//------------------------------// // Chapter. 9 – A Quiet Nights Stroll // Story: My Most Faithful Mortifer // by hamishwarfare //------------------------------// Chapter. 9 – A Quiet Nights Stroll The air was pleasant with just a trace of coolness to it; there was not a breath of wind to interact with and up here not a sound was heard. Patches of clouds were scattered throughout the place partially obscuring the night sky from the ground; but here, high above the stratocumulus cloud layer, the sky was the surface of a still pond. Stretching as far as the eye could see. Sparkling glints of distant lights danced within this vast body of inky water; the safe harbour that was the moon slowly waded through the night without disrupting the stillness that was the pure glistening black backdrop. The moon was full, as it has always been, and the dark silhouette of the mare was looking down at the world with an expression that could never be read. This complete tranquil peace was a thing of beauty; however Sunset Shimmer was more focused on the stars rather than the whole picture. For the past few hours she has lazily skimmed through the ocean of distant jewels, being drawn into their gentle beauty and silent song; the night was better here than at her old home. Away from the ocean, there was less moisture in the air, giving a clearer picture of the stars, and allowed for the fainter ones to join in. Only the cold winter nights could have made the sky any clearer. She preferred the night so much more than the day. Currently the purple coated unicorn with wings was lying on her back staring up at the stars trying to work out a puzzle that has deliberately bent a few of its pieces. She had taken one of the many smaller clouds and brought it up beyond the altostratus layer, so very much higher than any of its siblings positioned by the pegasi of the weather manipulation team. This gave her a completely uninterrupted view of the glittering water that was the night sky. In her hooves was the second book she had in her saddle bags during her day long train journey; it was a book of old star charts and their positions over the last ten years. It was the most recent release in a set that goes back for over a hundred years’ worth of star gazing, and even then it was seven years old, with the next edition not due for release for another three years. Still the information was useful and a skilled mind could work out the path that the stars were likely to take; Sunset had, she had gone through the previous ten volumes and found that the stars were wrong. Not by a lot, but there was one small cluster of stars in particular that appeared to be deviating from the rest and had been for the last twenty years or so. Now looking up at the uninterrupted view of the night sky she could see the perpetrators in questions as well as the almost noticeable emptiness of where they should be. Again it was slight and only astronomers or dedicated star gazers would notice that something was amiss; and even then it would take dedication to find the pieces that had missed stepped. Just as Sunset had done. The book of Predictions and Prophecies mentioned a prophecy dedicated to the Mare in the Moon; that on the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars would help her escape and then eternal night would cover the planet. That would not be so bad in itself in her opinion; except for all the plants dying due to lack of sunlight, or the inevitable ice age that would happen. No, as much as Sunset enjoyed the night, it was best to stop this event from happening. Well if the stars were realigning themselves –such as was evident by all of her time studying them– then there had to be some truth to that particular one. It is only a matter of when this prophecy is to be unleashed. There was not enough time for it to happen this year, there was no significant pattern in the stars that she could see. ‘But if they altered course a little more in these directions, then we get something that could possibly be a potential pattern. ‘The stars would need to speed up a little if they were to align for next year’s Summer Sun Celebration; which is set on the longest day of the year. But they would miss the year after that unless they all but stopped. Huh, well it looks like I have a year to figure out what is the truth behind the Mare in the Moon prophecy.’ Her eyes drifted away from the twinkling count down –having memorised their current trajectory– to look back down at the sleeping ground. She rolled over from her back to her barrel, being mindful of her unnatural appendages; just because she grew them herself did not mean that they did not hurt when they were injured –phantom pain syndrome is a real possibility for her. The ground below was dark and lifeless; sleeping away the peace of the night. Still from her current height it was impossible to see anything other than big obvious shapes; her eyes not designed to work with so little light. Thankfully there was a spell for that. Within the time it took to even blink her eyes; they were engulfed with magic allowing her to see in complete darkness. More than enough for what she needed on this moonlit night. The world came into focus and details could be made out once more. Well almost. Within that blink of an eye her position on the cloud had changed from lying comfortably on top, to fighting her way through the almost cotton like substance. Her conversion spell, while incredibly useful, was limited to constant casting; her body could not store any tribal magic other than her innate unicorn magic. Halting the creation of pegasus magic so that she could cast the Darkvision spell, had left her completely unicorn and she had started to fall through the cloud. To say that learning Flash Casting was her top priority –back when she was still training– when she found out this little limitation the hard way. Even so much as to ignore the more traditional learning within predator of Silent Casting; magic without an aura. “Need to work on a tribal magic storage system. Or maybe go back to figuring out how to multi cast; I still say it is possible. The theory backs it up, like multiple Levitations, or Phantom Swords. Ponies just haven’t tried hard enough yet.” But in a year? Especially considering her new job, and the short notice potential of being called away? “Yeah, I’ll work on storage first; that should not be hard, just a repurposed magic crystal probably.” For now her eyes drifted to the small town below and then to the forest just outside its borders; to the Everfree Forest. It is said to be the wildest place in all of Equestria, and because of that one of the most dangerous as well. There are rumours that at least a dozen ponies each year lose their lives by entering the cursed forest. Just entering the forest. And now it was her job, secondary objective really, to ensure the safety of the town. What better way to save it than a pre-emptive strike on the forest and its inhabitants. ‘But if I cause too much collateral then no doubt all the beasts within might start running towards Ponyville at the same time. I won’t be able to stop such a destructive charge and my mission will be a failure. ‘The town has survived this long without a guardian; perhaps just a scouting trip tonight, with a little weeding if I come across anything? Yes that sounds better, knowledge is power after all. Oh, maybe by now the town is so use to the forest that the ponies have started using plants or other such resources from it. So eliminating it entirely could be detrimental to Ponyville; which would also be a failure to my secondary objective of looking after the town. ‘Yes, I need more information on how the town has started to use the forest. So scout and possible minor extermination tonight,’ with that she pulled herself forward and then over the edge of her cloudy support, flattened out before entering freefall. It was still a rush every time she did this; nose down, body trailing behind in as streamline a position possible– forehooves straight ahead, hind legs as far back as they’d go with her wings following a similar position as her hind legs– and just let gravity do all the work. Manipulating her converted pegasus magic into a smaller and smaller aerodynamic point in front of herself, reducing the volume of air the magic needed to disperse around her. This allowed her to reach an even greater terminal velocity; with the added benefit of actually using less magic in the end thanks to the overall efficiency. Going this fast, with the wind rushing past her ears at deafening noise levels, her face was slowly being pulled into a silly looking position and tears were beginning to leak out of her eyes; it was such a liberating sensation. She was not going nearly fast enough to break the sound barrier –she wasn’t actually putting any effort into the dive. Considering all she was doing was making herself as aerodynamically small as possible in terms of drag and air resistance as well as not actually using her wings for momentum, or using the pegasus magic to speed herself up, it was impressive. Breaking through the stratocumulus level of the sky where all of the other clouds were placed upon, she finally extended her wings out and started levelling off. The speed she had generated was causing small vapour trails to form from the tips of her wings as they started to change the air pressure above and below them. Sunset experienced a relatively low volume of G-forces thanks to her large levelling off angle; keeping her speed almost the same in the process. Now finally level, and out of potential danger from the sudden stop into the ground, Sunset Shimmer used her purple wings to glide towards the edge of the Everfree forest. The night was getting long in the tooth by now; so if there was a pony up at this hour and who just so happened to look out the window at the right moment, even then it would be all but impossible to see her. Her coat’s natural colouration matched the background far too well for mortal eyes to see. With barely a few extra flaps of her wings –more to slow herself down than anything else– Sunset landed at the edge of the forest; just past a large patch of dead trees belonging to the apple orchard. The air was just as still as the rest of the town and from the edge it was quiet; but nothing like the peaceful night comforting the town. No this was the lack of noise that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end; the kind of threatening peace that always had an accompanying breath of wind that sent shivers down an unsuspecting pony’s spine. Even at this outer edge the forest loomed threateningly with its dark, light consuming canopy hanging over head. Gnarled branches lay in waiting, with their reaching clawed digits that were ready to lash out at any unsuspecting passer-by. The air was rife with the smell of old rot with an after taste of damp fresh soil just tickling at the back of your throat. The darkness was an all-encompassing fog hiding anything beyond the first few rows of the twisted wooden pylons; even with the added benefit of spell enhanced night vision, it did little to improve the distance one could see. It was a dark and twisted labyrinth filled with beasts, monsters and other dangers around every turn. The forest itself seems to emit an aura of panic and fear making one second guess themselves, confuse them, panic them. When you entered the forest it was a mind game all on its own that quite literally meant the difference between your life, or your grave. The forest had its reputation for a reason and ponies across Equestria did not venture in those intimidating wood if they did not need too. If only Sunset Shimmer knew what it felt like to be intimidated? She walked in cautiously, not out of fear, but out of tactical need. She was heading into a hostile environment, with dangers in unknown locations. It was also prudent to avoid injuries that would raise questions; so a slower stealthier pace to avoid potentially exposing herself was logical. The forest was looking down at her trying to sow doubt into her mind, get her to fear the unknown and cause her to panic. Emotion was its biggest weapon and ponies were exceptionally emotional creatures, making it a very effective weapon against them. Without a cool head the magic they wielded became ineffective, turning what could have been formidable foes into helpless prey. Ponies can grow use to the forests emotional manipulations, but all it took was a small distraction for the seed to start sprouting once more. Even the iron willed can only stay focused for so long before a moment of second guessing allows the forest an opening. Only one with no emotions what so ever could walk its trails without the forest having some influence on them. Sunset Shimmer’s emotions were heavily hampered, but she still had them. Even with so few emotions that Sunset had available to her, she could not help but admit that this forest was daunting. The air around it seemed to be saturated with something that just made the whole place feel a little off. All her magical detection spells came back inconclusive not just negative; it was as if the forest itself was trying to hide its magical effects by using magic to hide it. In her mind it was like trying to hide a ball by removing all existence of it. You still have the ball and could move it about; but if the ball interacted with something else, then suddenly that thing would be missing a section or a piece the shape of the ball. The ball is doing too good a job at hiding, and can be seen thanks to its absence. This was what the forest was achieving; using magic of some kind to hide the fact it was using magic. Any magic detection spell would fail; the more advanced ones would come back inconclusive, which is impossible. Leaving the only probable outcome to be that the forest is indeed using magic, but it is hiding that fact with more magic. Thinking like this actually help the unicorn mare as she travelled through the forest. It added another puzzle in her ever growing library; and gave hints and tips of what not to do when trying to hide. She couldn’t fathom the magic this forest is using to hide its nature, she doubted even Princess Celestia could catch even a glimpse. But that did not take away that it was using magic to hide its nature; inconclusive was not a fact. All her detection spells showed the same result proving that something was blocking them. If there was no magic the results would be negative on at least one of her spells; but that all of them came to the same inconclusive answer. Well it became a statistical impossibility that magic was not behind this. Twenty minutes into the forest and so far things had not tried to kill her too much; a few poisonous vines easily avoided, and this strange flying puffball thing was shot with a small magic lance just to be sure, its eyes felt a little hypnotic. There were a few Craigadile’s in a river she walked past but they seemed happy to ignore her, so she ignored them in return. A small patch of blue flowers looked quite pleasant and she considered coming back to them during the day; but for now she let them be and walked past without disturbing the beds they lay upon. Surprisingly she found a house within the forest. Someone was living out here. It was another house made out of a tree, just like the library. She could make out two windows, but there was no light being emitted from them. Considering how late into the night it had become it was not a surprise. There were several strange tribal masks scattered about, including one above the door acting like a guardian. Hanging from the branches and dangling from ropes were numerous jars and vials of different sizes and shapes; some were even glowing fluorescent colours. From the effort of hanging the vials, to the cleared out and worn path; whoever it was living inside this tree has been there for some time, apparently unphased by the forest. Sunset would need to ask the Mayor about this in the morning. Still, she left the house undisturbed and continued onwards along her scouting path, turning it back towards town. She had not ventured that deep into the forest, but for a first time scouting mission she felt it would do; after all it was after midnight now and she needed to get some rest before seeing the Mayor in the morning for an introduction. Then there was that welcome party thing that the pink imp is forcing upon her at one. Oh what joy that would be; however her honed survival instincts told her there would be so much worse to come if she did not attend. Besides she got what she wanted out of this primary expedition into the Everfree Forest. She was being stalked. A group of, what Sunset could only assume to be, Timber Wolves have been carefully stalking her for the last seven minutes –not long after leaving the tribal tree house– as she wandered through the forest. She did not have an exact number but it appeared to be five or six of them; phasing in and out of different patches of foliage, barely making any sound at all. A most useful skill for stalking prey. Now sufficiently far away from the house tree in the forest, Sunset started her counter ambush. Without changing her pace or in any way that looked suspicious to her would be hunters, she cast a series of glyphs at a few bushes in front of her, before generating sufficient earth magic to soften the forest floor she had just walked over. With a few more paces she swapped her magic flow again and this time stood still as she started casting a different series of glyphs. There were eight in total, suspended at shoulder height above the ground and placed at an even distance surrounding her; all of them were within a four meter radius centred on her. They shimmered faintly, almost invisibly, in the air; slowly rotating leisurely. After that she waited. Nearly all her traces of magic had been small and without intent, with the exception of the first two fire blast glyphs that she placed into the bushes at her one-o-clock and eleven-o-clock respectfully. They were placed to ensure she had a valid escape route just in case, but she did not expect to need it. Magical creatures as a whole have a sixth sense when it comes to magic and knowing the intent behind the spells being used. It is why fighting them can be so dangerous, they can almost predict what you are about to do and act accordingly. A collection of low growls started to fill the air around her. ‘Six in total, four behind, one at three-o-clock and the final at nine-o-clock. They avoided my fire glyphs a lot more than I expected them too. Why is that?’ Now fully formed and slowly emerging from behind trees or amongst bushes came the six timber wolves in the positions that were expected. They were entirely made of wood and magic; sporadic pieces of thick timber sturdy enough to build with, wooden splinters sharp enough to scratch granite, all further reinforced with magic gathered from the forest. Some pieces of Timber Wolves are actually sought after for their magical properties. ‘Maybe they can act as storage vessels for tribal magic? Keep one alive for testing? We’ll see.’ They were advancing, slowly and full of confidence each one both bulkier and larger than she was. Beings of magic, such as these, did not require sustenance; magic was all they needed to survive. However that does not mean that they do not have the instincts of what they manifest as. These are large alpha wolves in every sense of the word and will kill and eat but never actually feel full; honestly their lives are nothing but the sensation of constant starvation. It is a mercy to end their existence. Suddenly the four wolves behind her let out what sounded like a confused whine. One of them had advanced faster than the others next to it and had just stepped up to his shoulder in mud. Nothing aggressive was cast, the intent behind softening earth was benign, so the magical wood monster had ignored it; and now it had to deal with this obstacle first. It was a moment of delay, keeping all the pack together. The beast had simply backed out of the mud before jumping over the obstacle. The other wooden wolves behind her saw this and simply jumped over where the magic was, just a moment after the lead wolf. All of the Timber Wolves behind her were now within four meters. Right where she wanted them, but still she did not move, just waited. The two on either side of her had to be further down the pack order; and they were there to make sure she did not run off in those directions. Still they did not stop their advance and, with their prey still not moving a muscle, started to move with a little more confidence. There were no obstacles, no repositioning themselves to jump, just a slight accelerating pace that would get them to their prey ahead of their fellow pack mates. The only slight hesitation in their steps came from the realisation that they could still not detect any fear from their dinner. They were close now, barely a few meters away, when their prey’s eyes opened with what could almost be called a smile appearing along with them. The green magic filled eyes of the two side wolves were confused for a second, not use to their food smiling; but that quickly changed into fright as an intense desire to dodge manifested when the pony in front of them was engulfed with magic. All this time, a spell was being worked on at a rather gentle pace. No magic flowed into the matrix so there was nothing for the magical beasts to sense, but it was set and waiting ready to be unleashed; and when the time was right, it was if a damn had been breached. A torrent of magical energy drowned the channels that were the spell lines that make up the matrix and eight Searing Lances of cutting magic were launched from the mare in question. Even with their senses giving them advanced warning, only two of them managed to dodge the attack unscathed, the others receiving large gashes that penetrated right through whatever got hit, as the white energy beams continued onwards unabated. Each one aimed at the previously benign piece of magic floating in the air. Directional magic may have had an intent – it wants to send things in these directions – but it too is benign. It cannot do anything without additional input like, for instance, a lance of cutting magic heading straight for it; that is something that can be directed into different directions. It is made even easier as the beams were integrated with complementary magic’s to allow said beams to both split and change direction. The eight exceedingly powerful lances were soon divided up into an additional six other lances of high power, as they launched out at set angles and directions. Centred on the purple unicorn with wings, eight lances launched out directly towards previously established directional glyphs that divided each beam of energy into six others. If you were to look at it from a pegasus’s view point it would have looked like an octagram with all the points joining up together. Within this quarter of a second after launching her magic barrage, the eight meter diameter around the unicorn was awash of searing beams of light. Powerful magic that did not so much cut, as to burn through and evaporate anything they came into contact with; be it plant, lumber, or Timber Wolf. From the second she had started to prepare her trap until this ending moment, it had taken all of twenty seconds to completely decimate the six timber wolves to well beyond the point of their natural regeneration. Two large dominating trees were on the verge of collapsing thanks to all the holes now punctured through their trunks. Even the vegetation did not survive within the eight meters diameter, as anything taller than the barrel of a pony got hit by these rays of immolation and fire; but that type of collateral was acceptable. Using Mage’s Sight on what remained of the carcasses; Sunset confirmed that these wolves were indeed gone and unlikely to reform any time soon, if at all. She had done such a thorough job that if they did have anything of magical worth on them, it was destroyed in the attack. “Well, that was a pleasant stretch. Best be off now though, I’ve got a long day ahead of me tomorrow…and I just remembered I still need to make my bed before I can sleep. Oh bother, best take the quick way out then.” Closing her eyes again and remembering the details of the room in question – it took quite a bit of focus considering she’d only been in the bedroom of the library once – but eventually the connection was made. With a flash of magenta light the purple unicorn was gone from this charred clearing in the forest thanks to a simple Teleport spell. It would be a little after dawn before this new clearing would be disturbed, as a zebra comes to investigate the sound of two falling trees in the forest; only to wonder what could have caused such destruction.