've inspected them and they're just normal gemstones, nothing special.

  Once I was actually done running through and making more notes on the amulet, it was already night time, I decided to not stress myself out anymore than I already have over the damn thing and retire for the night, I went into my bedroom and flopped onto the bed and slowly drift off to sleep.