Mystery of the Draconics

by Wanderwing

Not Alone

It is at this point that my story pauses, and other stories take its place. I shall skip over the time after the mirror when I heard these stories. I am still not completely sure of their honesty save for Stoic’s but I must include them for completeness’s sake.

The rock with my message came through the mirror and landed in the circle I had stood on for the ritual. The three had been waiting nearly an hour.

“Ah, so he made it through after all. What’s this say then? ‘The mirror will force you to face your fears. Be careful,’ it seems this mirror is more than just a doorway then.” Stoic said, picking up the rock and unfolding my message.

“What do you think he means by face your fears? All I see in the mirror is a spell failing, I’m not afraid of that, I will go next.” Brightflare said with an arrogant tone.

Falling Star looked to Stoic and rolled her eyes, “Good luck then Brightflare, see you on the other side. We will go in, one an hour, from now on. We should all be on the other side within three hours. Try not to get yourself killed.”

“Good luck Brightflare, and don’t underestimate any foe, even if it’s just a mirror. I think there is more to this than we’ve seen,” Stoic said warily.

“I will be fine. Wander made it through, how bad could it be?” Brightflare said; although he was shaking a little, according to Falling Star. He trotted up to the mirror and passed straight through the glass.

When we were talking later he described his sensation much differently than mine. He told me his passage through the mirror was like being dipped in freezing water then thrown into the wind.

He was in an operating room, he was meant to use the final spell to stich the laceration closed. He would attempt to channel his magic to use the simple stitch spell he had used on us after the ritual, but the magic would always fail, sometimes catastrophically. He said that in one of the reoccurrences of this dream the spell failed and became a slice instead of a stitch, bringing a painful and deadly end to the procedure.

He, although he did not want to admit it, had known this would be his fear, this nightmare. He had had this dream a thousand times. He would word the spell differently, vary the amount of force behind it, but he could never get the spell right, the patient always died, and left him wishing he had died instead.

He failed to defeat his nightmare, three times. The cruel spell of the mirror restarted the dream each time. On his fourth attempt he realized something. He was not alone, even in the operating room. There were at least three other doctors and a nurse there. He had been too arrogant, too self-assured to even consider them.

There had been others watching, through the glass as he performed the procedure, those he knew would judge him. He thought that if he couldn’t do this they would judge him as unfit to be a doctor, and he could never help ponies the way he wanted to.

He wrestled with these thoughts in his mind but then realized, it doesn’t matter if he is the one to save them. They just need to be saved. He begged the other doctors to help and they took over and readily stitched the cut closed.

The patient, a young filly, woke up a few hours later and thanked the doctors who operated on her. She even called Brightflare over and gave him a little kiss on his cheek. Brightflare couldn’t remember anything that had ever made him happier, not a single memory in his whole life even came close. He knew this was the right path, the way he had to live his life, devoted to saving others with no regard for personal glory. That was when his dream faded and he walked out of the back of the mirror.

We sat down and began to talk, not even about the mirror, just about life; we agreed to hold the stories until we were all together. He told me he expected the others to come through within the next few hours. I curled up with a blanket I had thought to bring, and took a nap.

I was woken up by the sound of Stoic trudging slowly out of the mirror. I then noticed something, he was crying. A stallion who is called Stoic, one of the strongest earth ponies who I had met, was weeping in front of me. I tried to comfort him, to ask what he had seen, but he refused to say anything. He would just glance back at the mirror, and his eyes would tear up again. It was not until quite some time after this I was able to get him to tell me what had happened.

I had no knowledge of this at the time but Stoic had been a father once. He had lost his son in a battle with some bandits years ago, back when he was serving in the Equestrian Guard. I couldn’t get him to say much, but through the tears I could make out a few things. “I couldn’t save him, he died to save me, it was all my fault. Why couldn’t I just give in? We did what we came to do. Why couldn’t I save him? She hates me now, they all hate me, and they should.”

“Stoic, you need to calm down, I know the mirror is awful but we need you at your best. Whatever you saw wasn’t real, it’s a nightmare, nothing more.” Brightflare said, shaken by the strong earth pony’s distraught nature.

“YOU ARE WRONG! It was real, I didn’t have a nightmare, I relived a memory. Everything I saw was real. My son is dead, it is my fault, and my wife hates me,” Stoic yelled, startling me with his sudden burst of noise. “I will finish this job, but give me a moment to rest. We need to wait for Falling Star anyway.”

“Take what time you need, Star isn’t due for another half hour at least anyway. Rest while you can,” I said, praying he would be ready to move on when the time came. I had grown quite tired of waiting. Stoic curled up and just seemed to give out. He wouldn’t wake back up but he was still breathing, his ordeal had exhausted him.
Little did I know, but we wouldn’t get the rest we needed, Stoic’s angry voice had awakened something. They were coming for us.

I had begun to drift off again when I heard something that jolted me awake. I could hear a low growling, and a sound of creaking wood. In that moment I knew something was wrong. I should have known Stoic’s calls would awaken something. I never would have guessed there would be timberwolves in these tunnels. Maybe I should have realized Druids would have a few creatures of the forest around.

Timberwolves are wolf shaped, but are made from wood and vines. Not much was originally known about them and many considered them beings of myth. What little that is known about them came from a mare who helped found the town of Ponyville. I made a few contributions as well, after I learned a few things.

At that moment three of the timberwolves rushed up the tunnel in front of us, and another from the passageway on the left. Normally I would have suggested running down the path to the right and attempting to lose the creatures in the tunnels. That wasn’t an option however; we still needed to wait for Falling Star or she might be taken by surprise by the wolves.
A few of these wolves looked young, with fresh leaves and the wood still green and moist with life. Others seemed old, their bodies dried out and creaking as they moved. Their growls sounded just as if they were normal wolves but they moved with greater speed and strength.

I glared at the one closest to me, not wanting to make the first move. Its maw opened and even from this distance I could smell its rank breath. The smell of a compost heap mixed with rotten meat wafted from its jaws. The vines around its legs tensed as if they were tendons as it prepared to pounce. It let loose an echoing howl, with something not entirely animal in it, something that seemed older, almost eldritch in nature.

Stoic was still down for the count. He seemed to have lost consciousness shortly after we stopped talking; his ordeal in the mirror must have exhausted him. “Brightflare, I hope you are ready to defend yourself. These timberwolves don’t look too friendly.” I said, glancing to him quickly.

“Don’t worry about that, I know just the spell for this, they may be fast but they are still made of wood.” Brightflare said. He focused on the wolf on our right and his horn began to glow. His eyes flashed and a fireball appeared just in front of the wolf, singeing its maw, causing pain but no permanent damage. “Damn!” Brightflare swore, “I won’t miss this time!”

“Nice, but maybe focus on them a bit more, we don’t want to bring these tunnels down,” I said, “Okay now let’s see how strong these wolves really are.”

“Yeah, yeah I know what I am doing,” he said before casting again. This time he hit the wolf right in the chest, it began whimpering as it caught alight. It burned much quicker than I would have expected. in timberwolves, much like most wood, the wood becomes much more combustible with age. These wolves must have been ancient, which made them vulnerable.

Spotting this weakness, I moved closer to the two wolves on my left. I sucked in a deep breath and prepared myself. Waiting for them to rush me I got closer and closer. I was only two or three meters away when they leapt at me. Right before they hit me I released the flame.

My breath burned, hot and shining. The two wolves were startled, but had already begun to leap. They couldn’t stop in time and jumped into the flames. Unfortunately I had miscalculated; the one on the left was still young, its wood still green and full of life. I had time to dodge backwards but had to stop my fire. The two wolves who were still alive howled with rage at the loss of two members of their pack.

The one who had touched my flame but had not been destroyed had still been heavily singed. It made a low grumbling sound whenever it moved and was not as strong as it could have been. The two wolves split from each other, one charging me and the other running at Brightflare. Thankfully the weakened one chose to target me.

I decided it was time to put my training to the test; I turned around and bucked out with both back legs. The pointed tips of my hooves drove into the creature’s chest, not deep enough to kill but enough to gravely wound. The beasts jaw snapped out at my leg catching me just above the ankle. I cried out and roared, reflexively sending out more flames. This time it was enough to stop the beast but I had clipped myself with the flame. The smell of burned hair joined the scent of burning wood and ash. I had singed my own flank and my leg, but I would heal.

I looked over to Brightflare to see if he was still okay but found he was already dusting ash off himself. “Hey Brightflare, nice work, you get hit at all?” I said.

“No, I am fine. The last one got close but I stopped him just in time. Are you alright?” He answered.

“Nothing too bad, I managed to burn myself though, I need to be more careful. Being a draconic doesn’t make me fireproof. You have any spells for burns?” I asked.

“Spells for burns are simple enough, let me take a look at it,” he said walking over to me. “It’s a good thing you didn’t have your cloak on, it would have caught for sure. Okay hold still I am going to try and soothe it.”

I froze not wanting to mess up his focus, medical spells can be dangerous. He closed his eyes tightly and cast his spell. The edges of the burn seemed to heal just a bit but then stopped, he poured more energy into the spell but it wouldn’t close.

“Ah, I see. Your breath counts as dragonfire, which burns differently from normal flame. I don’t have a spell for that type of burn. Sorry but I can’t help you. Not with magic at least, I have some bandages and maybe a healing cream in my packs. Let me go get that for you,” Brightflare said, dashing off to his bag.

He found his bandages and cream then came back. He began quickly and clinically wrapping my burns in the cream coated bandages. “You know, forget what Falling Star said, you’d make one hell of a doctor Brightflare,” I said, the cream swiftly soothing my pain.

“Thank you Wanderwing, I think that’s what I want, if I make enough money from this job I am out of this mercenary business. I want to help ponies, and being a doctor will let me do that,” Brightflare said, “Ever since I was little, I wanted to be like the doctors I saw. I wanted to be the best doctor in the world. My family never had much though and I wound up working tirelessly just to get by.”

“You can still be a great doctor, you still WILL be one. I bet you will get right into school when we get back.” I said, trying to reassure him. He sighed and just said, “I hope you are right, thanks again.”

Stoic began to stir in the corner. Groaning, he stood up and shook his head. “Okay, feeling a little better now, what was all that noise? And what happened to your leg Wander?”

“We had a little run in with some timberwolves. We fought them off but I do not know if there are more ahead in those tunnels,” I said. “Hopefully we won’t see any more before Star gets out here.”

“A girl like that, tough as nails, makes you wonder. What do you think she is afraid of?” Stoic asked. “Hopefully she makes it through all right.”

“I am sure she will be fine,” I said, “Let’s just keep our eyes peeled in case any more wolves decide to attack.”

We stood watching each entrance, and began to wait, time seeming to slow to a crawl. After some time Star stomped out of the mirror.

“Yeah, that was…different. Now then, let’s go get our hooves on some treasure,” Falling Star said, maybe a little too quickly.

“Wait, aren’t you going to say what was in there?” Brightflare asked, “Your reflection was in a wedding dress, why?” Falling Star glared at the ground but Flare didn’t let up. “Come on, tell us. What did you see? Or is the big bad treasure hunter immune to fear?” Star shifted her angry gaze onto Brightflare, but still he badgered her.

She was clearly becoming agitated so I tried to get Flare to stop. “Brightflare, if she doesn’t want to talk about what she saw, than she doesn’t need to. Maybe you should back off a bit.” I said, beginning to sweat a bit.
Brightflare responded, “Fine,” then he murmured under his breath, “What kind of mare has her worst fear in a wedding dress anyway?”

“The kind who is going to kick your worthless flank if you don’t shut up!” Falling Star shouted. “What do you have against me anyway? I’ve never done a thing to you! Fine, you really want to know what I saw in there? I saw the only pony I have ever loved die. Happy you stinking mule?”

Brightflare dropped his eyes to the floor. He looked like he was going to say something unpleasant back, but thought better of it. He settled for just apologizing.

“Okay, are we done?” Stoic asked, “Good, now, do you need to rest before we move out Star?”

Falling Star shook her head and said, “Let’s just get going, we can’t hang around here all night.” She seemed to have calmed down as she focused on the task at hoof.

“So, we can finally move on, now we just need to pick which direction to head in. I think we should head straight, and if we come to any bends we should leave marks so we don’t get lost down here.” I said, thinking about how awful it would be to be trapped underground.

“I can cut arrows into the floor pointing back to the mirror, that should do the trick,” Star said, “Did I miss anything while you guys were out here?”

“These two fought off a pack of timberwolves that came out of these tunnels,” Stoic said, “I guess they are tougher than they look.”

“Got to say Wander, I’m impressed, didn’t take you as a fighter. Okay, enough small talk, let’s get walking,” Star said, winking at me.

“Thanks Star,” I said, blushing though you couldn’t tell through my black coat, “But Brightflare deserves some credit too, that was a nice fire nova spell.”

“That’s enough patting ourselves on the back; let’s get moving before anything else shows up,” Stoic said.
We began walking through the tunnel’s entrance, lighting a torch so we could see where we were going. We walked in silence for a few hundred steps, the only noise the sound of our hooves clacking against the stone floor and the crackling of the torch.

After a few dozen more steps I noticed the ground change beneath us. The floor and walls ceased to be stone and seemed to be dirt. The tunnel narrowed slightly and began to look more like something natural than something pieced together by the hard work of ponies.

Stoic moved up to the front and told us single file would be best, the tunnel seemed to narrow even more ahead. “I don’t want us separated in here and I don’t want to be too big to get through the tunnel to get you out if something goes wrong.”

“Okay,” I said, “I will keep an eye out behind us, making sure nothing takes us by surprise.”

After a short, tense few minutes of walking, we began to see an end to the tunnel. For some reason the end seemed to give off an eerie green light. I had a bad feeling, but we couldn’t just turn back and give up now. I took a few deep breaths and just kept moving forward, trying not to think about what lay ahead of us. At least I wasn’t here alone.