She could no longer stand with the flask drained and her psyche strained all she could do was hold herself on the floor of the secret study and whimper. She couldn’t help it her mind was full of thoughts and desires to alien to be her’s and yet too familiar not to be, the urgent need to warn King Gilded Mane, a burning desire for an adventure, Dedication to prove that a love is true,and more, all those feelings causing a maelstrom in her mind that would not relent.
On the verge of tears Trixie looked around the room for anything that could ease her suffering and for a brief moment entertained thoughts of falling on her sword but before those thoughts could take root her gaze fell upon a small statue of a white alicorn with a red mane rsting on a nearby shelf and the storm quieted enough to bring the image of a griffon monk to her mind and how he dealt with the blasphemy so long ago and soon enough she found herself saying prayers and litines in a tongue she did not but with the ritual of those words her mind began to calm and she opened her eyes long enough to see the old griffon monk smiling down at her before disappearing into swirling motes of pale light, “Stay strong, Little one” came a voice from the lights as they vanished.
With a growing steadiness Trixie began to rise from her place on the study’s floor and make her way back to that cursed tome. As she looked down on the last entry of holders of the book and saw a younger version of her own grandfather on the page staring back, she couldn’t help but laugh a bitter laugh, “Stay Strong? Why? They won we lost. Game over!” Staring at the book she couldn’t help but loathe it. It and the knowledge that all of Equus was just some game to theses things and that ponies or griffins or whatever were no more important to them than a roach.
In her mounting frustration she picked up the book and threw it across the room and in it’s arc an envelope and a piece of metal fell from within it's pages. Curious Trixie went to investigate and found that the piece of metal was a pendent of some gold alloy with a design of three circles and a triangle connecting them. The sight of it caused the voice and desires of a long dead messenger to fill her but through her own will she took her eyes off it to look at the envelope and found it was addressed to her, after opening it, it read:
Dearest Beatrix, If you are reading this than I must ask for your forgiveness for being unable to keep you out of this whole ordeal. It was never my intention that you get involved but I do understand that it is a very real possibility that my age may stop me from acting with the swiftness needed and I again I am sorry but that is where you come in because I know you are the only one who can stop him and to help with that I have left you a focus of the ancients magick and the knowledge of it I have hidden as well, Sorry for that but I must separate the lock from the key and I fear that if Righteous finds my notes on that accursed magick he may very well become unstoppable but know that he is not now and well it may seem dark that only means the light is easier to find.
Be strong my little filly,
Love,
Pop pop Star Tome
Trixie saw the world grow blurry as she finished the letter, even in death her grandfather believed in her, even in death he thought the was hope, “Well then for you Pop pop,” She stopped to smile at a name given by a young filly, “I’ll try to fight them.”
She picked up the old book and began to flip through it because one part of the letter confused her, “Notes on their magick? Shouldn’t that information be here?” she asked herself as she looked and upon reaching the section where spells and runes were once kept she found only a gap in the book with evidence that the pages were cut out and in their place was an instant photo of her grandfather smirking with the massage, “Suck it Ulyaoth cronies” written in marker on the back of the photo.
She stared in disbelief of the photo and felt one eyebrow arch, putting the photo back all she could was shake her head as she paced about wondering, “If I was Star Tome where would I hide my notes?”. Her gaze fell on the discarded bowl and spelt cereal and had an insight into the mind of her grandfather.Quickly she collected the book and made her way out of the secret study to the one room in the manor that Star Tome would find truly vexing and alien, The Kitchen.
Once more Trixie stood before the pantry, still locked by an arcane seal and with a stronger purpose then hunger she started trying to deduce how to open it.
It didn’t take long before she ran through the list of dispelling magic that she knew, tried raming the sword into the slot and tried picking the lock with lock picks but all that accomplished was breaking many of the picks. Her new strategy was to bang her head against the door. As she rhythmically pounded her head against the wood a memory of a long ago lesson came loose.
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“Pop pop?” Asked a small powder blue filly who was still young enough to have rounded baby syllables in her speech, “How do urth ponies make magic?
“Magic? What do you mean, Like spells?” An older stallion asked in return.
“Well may be, cause in kida garten Mrs. B my teacher is a urth pony but she’s always puwwing stuff wike chalk and stickers and juice out of nuthing and when I asked Momma and Dadda they just smiwed and wuaghed,” The little filly scrunched her face up in anger, “I don’t wike being wuafed at.”
“I don’t imagine you do, not many ponies like being laughed at but to answer your question that magic isnt a spell, nor is it really magic.”
“Is’s not?”
“Heavens no, it’s called misdirection.”
“Missed directions? Wike when Mommy misses a sign on the road?”
“No misdirection is one you make somepony look one way,” Waving his right hoof an an example, “But are doing something somewhere else,” Tickling the little filly with his left hoof.
Through a torrent of giggles the filly asked, “Is that how Mrs. B does it?”
“Well not as obvious as what I just did but yes, thats how all the great magicians became great even the unicorns, by making their audience look or suspect one thing then surprise them with another.” He finished looking at the filly whose face was scrunched up again but not in anger now in thought.
“Pop pop? Can I be a gweat magician when I gwow up?”
The elder unicorn smiled and answered, “I don’t see why not but if your gonna be a magician you gonna need a stage name, all the greats had one.”
“Das easy, I’m,” She stood up on her hind legs and fanned her fore legs out dramatically,”DA GWEAT AND POWERFUL TWIXIE WUWAMOON!”
“I’m sure you will be Trixie, I’m sure you will be”
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Trixie’s eye shot open as the memory faded and even tho her head hurt she wanted to kick herself for being so thick. “It was a rope a dope,” She scolded herself, “Lesson bucking one of stage magic.”
She glared at the pantry knowing now that it was only a distraction and again tried to think like Star Tome and where he’d hide something and she again thought of the piano, was it out of tune or was something on the wires?
Quickly she ran towards the music room and opened up the old piano to find resting near the center of the great instrument, was a large packet of papers.
Tripadation filled her as she used her magic to gently pull the papers out of the piano and after the quick application of a light spell she began to read what was in the packet to find that it was the missing pages of spells and how the magic of the ancients worked and how it could be worked along with many yellow runes and a blue one.
As she poured over the esoteric lore a parallel in arcane theory she knew well made itself known. “This magic is like ley lines, pick a big source of power channel it with a circle then shape it with foci” She said to herself. Surprised with how simple it was at least in theory but now it was time to put it to practice.
She searched the spells till she found the one she was looking for then fished the key out of her hat and sat it on the piano bench and after making sure she had the right runes and the circle ready she intoned, “Ulyaoth Antorbok Magormor”. Blue energy raced from the center of the golden medallion towards the broken key and in a flash of light and spark, the key sat there on the bench new and whole once more.
“Score one for the Great and Powerful Trixie,” Trixie said smirking to herself, “Now Let’s see what’s on the second floor.”
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This time the door and lock gave no trouble and Trixie couldn’t help but feel a little pride at defeating such an aggravating foe but that feeling was soon lost for as she passed through the doors she heard a dreadful moan and she saw shambling down the hallway was the animated corpse of some poor unicorn pony who must have drowned for that blueish color he now had. On panic fueled reflex Trixie fired a blast of magic but as it need the beast, it’s own horn briefly glowed and her spell was harmlessly grounded.
With her fear now causing her heart to pound like a great drum she frantically drew the old sword and with it held firmly in her teeth, she charged the horror and with one sold pass took out it’s left side’s legs but as she turned for another pass she saw the horror, stilling standing just disappear into nothingness. She just blinked and after a few stunned blinks she realized that the world was sideways.
After setting up and shaking her head she thought, “Did I pass out and dream that?”. That possibility died the second she noticed a new burn mark on one of the walls. “Hallucinations? Oh no I… I need something for my nerves yes something for the nerves.” And with the new plan set she made her way to the master bedroom in search of any calming agents.
The Bedroom was just as she remembered it, a great four post bed, a small desk to the side, a small personal library, fireplace, paintings of an unknown vintage, doorway to a private bath but what Trixie noticed the clearest was a small wine rack near the desk and the fact that it held a few bottles of wine.
“Oh come to mama, my sweet madeira,” With the bottle firmly held in her magic, Trixie used her teeth to pull out the cork. After spitting out the cork she took a long pull from the bottle, letting the rich taste of the fortified wine fill her. Afterwards she refilled the flask and began her investigation proper of the room.
A look of the desk revealed several old journal pages from her ancestor, Dr. Silverthread Lulamoon and they deal with him just inheriting the mansion after the death of his father and how it has affected him. A perusal of the library revealed many books by the like of Poe, Goethe and even H.P. Hoofcraft. Trixie couldn’t help but wonder if the books were there to remind her grandfather for the stakes of all this or if he needed a laugh at those who thought they knew despair.
One of the paintings caught her eye, it showed an ancient city with great cyclopean spires and shadows seemed to cling heavily to many of the structures. The plaque that named the painting read: The Corpse of the ancient city of Riap-shid. Trixie held her head as the memories of that city from both her ancestor Silverthread and her grandfather filled her head and again if only for an instant the sword looked good again but she held her ground and the tide of memory subsided but the experience did take a toll and blurrily she walked into the private bathroom to look for aspirin.
As she rummaged around the medicine cabinet for a moment Trixie thought she saw something near the bathtub and as she went to investigate her mind was filled with a vivid image of her self in the bathtub full of blood with self inflicted wounds on her forelimbs. Scared Trixie fell back proclaiming nearly screaming, “This isn’t really happening!” and with that proclamation the image fell away.
She worked through the tears as she found the aspirin and after taking the mild pain reliever, she fell on the bed and tried to find comfort in the pillows and sheets. As she laid there trying to hold herself together her gaze fell on the bottom drawer of a dresser and it’s lack of a lock or any way to open it. It was completely blank except for a blue triangle with a circle at each point.
Recognizing what t it meant she sat up on the bed and began poring over the runes and notes again and in barely a minute she readied the circle and once again intoned “Ulyaoth Narokath Redgormor”. A blue pulse emanated from the circle and within seconds the triangle faded away revealing a lock. Well wary of the lock Trixie didn’t feel like looking for a blasted dresser key so once again out came her picks but this time, the tumblers tumbled and the drawer’s lock clicked open.
Feeling quite satisfied with herself she opened the drawer to find a red rune, more notes from her grandfather and chitinous claw floating in a bell jar. The sight of the claw brought back memories of the hidden city in the empty quarter of the Saddle Arabian desert but instead of stopping her, the flames the memories conjured instead hardened her resolve and she had a pretty good idea what would be in the notes.
The notes confirmed that the relic and rune are related to the ancient Chattur’ Gha. The notes also hinted at a plan to use the power of the other ancients and the great circle in the city of Riap-shid to banish Ulyaoth for good.
“If these notes are right than the other essences must be here,” Trixie reasoned,a s she paced about the room trying to ride this hope to a solution she saw something under the master bed. A quick bit of fishing with her magic revealed it to be old but large saddle bags. She looked at both the bell jar she found and the tome she was carrying and it became obvious that the bag would be needed if she wished to keep things where she could see them.
With the bags secure under her cape and the tome, notes and essence secure in her bags and with a quick modification her cape now closed with the circle of power and the runes and spells were held in her hat, “Better than a rabbit” she idly thought, “Especially that demon rabbit from Ponyville”.