//------------------------------// // I - The Would-Be-Hero // Story: A Beginner's Guide to Heroism // by LoyalLiar //------------------------------// Chapter I The Would-Be-Hero I was born the year Equestria was founded. I’m not sure of the exact day since the Crystal Calendar uses a different length year. Just as you likely did, I grew up hearing stories about Hurricane and Star Swirl and Platinum. The difference is that in my case they were all still alive, albeit getting older and a not insubstantial distance away. As I mentioned, I was born far to the north of Equestria in a place called the Crystal Union; a place that sounds beautiful on paper, but absolutely does not live up to what ponies imagine. The crystal ponies may not have paved their streets with gold (which is good, because as any alchemist worth their salt lick will remind you, gold is extremely soft), but diamond and amethyst put the Union in a close second place for the title of ‘imaginary paradise’. Far up in the frozen north, protected by a shield of powerful weather magic, ponies with glittering coats just as shiny as the road made for a beautiful sight, wandering around a city surrounded by ice. At its center, a mighty spire of diamond cast its shadow over the various districts of my lifelong home, at once a shining beacon of opulence and the gnomon on the world’s most glorious sundial. I’m certain that all sounds breathtaking, but it was also excruciatingly painful to look at in broad daylight, which did a great job of ruining the effect. Crystal ponies invented sunglasses for exactly this reason. While we are on the topic of things that ruin the image of a utopian city built almost entirely of precious gems, imagine a group of crooked city guards shaking down ponies to line their own pockets. Union City, the visually glorious jewel I’ve been describing, had a real problem with corruption. Walk the streets any day of the year and you could likely find a bunch of young guards functioning more like members of a street gang than soldiers without much trouble, collecting ‘taxes’ and riotously wasting their ill-gotten income. My story begins with three such unpleasant wastes of breath, whom I encountered while they were shaking down a filly just old enough to be working her family’s stall in the big market square surrounding the base of the Crystal Spire. Halfway through some veiled threat about ‘not wanting something bad to be happening to her family business,’ their ears perked at an unexpected, suave voice addressing them. “Guardsponies,” said the interloper. He was tall for a unicorn, but with a slender physique.  His steady gaze meant business. A fitted black coat covered his naturally pale blue fur, its raised collar and red trim dancing ever so slightly in the magically warmed breeze of Union City. A rough forward-styled mane of an icy blue brought out the determined focus in his eyes, which in turn accentuated his every firm step. Even to a laypony, it was clear he was a wizard, and the way he carried himself made it clear he was one of some talent. The guardsponies, however, knew him better than that. The undeniably handsome stallion of seventeen was the personal apprentice of Union City’s irascible archmage, and a rapidly rising power in the city. He was also known for his benevolence, and his sometimes aggressive disapproval of police corruption. I am being entirely serious. I looked good, and I wouldn’t emphasize it so much if it didn’t matter to the story. Once I had the corrupt guards’ attention, I offered them the most sarcastic smile I could possibly muster. It was a good entrance, if the way their heads whipped around wearing shocked and worried expressions was anything to go by. The filly they’d been extorting quivered behind them, not yet realizing that her ‘glorious savior’ and ‘hero’, as I liked to style myself, had arrived. Her focus remained on the bullies: Iconoclast, Emerald, and—I’m really not kidding—Side Effect. Much like yours truly, her parents had followed the proud Crystal tradition of giving half-breed non-crystal foals really awful names, though I still had her beat. Speaking of which… “Mortal Coil. Funny we should run into you here.” Iconoclast was a dim-witted mass of crystal pony crammed roughly into the shape of a ball who thought I hadn’t figured out what they were up to. He had a ratty mane—something of an achievement, given it was made of stone—and when he spoke, he sounded not unlike a normal pony who had been punched hard enough to turn his muzzle concave. “I don’t think you understand what funny means, Iconoclast.  Would you like me to explain?  Out of all the ponies in the square you could shake down, you decided to go for the most innocent helpless filly.  What are you, filly?  Six?  Seven?”  She didn’t answer me, and as self-absorbed as my younger self was, I carried straight on in my monologue without even so much as noticing the lack of a reply. I’m sorry you have to put up with him, by the way; I swear he gets better. “I doubt she has any meaningful money on her right now, since her parents aren’t here to look out for it.  If you had chosen to be quiet and find some other merchant, you’d probably have the shards you want and be gone by now.  But instead you decided to ‘take candy from a baby’, almost literally, and now you’ve run into me.  How does that make you feel?  Sad?  Terrified?” “We’re not afraid of you, Mortal,” Emerald responded in the utmost of eloquence, sneering as he spoke. As if a button had been pressed, a layer of sarcastic mirth fell away from my face.  “Don’t call me that.” “Mortal. Coil.” I forced myself to take a moment and control my expression at the use of my full, given name. ‘Mortal Coil’ wasn’t a name my parents gave me out of endearment. Once my face was back to calm confidence, I continued. “I’d love to educate you on proper manners, but I don’t have time to hurl you through any walls today. So can we skip to the part where you stop harassing foals and go home?” Thinking back, I probably told them that a lot—not just ‘them’ as in these three particular ponies, but the lot of the Union Militia. Every one of them was corrupt (the decent ones having been shown the door fairly quickly), and I saw that corruption as the ideal opportunity for me to earn a reputation as a heroic defender of the downtrodden masses. The three I faced that day were nothing special; just recurring rivals for a part of my life story that, frankly, isn’t as interesting as what I’m beginning now. Suffice it to say they were villains that I’d already surpassed, and they were just too stupid to realize it. I’m absolutely certain of the latter fact because I wasn’t joking in the threat I recorded above. On more than one occasion, I had hurled one of them through a solid wall. On one particular occasion, I also managed to topple the attached building. Equestrian architecture may not be as shiny as the crystal style, but its stability lets it easily look down on the competition. The sword of Damulecles has nothing on the stress caused by the collapse of the average crystal roof. In spite of my threats, Iconoclast stepped toward me. “Wintershimmer isn’t here to save you, Mortal. And you’re only good for, what, two spells today? Three? You can’t take all of us. I bet you’ve got a lot more money in those saddlebags than the kid does.” Wintershimmer the Complacent, the stallion so bravely being alluded to was, in order of ascending importance: my mentor, the seated archmage of the Crystal Union, and the de facto ruler of the same nation by virtue of the fear he held over the rest of the ruling council.  It didn’t hurt that, as perhaps the strongest mage in the world, his magic was indisposable to Queen Jade. I was carrying a few thousand shards (the ‘bits’ of the Crystal Union) in magical supplies that rightfully belonged to the aforementioned ninety-seven-year-old stallion. If I showed up late, he was not likely to be happy. And when an archmage—particularly one with a reputation as the evil archmage of the modern era—isn’t happy, the unpleasant things that start cropping up can be… creative. Tragically, that concern barely crossed my mind.  At that moment, I was more concerned with the fact that these three bullies were afraid of Wintershimmer, and not of me. For a mage, reputation is the most powerful magic. I didn’t like mine being ignored. I lowered my head, glaring at them along the point of my horn. “Just let the kid the go and walk away.” Side Effect walked up to me, reaching up to press a hoof against my chest. She was strong, but between unicorns, brute force wasn’t exactly an intimidating concern. “Aww, we only want to talk. Why don’t you make some time for us, Mortal? You know, old friends and all.” “Last chance, Side Effect.” She ignored me, tracing her hoof partway up my neck and onto my jawline, before I swatted it away. “That’s no fun,” she pouted. “Take a load off. It looks like those bags are heavy. We just wanted to hear about what you were studying under Wintershimmer. You know, since you stole my apprenticeship?” The feigned coyness dissolved rapidly into bitterness, like herbs for indigestion in an otherwise perfect glass of crystal berry wine. I still don’t get why the geezer chose you.  You can’t be a wizard if you can only cast three spells.” “I only need one.”  I let the threat hang as my temper brought a light on my horn.  It took a carefully sucked down breath and a lot of willpower to prevent my magic from bursting into the unwanted spell. Taking a brief aside from the excitement of what was about to become an outright street brawl, something you need to know about magic is that it works exactly the opposite of almost every other physical phenomenon in the world. In matter, opposites attract. But in magic, like attracts like. Once a unicorn gets a spell to start casting, the actual challenge is stopping it. For most unicorns, whose horns coil with a pretty big space between the grooves, that isn’t a problem. There’s lots of space that isn’t filled with mana to insulate the power flowing through the grooves. Spells are sometimes less powerful if your groove is at eighteen or twenty degrees up from the slope of your forehead. At fifteen, you’re a little stronger, but from time to time, you might ‘flare up’ and put too much energy in a spell. It leaves you feeling physically drained, it makes you really hungry, and if it happens too much, you’ll pass out. At nine degrees, I flared with every spell beyond extremely basic telekinesis: lifting teacups and books, opening doors, that sort of thing. It meant that, at least in theory, I was the strongest unicorn of my generation. It also meant that I got to be the strongest unicorn for all of three spells a day, before whoever happened to be next in line took that title over my unconscious body. After one spell, I had that sort of sluggish feeling in my legs that you get when you’re midway through a cold. Two left me feeling like I’d won a championship game of hoofball while under the effects of said cold.  And, as I mentioned, the third spell usually only resulted in a mild throbbing headache.  The problem was that said headache was felt several hours later, when I woke up from a sudden nap. Since she was right about my inability to waste a spell, I offered a smile in return. “Okay, first of all, your boss does the creepy feigned sexual attention thing a lot better than you. Leave that routine to ponies who are actually attractive. Secondly, we’ve been having this stupid argument for fourteen years. Being a wizard isn’t about brute force, it’s about quick thinking. Cunning. Solving problems that other ponies can’t. That’s why it’s called magic, and not just arcana. And frankly, it’s why I’m a wizard, and you’re…” I waved a hoof at them as I tried to think of a word. “Part of a pathetic excuse for a street gang? The beginning of one of those circuses foals talk about running away to join? Although you might make a good bearded mare, Side—” Iconoclast stomped his hoof. Of the group, he was the only one big enough to actually intimidate me. Believe it or not, being punched in the face by a crystal pony hurts a lot more than the same hit from the squishier kind of pony. Or at least, that’s what I thought before I learned about pegasus magic, but that’s another story. In Iconoclast’s case, I let my pale blue magic accumulate on my horn and shook my head. “Uh-uh.” To the credit of his determination, he kept trying to get closer. To the credit of his friends, both Side Effect and Emerald grabbed his shoulders to hold him back. “He can’t take all three of us!” the trio’s leader wheezed. I forced in another slow breath, guessing that the luxuries of slow breathing and calm thought were about to disappear. I had something to prove, and I had too much pride to walk away. Unfortunately, what I didn’t yet have was a plan. Nevertheless, I decided to open my mouth. “Wanna bet?” If I made a list statements that have caused me the physical pain in my life, those words would be third, behind ‘I didn’t do it’ and ‘who asked you, geezer’. Unlike both of those statements, however, the pain here was thankfully immediate. Iconoclast roared, pushed past his lankier crystal friend and his vaguely feminine companion, and lunged at me with his hoof. The spell I chose to respond with was a simple stunning charm, Numbskull’s Neural Narcolepsy. My horn flared up, making my eyes water with its sheer power, and I felt the familiar tug on my forelegs as my magic gathered. Then the roaring beam—which other ponies would probably cast as a single truncated bolt, apathetic to the idea of making magic look magical—slammed into Iconoclast. Exactly as intended, the spell overloaded his control over his limbs, leaving him effectively paralyzed and flailing. What I had not accounted for was his momentum. Neural Narcolepsy was designed by a pacifist, so it exerted no physical force whatsoever. The result was that instead of being punched by a bulky, slightly-overweight crystal unicorn, I was tackled. Not exactly my shining moment of glory. If I hadn’t just cast a spell, I probably would have pushed him off me without too much trouble. It wouldn’t be too hard for a decently fit unicorn my age. Unfortunately, I’d just cast a spell. And dramatically more unfortunately, I had cast that spell with a horn whose coiling was only inclined at nine degrees. My mind leapt into a shrewd and rather urgent analysis of my situation.  I’d taken down the biggest physical threat, but I was down a spell. Falling unconscious in the street would get me in trouble with Wintershimmer for being late, but the Crystal Guard would probably beat him to it, and unlike the three cronies I was facing, Commander Silhouette was somepony I didn’t want to pick a fight with. Hopefully they didn’t know that... The point is that it left me with one spell for two ponies. Direct stunning wouldn’t cut it. Plus I was pinned, and a sitting duck. “Looks like he’s stuck, Emerald,” Side Effect observed, smiling the way a cat does when it sees a mouse. Emerald shrugged, speaking with the remotest amount of eloquence. “I dunno. He could probably get up if he wanted to. But it seems Mortal is better as a cushion than a wizard.” Of the two, he was the bigger threat and the bigger priority. For one thing, he knew how to cast a shield. “What do you wanna do, Side Effect?” “Eh, let’s knock him out and drag him back to the garrison. He started the fight, and I’m sure the Commander would be happy to see him.” Crap, I thought to myself, probably in stronger words. “Yeah, after he blew up the wall of the palace, he’s got what’s coming to him.” That time, my thoughts were definitely in stronger words. Out loud, I protested “It was an alchemy accident! They happen!” Emerald’s raised hoof glistened the color of his namesake in the overhead sun, which only added to the repetitive appearance of his coat, mane, eyes, and because of his crystal body, shadow. “I agree, Mortal. Accidents do happen.” My horn flared again. One advantage of the nine-degree coiling beyond brute force was that I could cast fast, as the magic already in the horn would actively help to pull more magic out of my skull. In this case, the spell wouldn’t have taken a long time to cast anyway.  There weren’t any complicated pieces of magic to assemble, only a need for brute force. For the second time that day, Iconoclast’s paralyzed body managed to bull rush an unsuspecting pony. Pleasantly lightened from the burden of a fairly large crystal pony, I stood up onto unpleasantly shaky and fatigued legs. The edges of my vision blurred from some combination of exhaustion and a splitting headache. My horn throbbed with my heartbeat. And, perhaps worst of all, liquid was spilling from my saddlebags down the the sides of my coat. I don’t remember exactly what I said to Side Effect, but it didn’t really matter.  I started to scamper upright.  She had the upper hoof, which lasted for almost two full steps toward me before she brought it down from its raised position on the crown of my skull, just narrowly missing my horn.  I collapsed to the ground again. “You going to come easily, Mortal, or am I gonna have to bash you into the street and carry you?” I hardly paid any attention to the question.  As I lay on the gemstone street, my eyes caught a set of hooves that seemed strangely close by.  Each set of their steps was accompanied by a clack of bone on the glittering pavement, as the end of a severed spine was used as a walking stick. “Do you feel that, guardsmare?” a rather harsh, wheezing, elderly voice asked.  “The chill on your neck? Inside your bones?” Three hooves stepped forward, and then the bone struck again. “Do you know what it means?” “W-W-Wintershimmer…” My mentor stopped his approach standing beside me with his horn flaring gold just below his receding hairline. Its vibrant glow accentuated the shadow cast by his prominent brow, leaving his eyes radiating a similar molten yellow in the midst of a shadowed face, and only serving to highlight the gaunt cavities of his ancient cheeks. In summary, his face looked like a skull—only without the perpetual smile. “That feeling is my magic wrapped very tightly around your soul.” “Sir, I was only—” “If you have to beg for mercy, you aren’t worth it.” The glow on his horn extinguished, and I half expected Side Effect to fall over—effectively dead despite a still-beating heart. Instead, her hooves lurched to her chest, and apparently satisfied at her survival, she rushed over to Emerald, hoping to drag him away. Wintershimmer the Complacent lifted his left leg, directing the severed dragon spine that he used as both a staff and a walking stick in her direction.  The dragon’s skull on its head opened wide and roared at her; Side Effect froze in her tracks and turned. “He came at us!” Tears of utter terror accompanied the desperate plea.  “He wanted to play hero!” “You should be grateful to him, then,” Wintershimmer replied calmly.  “If he had half as much punctuality or respect as he has a craving for praise, he would have the decency to kill you and prevent any further delays to my schedule.” Side Effect swallowed, and stumbled backward as the old mage paced toward her, leaning forward to look her tightly in the eye. “Coil’s business is my business. Do not disrupt me again.” Side Effect nodded, stepped backwards outside of Wintershimmer’s reach, and ran. And then he turned on me. “Hello, Master.” “Apprentice.” If his speech to Side Effect hadn’t made his mood clear, that single word dispelled any hopes I may have held.  He only called me that when he was in a worse-than-usual mood. “I can’t help but notice you’ve sullied your jacket,” he observed, rather flatly. With the forehoof not dedicated to holding his staff, Wintershimmer smoothed the lapel of his nearly identical garment: pure black silk with a red stripe slightly thicker than my own tracing all the hems. It had a collar we usually worn up to shield the icy winds of Union City, and long sleeves for the forelegs, but a short end that only partially concealed our flanks and cutie marks—my seven-pointed star, and his seven-pointed snowflake. And they were absolutely not robes, because unlike some wizards, we maintained enough professionalism not to confuse our work apparel with our bedclothes. “Yes, Wintershimmer. I…” In the process of raising my hoof to gesticulate, I found that the fatigue and the mental drain of two flared spells had not yet settled. I stumbled, and only managed to catch myself when my muzzle had fallen to mere inches from the street. “I’m sorry.” His withered yellow gaze was never exactly sympathetic, but in typical Wintershimmer fashion, he refrained from raising his voice. “You cast a spell?” If you didn’t know him, you might make the mistake of thinking he was sympathetic to my dizziness. I briefly considered telling him the truth. I followed that up by considering just how much I liked having my soul still attached to my body. “Yeah.” The old stallion deepened his perpetual frown for a few moments before offering me a hoof. His coat was well cleaned, smooth and nicely trimmed, but it didn’t do much to hide the frailty I felt beneath his skin. When I’d balanced myself against his weight, he released me to stand on my own again. “You tax my patience making me repeat myself, but I will do so again because it seems you have not learned this basic lesson.  Ignore them or kill them, either way stop allowing the guards to delay you.” “What?” I shook my head firmly. “They’re annoying, stupid, and admittedly sleazy, but not evil.  Everypony’s short on money; the guards are just—” Wintershimmer seemed uninterested in hearing my logic.  “Evil is the monster under an adult’s bed, Coil.” That was one of his favorite quotes, which I suspect he coined himself, and in retrospect it does an excellent job of describing the way he looked at the world. “Behavior like theirs is a burden on society. If the Union ever wants to surpass Equestria, we can’t tolerate encumbrance. Walk with me; I would rather not continue our discussion in the middle of the street, and we have more important things to pursue.” “Right behind—” I glanced back to the filly cowering next to her little market stall.  “Actually, can you give me just one minute?”  I didn’t really give him the chance to answer, instead slowly approaching the filly.  “Hey, kid, are you alright?” “...mhm.” She still seemed nervous of me, hiding her shiny coated chin against her shoulder. “I’m not going to hurt you.  It’s okay now.  Here, look,” I reached into the lapel of my jacket with my magic, and after a moment of disorientation from my previous casting, I pulled out a few hundred shards of pocket change.  For the little filly, it was enough money to eat for weeks, though it meant little to an archmage’s apprentice.  I counted out two hundred shards worth of the little gems and pressed the money toward her.  “That should more than make up for whatever those guards took.”  She stared at the money in awe, and I waited with a smile on my muzzle until she looked up at me. “Thank you so much!” “Just be sure to tell your parents that Coil the Wizard helped you out.  That’s all the thanks I need.” I adjusted my saddlebags, tightening the straps to keep whatever vessel had broken inside from spilling further. The pause also gave me a few much-needed seconds to collect my balance. When I finally looked up, Wintershimmer was already a few dozen strides up the street. The few crystal ponies still on the street after my confrontation with Iconoclast gave him a massive berth, fearful of his short temper and powerful magic. I rushed to follow as the gap behind him began to close. “Must you nurse your reputation so shamelessly?” “It’s no different than you ripping out souls. You saw how Side Effect nearly pissed herself when you showed up.  I just happen to prefer being a ‘hero’ instead of ‘the evil archmage’.” Wintershimmer sighed.  “You can act whatever part in the grand play you want, Coil. That is your right as a mage.  I only warn you not to let the morality that comes with being a ‘hero’ interfere with your reason.  It is far better to be feared than loved.” I coughed pointedly, and offered a slightly over-exaggerated gesture to my saddlebags. “So what do we need all this stuff for?” Wintershimmer shook his head. “A discussion for more private quarters. Let’s review. What are the three cantrips of necromancy?” I remember that question being the first sign that the day held something different. Wintershimmer occasionally quizzed me on basic thaumaturgy or divination, but I hadn’t heard a question that simple on Necromancy in going-on ten years. There just wasn’t any point. “Come on, Wintershimmer. I’m not a foal anymore.  Ask me about a compound spell or something, not basic cantrips—” “You have already tried my patience once today.”  His own impatience was made clear by his refusal to so much as let me finish my protest.  “Do you think it wise to do so again?” “Sorry…” I bit my cheek. “Seance is the magic of retrieving a dead soul from the afterlife, whether it be the Summer Lands, Tartarus, or a spirit loose in the greater Between. Animus is the magic of creating an artificial soul.” I swallowed once. “And Binding is, well, binding a soul into something in the physical world.” Wintershimmer gave me no nod or affirmation, but it didn’t matter. We both knew I was right. “Describe the three Equine afterlives.” That was a bit better. None of the hedge mages or self-taught unicorns in Union City could answer a question like that. And if what Wintershimmer had told me about the other archmages in Equestria was true, they probably couldn’t either. “The Between is the magical counterpart to our physical world; a place comprised of pure mana. Souls don’t naturally travel to the Between. It takes magical interference like misapplication of a seance to leave somepony there.” As I prepared to continue, we rounded the old cooper’s shop on the corner of Garnet Way. If you hadn’t seen the Crystal Spire in all its majestic glory, you might think it was the most amazing thing ever created, with its spire reaching up until it looked like it could touch the sun in the sky at high noon. You might be impressed by its massive sheets of flawless diamond, able to store more magical energy than any other single gemstone in the world. Or perhaps  you’d be fascinated by the intricate crystal carvings on its underside, looking up from the open space between the massive legs that supported the building to see the recorded history of an ancient and proud civilization. Poets would probably tell you that a sight like that never gets old, but since you aren’t a mare I’m trying to woo, I’m not going to pretend. I lived in that building for thirteen years. It got old. “The Summer Lands is an enchanted region of the Between that reads the minds of its inhabitants and does its best to make them happy until they naturally fade away. Tartarus is functionally the opposite: a sort-of prison plane located deep underground in the area where the physical world and the Between overlap.” Wintershimmer nodded. “If I wanted to go to the Summer Lands without dying, where would I go?” At that, I smiled a little. “You can’t. It’s not like Tartarus.  It isn’t a ‘place’.  It doesn’t overlap the physical world.” Wintershimmer turned to me with a deadly serious expression.  Even to this this day I still see it sometimes in my dreams. “Nothing is ever impossible with magic. Only very difficult.” “That’s the Journeymage’s Law,” I observed, guessing that he wanted me to keep up our usual walking ‘lectures’. “Though I’m inclined to call up the Master’s Corollary.” The little snort that escaped Wintershimmer’s nostrils was among the old stallion’s most natural expressions of amusement.  Like all such expressions, it was truncated and subdued, quickly giving way to his standard state of grim academic focus. “‘Many things are not worth doing.’ Well remembered. However, I disagree.  Would you say that traveling bodily to the afterlife without the need for death is a worthless exercise?” Mid-step, I froze. “This is hypothetical, isn’t it?” He didn’t answer me, at least not at first. I had to rush to catch up as he continued his surprisingly brisk arthritic pace. “Wintershimmer? Are we going to open the Between? Physically?” I could hardly believe it. This kind of magic was unheard of.  If Wintershimmer’s spell worked, he would be redefining necromancy as we knew it.  Perhaps he’d even be redefining magic.  My thoughts cascaded as months of my recent lessons on obscure portal theory and gravitation and necromancy all clicked into place. When this spell was done, we were going to be legends. By this time, Wintershimmer had reached one of the four enormous diamond legs that led up into the Crystal Spire—Union City’s ‘palace’, and the home of my mentor’s quarters and laboratories. Without particular note, he pressed his spinal staff against the doors, and they swung open. His weary knees began the long trek up the spiral stairs, and it wasn’t long before he spoke up again just to take his mind off the obvious pain. Ninety-seven years aren’t kind to a body. “No, Coil. We are not going to open the Between.” When he said those words, I sighed a little in disappointment. Then he continued. “We are going to open the Summer Lands.”