//------------------------------// // Chapter Fifteen, Questionable: Plot information. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -???- “Have you found the information on ‘The End of Immortality’ yet?” We have been searching for clues, when all there were was rumors. One thing was for certain, the rumors yielded substantial evidence to the existence of a being known as ‘The End of Immortality’ that could put an end to all gods. We wanted that power and were willing to do whatever it took to free this being from wherever they were sealed. From there we would ask this being to destroy the gods of the world by making them all mortal, for we would be taking away the very thing that allowed their continued stranglehold on our world. Should ‘The End of Immortality’ refuse to help us, then we will just have to strip their power from them and use the power towards our own end. Every god’s immortality, once ripped from them, will leave them vulnerable to blades, cannons, poisons and all manner of things. They may be mighty, but they will bleed until they breathe their last and those loyal to them will not be able save them from doing so. The immortal that we plan to make fall first will be Princess Celestia, this will be followed swiftly by her niece Cadence and then we will sweep the world of gods and goddesses. Both the sun and moon will be back in control of us mortals and not just one flawed being who sits on her throne pretending to guide us all to salvation. Once free ‘The End of Immortality’ will end the reign of Celestia one way or another, but with the Sun Priest active we may fail in our objective to finally rid this world of alicorns and any other gods that may exist out there. To that end we were funding a stallion known as Dr. Caballeron to search for an artifact called ‘The End of Immortality’, we have not told him a description of the artifact in question. Only that it is powerful and can destroy that which is indestructible. He will not know that it is a living being that he is looking for. “I have sufficient evidence that the first clue to finding the location of ‘The End of Immortality’ is in a monk temple built high up on a mountain peak, but it is not just any monk temple. It is a temple built on hatred, the cold and nightmares.” The stallion started off. His greyish brown coat and swept back dark blue black mane were a unique look. His bright green eyes were filled with greed and it fits as his talent for finding ancient treasure was quite well known to us. “Specifically, they are a cult of monks that worships the dark goddess of the moon. If I am to approach them then I want to be paid upfront so that I can enjoy the money before I go off to an… uncertain fate.” “We will pay you, but should you not return with the information you will not be getting any more from us, we are willing to pay for every scrap of confirmable evidence you receive.” Should this Dr. Caballeron betray us, he will find out that it is wrong to have crossed us quite quickly. “We will be double checking your evidence of ‘The End of Immortality’ to make sure it is valid, you have three strikes. Stop trying to deceive us at two and you’ll be safe. Continue past and onto the third strike, then we will cease paying you anything. Not only that, we will actively send someone to hunt you down should you choose to pursue this artifact for yourself and your own ends. You will never know peace or find a place of safety.” “I am quite trustworthy. That is… as long as I am being paid to be.” After Caballeron turned about and started to leave the room. We will be watching you Dr. Caballeron, do not disappoint us. Now we were going to turn our attention to the Sun Priest, since she is seeking to stop us we need to eliminate her before she discovers what we are looking for. She would protect the gods and against all odds, she might even succeed given how powerful she is. We could not allow that to happen! How to go about killing her though? The priestess is quite a powerful being, she was quite capable of so many things and doing the impossible is something that Sun Priests are known for. At least before they were all supposedly purged from the world. Apparently becoming a Sun Priest was not related to genetics, as such they can never be permanently stamped out. We can still at least stamp out the one Sun Priest that we knew about. She has yet to be sent a Moon Priest protector, but it was only a matter of time and the Sun Priest powers must have been growing stronger by the day. -Jade- “Atchoo.” Grilled Cheese sandwich… mmmm… tomato soup to go with it. Also Fizzle drizzled in… chocolate sauce? That doesn’t seem right, chocolate sauce does not go on ponies and that’s very unhygienic. Also Fizzle would taste awful, because meat and chocolate don't mix. Also I don’t want to eat a pony. Can I please get something different that’s on the menu? Alright, a swimming pool full of strawberry sauce and vanilla ice cream! That’s more like it and to my taste, oh and we’re having a pool party with all my friends and family. This is going to be so sweet… now if only we all had super spoons or mighty sporks big enough to eat it all. Forget it, I’m just going to jump straight into it and start eating anyway! -Fizzle- Fluffy kitty, beautiful kitty, wonderful ball of fur~. Happy kitty, lovely kitty, purr, purr, purr~ … for me. Light up my night Jade, keep making my life shine with your antics and bring the sun into the darkness that used to be my world. Why yes, I do want to be share a smoothie with you, thank you for asking. Do you also want some tasty snacks kitty? Yes, you do! After you’re finished, I want to see what you’ll do with a yarn ball. -Cheerilee- “I wonder what they’re dreaming about.” The two were snuggled together comfortably, I shook my head and turned back to Mr. Quetzalcoatl. “Anyway that’s what Dyscalculia is and Jade has a mild or moderate form of it. I even brought a sampling of her math to try and go over it with her.” “May I see it friend Cheerilee?” From what I know of gods, they generally just call people mortals unless they feel you are a friend and then the inflection becomes far warmer. Mr. Quetzalcoatl was a very bright god to be acquainted with and the inflection sounded just fine to me. “You may, let me grab it first.” I climbed into the wagon a made sure to avoid the two sick girls resting, I didn’t want to wake them prematurely. Grabbing Jade’s last math worksheet, which looks like an eldritch abomination got a hold of it and I wasn’t overstating that, I got back off the wagon while thinking of the things Jade was good at. Her writing seemed to be hit or miss, but it was generally good as she liked literature and reading well enough. She was a big fan of all kinds of adventurous stories, though I would have preferred it if she laid off the comic books even if they were literary marvels in their own way. With her magical alchemy abilities, she could actually become a super hero though. Her science was often weird, but then again her magical alchemy kind of eschews things for her as it was a science currently unique to her family. I’ll give her a pass on that, mostly since she can break the laws of physics with a griffon feather by ceasing her momentum entirely, without injury, to jump off the air itself. As long as it didn’t involve chemistry which requires either a good grasp of chemicals or math, then Jade was good at understanding most science. History is an odd thing, she seems to sporadically know a bit about everything and knew a decent bit about Abyssinia and its capital Panthera. She knew a lot about her home town of Palicoast, but not much really happened there. Where she really shined was in her knowledge of the various histories of deity’s like Mr. Quetzalcoatl or Ms. Sekhet. Math was an odd subject to watch Jade try and parse her way through. Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division were simple for her. Throw in fractions, solving for P, complicated equations and anything higher like an equation that needs ‘Ponies Excel Modestly Despite Awful Situations’ and she suddenly starts messing up. It boggles the mind that she does perfectly fine at geometry, she even corrected me three times on my geometry math and that was completely amazing for her! I gave the test paper over to Quetzalcoatl’s large left wing while explaining the rules of math that Jade knew and the problems she was having. He looked over it for the next ten or so minutes silently, before looking at me with confused expression. “Well let me just say this, Jade is never going to be good at math. If you needed magical explosion that destroys the entire world, then she’d definitely be the one to turn to.” Okay, was there something that you just have to say about this Mr. Quetzalcoatl? Consider my attention squarely set upon you and your intelligence about Jade’s issues, I was a teacher willing to listen about any issues her students may have. “She can learn all she wants about math, but you can’t make it stick. What she is doing is writing magical equations that could cause anything from an immediate or a slowly worsening magical apocalypse, to time unraveling to the point of turning it all back on itself. The time thing would turn back on itself multiple times in large knot where past, present and future would meet together to cause a singularity event that destroys every existing timeline or dimensional parallel of this very world. She can literally write an answer to an equation so horribly, that it can possibly wipe out all of existence.” “Is that all?” That didn’t sound so bad, at least I would be able to have time to purchase a cake before or during the end of everything. “There’s even the small possibility of just making the current controller of the sun drop their cake on the ground and stomp it into the dirt while decrying it as the worst tasting food in existence. They will then proceed to go on to destroy every cake in existence and start wars to make absolutely sure that they end every cake in existence. I’m pretty sure it would end with all the bakers having their minds erased of being able to make cake, all cake recipes being destroyed and nobody being allowed to even mix the specific ingredients to even come close to making a cake ever again.” The horrifying words of Quetzalcoatl made me shiver and put my tail between my hind legs. That was the most horrible sounding existence ever, it was nothing at all like a Tuesday in Ponyville! “All of that would and only could happen, should someone actually be stupid enough try and attempt to use this math in a magical equation.” At least Cthulhu had muffins when I met him. Despite the madness he caused, he was actually pretty friendly and easy to get along with for unknowable entity of immense malevolent power. At least Celestia apologized to him and prevented him from being accidentally summoned by little colts and fillies again. A part of me kind of wants to see him again, he really knew how to throw a good tea party. “So she’s like leading a dehydrated pony to water, but they absolutely refuse to drink on the caveat that they’d kill everyone in the world.” The paper was dropped back into my waiting hooves and I was considering burning it to cinders after hearing all the horrible stuff that could happen. Celestia banning all cake and going berserk in destroying any cake related pastry being the absolute worst of them. “Exactly what her mild dyscalculia problem translates her math as being, even gods wouldn’t survive her answers to these equations. Her math skills are just that bad!” Well that didn’t sound very good, but it must be true if Mr. Quetzalcoatl was saying it. “Just try not to give her a job where complicated math is needed. Please, for all the life on this lovely world that I wish to protect, let someone else do the math for her if she does end up with such a job!” “Well now that I think of it, I don’t see a point in giving her a higher end math education.” No really, I actually had a good excuse that wasn’t related to the world losing cakes forever. “She already kind of got an idea of what kind of job she wants and she’s already pretty good at it and it doesn’t require much math at all.” “Are you talking about her job as a Sun Priest?” He asked me curiously. “No, I’m talking about her job as a professional O and O scenario designer.” That and I had a few other ideas as to what Jade could possibly get up to. “She could also work as a super hero if she wanted to, her mother thinks she’s going to write a bestiary and I think she’s going to be a professional do everything, except math, mercenary.” “Consider me quite relieved then.” Mr. Quetzalcoatl’s accent was still a bit hard for me to pin down as to where it came from. “Goodness knows what she could do if anyone ever gave her the idea to become an evil overlord.” -Celestia- A shiver traveled down my spine, it was like someone had threatened to destroy all the cakes in the world. I would have retaliated with my full might had that happened, as cakes were one of the things that kept me calm. Tea does absolutely nothing for me, but apparently it was important to the economy that I kept drinking it. I tried to have a vision about what caused the destruction of all cakes and I saw the most horrific sight. It was me, not the me as I am now, but the me I could have eventually become should something impossible and horrific against all nature occur. Cake Destroying Celestia’s hatred for cake was so raw and her berserker like tendency to outright destroy the sugary goodness on sight was so great, I could feel her looking my direction with a snarl on face. She hated my love of cake across the divide of time and space, I could feel her eye judging me for enjoying my comfort food while Luna was still imprisoned in the moon and every day was a trial to live through comfortably. I quickly cut off my ability to divine other possibilities, I now remembered why I stopped using my future sight so often. It always made me constantly worried and paranoid about my fourteen secret hidden cake vaults all around the castle. “The horror… all that cake...” You know what I needed right now to forget all that? Cake!