//------------------------------// // Chapter Eight // Story: Era of Grogar // by Pulsar Wave //------------------------------// It was the day after the battle with the unicorns. Grogar stepped to his orb, which lit up as he approached. He was still in a rather weakened state, exhausted from performing his massive act after the fight, which he was certain was going to be memorable to all future pony generations. The ancient ram was immensely powerful, and only he could have succeeded in accomplishing something so drastic. He had done it. He'd stopped the Sun and the Moon. And it wasn't reversible. Not by ponies, for sure. To do that, to somehow be able to give new push to the ponderous, remote heavenly bodies, they would have to be as powerful as Grogar was. But nopony came close to his power, though there was one who caught his attention. He eagerly waited for the Sun to set that day. He knew the unicorns would manage to do it, but the movement of the heavy luminous body was tardy and erratic. The halting shakiness of the rising Moon was no different. Grogar looked at the multiple larvae to whom he had given life. They crawled around in the lair. They were going to grow up to feed on love and positive emotions. They were foes personalized for ponies. He foresaw his hungry children coming for them when they're ready. They would absorb the ponies' love and positivity, leaving them nihilistic and apathetic. Grogar considered it an appropriate punishment for their naive and, quite frankly, pathetic impotence. But draining emotion wasn't the only aptitude they were designed to be adept at. They were an unparalleled race of shapeshifters. When they reach the right age, and become full-grown imagines, they would be able to change their forms, and it would be a natural gift of Grogar's, not some spell to be learned. He named them changelings. Change. It was change that drove the world to move forward. It was the point of evolution. If the inhabitants didn't adapt to the changing habitat, they lost. And ponies were content with stagnation. Ponies lacked the capacity for change. And they weren't the first. Many generations earlier, Grogar was just one sorcerer in the extravagant city of Tambelon. The city state was governed by the High Council of Tambelon. Grogar was on the council, but he was in constant disagreement with his peers. The leaders of Tambelon were short-sighted. The luster of the gold blinded them to what lay beyond the city walls: the world. "Hear me, High Council: there is magic the likes of which is beyond imagination, past this city's boundaries," Grogar would always plead to the rest of the body. "Councillor Grogar, must we remind you of our discussions in the past? We have dismissed your proposals," they always responded. "But we could become so much more! The wider world is derelict. Who could be worthier of acquiring it than us? There aren't any civilizations like ours. This world is ours to seize! Let us reach at last!" "Reach to where, councillor? We govern Tambelon, foreign lands are not our concern. Besides, you just said yourself that we have no worthwhile opponents. Encroachment, especially when you are the sole player, is weakness." "No... weakness is sitting in your flowery seats... captivated by the snide illumination of meaningless riches and... restrained sensation of lordship... over a decadent city, that is weakness for you!" "Contain your mettle, councillor, that's enough! Because of your repeated, undiminished lack of reasonableness and continued attempts to disrupt the work of our state's governing organization, you are hereby ejected from the council. All your privileges and rights granted by your now expired position, including entry to this chamber, are to be withdrawn within the day. Your successor, who will hopefully possess a greater recognition of reality than their predecessor did, will be elected in a week. I expect you to take notice of your removal with dignity. The meeting is adjourned." Grogar had already grown weary of the narrow-mindedness of Tambelon's potentates. All his suggestions at expansion were met with passivity and reservation. Grogar was undoubtedly among the most talented sorcerers, and he had long been fascinated by draining spells, particularly. He also figured that a magical object, an amulet would be much more effective at keeping large amounts of magic, than living beings. With meticulous designing, he created the extraordinary Bewitching Bell, the most powerful arifact the world had ever seen, and he made it to be indestructable. He passed judgement on the city: it had to be erased entirely. The citizens whom Grogar knew all too well were as conceited as their leaders, and Grogar had endured that selfishness for far too long. He had no family. He had no friends. Researching magic, thinking was more important than relationships. The latter disappeared, went perfectly unnoted in the ocean of history, while the former had the potential to change the world and leave mark. One day, when the High Council entered the chamber for their next session, they were shocked to see Grogar sitting at the head. But they couldn't voice their astonishment; they never had the opportunity to talk to Grogar again. He didn't even favor them with his breath. Their magic, as well as their life-force were stolen from them, and encased in the Bewitching Bell bound to Grogar. The councillors died instantly. But Grogar did not stop, he considerably put his invention to the test, by using it to absorb all life in the city. Many thousands of rams, ewes and lambs simultaneously felt their essence sucked out of them within seconds, and Grogar felt the addition of every single last one of them, as his newly-obtained power peaked. And he relished it. Every single last moment of it. The magic was packed into the bell, but he felt the tremendous overflow in his own body, and he wasn't sure it wouldn't tear him apart. The process initially filled him with snug warmth, but it increasingly turned into burning heat. The ritual culminated in a sensual apex, that finally allowed Grogar to feel happiness, and made him smile genuinely, for the first time in long years, at the cost of his only home being completely wiped out. Like a monument or an immense relic, the desolate empty shell of a once milling, wealthy empire, but which empire failed to exceed itself was now nothing more than a specter memorial, its palaces vacant, its treasuries still loaded with corroding, unowned and unclaimed fortune, teaching about the eternal lesson of failure in greed, if there were anyone to heed the lesson. He set out to the land of ponies, and was called to the darkness that lay beneath the ground. In the Underworld, the Realm of Grand Lord Tartarus, he was challenged by the Dark Deity and his son, Typhon the Serpentine. With the power of an entire civilization in him, he was able to best the rulers of the realm, taking over their servants, the Windigos, who - unlike his creations - fed on hatred and disharmony. He unchained the spirits of Tartarus' Realm and let them plague the early ponies, along with his own hybrids shortly thereafter. The rest was history. Now, Grogar was after Gusty, daughter of Sunbeam. She was the most gifted unicorn he'd ever seen, and he was confident Gusty would be able to achieve great power. What he told her about nature and struggles was true - for the most part; pointless, sadistic torture of ponies was not indispensable when it came to mounting ordeals... but it did put a smile on his face. And he did want Gusty to grow in her power. And when she unlocks her full potential, he would be there to take it for himself. With Gusty's elemental power to its fullest extent clinched, new, terrifying levels of facilities would open before him. He could have power to shape, to model the world even more profoundly at his pleasure. He was torn out of his daydreaming by his orb warning him about something. In it, he saw another division of the unicorns marching as they did a day before, but this time they were headed to... Cloudsdale. The pegasus city. So they knew of each other. Before he could sink in the unexpected turn, he noticed the task force was led by Gusty - once again. He thought for a moment. There weren't many of them. He would surely be able to take them on by himself before they reach Cloudsdale, even in his weakened state. He turned around and faced the larvae, his newest, youngest children, and a slightly faltering expression crossed his features for a moment, which would have disturbed him, had he seen himself, but leisurely said nonetheless, "The endgame begins now." With that, he opened a swirling portal in front of him with his bell, and walked into it without hesitation.