176. The Price of Knowing - Part V
“Could you explain to me one thing?”
“Certainly.”
“How in the Aspects’ name were such spells created in a world of peace-loving, colorful ponies?” Sindragosa asked as she studied the scroll she held in her claws, a spell enchanting the writing to be visible to her blind gaze.
Twilight found herself echoing the question in her thoughts, though perhaps not word-for-word. The spell was very complex, and it was a kind of magic that she had never encountered before. From what she managed to understand of it so far, it was undoubtedly fascinating… and horrifying.
The four of them were now in a circular chamber deep within the palace. It has been hours since they had written a letter for Spike to send to Brann, asking him to come to Equestria again, with archmage Khadgar if possible. Since then they had resumed speculating about who else from Azeroth could be brought back to life on Equestria. It had been a long discussion thanks to Arthas' extensive knowledge of many of Azeroth’s damned. Twilight was glad they had it, as now they were better prepared for the possibility of anybody else appearing than they had been with Sindragosa… but still, even hours later, she couldn’t help but shudder at the thought of some of the people they had talked about actually coming to Equestria.
“Although, I suppose even they would deserve a second chance,” she mused, not entirely believing her own statement.
She shook her head to banish those dark thoughts and focus on the present. Once they had finished their discussion, they left to eat and rest before the trip to the moon. Most of their friends that came with them to Canterlot had gone back to Ponyville, leaving only Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Spike, Sindragosa, and Arthas with his paladins. The plan was that they would go together with Princess Luna to the moon and explore it, searching for… whatever it was that worried Arthas.
However, before they could do it, there had to be a ritual conducted on Arthas that couldn’t wait any longer.
“You’ll be surprised how often I had similar thoughts,” Arthas told the blind dragon before Princess Celestia could answer her question. “It’s really mind-boggling how many powerful spells and other things there are in this world, when you compare it to Azeroth.”
Twilight joined Celestia in giving him an annoyed look, then turned to listen eagerly to her mentor as she replied to Sindragosa’s question.
“The origin of this magic lies in the distant past. Very distant… and little known, thanks in no small part to a certain Spirit of Chaos,” the Princess added, glancing to the side; although the circular chamber had no windows, Twilight knew Celestia was looking in the direction of the castle’s garden, where the statue of Discord was.
Sindragosa’s blind gaze followed Celestia’s. “I have questions about that one, but they can wait for a later date,” she remarked.
“From what little record of those days remain,” Princess Celestia continued, “we know that the ancient unicorns were greatly interested in all kinds of magic, and especially in the ponies’ cutie marks. As a cutie mark is an innate part of a pony’s being, their attempts in discovering their nature lead them to, unintentionally, develop the magic that would affect a pony’s soul. Being as curious as they were, those ancient unicorns would study this magic as well, inventing some… uses for it,” the Princess remarked, frowning in dismay. Shaking her head, she added “Suffice to say that in time they also created this ritual that would allow mending a pony’s soul, and while it was meant to be used to reverse the effects of that magic, it should work just as well in Arthas’ case.”
“Yes, and I have to admit that the ‘should’ part makes me a bit uneasy,” Arthas commented, then turned to Sindragosa. “Do you think it’s safe?”
“As far as I can tell,” the blind dragon replied without turning back, still examining the scroll. Arthas frowned hearing the answer, and as if sensing that Sindragosa added “Even if it wasn’t, it couldn’t possibly do more damage to your soul than you already have done yourself.”
“That’s not exactly reassuring,” Arthas told her, his brow still furrowed. “And magic like this can destroy a soul.”
“Some would say oblivion would be preferable to one such as you,” Sindragosa remarked calmly, with a hint of amusement. “No more guilt, no more shame-”
“Whoever would say that is a bucking moron!” Twilight interrupted her angrily.
She then froze, realizing she cursed right in front of Princess Celestia, and glanced back at her, embarrassed. To her relief, the Princess seemed amused by her words as she walked around the chamber lighting the small pyres in preparation for the ritual.
Sindragosa waved her claws dismissively. “In any case, the spell should work as it’s intended to, you don’t have to worry about anything.”
Arthas uttered a sigh, but apparently, her answer satisfied him enough as he didn’t press the subject further. Twilight was glad to see him reassured as she herself believed there was nothing to worry about. While she wasn’t familiar with this magic enough aside from the quick glance she took, she was confident in Princess Celestia’s assessment.
“Still, the sooner we get it over with, the better,” Twilight thought, hurrying to help her mentor with the preparations.
Standing in the middle of the ritual circle, surrounded by incense and ethereal flames, Arthas took a deep breath. He still wasn’t thrilled about what was about to happen, but the damage the projection of Illidan had done to the portion of his soul that formed the Holy Avenger needed to be reversed before it could get worse.
“Especially considering everything else my soul has gone through,” Arthas remarked.
“Are you ready, Arthas?” Princess Celestia asked from the outer border of the circle.
“Yes ma’am,” he replied, raising his forehoof.
Holy Avenger appeared before him. Arthas, who hadn’t tried summoning it since his battle with Illidan’s image conjured by the Proving Grounds, frowned. The blade was flickering as if phasing between planes, and it was broken now in the middle, the other half hovering above the hilt.
Turning his eyes to Celestia, he watched as the alicorn’s horn started to glow with golden light. Lowering her head slightly, she let out a beam of magic that struck Holy Avenger first, and then him.
Arthas shuddered as the magic enveloped him. He didn’t feel pain, but it was still a strange sensation. He could feel a warmth inside of him, different from the Light, slowly spreading. As Arthas watched, the Holy Avenger stopped flickering and appeared stable now, except that it was slowly disappearing-
“What-” Arthas gasped inside the frozen hall, watching his disappearing forehoof.
From the other side of the table, Ner’zhul turned his white-painted head to him. Bolvar, sitting on the throne, looked down. Both wore expressions of utter shock.
“Arthas?” Bolvar asked, raising up.
“I don’t-” Arthas tried to reply, watching as more of his foreleg crumbled away into nothingness. The rest of his body started to face away as well. And yet… he wasn’t afraid, nor was he in pain. As if sensing his acceptance, the process sped up rapidly, with now his chest disappearing. “I think this is-”
Uttering a yell, Arthas grabbed his head. His mind felt as if overloaded with images and sounds, and where just a mere moment ago he felt warmth, he now felt deep cold.
He was barely aware of somebody calling his name. Everything around him, sounds and touch seemed distant. Grinding his teeth, Arthas tried to break through this fog of stupor, and with great effort, he opened his eyes.
Twilight and Celestia were leaning over him; he realized that he was lying on the floor.
“Arthas?!” Twilight repeated his name, this time more urgently.
“I’m here,” he replied, raising himself up to a sitting position.
“What happened?” Celestia asked, sounding concerned. “Restoring a soul could be a draining experience, but I hadn’t expected a reaction quite like that.”
“Did it even work?”
“Yeah, it did,” Arthas replied. He pressed a hoof to his chest. “I’m… here. Fully here. The ritual didn’t just restore the portion of my soul that formed Holy Avenger, it also restored to me the part of my soul that was bound to the Helm of Domination.” He looked up to meet the two mares’ eyes. “I’m… free from the Lich King.”
Twilight’s eyes brightened. “That’s great! Isn’t it?” she asked, noticing Arthas’ troubled expression.
He closed his eyes. “Yes, of course, it’s just… I’m going to need some time to… get used to this,” he finally said, not wanting to explain further just yet.
Fortunately, they didn’t want to press him. “Of course,” Princess Celestia said. “Perhaps it would be better if we would move your trip to the moon to a further date then.”
“Yes, I don’t think I’ll be of much help, assuming I could even take part in it.”
“Well,” Twilight spoke up, concern still in her voice but now tinged with humor, “Rarity will be happy about it, she hoped she and Storm Clash could use the opportunity to go on a date in Canterlot.”
Arthas murmured something in reply, not really paying attention. He struggled to contain the maelstrom of thoughts and memories surging in his mind while not betraying that something was wrong with him; he didn’t want to worry them, especially Twilight, until he got a grip of himself.
His eyes darted to Sindragosa. The young dragon had stayed where she was, by the chamber’s wall. Her blind gaze was directed at him, her expression studious. Arthas had an unpleasant feeling that she had figured out that there was more than he had told the ponies.
Fortunately, whatever she might know she didn’t share it with them yet. Instead, she merely turned around and started to walk toward the chamber’s doors. Rising to his hooves, Arthas started to follow after her, Twilight, and Celestia.
Before he could take more than two steps, though, something grabbed him by his hind leg. Arthas stopped, barely stopping himself from falling on his face, and turned his head.
There were shackles on his leg, with a long, jagged chain. Arthas’ eyes widened as his eyes followed the chain to the dark corner of the room, the walls metallic and twisted-
“Arthas?”
Arthas shook his head and turned to Twilight. The purple unicorn was looking at him from the exit. “Sorry, just spaced out,” he said with a weak smile and trotted forward.
The door closed behind him. Arthas walked through the small quarters he was given for his stay in Canterlot, glad to be alone. He jumped on the bed and sat down, then looked at his forehooves.
Out of nowhere, flames erupted. Arthas watched as his fur caught on fire, grinding his teeth from the pain.
“This isn’t real,” he hissed as the flames spread.
Chains shot out from the walls and shackles clamped on his forehooves, pulling them apart. Arthas grunted in pain; the sudden movement would have sent him down to the floor if it weren’t for those chains holding him.
“This isn’t real!” he repeated. With great difficulty, he raised his head to look up. “You’re not real!” His eyes hardened with hatred. “You still rot in the Maw!”
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By the light this amazing story returns!
Amazing chapter as always
Uhoh, the Helmet is now free to claim a new Host?
I guess no more direct updates from azeroth
11532993
Remember the helm was/is still on Bolvars head.
Well damn, but Arthas just can't catch a break, can he?
It lives, and what an update!
Bout time a new chapter came out! Do it again bud!
Thank you so much for a new chapter) Loved it as always, You did a great job. Can't wait for more and to know what happens next ))
New chapter, great. I'll even call off the bounty hunters with orders to force him back to a computer at blaster point.
Stuff from that.... excretement called Shadowlands. Not so great.
Can we please just pretend that those expansions never happened?
Mate you are alive <3
i am so glad this story is alive so many cancelled in my favourites right now, Love your work¡¡¡
We will see who he was referring to at the end there soon
You may be free of the Lich King but the Jailer still wants his payment for the power he put into the helm and sword
I don't like the character Arthas here. Arthas isn't the good guy he is portraited in this story. He isn't even an antihero. And he ISN'T the victim. Arthas isn't a good guy, he did some bad stuff, even before he became the Lich King. He burned downed Stratholme and killed everyone in that city. He was fuelled only by his need for revenge against Mal'ganis. And when he did finally kill him, all that was left was an empty hust, made even emptier by Frostmourne. And just to clarify, when Arthas put on his crown, he merged with the previous Lich King and he eventually overcome him in influence over the new Lich King. Arthas still is the man who led the Scourge against Azeroth, he wasn't mind controlled to do so. Also, even if he was cleansed of all his evil (and there is a lot of it) he still wouldn't be able to use Light. The power of Light is gained through the belief that the Light will help you (theological belief, not just any belief) and Arthas would certainly not think himself worthy of the power of Light after what he'd done, even if only subconsciously. There is also a good chance the Light would reject Arthas and simply wouldn't give him any power, or even harm him if he attempted (it happened to Chrisalis in this story and she was way less evil then Arthas).
And that's not even mentioning that shipping her with Twilight, or anyone for that matter is extremely not fitting his character. He loved Jaina and she abandoned him at Stratholme, he would probably have some doubts before jumping into love again.
Nor have I mentioned that he is a badly written character, this story mainly focuses on character interactions, but that isn't very good if the characters themselves are lacking and uninteresting.
And don't think I will leave out authors obsession with sexualising things that really don't heve to be sexualised, nor should they be. Really the number of times Arthas gets into uncomfortable sexual situations in just few months or so is more than I have ever been in my entire life. They are also ridiculous!
🫤 I was kind of hoping you would ignore the Shadowlands fluf ... I know, I would.
But now that you did went there I wonder what will you do with it. Good luck squering that circle.
11608465
damn right.
I haven't had a chance to read this chapter until now. This year has... sucked, to put it mildly. That was shorter than I was expecting.
I'd forgotten that Sindragosa reincarnated blind here. It has been a while, after all.
I'm kind of sad that Arthas's soul is now whole in Equestria. Having a link back to the Helm of Domination had actually proved useful in getting information to and from Azeroth in the past. Now that link is gone.
Truth be told, I was hoping you would just skip Shadowlands altogether. I'd like to pretend that expansion didn't even exist given how bad everything about it was.
I... really don't have much else to say about this chapter. Just thank you for continuing to update this story as life allows. It's the one that first brought me to Fimfiction all those years ago and remains my favorite.
11575346
I think you're treating your subjective opinion as fact
11727651
I think you should go treat to some bitches. Almost anything you say about literature is opinion, just like with all art. If expressly saying "I don't like Arthas" isn't enough for you, then nothing is.
11728800
No you
11728881
Bro, I was just looking at some of my old comments, and I gotta say, that was the lamest response you could have possibly said. Now I don't want to be rude or mean, so please don't think of me as trying to bring you down or something like that, I'm saying that objectively. Out of all the responses I have gotten here (and possibly on reddit too) this one was objectively the lamest. Again, I can't stress enough that I don't want to insult you, I just want to say you should probably work on your responses. But who am I to tell you otherwise, I'm just somw guy on the Internet. For all you know I'm a forty year old bald guy living in my mum's basement.
11737621
No U
No puedo llegar a imaginar esto, quiero decir que personaje puede ser, el unico con cadenas es Kel'thuzad pero tambien puede ser uther (la parte corrupta que fue a bastión) tendre que esperar y ver si mis sospechas deben ser ciertas...
11575346
Is he though? We have WotLK, We have Warcraft Chronicles, and we have Shadowlands. And if I remember correctly, it's all contradict each other.
1) In Halls of Reflection Uther said that Arthas is basically not existing inside the Helmet. And what left from him was basically the thing that was the reason why the Scourge didn't dominated the whole world. Yeah, even after he cut his own heart to get rid of his humanity he was still fighting against the Lich King
2) In third book of Chronicles? Yeah, you're right. It says that Arthas was in charge and in full control when he was Lich King
3) Can't say much about SL though, I almost dropped the game during the expansion and not quite followed the story. But it seems that the Jailer was in charge here, controlling the Lich King's actions. Only Bolvar managed to fight him off, but he said that several times he almost failed.
So with all of that in mind I can't be quite sure that Arthas bears full responsibility for his actions. And so I can't agree with you in this.
11843429
One day I will sit down to properly convey my thoughts about this in the comments here, for now I'll just say that in regards to some of those contradictions, it almost feels like to me at some point in Blizzard they decided to make Arthas worse. Throughout Shadowlands they were basically shitting on him everytime he got brought up, ending with that god-awful cinematic, and they do not bring up anything redeemable about him.
In Exploring Northrend Muradin also only thinks bad about Arthas, even though ICC ends with him being nostalgic about the days he trained him and calls him "Brother" as he says farewell to him. Then at the book's end, when he inscribes his weapon he puts names of his brothers Magni, Brann and some frostborne dwarf but not Arthas.
In Exploring Eastern Kingdoms, they RUIN one of the best moments from Arthas' book for me, when he goes through the ceremony of becoming a paladin and the Light hesitates to bless him. When he gets the blessing he thinks that his nerves and insecurities made him think this moment lasted longer than it really was. Since it was whole from his POV, we do not know if the Light really hesitated or not. But now in Exploring Eastern Kingdoms, Mathias Shaw talks about the Light hesitating, so it really did happen, and I cannot fucking believe both books were written by the same author, how the fuck you ruin one of your best scenes?! And also Mathias shits on Arthas for Stratholme, the guy who literally says he would chose completing the mission over honor says Arthas failed at Stratholme, proving that Arthas' decision is universally considered wrong within this universe even among more ruthless characters despite how its considered mixed among the fans.
Do not even get me started on Sylvanas' book, where they portray Arthas as nothing but a cruel fool and a man-child.
It honestly feels to me that they decided that Arthas was too popular character or something and decided to write him as worse. Part of it might have been to make the Jailor seem like a bigger bad, it's often happens that when new characters are introduced the old ones are suddenly written worse to make the new ones seem better than them (looking at Star Wars sequels... and maybe my own early writings
).
If I was paranoid, I would say that somebody from Blizzard read my story and didn't like it and how I wrote Arthas
11843429
To be honest, I had and still have no clue. All that I thought I knew about the lore of WoW was from a niche Czech youtuber that probably read like three books at most. Not exactly a trustworthy source. All I really know about Arthas is from Warcraft 3 where he is a tragic hero/villain that falls for his obsession with revenge, becoming the very thing he swore to destroy. And this version of Arthas dis not match the one from 2002, that's for sure. What was once a flawed sometimes arrogant man now became a traitless protagonist with no big negative traits what so ever on the par with Harry Potter. Although I would take me with a pretty big grain of salt since it has been some time and I don't remember it much. But what I do remember is that it was stuffed with so many needlessly sexual scenes that added literally nothing with their sexualness. It was almost like today's Hollywood but instead of a one unnecessary sex scene that there purely to bump up the rating, everyone is horny for horse shaped Arthas that doesn't go by the name of Arthas for some reason and doesn't really have all that in common with Arthas (at least the one from Warcraft 3, WoW is dead to me) for some reason. It was actually the thing that made me stop reading it. The disconectness with the original characters I could put up with because it was still at least from one of favourite worlds at the time, but being horny af for no reason I could not.
Also, I find it pretty interesting that people are still responding to a year old on a twelve year old fanfic. It really shows that being negative on here is the odd thing to do and although it certainly can have downsides it is something I admire within the brony community even tho I am no longer part of it. Not many other online communities are so actively anti-negative.