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// Chapter 12: But A Speech Works Just As Well 
// Story: Level Up! 
// by RisuUmbra 
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Chapter 12: But A Speech Works Just As Well
Never in my whole life would I have ever imagined that I would gag at the smell of chicken cooking. After the death of the two bandits, the flames that had melted over the griffin’s body started to shrink and die out now that they were dead. I could feel my rising nausea over my actions though it was quickly dwarfed by my absolute horror of what my magic could do to other creatures. I thought all my [Fire Magic] would do is just burn his wings so he wouldn’t fly away then I would… deal with him in a much quicker way. Burning to death is probably the worst way to go, I took a few steps to distance myself from the splatter of grey matter and blood that was before me and directed my attention to the disgusting and delicious smelling corpse of the griffin. My brain immediately thought the smell was just delicious food, but my new body was roiling in disgust at both the sight and the smell. 
The wings and armor of the griffin had been reduced to a sticky boiling goo that reminded me of glue while the rest of his body had been thoroughly cooked to a golden brown. A thought floated up from a darker part of my mind ‘This is the best chicken I've ever cooked!’ and immediately I felt horrible for even thinking that. The sound of coughing broke me from my staredown with a corpse, one of the downed earth ponies was still breathing! Pushing whatever trauma I’d developed aside I rushed over to the stallion. He’s an oak brown older stallion with a fully grey’d mane wearing what looked to be the bare bones of a leather chestplate. He had a sizable bruise that covered over half his face and an eye that was swollen shut, but the worst of it was the long gash that ran from the side of his neck to his back. Most of the damage seemed to be non-life threatening but there were some deeper sections that were steadily gushing blood, it looked like a sword peeled a layer of his skin off and only cut deeper here and there. It wasn’t a pretty sight, his one working eye opened slightly when he heard me coming near. A shuttering cough was the result of him trying to say anything, the amount of blood pouring from his wound increased every time he tried to speak.
“Shhh, don’t speak. You’re going to be okay, we’re here to help. I’m gonna need you to stay awake sir… can you do that for me?” The stallion didn’t move an inch for fear of opening up his wound more, but his eye did widen immensely giving me an even greater view of the absolute mortal terror in his eyes. Suddenly how I felt about this whole situation didn’t matter, the question whether or not these ponies were real didn’t matter to me anymore, I didn’t even care about my recent kills anymore. All I cared about was making sure no one else had that look in their eye, that no one would ever have to feel this pain. Using a free hoof I reached down to the frayed edge of the cloak and (with a small assist from my magic) tore a long strip away from it. The energizing feeling from before lessened slightly but not completely, stepping closer to the stallion I gently started to lift his head with my hooves. I saw his face twist up in pain from being moved and being touched like this so I tried to work fast. The deepest and most pressing part of the wound was near the beginning where a larger vein might have been nicked so I put the majority of the makeshift bandage there and made sure not to tie it too tight with my [Levitation] which was slightly difficult. 
“W-will he survive?” I had to physically stop myself from dropping the old stallions head in surprise when I heard that voice. I turned my attention away from the stallion for just a moment and checked behind me, standing behind me wasn’t just one pony like I expected but like half of the village. They had left their hiding spots after I… ‘dispatched’ the bandits nearby and I was too focused to notice anything that isn’t a threat or pressing problem. I was about to answer the mare when I felt something under my hooves change… they had gone still. 
Whipping my head back to the stallion I could see his breathing slow to a stop, the blood spilling from the wound starting to cease altogether. The previous cold from the fight started to spread through my chest once again as I realized I just watched someone die in my arms… I think this is the first time something has really gotten to me here. I was ripped from my horrified silence by the most heart-wrenching cry I've ever heard in my life, I was shoved to the side as a mare that looked younger than me threw herself at the body of who I assume is her father sobbing heavily. I should have felt something at this sight but everything just felt cold and distant… Am I in shock? 
“ Why… Why didn’t you save him?” Through her tears the mares words almost went unheard yet in this silent square it might have well been a scream to the heavens. The mare’s silver mane draped over her face as she turned to look at me, I didn’t need to see her face to know it was twisted in fury.
“Why didn't you just… fix it with magic like you unicorns always do?” Removing herself from her father’s corpse she stood and took a heavy step towards me, I idly noted the sound of many hooves approaching from my left and the sound of wings above me.
“If you weren't bucking around, my dad would still be alive!” Her high pitched voice wavered as she shouted in my face, sending a few drops of saliva into my face. Instead of feeling anger or indignation at being the target for her grief I felt… annoyed, in any other situation I would sympathize and try and help but right now… 
“... Are you done?” The ice in my chest has turned to fire, if an already silent crowd could go even quieter that is what would have happened. My words seemed to have been the exact opposite of what everyone was expecting, I turned my gaze down into the young mare’s amber eyes and I could almost see the down right infernal indignation rising up in her but right before she would resume her yelling I spoke again.
“Because I don’t have the time nor the luxury of anger, now if you don’t want this to happen again on a much larger scale then all of you need to listen to us!” And just like that I have everyone’s attention, I turned my gaze towards the collection of villagers and saw both David and Morgana among the crowd. 
“There is a veritable army of bandits that will be here in about 1 days time and if you want to survive then you need to let us help you!” The grave news seemed to send a spark of panic racing through the village along with a myriad of different emotions, some started to cry on the spot as if they had no hope. 
“We need to evacuate!” A pony on my right sporting a few bruises spoke out, if the whole town tried to evacuate they would be caught by the bandits in about half a day.
“No! The bandits would catch up to you in no time if you all tried to evacuate. We have allies who’ve gone to a neighboring town that have an established guard force, if we can hold out long enough then they can help” The mere mention of a possible savior visibly raised the moral of the townsfolk by leaps and bounds, a hoof on my shoulder brought my attention back to the formerly distraught daughter who now wore a stony determined look.
“What do we need to do?” A quick glance around showed me that many of the villagers wore similar looks, allowing a grin onto my face. I spoke loud enough for everyone to hear me.
“We plan, prepare and if we need to… fight”







After that the village was a flurry of movement, the three of us knew we wouldn’t be able to account for every eventuality so we did what we could. We divided the village into three main teams, Morgana’s group was given the goal of helping make defenses and rounding up weapons of any kind and held the majority of the villagers. With Morgana’s newly revealed [Earth Manipulation] skill the defenses were made much easier. David was instructed to take a few villages and plan out an escape route back and around the village leading to town where the rest of the players are. I on the other hand/hoof have started to take a broader look at my magic, my group was actually the smallest out of the three. My group consisted of Me, an older grey stallion who goes by the name Pumice which is kind of funny as he might be the densest earth pony I have ever met, another light blue stallion who looked around my age who volunteered to help me when he heard I was doing something related to magic… he didn’t introduce himself so I’m just gonna refer to him as blue until he does, and lastly and most surprisingly is the mare who was yelling at me. Her name is actually Lucky Harvest and after hearing about the encroaching army I could tell that her mind immediately turned to revenge, I’m not really an advocate for revenge but in our situation we need as much help as we can get.
“Hey Blue, can you go grab me some chalk or something?” Currently the four of us were in a nearby house, I had cleared out all the furniture in the living room to make space for something very special. After a few silent moments the only blue pony in the room perked up as he realized I had referred to him, a muffled snrk from Pumice almost broke my train of thought.
“U-uh My names n-not… okay… “ Not even bothering to correct me Blue rushed out of the house to grab what I requested, a soft feminine chuckle behind me let me know that Harvest thankfully didn’t go completely cold after the death of her father.
“Pumice, I’m going to need you to go grab a few other ponies and bring back as many small to medium sized stones as you can find” Pumice didn’t even waste time responding and I didn’t even need to turn around to know he left, his large stomping steps told me as much. 
“What, Are we just gonna throw rocks at them? Maybe tally the score?” Lucky’s mocking tone actually broke my concentration for a moment and made me chuckle at how close she got to my plan.
“Close, but not quite… Let’s just say I’m tipping the scales to our favor” And with the needlessly cryptic sentence I turned back to what held my attention for so long.




Fledgling Thunder Lion Summon: A deadly creature that is spoken of in both


terror and reverence, worshiped as a sort of protecting spirit by most Pegasus


tribes this creature is able to harness the power of lightning and strike down its


prey before they even know what has happened


Mana Cost: Medium


Skill Level 0: 0.00%


Requirements:


2/2 Thunder Lion Materials


Felled 1/1 Thunder Lion(s)


Cost: 1 Sp


First creation of summon requires 1 minute of ritual cast time, over time the lion shall level up until it reached maturity


Be warned, the slaying of a Thunder Lion is a mark of strength in most cultures and the knowledge of your kill will attract challengers








Ember Imbuement: Allows the unstable enchantment and combination of items and magic


Skill Level: Max


Fragment Passive Skill


Elements: Fire




These two skills might just be the key to not only surviving this but actually winning this battle.