Seraphim

by Salacar

Chapter 8

Seraphim

Chapter 8

The actions and intentions of those who wish to do only good, to give themselves entirely to a cause they view as just, are often confused with those of a madman. How else do you describe someone who is willing to throw their life away in a fruitless endeavour, with no real hopes of actually accomplishing anything despite their greatest sacrifice?
Most rational beings would call one such mad, or a fool perhaps.

I may be one such fool.

And I’d have it no other way.

- Lysander, 3 B.NMM.

------------------------------------------------------

My breath came rapidly, the mortal heart in my chest pounding painfully fast, and all the while I had only a single thought in my mind. To find the source of the fiendish taint, and remove it. The very idea was preposterous of course, here I was, mortal body with a much weakened soul, broken sword arm and without access to any of my Miracles. To believe that I’d have any chance, against anything stronger than a few Imps, was nonsense.

So why had I told Crystal Heart to stay at the tavern, strapped on my new armor-pieces, followed the trail of fiendish energy, and ended up at one of several tunnel entrances in the quarry? I instinctively knew that if I continued, followed the trail to its end, and found the Fiends responsible, that I would die. There was no way around it, with the level of fiendish residual taint I could sense, it would simply be too much for me to handle.

Yet my legs kept moving, taking me inside the dimly torch-lit darkness, closer and closer to my inevitable end. For all of my fear, my understandable feeling of dread, I simply couldn’t make myself turn around and leave for a safe place.

It wasn’t that I had no control, not that I was someone’s puppet on a string. I just couldn’t stop myself from doing what I was doing; a small piece of me knew that I would almost certainly die. Yet a larger piece, perhaps a remnant of my Ascended will, was making it impossible for me to take any other course of action.

And for some unexplainable reason, it just felt right.

I walked for a while like this, lost in my own thoughts, in my determination and fear alike, the tunnel growing darker the further in I walked, the further I came towards my goal and the further I came from the almost beckoning light of the sun outside.

It gave me time to think, to try and rationalise the presence of Fiends on this plane and world so soon. I couldn’t believe that they had found me so quickly, there was simply no way for any being short of an Archfiend or one of the Seraphim to do so, and I very much doubted Ezekiel would even waste his time trying to find me, if he even knew I still lived.

Same thing with the nine Archfiends, even if they knew I hadn’t died in Elysium, my very existence would simply be too far beneath them for them to even bother noticing me. They would view me with the same insignificance one would an insect.

So unless my Balor hunter had made a deal with an Archfiend, which was entirely unlikely considering the nature of such ‘deals’ between Fiends, I could say with some certainty that at the very least these Fiends weren’t here for me, and that it was just unlucky happenstance that they chose to appear in this area.

Realising all this obviously didn’t make my situation less dire, but it also meant that the chances of me running into a certain Balor were almost nonexistent.

As I rounded a corner, continuing my stride down another gloomy illuminated tunnel, I found my thoughts drifting to Crystal Heart. She was the first creature on this plane to show me kindness, friendship even, and I knew that she was partly the reason I had found myself unwilling to leave the fiendish presence alone.

I had promised to take her home, promised to be a friend to her, and I’d sooner see my soul burning in eternal agony in one of the Lower Planes than let any harm come to her. Something I knew would certainly come to pass if I let Fiends gain a foothold in Equestria. I knew that telling her to stay at the tavern had been the right thing to do, I just hoped that she would do so and not attempt to follow me, my excuse for leaving had been less than believable, and I had never been a good liar to start with.

Was I wrong in my actions? I knew that if I died down in the quarry, if I fell to the Fiends I were pursuing, that I wouldn’t be able to keep my promise to her, and that she would most likely be saddened, if not heart-broken, by my death. It was the strongest uncertainty I carried, yet I still felt that I had to do what I was doing, and I felt terrible for feeling that way.

A putrid stench brought me out of my thoughts, causing my head to whip around to spot something rather out of place. It was an opening in one of the rocky walls, obviously new and without the tell-tale signs of pony influence, looking more like a roughly dug tunnel created with teeth and claws. Judging by the lack of torches, and the stench and trail of fiendish energy, I knew that I had found what I was looking for.

Without hesitation I picked one of the nearby torches from the wall, edging closer to the opening, doing my best to silence my footsteps.

What I saw when I approached filled me with anger, making me tighten my grip on the wooden torch painfully.
It was the body of an earth pony, a young brown stallion who had obviously been one of the workers in the quarry mines. His corpse was covered in deep wounds, ugly lacerations still seeping his lifeblood into the rocky ground beneath him. He had been killed recently, and by Imps from what I could discern.

The sight brought me so much anger that I barely noticed when a faint shimmer encompassed his form, ethereal energy gathering above him in the spherical shape of a Soul, glowing a softly white light down on its former physical vessel.
It hovered there for a few moments, almost in uncertainty, as if it could not decide in which direction it was supposed to go.

Then, it started floating towards me, a ghostly tail of white light in its wake, ever so gently making its way towards the only other living thing in its vicinity. The sight confused me, for all of my knowledge and experience, I had no way of knowing what a soul would do if it could not return to the Flame of Life like it was supposed to, no way to return to the natural cycle of rebirth.

My confusion lasted only another moment, as a purple mass of goo fell from the ceiling, encompassing and devouring the pony soul within its form.

I almost roared in indignation, but I managed to keep painfully silent as I watched the spectacle before me, the purple creature shifted on the ground, slowly taking on an almost amorphous shape of a featureless pony. The entire thing disturbed me greatly, but I already knew what this being was.

A Hollow harvester, a soulless construct created by Fiends to absorb and gather the souls of the recently dead, giving them no chance to return to the Flame of Life. The Hollow would take these souls and bring them to their master; their master would then extract the souls and use them either as currency in the Lower Planes, or for creating new Fiends as minions.

The sight sickened me, and I wanted nothing more than to destroy the abomination and rescue the soul it had so unjustly taken, but I also knew that its presence was a gift in disguise. Hollows never had any real intelligence, and they would always return to their master after collecting their bounty, incapable of holding more than a single soul at a time. All I had to do was follow it back to its lair, and I’d have found what I had been looking for.

As I watched the Hollow shuffle into the tunnel, clumsily bringing along the body of the dead earth pony, I suddenly realised what the Fiends were most likely doing here so soon. They were investigating the plane, gathering souls as samples to discern the relative power of its inhabitants and the value of a possible invasion or individual operation. The possibility gave me somewhat renewed hope, it meant that it was unlikely that they had brought along any real fighting force, unneeded as they were for a simple ‘prospecting’ mission.

It was with this line of thought that I felt a grim smile come to my lips, following after the Hollow as it made its way into the barely human-sized tunnel, the single torch my only source of light. We walked for several minutes, taking a few twists and turns inside the crude tunnel network, until finally the pathways started growing slightly bigger and more refined, the Hollow disappearing through a larger opening with the corpse still in its clutches.

I could hear the movement of several creatures from inside of what turned out to be a large almost spherical natural cavern, a multitude of dimly glowing blue crystals jutting from the ground, not providing nearly enough light to illuminate the ceiling or far corners of the cave.

Inside the cave, several more Hollows were milling about, entering or exiting through various other tunnels, the ones with souls to deliver heading for the centrepiece of the cavernous room, a 5 feet tall, 3 feet wide jagged purple crystal. I instantly realised what it was, a Soul Crystal, and a very large one at that.

The Hollow I had been following was dragging the dead pony towards a corner, and when I peaked around to find out where it was going, I almost charged into the cave out of sheer indignant anger.

It deposited the corpse by a pile of at least a dozen dead ponies; all of them earth ponies who had been working the mines, each of them with brutal lacerations covering their pale dead forms. A menacing cackle brought my attention to the other inhabitants of the open space; above on the cavern walls were a multitude of imps, perching lazily like the disease-ridden vultures that they were, apparently finding great joy in seeing their kills being gathered inside the chamber.

It took all of my considerable willpower to not rush into the room, wanting nothing more than to replace those smug laughs with shrieks of pain and fear. To bring justice to the lives of those who had been so wrongly murdered at the claws of these unholy creatures.

But I didn’t, I realised that it would be paramount to suicide, as not only did I only have the use of a single arm, but the Imps would be able to use their flight for superior mobility, with myself being effectively grounded due to the condition of my own wings.

So what was I supposed to do?

I tried my best to come up with a plan of action as I watched the Hollow I had followed make its way to the center crystal. As the amorphous pony came into contact with it I saw how the Hollow and crystal glowed a bright purple for a short moment, before the soul was absorbed by the Soul Crystal, leaving behind the harvester in its original form, that of a dark purple slime.

Drawing my gaze away from the disturbing sight I glanced around the cave, counting no less than ten visible Imps in the area.

‘Hardly a challenge if my powers were still intact.’

But they weren’t, and it was unlikely that they’d reappear any time soon. It’s not like it really mattered though, I had not expected to return to the surface alive after all. That wasn’t going to stop me from killing as many of the repulsive Imps as possible, or freeing the unjustly captured souls of Old Stable.

I was just about to summon my longsword when I heard a scratching sound from the tunnel behind me, just barely spinning around in time to catch the claw of an Imp on my new vambrace, the attack surprisingly leaving only a shallow scratch on its surface. Using the remaining momentum I continued my spin, catching the Imp on the side of its head with a powerful kick, sending it crashing into the wall next to it with a loud thump, its dark blood painting the stone in crimson paint.

With a low growl of annoyance I summoned my sword, grasping it in my left hand as I turned back to the cave entrance next to me, already hearing screeches and wing flaps of activity. They knew I was there if nothing else, but making my stand in the narrow tunnel would severely limit their mobility, removing the advantage of their wings. I just hoped they’d be stupid enough to actually try and charge me.

They were, and they did. No sooner had I readied myself by the entrance before an Imp came rushing through, quickly finding itself decapitated as my prepared attack severed the head from its body, spraying fiendish blood into the already foul smelling air.

With a few swift steps I put some distance between myself and their point of entry, doing my best to summon any and all of my Ascended powers to strengthen my body. I only got a single second of breathing room before the Imps were inside the tunnel, so eager in their pursuit of killing me that they hadn’t realised the cramped space they were in, effectively making the first two Imps to reach me incapable of anything but flailing their limps uselessly in the narrow confines. A quick slash from my blade and I opened the throat of the closest on, continuing the movement into a cleave which gave the other Imp a grievous wound across its torso, and with a frontal kick I sent it sprawling back towards the rest, pinning another Imp to the ground in its painful thrashing.

The other Imps had managed to get a grip on the situation, creating some semblance of a strategy by alternating between attacking once, and then swiftly retreat to allow another to get into reach. It was working surprisingly well, and I had to spend all of my time deflecting or dodging the fast attacks, incapable of countering effectively before my opponent was replaced by another, their smaller size making it easier for them to reposition themselves.

I was fighting a losing battle, and I knew it. The only advantage of being defensive was that I was able to avoid taking any serious damage, parrying the single attacks with my blade or catching them on my hardened vambraces.

‘I can’t go on like this, I need to get through!’

At that point I had only one objective in mind, to get to the Soul Crystal and free the souls inside, at the very least denying the Fiends their price, and allowing the ponies of Old Stable to discover something was wrong and mount a defense somehow.

With a roar of anger, adrenaline rushing through my body, I charged recklessly forward, earning myself a painful claw to the face, but also managing to cut down my surprised attacker in my sudden move. Its dying screeches filling me with grim determination. Another step forward and a second Imp sank its teeth into cast of my broken arm, causing me to wince with pain but also giving me the opportunity to stab my blade into its heart, kicking the dead Fiend away from me afterwards.

At that point the remaining Imps were looking less sure about their situation; they obviously weren’t used to fighting something which didn’t have any regard for its own life or well-being, and with great haste they evacuated the tunnel, returning to the cave from which they came.

Without hesitation I burst through the opening, unwilling to let the Fiends escape my righteous fury, all pretense of being able to get out alive gone.

I managed to graze one of the Imps, leaving a trail of blood dripping from a wound in its leg, before they all managed to take to the air, returning to the various outcroppings of the cave walls, screeching at me in their anger. Realising that they had gone out of my reach I yelled my fury back at them with all the sound I could get from my hoarse throat.

“Come down here you soulless cowards! I’m going to kill every single one of you, if it’s the last thing I do!”

With pure fury fueling my actions I lashed out at the closest thing I could get at, a Hollow in its base form, which burned away into black ash as the last of my soul’s strength seeped into my blade, causing it to glow a hotly white. Ignoring the shrieks of protest from the Imps above I cut down another Hollow, then a third and a fourth, destroying Fiends the only thing I could think of as I lost myself in the depths of mortal human emotions for the first time.

Which is also why I failed to notice a flying Imp above me before it was too late, a solid rock the size of a large fist colliding with the top of my head, sending me reeling in agony to the ground with a painful gasp and grunt.

My vision was going black, I could taste blood in my mouth, the entire world was spinning and even the dim light in the cave was painful to my eyes, the mocking cackles of the Imps around me causing my head to throb in the throes of the sudden concussion. Brought somewhat back to my senses I managed to stagger back on my legs, gathering all of my will to somehow ignore the reactive signals of my brain telling me to lie back down. And with heavy painful steps I started making my way towards the purple crystal, clutching the hilt of my sword with all of the strength I could muster, the light of its blade growing brightly in intensity until golden flames started licking its length, every last ounce of my being pouring into it.

With rapid gasps and darkness quickly encroaching on my vision I moved towards the crystal, the sounds of my surroundings suddenly sounding far off. I only barely noticed the black shape of an Imp diving towards me from above, claws outstretched and ready to sink into my soft flesh, shredding and ripping me apart.

Just seconds before it collided with me I saw a green light from outside my vision, the Imp suddenly bursting into brilliant emerald flames, sending it shrieking to the ground.

I ignored it, ignored the sound of dying Imps, the unfamiliar buzzing of insectoid wings, green light and flames exploding all around me, incinerating the Fiends in blazes of fiery death. I ignored it all.

The only thing on my mind was the crystal in front of me, every step taking me closer to my goal until I finally stood less than five feet from it. With a last mighty surge of strength I lunged forwards, stabbing the blade of golden fire into the Soul Crystal housing the spirits I had sworn to liberate from their dreadful fate.

The crystal burst with a great bright light, blinding me to my surroundings and sending new stabs of pain through my body. From the destroyed mass of crystal came a host of souls, rushing out of their prison towards freedom.

My last conscious thought before I blacked out was a realisation, as the Soul Crystal burst and the souls were freed, I noticed that they were all surging quickly towards one point.

With the Flame of Life destroyed and no other place to go, the souls of the deceased would likely seek out the closest thing they could associate with the Flame, a product of its essence.

‘Me…’

Then, the immortal souls of more than a dozen earth ponies smashed into me.

I never even noticed when I hit the floor.

Comments

[Rust]

CLIFFHANGING BASTARD!

[Salacar]

917110

Problem, Rust?

[Mad Pancake]

So she finally changed to her "true form" hmm?
Also, are the notes from the beginning of some chapters Lysander's thoughts from the time of the chapter, or his recollections from after all the stuff has happened?
Also, will we see Nightmare Moon's birth, or will this end before it?
Wait no, both would be spoilers, nevermind.
dl.dropbox.com/u/12875849/reactions/1310022563953.jpg

[Salacar]

917477

Must...resist....urge....to spoil!

Without saying too much, this first story will take place over a few years

[TheTownCrier]

Hmm. I wonder, will this augment his soul?