//------------------------------// // More Studying and Thievery // Story: Crazy, Clever and Cunning // by Fresnor //------------------------------// There are many pleasant way to be woken up in the morning, unfortunately the screaming of rampaging ghost are not included on that list I think to myself as I crawl my way out from under the covers. Looking towards the window I can tell it’s still early due to the lack of light, but with the ghost active again sleep will be impossible. Sighing at this I make my way to the bathroom to clean up for the day. After a long soak in the tub I return to the bedroom to plan out the day. Seeing as one avenue of inquiry has led to a dead end, though with potential help looking into other things on that end, I ponder the risks of a jaunt into the forest again. Pulling out an apple from my pack, I chew on it absently while packing the rest of my food into the bags for the trip out. “Not having any non-magical means of stopping things is going to bug me. Trying to quickly pull out my magic often causes more problems than I need,” I note while putting my packs on and heading to the window. “Maybe the fact of the path being there means it is mostly safe as something has to be using it for it to be there.” Climbing outside I observe the sky for a second and guess that dawn is still an hour or so away, this is perfect as to avoid others seeing me go into the forest which they seem to avoid. Making my way along the edge of the forest I observe it as I plod along and note the lack of any visible way in other than the path I arrived on. Maybe I should make a new path in by the manor next chance I get to make it easier to sneak in I consider. It doesn’t take long to get to the entrance, and the owner of the cottage still seems to be asleep though there seems to be some of the night time critters crawling into various burrows and holes around the area for the morning. Making note to find out about the owner of this strange place later I head around to the forest path and make my way in. As soon as I pass into the darkness of the trees I set all my senses to a higher state of watchfulness in reaction to entering a less safe environment. I also pick up my pace, wincing at the sound from my hooves on the terrain, wondering if I should shift back. Deciding against wasting magic on this I instead turn my thoughts towards what I may find. If the castle is inhabited then it shouldn’t be that hard to get access to it and any books that may be inside. Even if the occupant is a loner they’d often take stories of the outside world as payment for little things, as long as you left them alone afterwards, and that’s as long as they are friendly. Hostile hosts tend to take a bit more work to deal with, yet too often that ends with sneaking around or fighting them. If the castle is unoccupied though then things could get a bit messier. Creatures often make their homes in places like that, and they often end up being the worst of the worst kinds. Even after getting around them anything found in there is usually in a poor condition unless there are spells keeping them together. Sighing at these thoughts I try to plan out what to do as I swim the river while levitating my bags. Once I finish crossing I shake myself out of my thoughts, realizing how far I’ve already come, and stop for a drink. I can see the sky lightening up as dawn approaches, which is a good thing as it’ll send most of the predators to sleep as the worst ones are nocturnal. Turning back to the path I continue along towards the castle. Eventually I arrive at the bridge across the gorge, and examine it with a dubious eye. It really isn’t in that good of a state and looks to be about to fall at any time. Seeing no other way across though, I decide to use a bit of magic to hopefully stabilize it a bit. Focusing on the ropes and planks, I try to will some energy into them strengthening the order of bonds in them. Not knowing for sure if it worked though, I carefully make my way across testing each plank before putting my weight on it. I safely make it across without incident, though there are a few places missing boards showing that others may not have been as lucky. Leaving the bridge behind I make my way up the path and to the entrance of the castle. It doesn’t take long to get to it, and judging by the state of things it seems to be abandoned if the wall damage and fallen gates say anything about it. Passing through the gates I keep a wary eye out, though a strange sensation rolls through me as I go through them. Wondering at that feeling I keep an eye out for anything dangerous, yet despite the place being abandoned there doesn’t seem to be any sign of anything. Not even the usual hints of wildlife or monsters seem to be present in the courtyard which is distinctly odd. Making my way in further I come to what seems to be the throne room of the castle, at which I stare in awe at. All around the hall are damaged tapestries and statues, but what is still identifiable of them all are the representations of beings like the princesses I saw. Trying to take in all of it, as well as the feeling of emptiness of the place I start to get an idea of why I haven’t seen anything. “Something must be keeping creatures out of this place, either basic fear or some sort of spell. If it’s a spell it must have been a powerful one to have lasted this long though,” I consider this while looking at the doors around the place. Choosing a path at random I head deeper into the castle looking for where they would have stored the books here. While exploring I come across many interesting rooms, though none containing what I am looking for. From a room containing a working organ, to another with some weird stand with a white orb in the center, there are many things of interest. I even come across a kitchen which still contains some of the tools of the trade, albeit most in rather poor condition though still potentially usable if repaired. Throughout all this though I can’t seem to shake the feeling of being watched, but from where or when it started I am unsure of. Eventually I come across a set of large doors that seem promising, what with the scrolls and other designs on it, and proceed to push them open. As I enter the room I let out an appreciative whistle at what I find… Books, lots of books. All of them seem to be in a very good condition as well, suggesting more magic coming into play, though there is a layer of dust over everything. Heading over to a table that seems to be in good condition still I clean off an area of it to work with before setting my packs down to the side of it. “Now how am I going to find what I need in here? I was hoping to find a library of some sort, but I didn’t expect anything of this level,” I ponder all this while looking at my packs. As my eyes travel over my journal the inkling of an idea comes to mind and I swiftly pull it up onto the table, “This would be the perfect time to try out that idea with the locater spell, now let’s see…” I turn to the correct page and try to figure out the best way to do this. After a couple minutes I decide to make my first attempt at the spell, “Okay, focus on what I need, focus on the words and charge the spell and-“ what happens next causes me to black out as I all of a sudden get a sense of the location of every book in the room, as well as some in other parts of the castle. <><><><><><><> I’m not sure how long I was out, but when I came to it was with one of the largest headaches I’ve ever had. Right, specifics, keep forgetting that generalizations in a new spell are bad are the first things coming to mind remembering that last time I made that mistake. Lifting my head I jerk in surprise, causing more pain to shoot through my head, as I hear something gasp, followed by the clatter of what sounds like tiny hooves. Turning my head to the sound I open my eyes to see a blue blur dart out the door. Trying to clear my eyes and find out what happened I notice that my packs have been knocked over while I was out. Once I can fully see I head over to look inside them and am surprised at what I find, “Was I just robbed?” Going through it all I find that this is indeed the case, though the only things missing are my food supply except for a solitary apple. Wondering on what it was that was just here I shake my head once again at my foolishness and sigh as I realize I’ll have to head back earlier today to get dinner in town. Sighing at this I turn back to my journal and jot down a couple more notes to remind me of this situation and prepare to try again. The next attempt is much less violent, though still disorienting as it tries to pull my thought to various parts of the library. “This is going to take a while to get this to work right, but at least this is some progress. I might as well see what it’s leading me to though to see how well it worked,” shaking off some of the disorientation I head over towards the nearest mark just to find it, and the others near it, are part of a collection of scary stories to tell during social gatherings. Frowning at this I realize another factor of the spell I need to figure out is how to cancel out the ones found from the spell to lessen the distraction. Eventually after many false leads and even a few odd ones, seriously what kind of romance book has ghosts in it? I find a section that holds some possibilities. The books are similar to what I found at the library in town, yet judging from these those ones have been censored in some ways. These ones have a few terms that weren’t in them, one which catches my eye… ‘Necromancy.’ Pondering what that word could mean I look through some of the other nearby books for the term and find it in them as well. “I haven’t heard of this before but it seems to be some branch of magic dealing with undead,” I consider this and decide to follow up on this lead as it is more than I had before. Canceling the previous spell and starting up a new one for this word I am surprised to find that the number of locations for this target is much smaller. Barring the books in front of me and a few other random ones scattered around the place there seems to be a small mass of them further back. Making my way towards them while keeping an eye on the surrounding books I start to notice that the books in this area seem more focused on the arcane arts more than other topics. Taking heart at this I speed up as I near my target, until I suddenly come to the end and a blank wall. “This is odd, the books should be behind this, but I don’t see any way around it,” I mutter while examining the wall and surrounding shelves. Looking in to the adjacent areas I notice something odd though, “Why does it look like these other rows go back further?” I head back to the offending wall and start to examine it in more detail. I notice quickly that some of the shelves by it seem to extend into it a bit, suggesting that the wall wasn’t originally here. “Why hide books in a way like this? I know how bad the undead can be, but is that word that much worse than it that they’d hide the books on it?” I ponder this as I reach out with my magic to examine the area in finer detail. Eventually I am able to find two switches on opposite ends of the wall, and I carefully press them both at once. Doing so causes the wall to rise into the ceiling, revealing another shelf containing six books. Examining the books they seem to give off a different aura than the rest of the library. Being very careful with them I tentatively levitate them off the shelf one at a time to test for anything. Not finding anything I pull them all off and carry them to the table up front. Arriving there I sat all of them on it and observe them all with a critical eye. “I’m not sure what to think of these books; it’s not often that the cover of a book is blank. I’m not even sure what material they are made of either which is even odder.” Not noticing anything to differentiate one from the other, or even any way to tell the age of them I sigh as I restack them and pull one out at random. Opening it and turning to the first page I begin reading, my brow furrowing the further I get into it. What the book describes is disturbing and unsettling to say the least; rituals involving blood, removing skeletons from live subjects, and worse. It doesn’t take me long to close the book with a noxious feeling in my stomach, “These are much worse than I expected. I already dislike having to deal with undead, but if this is how they are made? It’s just vile and shouldn’t be allowed to exist,” I start to feel a bit of pity for the creature inhabiting my home if this is what was used to create it. Turning back to the book and flipping through it and browsing instead of reading it now I look for anything that could be of use. The first one has nothing I want to consider, and neither do the second or third. The fourth one though, “’Flesh crafting,’ huh? ‘Molding flesh to any form that is desired by the caster.’ This… could be useful, though I’d want to look into it more an-“ I glance down at my side at the scrapes I had picked up yesterday and ponder. Carefully I remove one of the bandages from a smaller cut and set it aside while I read through the spell. Looking between the partially healed scratch and the book I start to charge the spell up and focus on the wound. While the spell works as intended, the feelings giving off by it are not pleasant, “Yowch, if that’s what it feels like on a small injury I don’t want to try it on anything bigger. Maybe if I find some way to kill the pain in the area first it will work better though.” Realizing the possibilities I note down the spell in my journal, but make sure at the start to underline the words, ‘Use Pain Killers,’ a couple times to highlight the importance. Going back to the other book I flip through it but don’t find anything else of use so I set it aside and turn to the fifth. This one seems to deal more with the type of undead spells I am looking for. Going through it I find a few spells that are useful; detecting undead, speaking with the dead, as well as one that catches my eye. “’Banishing Unwanted Spirits’?! This could actually be what I need to deal with that thing,” I read through the specifics of the spell and frown at the limits to it, specifically the ones pertaining to bound spirits. “’While useful for those wanting to pass on, and those that don’t though a bit harder to banish, Bound Spirits though are unaffected by this spell and are in fact more enraged from its use. The only way to remove these spirits is to destroy the focal object that is binding them and then using this spell.’ I really hope this isn’t the kind of spirit in there,” I mutter while inscribing the specifics into my journal. Setting the book down I prepare to pack up and leave seeing as I found what I came for, yet the sixth book seems to pull at my curiosity. Bringing it over and paging through it I stare in confusion at much of what is contained in it. I barely understand a thing in it and some of the words seem to shift in strange ways. Many of the pages even contain spell circles of various kinds and complexity showing that this is a high-level book. About to give up on the book my attention is caught by a spell in the back of it. “’Staving Off Death?’” I say in wonder, “’Use of this spell should only be used by those of the highest levels of casters due to the effects. Results of those without the correct requirements is immediate death.’” My eyes shoot up at that wondering why anyone would use a spell to stop death if it could kill them, yet I continue reading, “’The requirements of this spell are as follows: the subject must not have been dead for over an hour; the subject must be in a mostly healthy state, barring the injuries causing said death; the subject must be in the center of the diagram on the following page, along with the appropriate elements at each corner; and lastly a diamond of a clarity appropriate to the purity of the subject must be supplied as a container for the bargain with the gatekeeper.’” Flipping to the diagram I boggle at the complexity of it though the elements needed are relatively simple and can be varied it seems. Turning back to the previous page I read through it all again before shrugging and decide to copy it all down in my journal as a curiosity. It takes I while but I manage to perfectly copy down the diagram into on the opposite page, not only double checking but triple checking that every symbol is in the correct place. Finishing that I close the book and look around, before my rumbling stomach interrupts me. Pulling out the apple that the little thief missed I start to pack everything into my bags, including the books for closer research. As I finish this I head towards the castle exit, my mind on what I’ve learned as well as the thief. Judging from what little I could see it seemed relatively small, and the sounds were close to what a pony of smaller size would be. Wonder what a foal, I believe they are called, would be out in this place for. I ponder this as I exit the castle, again shivering at the odd sensation, and head back to town. The way back is uneventful, though I notice the cottage resident is around judging by the smoke from the chimney, and I get back to my home unscathed. Heading in I stash the books in a bookcase for later review and head on out to town. I make note to check with Twilight later to see if she found anything as I make my way towards the café I tried last time, seeing as the market area seems to be closing up. Heading through the town I still notice a few odd looks from the ponies around, though not as many as the last times. I guess they must be getting a little used to seeing me, though they probably wonder who I am. Still, this is a nice town, though that building that looks like it’s made of candy is odd, it might be nice to get to know of those that live h… Why in the world did everything just turn pink?