>>42244734
>>42245016
Anon: "Float the lamp over there and let me get the first look."
Hopeful: "Okay."
>Hopeful makes her way to the left doorway and hovers the lamp towards peeking into it
Anon: "No, Hopeful, wrong side. The one--way window is on this side. Okay, there. Perfect. Let's go."
>You peek inside
>This section of the building was built as a chapel, and still looks like one, but it has been damaged in the same manners as everything else you have seen here, maybe even moreso
>It is clearly no longer used as chapel, though. The altar has been removed to make it a throne room
>Atop a wooden throne, observed and venerated by various disheveled ponies and cooing crows, and flanked by relocated debris full of straw nests, is a figure in a long robe made of black feathers with a twisted scepter
>All eyes are on this leader, leaving you completely unnoticed still
>Mixing with the smell of rot and drug use is the smell of incense
>At the bottom of the steps to the throne, you see a dirty, off-yellow colt on the ground
>He matches Dandelion's exact description
>the Crow Queen shifts in her seat and continues to speak
[UNSPOILER IMAGE]
Crow Queen: "Let us begin our ceremony with a prayer. Please bow your heads.”
>The whole room bows
“Crow Queen: "Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for today, another day in which we can serve you. As your appointed priestess, I ask on behalf of us all for your blessing on our gathering today as we baptize our dear Pyrite and bring him into your flock. We thank you for the love which you shower upon us each day. In Odin's name we pray, Amen.”
>The maid continues forward with a bucket of water
In unison: "Amen."