Broken Magic: A Botched Summon

by hccpu

The Trend

"I need more information before I can truly make such a claim. The next closest blood sample was kind enough to be in a location of distortion to prevent time saving travel magic. As such we must proceed on foot off towards the heart of the Forest.”

“The guards mentioned a forest, you are just assuming they meant the correct one.”

Oren had not gone on a hike since gaining magic making for a nostalgic trip. “We would come here eventually and if I am right it will set us ahead of schedule.”

While technically said to Utim it was more of just thinking to himself. “This forest is not so different from the one my secret, ritual cavern is located in: lots of magical creatures waiting to attack those they know they can easily overpower; the poor lighting at all times of day; potentially poisonous plants everywhere; horrible rumors attached to said forest. A fella might get home sick.”

"You should stop enjoying yourself. This is burning precious time I hope you find something worthwhile for the risky investment, that is this journey."

Not used to having to deal with such nonstop complaints, his mood quickly was turning sour, "It is not much farther besides this place practically reeks of an orthodox wizard's familiar."

"Too bad that means your unorthodox familiar will be nowhere to be found."

"Your overflowing excitement is heartwarming, but that is not what we are here for. I agree my familiar will not have resided in this forest; the creatures here only seem to live for their freedom.” Before Utim could counter, “The answers I seek will be revealed shortly, we have arrived."

He did his prophet thing, stepping out of his body into a monochrome version of the, now still world. He watched as his body quickly hiked backwards the way he came as the sun began to travel back to what he would call east at an accelerating pace. He continued to watch time rapidly rewind until he suddenly halted it and was now 7 hours after he first arrived in this plane of existence.

He watched as armored guards descended to investigate the blood with their magic which was much easier to spot thanks to the glow that accompanied it for whatever reason. They were carried in by armored pegasus and after they were done the two unicorns shared their findings claiming that 'Princess Celestia was right'. Oren now had two near identical cases of this Princess Celestia knowing where to look for traces of where he spilled blood on landing and therefore had to know something.

Time was racing forward and he caught a glimpse of getting attacked by a wolf before he stood in the future 13 hours from when he left. He would have to wait a few minutes before he could try to deal with the wolf that would attack him moments after he returned to his body. There was no sign to indicate that he died there, so he felt there was nothing to fear as time whisked him back to where he belonged.

Upon stepping back into his body and regaining the color spectrum the wolf appeared behind him. He turned and raised his right hand to simply levitate it out of his way so he could leave the forest and be on his merry way. The runes on his left arm glowed in protest to this as the wooden wolf pounced and bit into his arm; he quickly realized what he had meant when he said, "the ruins decided he should be a battle-mage." They clearly didn't care about range but he could not use magic on anything other than himself. After freeing himself from the wolf, he healed his arm, made himself invisible, and ran.

"I can't wait to screw over past Oren like this."

It wasn't truly his fault but knowing what was going to happen and have no way to let himself stop it always made it seem like a cruel prank to his past version. One of the many reasons he tried to stop using that kind of magic.

When he finally reached the edge of the forest he began seeking the cottage where the pegasus from the picnic lived. Among other things, he had followed 5 of the 6 present to their homes in hopes of learning why he might have appeared in front of them. He didn't learn much that was helpful. One of the unicorns knew the princess and the pegasus he seeked treated the injured even though they were of a different kind. The rest of his investigating in the past was likely wasted effort. The future revealed guards examining what he now knew to be, where the incident with the pink one had taken place. He stopped healing his arm and dropped the invisibility outside her fence.

/– –/

Fluttershy was inside her home preparing lunch when for some strange reason she felt compelled to look towards her front yard. She let out a shriek when she saw the creature from yesterday practically glowing. She hid behind her hair but could still see it through closed eyes and she just couldn't look away. It eventually faded away from her vision and after allowing herself to calm down she remembered that it was bleeding. She grabbed her first aide kit and cautiously peeked out of a window to see if it was still there, it was. She left her home and meekly approached it from behind.

Before she had a chance to speak up, "YOU!" It turned to the noise to see Rainbow Dash pointing her hoof at him from the sky. It looked around and then place the non-bleeding limb on its chest.

"Yes, you. What was with attacking Pinkie Pie?" She landed and was crouched ready to tackle it again if need be.

Upon hearing this, Fluttershy hurried over to Rainbow Dash's side. It began walking over to a nearby tree.

Her enthusiasm momentarily gone, "Ugh, not this again." Rainbow was not in the mood to argue with a tree again.

It removed its hands from the tree and turned around with a good deal of blood on the right side of its face and neck. "Glad to hear you still remember me, my colorful flying friend."

Once retaking an offensive stance, she brought up the topic again. "You have some nerve showing up here after attacking Pinkie."

"Neither he nor I attacked this 'Pinkie' and I seem to recall, boss, being the one knocked to the ground. I was informed that she appeared to not even consider what happened to be a threat against her well-being. Which it wasn't."

She refused to let it off the hook that easily. "That still doesn't explain what you are doing here."

To this the tree grabbed Oren's bleeding arm and lifted it up with no complaints from the creature aside from reaching to release the bleeding arm with the one infected and covered in scribbles.

She could not help but be slightly worried at what she saw. It was not that long ago when she last saw Oren. "Did his infection get worse?"

"Very observant of you. Speaking of, how far away were you when you noticed him."

She didn't entirely get the point of the question and would have to ask Fluttershy for an explanation later. "I was already heading this way to get Fluttershy."

"Ah, just more bad luck on Oren's part then."

The comment was taken as an insult. "How is meeting me bad luck?"

"He still remains untreated and continues to bleed out while you argue with me over a simple misunderstanding."

This got Fluttershy's attention and she went to clean and bandage the wound while mumbling apologies that fell on deaf ears. There was silence between the two until the treatment was finished.

"Well it has been a pleasure, but the hour is almost up and he can't be late. Shall I tell the Princess you and your friends said hello?"

She immediately responded "No,” not wanting to be affiliated with the annoying plant.

“Suit yourself.”

She asked not sure what the strange pair might try to pull, “What are you going to do when you see the Princess?"

But the tree did not respond and where Oren was, a bush was firmly planted.

Fluttershy just looked at the shrubbery confused at what had transpired during her first interaction with the new guest in Equestria, "Rainbow, what just happened."

"It did it again!” She let out a sigh, “Whatever forget that thing, Twilight wanted me to get you so that all of us could hear the Princess's response."

With that the two headed off towards town and the library.

/– –/

Oren just finished giving his report to the lake, so that he might eavesdrop in on it using the power of the prophet.

"Now that all loose ends here are taken care of, what say we go and visit this 'benevolent ruler' Princess Celestia to see what her information network has gathered on me. Maybe she will consider not sending someone to investigate whenever you talk to someone upon meeting us in person.”

Comments

[TheScribbler]

This is confusing as fuck.

[hccpu]

1519753
Can you point out the confusing aspects so that I might attempt to remedy such issues in future with possible chapter edit

[sgtnolisten]

1519753 Which is exactly why I'm tracking it. It's not often I find a story that's confusing to hell and back yet still remains enjoyable throughout it all.

[hccpu]

1521646
Verum est, quod legitur

As Promised

and others by Carl Orff of course

[MidnightThunder]

My brain it hurts
I think I understand anyway.
P.s on a scale of 1 to 10.
How hipster do I feel for being the first person to like this story.