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// Does the scientific method aply to magic? 
// Story: The Lullaby of the Lich 
// by Gearhorn 
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        After talking about my plan to Cap and Lead Hoof, we worked on a time frame. Turns out between, letting the troops rest, gathering enough gems, and with various other things, the plan was going to take about a week to be ready to implement. Then there was the fact that we didn’t actually know where the diamond dogs were hiding. We may have been trapped in a valley, but that didn’t mean that it was small, far from it in fact. After talking to Fluffy I found out that the valley was roughly a circle, with the town being close to the center, and the nearest mountain being five miles away. So assuming that everything is round, and making a low estimate, it would be five time five times about three point fourteen, but for our purposes I could just use three, so that means that there are seventy five square miles to search. Okay, there was actually more than that, but even seventy five miles to search in a heavily forested area, filled with monsters it would be troublesome to say the least.

        Until then I had changed Kindles orders, making him stop flying around looking for clearings, instead he was to start searching around the base of the mountains. The reason that I had him do that was because Diamond Dogs mined for diamonds and other rare gems, and those are more abundant in mountains, I think. Yet another reason that having mindless minions is so good, they can do things that would drive most people insane, if they weren’t being paid minimum wage, and not care.

        “What do you mean we all have to give blood?” One of the citizens asked while I was once again on the podium, apparently he didn’t like my new law that forced him to donate blood.

        “Well, I have to drink blood in order to get stronger, so I can protect you better.” I explained calmly.

        “Like we would believe the words of a bloodthirsty monster like you!” A mare shouted.

        “Wow, harsh much, but even if you don’t want to help me, the blood bank is low. This means that if guards get hurt and need blood there won’t be any for them.”

“Like we give a buck about the gaurds!” Yelled one elderly stallion, there was a more than a small amount of agreement from the rest of the crowd. I could tell there was something up there, and the fact that I had seen a child throw a rock at Silver Sword earlier didn’t make the connection any harder to make. 

“Well I will assume that you care about yourself if no one else. So, what I am saying is that if anything happens to you, Celestia forbid it does, and you need blood. How do you plan on getting it if no one is giving any? You can’t rightly take what doesn’t exist, now can you.” The crowd didn’t seem happy about that, but not much to do about that, not now at least.

        “What is this about needing all the precious gems in the town. I do hope there is a reason behind that.” Said a pretty long haired earth pony, with a needle across a diamond as her cutie mark.

        “That is a very good question my lady, it is part of a plan I have to get us out of here.” I replied, trying to be nice.

        “And, what exactly is this plan?” She asked back.

        “Well to keep it short I found out the location of some diamond dogs, and I plan on hiring them to dig a tunnel through the mountain to freedom for us. Though I should be able to get the gems back in the end.” That was the simplified kid friendly version at least. What I truly planned on doing was hiring them with all the gems we have saying that we would pay them more once the tunnel was complete. Then once they complete the tunnel I would ask for them to return ponies that they had taken as slaves, with no compensation for said slaves. Of course they would say no especially since I would be going alone, making our forces seem weak. Once they attacked me to take me hostage I would slay all of the dog, free the captives, and take all the gems they had gathered.

        She raised an eyebrow questioningly, “Should?”

        “Yes, now any other questions?” I said completely blowing her off.

        “Yes, what is that?” Blitzkrieg asked pointing at Kindle.

        “This, is Kindle, he the skeleton of a drake that I reanimated. He makes a great scout, but has no real mind of his own or tongue, so talking to him won’t get you anywhere. To cut off future questions, no, I will not raise your loved ones, I will not be reanimating everything I kill, and no, I will not reanimate a army of undead and go into the mouth of hell to kill the drake queen.” I stopped to think about this for a sec, I mean it sounded pretty damn fun actually. “Well, I won’t be doing that unless my plan ends horribly and we are forced to make a quick escape, so if you could please leave the drake corpses in relatively good condition, and move them out of the city, I would appreciate it a lot.” A lot of them just gave me strange looks, along with grumbles from most of the crowd. “What? I plan on using every resource I can to get us out, you do want to escape right?” There came a bunch of mumbling from the crowd, though I think it was in agreement, mostly. “So, who wants to ask the last question for the day?” One of the ponies I had saved the night before spoke up.

        “You said you are here to help us, and you saved me from the drake yesterday. Why?”

        “Why what?” I asked, not exactly sure what she meant.

        “Why help us? I saw you fight, the drakes would never be able to catch you if you ran, especially not in the woods. Why stay here and risk your life to help us?” By the end of her question I was smiling rather broadly. I love it when people pay attention and ask the good questions. When it doesn’t get me attacked by mobs, that is.

        “I like you. What's your name?” I asked.

        “Mary Sue.” I barely managed to keep a straight face. I was definitely going to talk to that pony later.

        “To answer your question, I promised.” I said.

        “Please elaborate.” She responded, curious, there were several head nods as well, as if they actually cared.

        “I doubt I can express in words the true meaning, or sentiment behind the promise I speak of, and failing to express it properly would be a disservice to both the promise itself and you all. For now I ask that you simply understand that I do want to help you, and I don’t want to see you suffer. I genuinely do care for your safety and am working hard to figure out a way for us all to escape. Now I am sorry, but I must get back to work.” After saying this I jumped onto Kindle, and flew.

        With my day now clear all that was left for me was to find something to do. Something to do....then it hit me, I could go bug Fluffy. “No, wait, I could try making a stable, non-explody construct instead. Well one not made out of bones.”

        Jumping off of Kindle, as he skimmed the trees right outside the wall I got to work, and sent him to do more searching. I already had one possible location the diamond dogs could be at, and had him destroy the trees around it as a marker. 

        First thing first though, increasing control over my powers, and to do that I needed to practice, and to do that I needed not to die. So I started to pile some dead trees and such together in order to make a barricade in case, Dess forbid, I don’t get it perfect the right time. Once my safety barrier was set up I started to gather resources. First I would need go get something for the basic body, tree limbs would work. Next, I needed something to work as joints, something flexible, luckily I found some nice blue flowers nearby. Their long stems were perfect for what I needed, just needed to twist a few of the stalks together, then loop a few around perpendicular to the rest in order to keep the main bundles together. Once I had everything formed the way that I wanted I found a stick and stabbed myself. I find it disturbing just how many times I have inflicted bodily harm to myself on purpose since getting to Equestria. 
        
        With the newly formed cut, I started carving runes into the body of what would be a wooden construct, I then poured a bit of blood on the flexible stocks and placed the pieces gently together. The magic took care of binding the pieces together by fusing the wood and flower stems together.
        
        The basic form being done, I hid behind my barricade, hoping that when the thing blew up I didn’t die, because it was going to blow up, one way or another. Cowering behind the rotting wood, I started to channel magic through my blood, my skin turned red, glowing slightly. Then the bipedal gollum rose, it sat up perfectly, pushed off with its hands and feet, and walked into the forest. I didn’t have to take control of it directly, I could have just gave it orders and let it go off and do its thing, but I didn’t. I wanted to know how well the little thing would hold together, so I looked through its senses, sadly the only sense I could get was sight, and I am not even sure how that worked. I mean the thing doesn’t even have eyes, I would definitely need to research how the sight worked on it later.

        Anyway that aside the thing worked pretty well. It had good strength, the joints reinforced by my blood magic didn’t show any signs of breaking even after thirty minutes of use, the runes didn’t seem to be breaking apart like last time. All in all it was working perfectly, which was strange. ‘Why is this working? The last one had it’s runes start to disappear after prolonged use, and I had to replace the joints over and over again. I mean if anything I would think the office supplies would work better, they were made of metal and paper. These are just made of wood and stems....’ That’s when it hit me, plants have a very small amount of life energy in them, like a tiny tiny tiny amount, and not in the same way that animals have life energy. No, it's different, not exactly sure how to explain it properly, you would have to see it to understand. OH FUCK, I forgot to tell you I had a spell to see different kinds of magic, life and death energies included. I keep it off nearly all the time, it’s a pain to maintain, hurts to look at most stuff with, and generally not worth mentioning most of the time. The only time it really comes in handy is when I am experimenting, like now, or I am looking for a skeleton, which I haven't used it for yet. Seeing as how I could summon bone creatures in a area of effect style I really didn’t need to worry about this spell much.

        While I was experimenting with the golem, I started to wonder if it was possible to create one using nonliving pieces. Looking it up, I found a page number. I sent a burst of magic into the golem and let it explode, the explosion wasn’t as cool as I was hoping, but then again I couldn’t see it. I was still hiding when it went off.

        Having finished my field studies, I started walking back to town, eager to try out some new spells, and now equipped with the knowledge that I could reanimate bugs. It was a side note on the page I was reading. Yay for side notes, now I could go Moses on some bitches...yeah, I’m probably going to Hell or Tartarus for that one, but until then.... 

        ANYWHOOO!!!! Me back at base, A.K.A. Mad’s house, A.K.A. the creepy underground complex where I practice magic that perverses life and death, and sleep. And that’s what I did after reading most of the day away, the experiment and speech taking up the rest of the day.
        
        It wasn’t till the next day that I realized just what plant I had used, and why plants are not to be trifled with.