//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: The Forsaken's Search // by Cyreni //------------------------------// I awoke slowly. A blunt-force concussion typically does that to you, though if you happen to be alive at the time you usually wake up dizzy and feeling sick as well. I could hear some voices around me, though I had a difficult time making out what they were saying. Instead, I chose to lie down wherever I was at the moment and attempt to collect my thoughts. I recalled being hit by a purple hoof, then I recalled trying to talk to a purple pony... What did I have last night? Talking to colored horses? I had seen stranger, but that was still weird in my book. The voices around me were becoming a bit more clear, enough that my addled mind could make out some of the whispers. “...dead! Look at its arms! Or… foreleg, maybe? It’s only bone right there!” “You saw it, it attacked me! It definitely wasn’t dead!” “I just hope it’s alright… the poor thing must be in terrible pain…” Pain? The last time I ever felt physical pain was when I got hit by the Holy Light paladins and priests wielded. Emotional pain, on the oth- Ira. Where is Ira? That got me up quick. Panic found itself to me again, and with a drunken lurch and a stumble forward, I made my way up onto my feet. “Ira!” I gasped. “Whe- huh?” It seems I wasn’t dreaming. Six brightly-colored ponies were staring at me with varying mixed expressions of fear, wariness, and anger. Typical response to seeing a dead person, though the fact that the looks were coming from apparently sentient ponies was new. Ponies later, Ira now. “Nevermind. Have you seen my wife?” I asked with a bit of urgency. All I received was a number of baffled looks in addition to the emotions already on display. Their faces were oddly expressive, though considering that they already differed greatly from normal horses and ponies, that was less surprising. “Answer me, please! Have you seen another like me?” “N-No?” the purple one stuttered, now looking more confused than anything else. There was still revulsion though. I said something unpleasant in Gutterspeak under my breath. “Then where’s the nearest settlement? I need help finding her, and I’m not going to get any in the middle of… wherever this is.” That was probably the wrong thing to ask, considering that the cyan-colored pegasus zipped right up into my face, eyes narrowed. I backed up an involuntary step, and she took that as the opportunity to start yelling at me. “And why should we tell you, huh? You came out of the trees and attacked Twilight!” “Rainbow!” the one named Twilight chided, pulling the aptly-named Rainbow back with telekinesis. “What are you doing?” I cut Rainbow off as she opened her mouth. Retorting, annoyed, I said, “I nearly tripped, and I was panicking. I still am, because I don’t know where Ira is. Now if you don’t tell me where a settlement is, I’ll pick a direction and simply walk that way.” Actually, what I had planned was to walk until I couldn’t make them out, then follow them to whatever destination they had in mind. A good plan, in my mind, especially since I realized I we were on a path. Old, but easily visible to my untrained eye. “Yeah, well how do we know you’re not lying?” Rainbow countered. “You don’t. Goodbye.” I spun on my heel, walking towards my left. I could feel the ponies’ eyes on me as I disappeared into the shadows of the forest. After deciding that I couldn’t be seen anymore, I looked over my shoulder. No ponies. I dove into the brush alongside the path, and waited. If they didn’t show up in ten minutes, I went the wrong direction, and would then correct my path to go right. It then occurred to me that they could get a local militia, and if their initial response was any form of indicator, I probably just ruined my chances of any possible friendly relations. Crap. I drove the heel of my palm into my forehead, berating myself when hoofsteps sounded on the pathway. Covering my eyelights with my hand, I made a tiny crack in my fingers to see what was going on without, hopefully, alerting them to my presence. The six were warily searching the forest, presumably for me. Did I choose the right direction to town? Maybe. I waited for them to pass me by before picking my way back onto the path, crouching low to the ground. I gave a wary stare to their retreating forms, still covering my eyelights. The yellow pegasus glanced back towards me, and I covered up my eyes completely. I just hoped I wouldn’t make a fool out of myself if she did spot me and come back. Five seconds. Ten seconds. I cracked open my fingers, and the pony group had disappeared. I was thankful my hair had a similar color to the foliage, and for the nighttime light. Speaking of which, I could tell I was definitely not on Azeroth anymore. The moon hanging in the air wasn’t one of our moons at all. It didn’t even have any markings on it, which was very strange. Both of Azeroth’s moons had features on them, but this one was a dull, featureless white. Their moon goddess must be a rather boring person, I decided. With that observation out of the way, I walked along the pathway, following the ponies’ tracks. It wasn’t long before I heard an animalistic roar up ahead. My first instinct was to run to the place of the battle, and that’s exactly what I did, fire and frost dancing in anticipation on my fingertips. I cut my enthusiasm short as I took the time to think over a few things. If I just ran in there, spells ablazing, I could just as easily terrify the ponies into being more uncooperative. I decided then to just drag the attention of whatever creature was up ahead away from them, then deal with it. When I could see the ponies, not a single one of them was harmed despite the creature towering directly over them. A manticore, I realized, one of the more violent and rare creatures on Azeroth. To my immense confusion, the manticore flapped off not a few seconds later, leaving them be. I ducked down back into the undergrowth as they began moving again, and followed them again as soon as they disappeared from sight. I hoped that wouldn’t become the norm for this little trip. It didn’t. I caught up to them enough that I could see them, but stayed a long ways behind them to remain hidden. They had reached a fast-flowing river, and were talking with a river dragon with a twin-colored mustache, it seemed. As in, half of his mustache was purple and the other half was orange. After the brief conversation where the dragon was praising something or someone, if his enthusiastic arm-waving was anything to go by, he let the group cross the river on his back, where he afterwards waved them goodbye, submerged, and left. The river calmed down after that. I suppose he was the cause of it, though I don’t know what would make him upset enough for him to do that. Hurrying along the path, I reached the river’s bank in about half a minute and instantly dove in. My mage’s physique didn’t help me much, but I managed to cross the river eventually with my weak strokes. I landed on the opposite shore somewhere downstream. Not stopping to dry off, I hurried along back upstream and onto the path again. I had lost the group well and truly after that little exercise. There wasn’t any sign of them except for the tracks they had left in the dirt, even after I had kept up my quickened pace for the better part of an hour. Obnoxious, but not a crippling problem by any stretch of the imagination. This problem, on the other hand… I had exited the wooded part of the forest, and was now walking alongside a cliffside passage, both above a cliff and below one, giving me a sweeping view of the trees to my left below and the starry night sky above. I paid a bit of attention to those for a little while, merely to drink in the scenery, before I reached my problem. A rather large rockslide was barring my path. Pretty sure it was recent as well, as the occasional pebble still bounced down from the cliff above me, and the ponies’ tracks walked right into it. I gave the pile of rock a foul look before rubbing my hands together in preparation to climb. An excessively long amount of time later, I made it over that infernal deathtrap. Hardly any of the rocks were stable enough for me to put weight on them without causing them to collapse, and that was only on the climb upwards. Downwards was just as bad, considering that I had a miniature avalanche after me as I landed on the ground. Thankful that that ordeal was behind me, and cursing the ordeal for wasting even more of my time, I continued to follow the tracks. Definitely a recent rockslide, probably caused by them. Did they know I was following them? I hope not. Regardless, I had lost so much time and distance on them that closing the gap would be pointless and futile, even if they happened to be walking to a settlement that was hundreds of miles away. By then, I would’ve turned around and gone the other way. It would probably be much faster. I pressed onwards, following the cliff path as it dove back into the forest again. What was probably an hour later, I came across a recently repaired bridge crossing a misty gorge. The ponies had definitely been here, though the bridge was a concern. Repairs or no, the wooden planks and rope making up the bridge were rotting. It would hold for a while longer, but it was in dire need of replacement. Even the Undercity, for all of its decay, was kept in decent condition by magic or sheer structural integrity. This bridge had none of those things. Coming to the opposite end, I could see fresh knots having been tied, more evidence for my thoughts. The old path could just be indicative of a path not often used. The river could’ve washed away a bridge crossing it. The cliff was clear until they came along. But this bridge had been down entirely, and none of the ponies had anything on them to indicate that fixing it was their designated job. I was convinced that they weren’t heading to a normal settlement, if it was one at all. Were they heading to some ruins, or a cave, perhaps? Things just became much more interesting, though I doubted any of this was going to help me find Ira. I kept following their path, and stopped in my tracks as soon as I could get a good look through the mist hovering in the air. There, a massive, ancient castle loomed above everything else nearby, including the other ruined buildings around it. Holes were apparent in the rotting walls, but that didn’t detract from the sheer magnificence of the building. The ground gave way to old cobblestones, though most had been dislodged from the dirt underneath them long ago. The tracks still weren’t very hard to follow, and I continued doing this when one of the most diabolical laughs I had ever heard echoed across the mute landscape. “The night shall last FOREVER!” So they were an adventuring group tasked to take down yet another egotistical maniac? Some things don’t change between worlds, I guess, but I don’t think they were adventuring material. I sprinted into the castle proper, noting the sun and moon motif spread throughout. ‘Now, where does every single maniac hide in a castle? Either the tallest tower, the throne room, or the basement, and considering the sheer volume of the voice, I’d say she’s in the tower, or she has a really good set of lungs.’ I made up my mind, and ran up the nearest staircase I could find, two stair-steps at a time. Before I could get halfway up, I felt and saw a lot of magic go off back on the ground floor, in what I assumed was the throne room. Blinding white poured out from the windows for the span of a few seconds, and I yelled in pain, throwing up my arms defensively. Light, or at least a very close substitute, was being utilized in that room. I felt a bit of pity for the crazed person in there, hearing her screams of, “No! No! Nooooo!” I was sure that if I went into that room, only ashes would remain of everyone in there right now. It died down after a while, and everything fell silent. Taking a cautious peek out from my crossed arms, my somewhat blinded eyelights took in what little I could see. I could see another pony, lying on the ground, unconscious. Dark blue, with a lighter shade of blue for her mane and tail. I hadn’t seen her in the group of ponies from before, so she might have been the damsel in distress. How anyone got through that light show was beyond me. Curiosity more than piqued, I began running to the throne room to check on everything there, skipping steps on my way down. Just as I reached the closed doors leading to the throne room, I cautiously opened them a crack to observe what was going on in there. On the ground, unconscious, was the pony group from earlier. Opposite of me, underneath a pedestal, was the blue pony I spotted earlier. The first six ponies stirred awake, each of them wearing a piece of jewelry they hadn’t been carrying earlier. They must’ve been magical artifacts, I decided, hidden away in the depths of this castle. Did the crazy lady attempt to reach them first? If those five torcs and the tiara could make that much energy, I would assume so. That amount of power on your side was nothing to sneeze at. I closed the door a little more, letting only my eyelight show itself through the crack, and watched the proceedings. All of them were excited about their new accessories, and the white one was very happy about her purple tail being fixed. Wait… purple tail, tail got fixed, and a purple and orange mustache on a river dragon? That’s too much of a coincidence. Was fashion really that big of a deal here? This world was weird, but maybe it was just a woman’s thing. I broke out of my musings when another bright light appeared, prompting me to cover my eyelight up again. There, floating down gently from the window, was one of the most majestic creatures I had ever seen, and if the regalia, size, and the fact that it appeared to be a hybrid of both pegasi and unicorns, and the fact that the six were bowing before her, a ruler of sorts. I then noted that the blue pony also had both wings and a horn, so she must have been one of the ruling groups too. A few soft words were exchanged between the white hybrid pony, the blue pony, and the six others, and they all vanished in a flash of light and teleportation magic. But not before the white one made eye contact with me, I was sure. “Wait,” I said aloud to myself, “I was just left here in the middle of nowhere, in a forest with manticores and dragons in it, and I have no idea where the nearest settlement is, or if it’s even friendly. And none of this has helped me find Ira, at all.” My yell of frustration rivaled that of crazy lady’s yell from earlier. I was about to start tearing my hair out in anger when the third bright flash of the day assaulted my eyelights again. I put up another arm again, recoiling back from the amount of light being used. There, standing in front of me and regarding me with a guarded, neutral look, was the white hybrid from earlier. “Why are you here?” she demanded. I wasn’t sure if I should be pleased that their ruler came back to visit me personally, or terrified because I was an undead and their ruler came back to visit me personally. “I’m here on this world by random chance, and here specifically because I thought the group of six was heading to a settlement.” She frowned at me. “And what are your intentions?” Honesty is probably the best policy right now, I decided. “To find my wife, Ira.” I then told her the story of my arrival here, me running into the six from earlier, and my ordeals getting to here. “...and now here I am, having made absolutely no progress whatsoever,” I finished. The whole time I told my story she regarded me with that decidedly neutral look that I had seen on all nobles having been in politics for any amount of time. She remained silent for a while, going over my story, before she spoke again. “I thought the undead were incapable of passion,” she mused. “You seem to have disproven me.” She gave me a smile, completely unexpected by myself. “Come. I think you have a story to tell and a wife to find.” A flash of light and teleportation magic, followed by my knee-jerk reaction to bright light, and I found myself in a sitting room that was a stark contrast to the ruins from earlier. I was sitting on a couch, with the white pony sitting across from me on another couch, separated by a coffee table with a tea set on it. Levitating one of the cups to her lips in yellow telekinesis, she said, “Now, why don’t you start at the beginning?” ‘Oh boy,’ I thought, dreading what she may be looking for. ‘This just might become very bad indeed.’ “Will you help me find my wife?” I asked. “Of course. I can imagine what it must be like for you,” she said, with a hint of sadness. “The same thing happened to me with my sister.” I exhaled, falling backwards onto the back of the couch, and began the tale of my life, and unlife. Hopefully she wouldn’t think much differently about me when I was finished.