With the full coordinated efforts of every creature involved, from the experts working concisely with each other to the volunteers to the guards and the healers, the pandemic was dying down after about a month. Most quarantine regulations had been lifted and life had been starting to get back to normal.
Many politician ponies were complaining about the chance of resurgence, but princess Celestia quickly quelled them when she kept asking, "When will there not be a risk? What do you feel is the correct moment? How would you tangibly define that moment? What should we do if we can't define it? Should we always hide under our beds and let our nation crumble around us?"
She had given a speech on the matter to clarify and struck home with the final point that, "We can only hide in our hospitals and homes for so long before the hiding does more harm to us as a nation than the lingering illness here or there. We need to get back to our lives."
While she did not expressly order each and every city and town to resume, she did lift the national bans and encouraged the local leaders to work towards resuming normal life as they saw fit.
But before that decree, Zecora had objected to letting the elders and those prone to sickness out. Celestia argued with her for a bit and ultimately had to get Zecora to agree to simply adding this as another recommendation. If she had been more specific in the order of releasing the restraints instead of declaring the crisis outright over, it would have opened the floodgates for political turmoil among politicians. In the end, there were grumps on either side of the divide of the royal decree, but things overall did improve. Sadly, tragedy ultimately struck after she made the decree ending the crisis.
Dalock had started striking out at Canterlot and the surrounding communities. He only seemed to target those that dared to resume normal life, particularly those that wanted to celebrate weddings or other local events. The diseases died down, but his sheer ferocity left a path of blood and cinders as he evaded capture with his hit and run tactics.
And that led to another speech to address the attacks. One with many ponies talking about different aspects of the past and present crisis. Since I was tied to both, I was ultimately called up to the balcony and told by both Doctor Pulse and Princess Celestia to explain the declaration they just made about my lie.
With a huff, I called out to the ponies that had gathered at the square and decided to just double down while giving them what they technically asked for. With my hairs on the back charging me with a good, strong eighteen, I looked out at the crowd and told them what I wanted to say.
"Let me make myself perfectly clear, I don't give two shits if your feelings were hurt over what I did. My concerns at the time were about preserving lives overall, not politics and niceties. My magic works under a different set of rules than unicorn magic or even the magic of the servants of the Animus Mundi volunteers. The pertinent part is that my magic has hard limits and I couldn't push past them even if I wanted to. I didn't have the time or energy to explain this to each and every pony that wanted me to heal them, then have them get in a fit about them not believing me. So I made up the stipulation that my version siphons off the expected life span of the patient to deter ponies from using my healing as anything but a last resort. There was only so much to go around at any given time. I did clarify with the doctors about this lie to help in their decisions when confronted about it, but they are not at fault, as I also threatened to not perform healing at all if they revealed this information during the crisis and opened the flood gates of every minor illness that was simply uncomfortable wanting the easy way out."
With a nod to Doctor Pulse, I backed up and let him take the mic. As soon as he did so, he turned to me and asked, "So to clarify, you do admit those that you healed have not had their lifespan shortened as you had initially claimed, correct?"
With a quick lean back into the microphone, I answered, "Not from my magic or of any other factor to my knowledge. Correct. And my punishment for this falsification will be under review upon the completion of my currently deputized mission. But for the record, and the princesses may put this into their review, I would do it again if I thought it would give the same effect in the same circumstances. It let my talents be used only to save the lives of those that couldn't have been saved otherwise. I don't care about the hooves it stepped on."
I went back inside from the balcony and proceeded towards the war room without even waiting to be dismissed.
On my way there, I heard a voice.
"Your words are spoken in ways unwise. Do you think they will not despise?"
Seeing my veritable shadow for the last three days in Canterlot, I called out to Zecora.
"I'm actually counting on it, and no I don't intend to elaborate."
Following me as I walked, she hounded me about my newfound druidic spells.
"Then if on that you will not clarify, will you tell me away from your magic, you shy?"
With a brief memory of a select number of spells I could now newly tap into, I found myself shaking in disgust. Not grossed out disgust, but in disturbing disgust of what I knew all too well I could do.
"Ever want to be trapped neck deep in stone? How about I cause disease instead of cure it? With the right materials I could even cause the very..."
I had to stop myself in mid sentence. There were spells the Animus Mundi could help me cast that I was alright with, and there were some I was disgusted by. But that spell? That was a spell that was so vile I had forbidden myself from even mentioning it.
Mistaking the moment I restrained myself as a moment of uncertainty, she pushed further instead of dropping it. Though she did at least manage to shift the subject slightly.
"I still do not understand why you refuse our gift. Many of us have felt quite miffed."
I squatted down as we walked and brought my amulet up to her face for a brief moment, which was now sharing its spot on the string with a carefully tied up piece of preserved mistletoe.
"I am no servant of the Animus Mundi! This little trinket does the job just fine, thank you! I'll keep breaking as many wooden staffs over my knee as you bring me! The amulet makes your offer to teach me the servant language moot and if you ever try to give me a mask to show my competency as a proper healer, then so help me powers that be, I will shove it up your-"
"Ahem!"
Princess Cadence was holding the door to the war room open from the inside. Judging by the look on her face, she could hear me shouting from a ways off. She didn't even need to say anything. While not nearly as skilled as her aunt Celestia, she could still manage to convey a message. That message was that that particular conversation was over.
Zecora shook her head and jested in disapproval, "Your new ability is simply miraculous. And yet you treat the gift with such callous."
Managing to get the last retort in that I couldn't respond back to without facing the ire of the princess, Zecora entered the war room.
I held the door and nodded in a way to cue the princess that I'd come in as soon as I collected myself.
Once the princess turned back to the room, I genuinely tried, but found myself unable to let go of the thing I wanted to tell Zecora in response. Not that I had the words sorted out in a way that would convince her, but I whispered what I had anyway before I could reset myself enough too at least play nice and enter.
"A miracle? More like a disaster waiting to happen."
As I finally walked in, I thought to myself, "For the sake of the integrity of my beloved new home—indeed, even for the sake of my very soul—that kind of power is something I must never touch."
The meeting covered many boring topics that I forced myself to listen to. The early detection measures having no success. Dalock was trying and failing to recruit ponies to his side with the pictures he set out not being sufficient to bridge both the language gap and the fact that he kept killing in spite of all the smiley faces on the pictures. They had searched all over in the forest and caves in the mountains below Canterlot, but found nothing on his whereabouts. Not even a trace of his odd scent.
The fact that the gap in our apparent power levels was a subject of worry, with my total level being twelve now, and his access to the wish spell that he used to cheat death made his at least level seventeen, if not more. Combined with his ability to stockpile his magic well beyond any capability I had, they realized strategy would only get them so far. While they were applying strategy, they knew they couldn't afford to pull many punches with his capture.
The princesses determined his magic had a lace of quintessence in it, being able to heal. This was another troublesome difficulty to overcome, but it had a minor upside. The scholars had worked with Speaks with Talons on how laced æther could bypass the barrier on æther being useless for healing.
In the end, Princess Luna and Princess Celestia had managed to adapt the cure wounds spell I had taught Speaks with Talons and Princess Twilight and Princess Cadence were well on their way to learning to purposely tap into their trace levels of quintessence too. It was a minor effect for them compared to the complexity of the wizard like spells they could cast, but the more healers there are in a group, the less practical his known tactic of targeting healers first would be.
Speaking of which, the princesses had agreed on a plan to add their raw power to the fight. Two of the four alicorns would be present in the search, while the other two stayed away from the danger. That way if the worst happened, Equestria would still have some leaders left.
The Crystal Empire would only have Princess Cadence's husband acting as regent until their daughter was of age, but alicorns were one of the few things in Dalock's power bracket and Princess Cadence was determined to take her turn in the field like the other three. Other contingencies were in place should he enter the capital, but most of them were too frail or specific to a city's structure to work out in the open field. Losses were likely in this fight and they had to go in knowing any given component of their plan could fail, so they had to have redundant backups when the inevitable losses came.
That meant they had to use their princesses too, and not just the elements. If a princess fell, the rest of the teams could cover and continue to function. The element bearers could do their big fancy blast, as could the Pillars of Light, but it took their entire teams to pull off their powerful magic and even if not a single one of them fell, they only had one good shot each.
What scared me the most, however, was what was revealed about the initial attack revealing Dalock's return.
"What do you mean, he never broke into the vault?" a crystal pony general asked.
Princess Celestia shook her head. "I mean he was already inside when we closed it. More specifically, his phylactery. When he reformed, it was not in a prepared clone as we had presumed. We did find that in a more thorough search of the diamond dog territory and destroyed it.
"After that, we studied of the bits of flesh we extracted from the guards weapons he was struck by. The tests showed he was definitely a type of undead now. The prize Bane had promised him was likely a vague promise of immortality, and Dalock probably didn't know it was to be as a lich, or that Dalock did know and didn't care. But in the end he came back beside the item in the vault that we had not realized had become his phylactery. From what we could extract, he was right next to his equipment when he re formed as a lich, including his amulets that now keep him hidden from us, and simply broke out."
I looked at the princess with the blood running out of my face. "Are you saying..."
She nodded, "Even if we kill him, he will reform again and again. The Plague Artifact was undeniably a part of the process his spell initiated by our testing, fueling the process by murdering the army that was sent with him for their life force. In turn, we deduced it is now acting as his phylactery. We would destroy the phylactery if we could, but the Plague Artifact is too powerful to be destroyed by normal means. At least, not without creating an explosion at least the size of the mountain Canterlot sits on that would spread thousands of deadly diseases across the globe. Instead we are simply going to have to trap him again when he first emerges and is too weak to put up a strong fight. We will figure out how to neutralize the Plague Artifact's threat later."
The general shook his head and looked at his ice spear. "At least that means we don't have to hold back for ethics. Even if he dies, it isn't permanent. That should make it at least a little easier once we find the criminal."