//------------------------------// // Le Jeux de la Vie and Der Unterschied im Unseren Magics // Story: Pandemic: Stirrings in the World of Human Magi // by Corascal //------------------------------// Four Days After Counterspell The wall behind Derek Truman was made from enchanted crystal that allowed for a view over the whole of the Swiss Alps. The American businessman was upon one of four raised observation platforms that overlooked a massive cavern lined with marble and granite that made up the bottommost layer of the massive “underground” stronghold of the Ruch magi family. He had been in this place once before, and while he had come out of it that time smelling like roses, the time he had spent there was some of the tensest he had ever experienced. After all, his in-laws lived here. “I do believe things are rather rough for you,” the woman seated straight up across from him, Liese Ruch, placed a disk with its white face up next to three of Derek’s, allowing her to flip them from black to white. Rubbing his hand on his chin, Derek knew his position in this game of Othello was bad. The board was around halfway filled, and his mother-in-law was clearly winning, with her flipped chips closely intertwined with his, along with controlling one of the corners, leaving him with few options to make big moves. It would take a long-term strategy centering around the adjacent corner in front of him in order to turn this game around. But even as he laid down his tile black side up to flip a white tile at its diagonal, he knew she wasn’t talking about the board game. “Ma’am, we’ve all been doing just fine. Connecticut barely got touched by ETS, so a lot of the infrastructure is still intact, and the plague has gotten a lot more people to buying insurance on anything and everything we can think of, so the company’s doing very well.” The sound of metallic footsteps heralded the arrival of one of the Ruch’s vaunted golems, this one bearing a more human appearance to facilitate its duties as a butler, one of which being the preparation and serving of the tea it brought along, setting it down on the opposite end of the table from the Othello board. The older woman – whose wrinkle-free face made her appear decades younger despite a full head of steel gray hair – gave a dignified snort as she grasped one of the teacups to lift to her lips, not bothering for milk or sugar. “Does this ‘we’ include your family?” She sipped her beverage gingerly. Her next disk flipped two of Derek’s. Derek could only sigh, shifting in his cushioned chair. “Well, yes and no. That’s a lot more complicated.” His next disk flipped two of Liese’s. “I think this is rather simple, actually,” Liese set down her disk along the edge, flipping five of Derek’s. “You and Perle remain human, and now Cachet and Prescott are ponies, who must decide for themselves whether they shall remain this way.” “And that is where the complications begin,” Derek replied with a sigh, weighing his next move in his mind. It was increasingly looking like she was going to win at this rate, his only chance being her making a mistake. “While the final decision as to their fate lies in their hands – or hooves, in this case – I am still Scott’s father and Cachet’s husband, so anything I say or do, or even don’t say or do will affect what they decide in the end. Remain changed, or return to humanity?” He laid a piece along the edge, flipping over two of Liese’s disks. This position, he hoped, would sow doubt and confusion in her mind, to decide between either shoring up her position at the corner she already possesses, or to move for the other corner. After the move he took a sip of the bitter brew, then placed three sugar cubes in the drink to better suit it to his palate. Liese huffed, taking another sip of her tea. “I believe you are deluding yourself as to how much power you hold over their decision-making in this case.” An emerald glow emanated from her pinky, and at the same time a tile levitated into the air and was laid but a square away from the currently contested corner, flipping one of Derek’s. “I adopted and raised that girl for thirteen years before she struck out on her own, and her willfulness has always been her defining trait. And if I’m right about what I’ve seen about Prescott, he takes more after her than you.” Derek saw how she moved without hesitation, and quickly placed his disk in its planned position, and flipped four of her disks. “And I’m the one who married Cachet, and I have been raising Scott since his birth. And I know the consequences of their potential situations better than you do.” “Really?” Liese sipped nonchalantly, as her magic maneuvered another tile along a different edge, flipping two disks and probing Derek’s position elsewhere. “Tell me then, what do you know that I don’t?” Derek places a piece along the edge as well, flipping five of hers. “Well, let’s think in terms of pros and cons. If they return to being human, the pros are that, of course, they return to their friends and family back home the same as they were before, who have all gotten out of this unscathed and unchanged. They will still be considered normal, and that will help them in adjusting to the changes in the world. The only con I can think of is that they would have to give up magic.” Liese placed another piece along the same edge, flipping one of Derek’s. He continued. “If they chose to remain ponies, the pros would of course be that they get to experience something new and amazing in their lives, and they get to explore magic. It also gets to allow the two of them to better relate to you and your family.” Liese smiled, even as Derek placed another tile and flipped a pair of Liese’s, inching closer to a different corner. “On the other hand, if they stayed, we would face a lot of difficult situations and decisions. We would have to adapt our lifestyle to accommodate for being different species. We might face pressure to change from our friends and family and coworkers, and with that will come hostility and even rejection. There’s next to no ponies in the community we live in, so they would have a lot fewer people to better relate to, and if we wanted to live near other ponies, we would have to pull up stakes and move, which is a hassle and a half in even the best of times. And who knows what else we would have to endure?” Liese let him finish speaking, continually drinking more tea. After he finished his last line, she responded. “And now, you are deluding yourself not only as to what you can and cannot do for your wife and child, but also as to the entire point of their final decision.” She then placed a tile in the corner, flipping three of Derek’s pieces in the process, and destroying any hope the man had for victory in this game. “I may not fully understand the magic behind the plague, but it changed your wife and son’s minds as well as their bodies. They now subconsciously think being a pony is normal, even if they are consciously aware of how they have been changed. And that is without even taking the visions they received into account. What did their visions show them, anyway? Did they tell you?” Liese had control of not only the center of the board but also two opposite corners, which meant her victory was ensured. At this point, Derek no longer cared for victory, and was resigned to continue playing until the end. His next disk flipped two of his opponent’s. “Scott told me that he was playing in a field nearby a town with other children, colts and fillies, earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns. Later, he was called home to help prepare the house for unexpected guests from out of town. After the family arrived, he made friends with one of the foals that came to stay, and they played. At the end of it, a white… alicorn, was it? She asked him what he had learned. And he said that the most important things in life were friends and family.” Liese took another sip, her cup getting low. The next tile she put down flipped five of Derek’s. “That’s rather standard, from what I’ve heard regarding these visions. And what of Cachet?” Derek allowed himself a smirk while he placed a tile that flipped two of Liese’s. “In her vision, she was building new tools for a local shop, and then she noticed a commotion outside where a pair of wagons had crashed into each other, and their drivers were arguing. She helped settle the argument, and then fixed the wagons. After each of the disputed parties awarded her with items from their carts, she returned to her job, and in the evening, she went to the local bar and enjoyed a good time.” “And this is the part where the white alicorn appeared, correct?” Liese’s next chip flipped three of Derek’s. Her tea was getting low, so she poured some more for herself. Derek’s smirk became more pronounced, and a giggle threatened to burst out. “Yeah. And would you forgive me if I gave you an exact quote of what she said?” Liese’s mouth twisted in a very odd way, that seemed to embody both aristocratic disgust and elderly nostalgia. “I know what language comes out of my girl’s mouth. An unfortunate side effect from the years under her sire.” His next disk flipped over only one of Liese’s. “She said, ‘Shut up. I’ve had it up to here with your stupid sunshine and rainbows crap. Fuck you, and your fucking priorities. Now get the fuck out of my head you fucking milk white horny ass.’” For a moment, it seemed as though Liese couldn’t decide what to express about what she was feeling. In the end, she just sighed. “No matter how hard I tried, that girl never did lose the taste of salt. I can only hope that she hasn’t passed it on to her children.” Derek’s smirk turned to a warm, yet awkward smile. “You can rest assured that Cachet has… refrained from using that kind of language in front of the children.” Liese raised an eyebrow. -- Meanwhile, in the identical observation deck opposite to Liese’s and Derek’s, Adalheid Ruch and Cachet Truman were enjoying some father-daughter bonding. “OW! SON OF A BITCH THAT HURT!” The lime green unicorn clutched at her wild black mane, furious that her adopted father had successfully ripped out yet another chunk of hair from it, despite her best efforts to prevent it. Her bearded human parent just kept smiling as he sighed. “I will keep telling you that you need to focus better until you get it right.” Cachet responded with a murderous glare highly uncharacteristic of her largely pacifistic species. “AND HOW THE FUCK IS RIPPING OUT MY MANE SUPPOSED TO HELP ME FOCUS BETTER? HUH?!” “If you don’t want me to pull out more hair, then you need to cast your telekinetic anti-magic barrier, and for that you need better focus,” he explained gently, as he continued relaxing in his chair, reading his leather-bound book. The title on the cover was The Archidoxes of Magic, and below it the author’s name: Paracelsus. Gritting her teeth in frustration and anger, Cachet lit her horn and tried to cast her levitation spell on her adopted father and lift him up to maybe toss him around a bit. But just like before, her spell failed to grasp him, as his barrier made her magic slip right off of him, frustrating her even more. Then she saw his left eye glow lavender, and then she scrambled, looking back at the notes laid out in front of her, trying to remember the runes- “YIPE!” Then a lavender glow enveloped her tail and yanked her into the air, dangling her so that her flailing forehooves were only a few inches away from the ground. “PUT ME DOWN YOU MOTHERF-” The glow disappeared, and she landed square on her muzzle. “AUGH! WOULD YOU CUT IT OUT ALREADY! WHAT’S YOUR FUCKING DEAL, MAN?” Adalheid Ruch could only sigh, finally deciding to put down his book and get off his chair to sit on the floor to talk to his ponified girl. “I’m sorry, my sweet. I know I’m being rough, but I don’t have a lot of time to teach you the magic you need to know before you leave again.” The young mare looked up at him unhappily. “I didn’t ask for a literal crash course in magic.” Adalheid chuckled. “I said something very similar to my father when he started teaching me magic. You’re lucky you didn’t have to go through facilitation in order to use magic.” Her face became deadpan. “I had to become a completely different species to get to use magic. I think that’s a little more stressful than facilitation.” “Hmph. You went through the process in only a few days. It took me a few months of constant pain to be able to use the magic I have now. And I didn’t a cute new huggable body out of it.” He then suddenly snatched her with both hands, pulling her into his embrace. “Hey! Let me-” Then he started to tickle her belly despite her squirming. “Noho! No-heh! Stop it! Stop it! Ha! Hahaha! Stop it, please! HAHAAHAHHA! STOP!” Then one of her rear hooves bucked him in the gut, making him let go and double over in coughs and sputters. She gasped, and immediately tried to help him. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Did I hit anything serious?” He held up a hand, still catching his breath, and got back up from his knees to his feet and returned to his chair. His daughter propped herself up on his knees and looked up at him worryingly, a stark contrast to how she had been looking at him just moments ago. “Are you okay, Papa?” The man smiled wearily. “Yes, I’m fine.” He reached his hand out to her face to caress it, and she leaned into it, smiling sweetly as she enjoyed the feeling of his fingers in her fur. He continued, “You have always been such a sweet little girl, deep down, even when I first found you back in Bern.” Cachet moaned in comfort. “I was such a brat, then. Still am, sometimes.” “You’ve been a bad girl, then,” he joked, as he withdrew his hand. “It’s the children’s job to be bratty, not their mother. Even so, you had lived a hard life and then suddenly thrust into the lap of luxury. My lap, especially.” The pony chuckled at this, and then climbed into it, sitting so that she was eye level with him. “It’s a comfy lap. Well, it was a lot comfier when I was younger.” “You were a lot smaller when you were younger,” Adalheid huffed, the mass of his pony daughter weighing heavily on his body. He lightly pushed on her, and she thankfully took the hint to get off of him, allowing him to stand up. He then strode over to the edge of the observation platform, looking down into the arena. Cachet joined him, and looked down where her two children were playing. In the arena, Perle and Prescott were playing a game of soccer with two of the Ruch family servants, a butler and maid named Johannes and Hilda. Both pairs were accompanied by nine golems to fill out the rest of the positions for both teams, the Truman children’s side in green, and the servants’ side in gray. Perle, being human, was of course taller than Prescott, and thus served as their team’s goalie, while Prescott served as one of the forwards to attack the other side, while the butler and maid took those respective positions for their team. For a moment, Cachet wondered how they were able to make an actual soccer field, complete with grass and lines, in such a short time. Then she remembered that the arena floor was covered by a vast, enchanted crystal mesh that could be manipulated to imitate almost any material and environment. Looking to the side of the arena, to the control pillar, she found Ecke Opitz, the head bodyguard of the Ruch family, manipulating the controls for the field. Turning back to the field, she watched the sky blue form of her earth pony son weave his way through the other team’s golems before being confronted by the much taller and longer-legged human maid Hilda. The two maneuvered the ball between each other, trying to get control of it to pass to their automated teammates, which moved an reacted in a very human way to the procession of the game. “I see my golems are still up to par,” Cachet said with pride. Adalheid beamed as well. “We’ve managed to get by, but we’ve yet to find anyone with a talent for making golems like you did. At least you left behind your notes for us to follow when it came time to make more, we would have lost a lot of time trying to just replicate your instruction. Lotte is still annoyed that a ‘muggle’ is superior in the creation of golems than she is.” Cachet smirked. “Heh. She can go shit bricks. Even the robots I make are better than anything she can make.” Adalheid’s smile vanished. “You may want to take back those words, considering one fact that your sister discovered, while she was researching with a few ponies connected with our family over the last two days.” Cachet looked back at him, concerned. “What did she find out?” Adalheid looked to her. “She was working with the ponies to experiment with some of the magical theories that the Families have been coming up with over the centuries that the Locks have prevented from being tested out. It was during one of these sessions that one of the unicorns present noticed something odd. After some testing, they were able to confirm that the unicorn was completely unable to detect any of the magic that Lotte cast.” Cachet’s eyes widened in shock. “Really? The unicorn couldn’t detect any of her magic? What about other humans? Other ponies?” Adalheid shook his head. “They checked, thoroughly. Unicorn, pegasus, earth pony. Golems, telekinesis, ley lines. No matter the kind of pony, no matter the nature of magic, so long as a human cast that magic, a pony cannot detect it, unless they directly see it being cast or in effect. We don’t know about the alicorns, but we suspect that it will be the same with them.” “How is that possible?” Cachet wondered. “I know that it takes really elaborate spellcasting to prevent one magi from detecting the magic of another magi, so I can’t imagine what it would take to hide the magic of an entire species from another. Are there any leads on this?” “None,” Adalheid replied. “We have theories, from the 1900 years of the evolution of human magic to something specific about the thaumic field of this universe, or even something to do with the Roman Contact itself, but that’s all we have. Theories.” Cachet was quiet, as she processed this thought. “Well, it looks like you guys can keep on hiding for a little while longer, until you’re finally ready.” “And that includes those who would wish us all ill, Cachet,” Adalheid spoke gravely, kneeling down to look her in the eyes. “You may have lived under my roof for more than ten years, but there are things I haven’t told you about this world.” “I always kind of suspected as much,” Cachet said. “You’re only human after all. Somebody’s probably done something shady with magic at some point in time.” He grasped her head and gazed into her eyes with his own, darkened orbs. “But you have not seen any of it. I have. Inhuman experiments and dark spells that twist men body and soul. Indescribable abominations and eldritch horrors that haunt the deep places of the world. The Families’ desire to keep our existence secret has prevented these things from seeing the light of day. But there are forces at work that will become emboldened like never before, because of the arrival of the ponies. They will- no – they see a golden opportunity in front of them. They will seize it. And one day, one of them will ignite the greatest nightmare of the Families – a war of magic. Do you understand what I am saying?” Cachet, stunned to silence, could only nod. Adalheid then drew her into a hug. “I must be hard on you, because hard times have come upon us, my sweet. Your husband may be the man of your family, but your magic makes you their true protector.” He then held her out in front of himself, and looked her in the eye. “Promise me, here and now, that you will do everything in your power to protect your family. This means learning everything you can about magic, everything you can about those who are researching magic, and anything that can do harm to you with magic. Do you swear, Cachet? Do you swear upon everything you hold dear?” Cachet looked back down into the arena, and saw her son Prescott kick the ball past the butler into the net, getting a well-earned third goal that had him and his sister, Perle, cheering. Cachet looked back to her father. “I swear.” Adalheid nodded gravely. He then patted her shoulder and stood up. “Very good. Now, where were we? Right. We were working on your focus.”