THE UNIVERSITY (AND GHOST STORIES!)

The airship prepares for landing at the Everfree Clocktower, atop the University. The tall tower below the clock is used as board and lab space for the University, and they’ll be staying there tonight, after Twilight’s done in the library. …Well, after everyone gets bored of waiting for her to be done in the library and goes off to bed, anyway.

Twilight was hoping to show off the progress of her bots to Celestia, but her mentor isn’t there; she’s off doing mysterious Celestia things of her own, leaving Twilight to pout into her stacks of books. Someday she’ll get her validation! Someday…

This bit was left pretty open; I figured it would be a good time for the Questions to take the lead, after the giant infodump earlier, and if nothing else the explanation of the Elements could’ve gone here. So just imagine Twilight rummaging around in books for a while while giving cool and exciting answers that shed a lot of light on the various workings of the world, and then we’ll skip straight to bedtime!

+Nightgowns!
Nightgowns!!+

It’s been a long, hard day of dealing with people, but books have soothed the irritation, and now Twilight is ready to get some shuteye. Everyone’s been split up into different rooms: Twilight is bunking with Applejack (and Spike, who’s small enough that he counts for maybe half a roommate). Just as they’re getting ready for bed, there’s a knock at her door…

TWILIGHT: …is your sleep mode not enabling properly?
PINKIE: It’s my Pinkie Sense! This place is giving me the HEEBIE-JEEBIES!
TWILIGHT: The heebie…wha?
PINKIE: The HEEBIE-JEEBIES! It means there’s something really WEIRD here!!
SPIKE: [pops up] Maybe it’s the GHOST!!
TWILIGHT: Oh, for goodness’ sakes…

Twilight doesn’t want Spike to talk about that stupid old rumor, but she keeps getting interrupted. Rainbow was rooming with Pinkie, and she got dragged along too; Rarity is a delicate sleeper, and was woken up by all the commotion. They all crowd into the room…

TWILIGHT: [sarcastically] Well, is that everyone?
FLUTTERSHY: Um…I’m here too.

With everyone assembled, Spike can’t be stopped! He regales the group with the story of the Ghost of Everfree Clocktower…

Many years ago, in the highest-up lab in the Clocktower, an evil scientist was involved in a secret experiment – something so awful, so nefarious, that even the toughest, most awesome person in all of Steamquestria would shake in their boots just to think of it. Something like…zombie brain-eating slugs!

TWILIGHT: There is NO evidence for that!
SPIKE: There’s no evidence that they WEREN’T making zombie brain-eating slugs…
RAINBOW: [in the background] Just wanna say, I’m not shaking in my boots yet.

Regardless of how many zombie brain-eating slugs there may or may not have been, the scientist was clearly up to no good. No one knew anything about what was going on, until one night when the entire University was woken up by a tremendous…

SPIKE: BOOM!!

The lab had exploded, destroying the wicked scientist and all trace of their horrible experiment. The lab itself was dismantled, and the entire floor closed up. But the incident left a curse upon the Clocktower: ever since, students on the floor below have heard mysterious noises up above, as if someone were walking around in the abandoned lab…and some, brave enough to sneak up and take a look at the haunted floor, swear that they’ve seen a ghostly figure standing in the lab. They say that even now it makes its way through the halls, searching for fresh victims to test its cruel-hearted experiments on…

APPLEJACK: Now, hold up, that don’t make a lick o’ sense!
TWILIGHT: Thank you, Appleja–
APPLEJACK: If the ghost is lookin’ for victims, why’s it stayin’ up there? Why don’t it just float down here an’ take all the victims it–
PINKIE: Nooo, don’t give it ideas!!

Twilight starts to interrupt, much to Spike’s chagrin – he hasn’t even gotten to the best part yet! See, some say that the scientist wasn’t working alone, but had a research assistant…an assistant who was even nastier and more power-hungry, who deliberately rigged the explosion to kill their boss so they could continue their dark experiments on their own! Could it be that the ghost isn’t looking for victims…but for vengeance?

TWILIGHT: No. No it isn’t, because none of this is true.
SPIKE: Makes a good story though.

Twi sets the story straight: there is an upper floor that’s closed off, but it’s used for private faculty storage, not for evil experiments from beyond the grave. There are records of parts of the Clocktower being rebuilt, but just because the report doesn’t say why does not mean it was due to a zombie brain-eating slug attack. Somehow these two facts became conflated through student gossip, and eventually became an asinine urban legend about ghosts with no basis in actual reality.

TWILIGHT: I just don’t get why people keep spreading such a blatantly false rumor! It should be obvious to anyone who’s spent five minutes actually LOOKING at the university records–
SPIKE: –anyone like you, you mean?
TWILIGHT: –that…uh…I mean…okay I was kind of curious! In an academic sense!

Well, you heard the lady: sure, something happened, and something got built up there…but this is a school where experiments go wrong and things explode all the time, so most likely it was just another run-of-the-mill lab accident. Nothing strange or unusual about it at all! Nothing that could cause an entire lab to be abandoned, and reports of ghostly figures and movement on a closed-off floor.

Yep.