The landscape whizzed by Twilight at a lightning pace as she continued her flight path, frantically pushing herself as far away from the hideous circus as she could muster. Everything passed by her in a motion-induced blur, reducing the scenery to indistinct masses of stone and marble, though even at a moment’s glance it all seemed completely alien.
When fatigue finally began to creep its way into her body, her flight path slowed itself accordingly, until she came to a full stop. Her wings beat at a leisurely pace as she hovered in place, feeling the warm air rapidly pushing in and out of her lungs as she caught her breath.
With the immediate threat of danger left behind, Twilight took the time to finally observe her surroundings. What she saw almost immediately made her jaw drop.
To say that it was the largest city she had ever seen would be the greatest understatement to have ever crossed her lips. There were great marble spires, complex networks of streets and intersections, immense aqueducts, brass smokestacks, illustrious gardens, and decaying slums; no matter how diverse the architecture, none of it showed any signs of shrinking away from the vast urban sprawl. In all directions, all the way to the horizon and beyond, there nothing but more of the same city.
Meanwhile, in the corner of her eye, a massive, horizon-spanning cloud was quickly moving in her direction. An instinctual tingling in her spine pulled her attention away from the city and towards the foreign object. That the cloud moved on its own without foreign intervention was not particularly surprising, given the clouds in the parallel human world acted in much the same way, yet there was something else that she found distinctly unsettling about it. The way that it quickly rolled across the sky seemed almost organic, like the way a living creature would move.
Twilight squinted as the cloud came even closer, and could barely make out hundreds of individual units within it, each blending together to form a singular mass. She instantly felt her heart drop into the pit of her stomach in a moment of sudden clarity.
The cloud that was rapidly approaching her wasn’t a cloud at all. It was a herd. More specifically, a herd of pegasi. Even more specifically, a herd of pegasi large enough to blot out the entire sky.
Without even a second thought, Twilight dove towards the ground, heading straight for the cover of one of the alleys underneath. As she was sandwiched between two immense stonework buildings, she instinctively backed against one of the walls and hid her face behind her wings, desperately hoping that they would somehow provide her some cover.
Everything began to grow dark, and with the thunderous sound of thousands of wings beating at once, the herd enveloped the sky. Despite her initial fear, Twilight couldn’t help but peek out from beneath her feathers to observe its passing.Though they moved by too quickly to get a close look at them, it was immediately clear that the pegasi were different from the ones in Equestria: they were much larger and leaner, and their heads appeared far more elongated than any pony native to Twilight’s home plane. At a glance, they reminded her much more of the horses that were found in the human world: more primitive and animalistic, lacking the intelligence to form an organized society. She suppressed a shudder at the thought, the idea of creatures so similar to herself being treated as common animals had never failed to disturb her.
Seconds ticked by, and the cacophony of wings and whinnys finally began to slow, the last straggling members of the herd passing overhead. Twilight exhaled sharply, letting the tension out of her body, and stood herself upright. She took a step forward, and froze in place as her hoof embedded itself in something soft, warm, and foul-smelling.
The word she shouted was normally considered an expletive, but this time it was also an accurate description of what she had stepped in.
———————
The last Ral saw of it, the unidentified creature had moved in a straight direction towards the southeast. It was far too fast for him to possibly hope to catch up to it, much less on foot, but he could make an educated guess towards where it would end up. Extrapolating from its flight path, it would soon end up flying directly into the Tenth District, where the Lyev commanded a powerful presence.
Ral’s fingers twitched anxiously, a reflexive static charge building in them. Azorius lawmages were the absolute last people he would want to deal with in a situation like this. Even in the best-case scenario, they could not possibly do anything other than get in the way.
Thankfully, Ral also had a contact in the area that was more than capable of providing information. He was a grubby sort, and not particularly bright, but if there was anyone there who would have heard talk of a bright purple equine in the skies, it would be him.
With renewed determination, Ral briskly made his way through the busy streets, towards the southeast.
———————
“Gross, gross, gross, gross, gross, gross...”
No matter how vigorously Twilight scraped her hoof against the ground, nothing could seem to shake off the crawling sensation just underneath her skin, and that was to say nothing of the smell. Desperate to clean away the filth, she lifted her soiled hoof and turned it towards her face. A small beam of searing energy shot forth from her horn and blasted away the last remnants of feces, instantly sterilizing whatever pathogens had come into contact with her.
The maneuver was met with a sharp cry of pain from Twilight, her hoof torched with so much heat that it began to glow bright red. She frantically waved her foreleg in front of her in an attempt to cool it off, eyes still watering from the blistering magic.
When the pain finally subsided, she set her hoof down, grimacing at the stinging sensation that ran up her leg as she placed her weight onto it. With a few tentative steps, the pain was reduced to a dull ache, and she was able to carry on as normal.
Stepping out towards the edge of the alleyway, she peered around the corner, careful not to go far out as to draw attention to herself. The street was as wide as some of the largest streets in Manehattan, though in place of the smoother material was a pavement made of rectangular quarried stone. All around were a patchwork of large buildings made of stone, marble, and concrete, and the thoroughfare itself was impressively crowded.
Most of those who made their way down the street were humans, though they were also joined by a multitude of others who didn’t quite seem to be human themselves. Some of them were short and hooked-nosed with greenish skin, others were unusually tall and hairless with bright blue skin, and still others were indistinguishable from humans save for their pointed ears and almost unnaturally graceful movements. Beyond that there were many more varieties of people she could see, and among them strange beasts of burden pushed their way through, carrying carts full of goods that she could only begin to speculate on. The only consistent thing about the members of the crowd was that they looked like nothing she’d seen on Equestria.
“I can’t go out looking like this,” Twilight mumbled. Everything she’d seen had shown that this world was uncaring at best and actively hostile at worst. She couldn’t afford to draw attention to herself.
Stepping back into the safety of the alleyway, Twilight’s horn ignited as she prepared a spell. Transforming herself into a true human would take spellcraft far more complex than she could manage without the Magic Mirror, but with the right amount of illusory magic she could make others perceive herself as one.
As the spell completed, she could feel her own perceptions shifting to accommodate the illusion, seeing her hooves transform into purple-hued hands. The knowledge that her body had not truly changed at all had left a minor headache lingering just beneath her skull, though it was a compromise she was more than willing to make.
“Okay, now comes the hard part,” Twilight said to no-one in particular. She stood up onto her hind legs, her quadrupedal body protesting with an uncomfortable knot in her spine, and her illusory body followed suit by standing upright along with her. The sensation caused her headache to intensify, as her actual body was still a good deal shorter than her illusory body even when standing upright. The spell altered her perceptions so that she saw solely from her false body's eyes, yet her real body still knew that her true eyes were much lower. The result was a series of conflicting sensations that caused her head to swim.
Using as much willpower as she could muster to suppress the disorientation, Twilight tentatively flexed the fingers on her illusory body, ignoring the complete lack of sensation in them. She then pressed her false hands against the familiar skirt and blouse that had materialized around her new body, observing how it pressed against the fabric. Theoretically, the illusion would be solid enough to manipulate objects, though even the slightest disruption of the spell would cause it to dissipate instantly. She would have to exercise extreme caution to maintain her disguise.
Even more worryingly, however, was that her skin retained the bright purple hue that it had in the world beyond the Magic Mirror. The humans of this world were not so colorful; the closest she saw were the blue-skinned beings that she was certain were not actually human at all.
Closing her eyes, Twilight reached into her inner magic and adjusted the spell, visualizing an appropriate color. When she opened her eyes, her illusory skin had turned to a light, sandy brown.
“I'm pretty sure that’s the average human skin tone I’ve seen here,” said Twilight. “I just hope this works...”
Moving carefully to avoid losing her balance, she stepped out and into the streets. Almost immediately, the sounds of the bustling crowd started intensifying her headache. The masses of people moving through traffic bumped into and jostled her, causing sharp spikes of pain that stood out even in the midst of the steady pounding sensation underneath her horn.
Twilight shook her head vigorously. Pushing herself through the pain, she walked among the crowd, her entire body filling with resolve. She needed to find answers; about the plane, about its culture, about everything. And in any civilization, there was always one place where that information would be kept.
Twilight turned to face a human in an elaborate white tunic passing by. “Excuse me, do you know where I can find a library?”
The man stopped to give Twilight an odd look, one that was equal parts bewilderment and surprise. After a moment, he shrugged and continued walking.
Disappointed, but far from discouraged, Twilight began turning her attention towards the other passerby. Much to her chagrin, they proved to be equally unhelpful, most of them ignoring her outright, and the few that didn’t doing nothing but giving ever more perplexed stares.
Come to think of it, quite a lot people in the street were staring. It had taken a while to notice, but just by walking past she managed to attract more than her fair share of prying eyes. A small bubble of panic welled up within her stomach, only to quickly dissipate when she looked down and realized her illusion was still holding.
There must be something else drawing everyone’s attention to her, but what it was she couldn’t say. Regardless, asking random people on the street had proven to be unproductive, and she realized that she would have to turn her focus elsewhere.
Twilight glanced around at the buildings nearby, many-storied works of architecture used for a variety of purposes. Most of them were labeled, but they were all written in a language that Twilight couldn’t understand.
There was one sign, however, that she could immediately recognize. It was wooden sign hung with metal chains on a post, just above the first-story entrance of an old stone building. Painted on its surface was a large glass mug, filled with a frothy, amber-colored beverage. Through the cracked glass windows she could see a massively long countertop with dozens of stools, and a large number of diverse patrons in various states of consciousness.
Though it was far from the ideal place to ask for directions, it was the only building in sight she knew what to expect from.
“Guess I’m heading to a tavern now,” Twilight muttered.
———————
Anthropomorph 1(w/u)
Enchantment — Aura
Flash
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature is a Human with base power and toughness 0/2.
When enchanted creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice Anthropomorph.