Corrupted Lands

by Nameless Narrator


The Origin: Connection

If there is something good to be said about Twilight, it's that she is a master at planning things out. According to schedule, we broke camp few minutes ago at the western edge of my territory. I often forget how slow travelling like a normal pony is, but I can't just pick all the others up on my back and carry them further. I was content with sleeping outside, it's not as if the snow bothered me or Chilly very much, but Twilight ordered two tents for us as well before we left. Needless to say, we decided to use just one.

The forest clearing shielded from the worst winter has to offer is our first stop, and I examine the strange half-magical, half-technological contraption sitting inside a firepit and emanating heat. With my muzzle down and close to it and my behind pointing up, I must look like an overly curious dog. Soft breathing behind me reveals I'm being observed as well. There is only one answer - buttwiggle. The breathing goes louder for a second, and I turn around with a smug grin.

A brown griffon with black head feathers is standing there, cautious but with an inqusitive look. He's the guy who came from Manehattan with the hippogriff girl.

"See anything you like?" I wink at him.

"I see a lot that terrifies me," he answers openly, drops his saddlebags, sits down to the heating unit, and stretches his talons towards it, "Ooooh, this always feels nice."

"Scared of poor old me?" I sit down next to him, pressing my side against his.

I think he saw through my teasing, as he doesn't flinch like many others did when I touched them.

"Yes," he nods, "I saw what you did in Manehattan. When I came to Ponyville, I was expecting to see half-tainted ponies mindlessly slaving for Corrupted."

"Aaaaand?" I nudge him.

"I was wrong," he mumbles, "Sorry, ma'am. It's just really difficult to be so close to somethi- somepony whose kind has tried to kill me nearly every day since I left the Empire."

"I can make your stay here extra... pleasant, if you want to get to know me better. What's your name, by the way?"

"Lyam, ma'am, and I was warned about you. Aren't you and the white Corrupted an item?"

"Chilly? We are, so?"

"Wouldn't he mind you flirting with me like this?"

"Pfff," I wave my hoof, "We spend as much time together as we can, but he leads the Separated living on a strip of land connecting Canterlot and the Crystal Empire while I keep Ponyville safe. When we're not together, it's free game for each of us."

"He is literally inside THAT tent!" he points to a triangle of cloth.

"Is he right here? No. That means I can do what I want. One point for Nightshade!"

"Are you serious?" he gives me a deadpan stare.

"Look, I used to be a pony. I know how different it is. I love him, I owe him everything, I belong together with him. As a Corrupted, though, sex is just like food or air. You wouldn't apologize to a piece of meat for eating lettuce, right?"

"I guess I can't really understand that since I'm not one of you."

"We can change that," I lick the side of his beak.

"Stop it, please," he sighs.

"Fiiiiine," I roll my eyes, "So, about you and the hippogriff chick..."

"Desert Shade? She asked sir Cromach to join this expedition and I tagged along because I had nothing to do. With the griffon army out of Manehattan, I didn't have an employer to scavenge for. And from what it turns out, the purple alicorn princess is paying for food."

"Aaand the danger of being attacked and transformed at a moment's notice?"

"That changes from my everyday life how?"

I lean even closer to his ear and whisper.

"That I'm already this close to you."

He diverolls away as I snap my teeth like a bear trap and start laughing at the frazzled griffon picking himself back up. His wings shoot open when a set of white claws lands on his shoulder.

"Calm down, mister Lyam. If we weren't on your side you wouldn't be here anymore," Chilly's raspy voice, still recovering from decades of silence, cuts through the night, "She's just wild like that, if you are the first one to blink then you are her prey."

Come to think of it, the heater doesn't emit much light in comparison to a normal campfire, so while Chilly and I have no trouble seeing, the others must be seriously hampered by the darkness. After his rise as the King of Separated, he is a little taller than me, and when he sits down behind me, I just ease myself into his embrace and cherish the soft touch of silky fur.

Yellow glow flows through our campsite as Twilight Sparkle steps out of her tent. Her son, Knowledge, comes out from the tent next to hers immediately as well. Another white unicorn with light grey mane, I wonder who the father was. I don't think I've talked to him more than once, but he seemed less trusting than Mana Burn. Possibly because I turned his brother into a Corrupted, ehm... maybe.

"Is everypony alright?" Twilight asks cheerfully, "When sir Cromach gets here we'll go over the suspicions we have."

"So you DO have an idea what we're going to find, right?" I ask.

"Based on an event that transpired in the place where we are going AND some circumstantial guesswork I have a theory. Whether or not it is correct we will find when we get to the Barrier. Just wait few more minutes and you'll know everything we do."

"Hmmm," I just shrug and relax, still wrapped by Chilly's legs.

Bound Tome and Bastion decided to share a tent as well, obviously for humping reasons. I would tell them not to be too loud later, but I doubt I'll hear them anyway over my and Chilly's... resting. It's pretty funny, seeing a unicorn one third of the size of his bodyguard and knowing how wild Corrupted get with a willing mate. It must be like a squirrel trying to store too many nuts for winter, mild pun intended. Well, since Bastion doesn't mind carrying a little library Bound Tome took with himself on this trip, I guess neither of them has issues with the other's needs. The duo sits across the firepit from me and Chilly, but cuddle together like us.

Desert Shade's black coat is hard to pick up in the darkness, but her blonde mane breaks the camouflage as she walks over to Lyam and sits next to him and us. She's strange. I can't put a claw on it, but she weirds me out a little. Everything I can see about her just says - hippogriff, but the feeling I get from her screams something different, and I can't tell what. She nods when she catches me watching her.

"I'm not late to the lecture, am I?" she asks Lyam, who shakes his head.

"We're still waiting for Cromach and Bucket," Lyam answers.

"Kay," she takes out a biscuit from her saddlebag and starts eating. Inspired by her, all the other non-Corrupted members of the expedition find something to bite into as well.

Cromach joins us shortly, followed by the weird mechanical pony, seemingly deep in thought.

"Can we begin?" suggests Twilight.

"Yeah," the griffon sips some water from a bottle hanging on his belt, "I'm not sure where to begin, but I'll try to keep it as concise as I can. Remember, this is all a theory and guesswork that might not be related to what's going on in any way... but it likely is."

He takes a long breath.

"There are three gods of Equus - Nightmare, Discord, and Harmony. Despite the names, their nature isn't so obvious. These three gods have created three primal alicorns who possessed a significant fraction of their power - Life, Death, and Magic, as well as a bunch of weird creatures some of which still live to these days. Over ages, the gods and alicorns created more and more beings from which ponies, griffons, and other thinking races evolved. That's not the important thing. The key thing to keep in mind is that these gods did not cooperate, the fought each other on the battleground that is this world, and their creations were supposed to be their tools supposed to further their power. You see, the gods created this world using their own essence - divine power. That means whichever one of them possesses the most influence over the world becomes the strongest and might, this part is just a guess, eventually absorb or destroy the others. Anypony still not asleep after this history lesson?"

"Listening intently, sir!" Bound Tome's eyes are wide open, just like his mouth trained from taking Bastion's huge d- nevermind.

A series of grunts and nods follows Cromach looking at each of us.

"Alright, let's continue," the griffon takes another sip, "From what we gathered, the gods used to work together, each one being a part of the cycle of life. Discord represents chaos and creation, Nightmare destruction and order, and Harmony the existence and intent inbetween - free will and evolution. However, free will is a bitch, and Harmony decided to become the ultimate power and defeat the others. Since the battleground was this world, he gave the emerging intelligent races several tools they could use to weaken the other gods. The most well-known tool were the Elements of Harmony, a weapon capable of purging the power of the other gods. Discord and Nightmare found out about this, and united to banish Harmony from this reality into the void between stars. The result is called by some researchers the Pact of Harmony, and meant that Nightmare sacrificed so much of its power that it now could act only via a host. Discord lost both control and magnitude of his power, and turned from an omnipotent being to more a mischievous spirit. Harmony was banished completely. However, his tools, created from his divine power, thus the essence of his existence and will, remained. Discord and Harmony continued toying with the world, but when it became too much ponies or alicorns used the Elements against them over and over, causing lasting damage."

He nods towards Twilight, who takes over.

"The last known uses of the Elements were princesses Celestia and Luna turning Discord to stone, princess Celestia banishing princess Luna to the moon-"

"Oh, the Mare in the Moon prophecy!" Bound Tome jumps like an excited schoolfilly.

"Exactly. Nightmare possessed princess Luna, but thankfully princess Celestia wasn't strong enough on her own to use the Elements fully, so Luna only got imprisoned instead of destroyed as Nightmare's host. When the effect of the imprisonment faded, I and my six friends became the Element bearers and used them effectively enough to purify princess Luna. Next use was... hmmm," Twilight rubs her muzzle, "Discord again, I think, after escaping from his stone prison. Then Tirek, a centaur able to steal divine power. And then... I think I should leave this one to sir Cromach."

"No no," the griffon shakes his head, "the next one was still yours."

"Right, my friend Rarity, one of the Element bearers, got possessed by Nightmare as well and purged with this time only partial help of the Elements connecting all Bearers together."

Cromach GLARES.

"Fiiiine," Twilight huffs, "There was another incident involving princess Luna. After returning from her banishment, she had only one friend - her batpony bodyguard Sharp Biscuit. I remember this story well because I was involved in the search for other Bearers who had gone missing one by one. Luna's bodyguard got killed by a unicorn by the name Blazing Light, and in her grief, she gave into the Nightmare once again. Blazing Light, I, and several others have joined forces to purge Nightmare from Luna one more time, and strike a blow against the god. The mentioned unicorn was special, he could absorb magic and divine power just like Tirek, only Tirek stole a pony's abilties as well, Blazing stole it only as energy to be used."

She nods back to Cromach.

"That was an extremely... abridged version," he frowns, "but let's not dwell on the details. Several more Nightmare's hosts appeared within next three years, and with the help of Blazing Light they were defeated, I was there with him every time after the final Luna incident. However, such a streak of losses for the Nightmare, especially against somepony who stole parts of its power each time, left the god weaker and weaker. Discord stopped exercising his power due to love issues."

"What?" I chuckle.

"The god fell in love with a pegasus mare and focused on his personal relationship rather than influencing the world," he explains matter-of-factly, "So, with the two gods weaker than ever, the remains of Harmony's will in this world returned to its original goal. Harmony possessed a pony who created a cult set on bringing the god back in its entirety from the void. The cultists got powers cimilar to what Corrupted can do these days, only much... MUCH greater. You can regenerate quickly, are strong, and your mere presence changes the land to your image, but they could barely be hurt in the first place and reality bowed to their will. Blazing Light, I, and several members of the Order of the Silver Sun tracked the cultists' operations to a small valley west from White Tail Woods. They were on the brink of bringing Harmony back to this world which would have caused forced assimilation of everything into one undying, uncontrolled, agonized organism, and we confronted them. Faced with the god, its host, evolved cultists, and being hunted for high treason by princess Celestia, we somehow prevailed, but Blaze died," Cromach stops and stares at the ground.

The silence leghtens.

"Cromach?" Twilight asks in a soft voice as if she feels responsible for what happened.

"You know... even after two centuries... after having a wife... it still hurts," he mumbles.

"He was the alicorn in the photos in your office, wasn't he?" Desert Shade breaks the solemn moment.

"Alicorn?" Bound Tome, ears perked, wants clarification, "Didn't you say he was a unicorn?"

Cromach wipes his eyes.

"Blaze was forcefully ascended by Harmony who wanted to use his ability to steal divine power to destroy other gods completely. Despite the attempts at manipulating him, Blaze saw through it and forged his own path. In sharp contrast to his personality, he became the alicorn of Hope. In the final fight, he held the returning god off long enough for the rest of us to destroy Harmony's means of coming back."

"Ehm," Twilight continues when Cromach doesn't seem to have anything more to say, "Sir Cromach thankfully left out the fact that the god's return was only possible because I failed and used the Elements on princess Celestia's orders against Harmony's strongest possessed servant which only gave him more power. The situation was... complicated at the time."

"That doesn't matter, princess," Cromach sighs, "What happened happened. So this is all we've got. Harmony was entering this world through a dimensional rift which closed when it was halfway done. Half of the god's form was left outside in the darkness, and half got scattered all over the ritual valley. Later observers examining the area reported the remains disappeared completely. My guess is that they were absorbed into the soil of the valley where they festered and eventually transformed some unsuspecting pony visitors into the first Corrupted. The entire theory about Harmony being behind this somehow is based on the location of the first sightings of Corrupted, Corrupted abilities being similar to those of Harmony's cultists, and the pony hatred of Corrupted 'hivemind' that might be based on Harmony's rage against the race that defeated it."

"So wait, are we supposed to fight a god?" I'm not sure whether to be terrified or excited, but my body takes over and lets out a bloodthirsty grin.

"This entire Corrupted thing might not even be intentional. We'll just have to see for ourselves," Twilight ends the briefing, "Nightshade, are we safe here or should we stand watch?"

"We're fine here, my Protectors are patrolling the borders. Just have a good night's rest. It might be our last for over a week."

"Alright," Twilight finishes her drink which smells suspiciously like tea with a little rum, and stands up, "Good night, everypony."

Desert Shade and Lyam go mess with the heater while the others disperse to their tents. Chilly and I lie down, heads too full of information to have our desired 'active rest'. As it turns out, we aren't the only ones.

"You listening?" I whisper as my sharp ears pick up several conversations at once. Chilly nods and shushes me.

"How is your assessment of the Corrupted and Desert Shade going?" I can hear Cromach's muffled voice.

The robotic droning of Bucket answers:

"I cannot extrapolate any further without seeing them in action. Aside from the Manehattan incident, I have no real information about their power. According to Twilight, though, their history is overall on the positive side, so I would not worry."

"And Des?"

"Biologically, she seems very similar to you."

"A grand-granddaughter or something? I mean, Connie and I had a son, but he got killed when the corruption was spreading. He was a wild sort, so it's not out of the question he had a foal he didn't know about."

"Like father like son?"

"I'll have you know I am a one-pony griffon."

"I apologize. However, speaking of your one pony, my scans of Desert Shade conclude that she is a being of divine power just like you are. She has no control over it, and the structure is different, less mutable than yours."

"I understand just about nothing from what you're saying."

"You have control over your power, and your subconscious is making the divinity inside you imitate griffon body perfectly aside from your wish to remain until Blazing Light's extremely improbable resurrection, hence your unaging nature. Desert Shade has no conscious control or knowledge about herself, but her body was made to be a hippogriff replica. From her lack of ability to interact with her power, I assume she was created by somepony else who knew what they were doing. She is likely slightly more durable than a normal pony, but that is about the extent of her unnatural abilities."

"So, she's not an issue."

"Her case is more interesting than dangerous one, that is all. The interesting part being that, just like her cutie mark, her divine power represents a trinity of influences. Three familiar... traits."

"Three divinities? Discord, Nightmare, Harmony?"

"No, that is unrelated. I stole a feather from her wings and several strands of hair, and I can safely say her body is made from three builds of genetic material. One is very similar to yours, as I said, one, accorging to my old database, correlates well with Blazing Light, and the final strand is a near-perfect copy of Choking Darkness, with some added improvements. Biologically, she bears miss Darkness' coat, your eyes, and Blazing's mane."

"What?! That doesn't make sense. Darky was killed without ever having a foal."

"So my records say. I am going with the theory that someone or something followed your adventures, attempted to possibly assemble your combined potential, and failed miserably."

"Hmmm, we aren't getting to the bottom of this here, aren't we?"

"Not without cooperating with Desert Shade herself."

"Then let's leave it. At least I'll have something to do if we survive this field trip."

"I thought you wanted to travel. After all, your are reasonably wealthy."

"I wanted to travel all over Equestria first, but you know... mushroomy ground, horny predators everywhere. I don't think any travel agency in the Empire organizes good tours these days. But hey, things look like they're getting better, and time is what I have in abundance."

"As do I, it seems. Twilight Sparkle did great job building me."

"You're welcome to keep me company. It has worked so far," I hear the griffon yawn, "Let's stop the guesswork here. I'm pretty tired from the history lecture."

"You left out a lot."

"Only the personal stuff none of them need to know. Good night."

"Alarm clock set to sunrise."

I listen intently, but it seems like everypony is sleeping or trying to do so. Well, aside from muffled moaning from Bound Tome and Bastion's tent, but that was to be expected. Oh well...

"Night, Chilly."

"Good night."