As she left the bedroom she saw at the other end of the hall a heavy set unicorn wearing an antique coat and wig, pull out griffin made black powder weapons and walk through the wall only to be followed by the sounds of the firearms detonation and screams of terror.
Gingerly Trixie made her way down to where the apparition disappeared to and began to examine the wall. Which seemed solid but she couldn’t help but notice a bulging in the wall paper. “Their might be a door behind here but hmmm.” she pondered but soon an idea formed and she couldn't help but smile.
She pulled out the old sword and began to hack at the wall and well it cut through the paper and plaster easily soon the swings were in vain. As she looked over her handy work she saw way the blade stopped being effective because beyond the plaster was a door, sealed with heavy boards.
“Damn,” Trixie Cursed, “I’ll need a bucking axe or something to get through that!” as she caught her breath and try to think where an axe could be.
Trixie reasoned quickly that the most likely of places for a tool that could aid her would be was in the basement. As she made her way downstairs to the basement she couldn’t help but feel the hairs on her neck stand on edge as if somepony was watching her but she continued on to find the basement door under the grand staircase and as she went to open the door she quickly jumped back and readied the gladius only to find that she was still alone. She shook her head and said to herself, ‘Come on Trixie, keep your wits about you.”
As she made her way down into the basement she couldn’t help but shudder knowing that soon she will have to walk into darkness,to find a path into a nightmare city to fight a liche but that is still of the future and more immediate concerns needed to be dealt with. Such as finding the other essences but first things first, finding a way to get into the sealed room.
Looking around the room see saw several casks of wine, an old safe as big as someponies, a workbench and several boxes full of this or that but what really caught her eye was a way into the sealed room, A great lumberjack’s axe. The axe was as long as she was tall and it’s bladed head must have weighed in excess of thirty pounds or more but it would do wonderfully to tear down the old boards and open the room to see what secrets it hid.
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Well swinging the axe was awkward at first Trixie was able to compensate for this by using both her fore limbs wrapped around the shaft of the axe and her magic as steadying force. While her trust pegasi sword dinged the boards, the axe on the other hoof ate them. Cleaving through one on every other swing or so and it only took moments for the boards to be sufficiently removed to allow access to the old door.
The door creaked and the hinges groaned as she pushed the door open, weary of what she might find and the axe held in her magic as a deterrent for anything but all she saw in the old room which hadn’t seen life in centuries it seemed was the remains of four beds with old blood stains now black with age and the charred bones of three ponies in the center of the room. The lack of a fourth body made the already gruesome sight even more terrifying, her mind trying to figure out where the fourth corpse was.
Again she shook her head trying to stay on target and try to find anything of use in this room that took such effort to enter. Another pass of her gaze revealed a pair of the old pistols resting on top an old book. Trixie set the axe aside and in the dimness of the room without the glow of her telekinesis she needed to cast a light spell to see what the book was about. It was an old medical book and on the inside of the cover it read in flowing letters Property of Dr. Silverthread Lulamoon. Curious Trixie began to flip through the book but for the most part it was just talking about anatomy and physiology of ponies and common problems that could arise at least how the medical community thought several centuries ago but in the back of the book were many loose pages.
As she began to examine the loose documents she soon realized what they were, autopsies but not of normal ponies but of the foul things the ancients would summon or animate and as she read them she soon understood why her ancestor entered this room and killed his servants. He had believed that the has all been taken over by a creature known as a bonethief. A spindly crystalline creature that prys it’s victim's mouth open with it scythe like arms and then crawls down the throat to make itself a nice home in the abdomen where it can control the body that is now only alive in the most technical of senses.
Revulsion and fear filled Trixie as she finished her reading and looking back at the bones, the missing body now took on a more ominous edge. ‘Hnh, Just because you're paranoid doesn’t mean they aren't out to get you,” Trixie finished with a weak laugh, grabbing the notes and axe and leaving the room quickly.
Well glad to have more information on possible threats Trixie couldn’t help but feel frustrated that there was no essence there again it felt like the only thing she could do was find a sturdy wall and beat her head against it and it only took a few whacks before she remembered choosing the sealed room over the study and felt both foolish and a headache coming on for doing so.
Her grandfather’s study was much like she remembered it, bookshelves densely filled with books, knick knacks and curios, A suit of Armor from old Unicornia, a desk organized in a fashion only he could ever decipher and a great cabinet filled with all many of weapons from swords and crossbows to more modern means like firearms and in the case was a great beast of a firearm meant to be used to defend one’s self from rogue elephants and other dangers native to the continent of Zebraca.
Thinking that it would be wise to have such a grand means of defense in her possession Trixie tried to open the case but the door did not move, angered she readed the axe and swung hard at the case only for a counter spell of red energy to stop the axe an inch before contact and send her flying into the opposite wall.
Trixie sat there for a bit just counting the stars that danced in her vision, barely hearing the great axe as it was dropped by the spell’s effect. The disconnection of events from herself the blow brought was intoxicating. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime Trixie didn’t feel the pain or sadness of loss, nor any weight and expectations. The lack of all these pressures was akin to the best drugs she had ever had. But what felt like too soon the stars began to fade and her brain began reconnecting thoughts and memories.
As she tried to get back on her hooves only to stumble and catch herself on the bookshelf, as she caught her breath there her eyes looked past of all things a collected edition of Power Ponies to find another circle of power but this one with circles at the corners of a pentagon as opposed to the triangle she currently held. As she reached out for it she found that it was resting on a piece of paper. The paper was another part of the accursed tome but it dealt with augmenting the ancient’s magick to increase the power of a spell and the rune to do so.
“Hmm, Pargon eh? Well now that is interesting,” As she read over the possible application of the new found power, the text made reference to using the rune and others to dispel magick so long as the magick was stronger on equal grounds than what was dispelled.
“Stronger on equal grounds? Who wrote this a philosophy major?” Growling Trixie put the page and rune in her hat and switched out the disks and put the old one in the saddle bag and real the new circle may be nice she still needed to make some headway. Frustrated that she keeps finding herself without a direction she began to pace about the study sure that the circle and page wouldn’t be left here without a reason and that was when she began to put pieces together, whenever Ulyaoth or his cronies were shown they were blue and the section based on Righteous’ memory had a red zombie be summoned and he was aligned with Chattur’Gha, red just like the rune that was also his. “Red and blue why does that seem so familiar?” she asked herself only to wish to kick herself for being so stupid and quickly she made her way to a certain painting in the music room.
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Standing in front of it now the painting’s significance was revealed, with Trixie knowing the meaning of the red and blue symbols and being able to guess at the green one in the circle or the purple one in the center of it. “Judging by the flow of energy suggested here, red topples green which topples blue which topples red, sounds simple enough.” Smiling Trixie made her way back to the cabinet with a smile on her lips.
Standing in front of the for lack of a better word armory, Trixie readied herself and began to cast the spell, “Ulyaoth Pargon Nethlek Pargon Redgormor,” She intoned and felt the energy focus itself in the circle she wore before realising and as she saw the energies clash only for the red field to disperse. As both spells ended Trixie again had to catch herself, feeling drained from the effort was just one side effect of the alien magick, as she looked around the room any angle she saw seemed too sharp and any curve became too indistinct and blurry. She felt like she was in one of those impossible paintings full of endless staircases and infinite bars of chocolate.
Still woozy but getting better she made her way to cabinet and found that it opened easily. She couldn’t help but feel some pride in herself as she began to rummage around to look for goodies. Such goodies included the big gun but only about a dozen shells and of all things a stethoscope with a small note that read, Trixie Remember lesson four?
“Lesson four?” She asked her mind racing trying to find a memory that linked to the words and soon images of bent bobby pins and open padlocks along with an ear held firmly against a small safe. “Lesson four! Of Course!”
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With the stethoscope in her ears and the bell of the implement on the safe near the wheel and began trying to crack the safe and soon enough the safe clicked open. She pulled the safe open and found in another bell jar with a green effigy reminiscent of a some warped angel and green rune, As she picked up the jar for the barest second the world seemed wrong. Yet Trixie could put her hoof on what changed when she held it so she wasted no time stuffing it in the bag next to the claw. and the rune joined it’s friends in her hat.“Alright,” She said with a grin, “Two down one more to go and I guess also figuring out how to get to Riap-shid but details really.”
But as she turned to leave she saw standing there the last pony she could think of, her Grandfather.