The Watcher: Rise of the Purveyor

by GnollReader

Chapter 25: Birth

Celestia quietly observed the figure behind the glass, a wing of hers reaching out to brush off the condensation; clearing the view to watch its features. She faintly recognized a soft movement in the pale, almost translucent skin; the flow of blood in little veins.

"They are alive," he murmured, causing her to turn her head and regard him.

"They are... but it was barely a success," Celestia replied with a grave expression. "How many did we lose?"

"About two-thirds," the Purveyor replied without having to count, his figure slightly hunched, one hand gripping the railing to support himself.

Celestia regarded him with concern. "I did not expect this to put such a strain on you... What happened?"

Zaeres remained quiet for a moment, remembering the first failure they witnessed, "They had too much of me."

Celestia frowned. "Too much... You mean of your blood?"

The Purveyor nodded. "The amount is tiny... negligible I would have thought, but even so there is always a chance it will react to magic." He scanned her form for a moment, her own radiant aura had decreased considerably; he had not been the only one strained heavily by this task.

"Violently so," Celestia replied with a sad expression. The bodies of the failed attempts had simply turned to ashes like thin paper in a flame. "Was the blood needed to bind their soul?" she asked finally.

The Purveyor nodded quietly, watching her from behind his mask... it seemed she was learning to understand his nature.

"A part of the void needs to be present at all times, or their soul will have nothing that holds them to their body," he pushed himself off the railing. "And they will pass it on to their children, so that they in turn may be an anchor to another soul."

"And you?" she asked, interupting his thoughts as he had turned his attention to the bottom of the main chamber for a moment. "I thought you had already finished all your preparations?"

A soft laugh escaped him. "I had... I did... but the souls are bound to my flesh and soul, Celestia. Moving them from me was like pulling feathers from a bird, a little blood will always flow." He sighed. "Albeit I had no idea the strain would be this great." Even now, his vision was blurred.

"That's because it was a lot of feathers to pull," Celestia commented quietly, truning her head to look over the countless chambers before looking back to him... at least his features were slowly starting to sharpen again. He had been little more than a blur at the very end of their work. "Will you recover?"

"In time," he replied as he started to make his way along the railing to the metal stairs leading downwards. "However, one task remains before I have the luxury to think of rest."

"Rest is not a luxury, it is a necessity." Celestia followed him with careful steps "Did you find a solution then? To keep them bound to this place even in death?"

"I did." He made his way down the steps, descending past the circles of levels in the chamber. "Sombras legacy can be thanked for this insight."

"Sombra?" Celestia watched his back with growing concern. "You mean the dark crystal magic?"

"The very same," he replied, pausing their descent to turn around and regard her quietly, his features sharp once more, his control completely restored. "And you have concerns regarding its nature, I am quite sure."

"For good reason," she replied. "It is a very dangerous magic; we never properly understood how it was that he was able to corrupt the crystal magic in such ways."

The purveyor regarded her for a moment, then continued his way down the stairs. "He was an umbrum."

He was aware he could simply transgress the shadows, and that she could simply float downwards herself... but for now, he prefered to walk; it left time to talk. A frown found it's way to his strained features, even as he tried to push the realization away; he had missed the conversations.

"An umbrum?" Celestia asked with disbelief, having to hurry a few steps to catch up with him. "Are you su-" she stopped herself from asking that question, for what she knew of him there was rarely doubt to his statements. She pondered this realization as she quietly walked behind him "Do they still exist?

"They do," he replied, trailing his hand along the railing as they walked "They still reside in their own dimension, imprisoned just outside this world."

"And you are not concerned using something they used and created?" Celestia asked.

"Sombra corrupted crystal magic, which was itself created by the elementals and later adopted by the ponies." Zaeres answered, taking a turn to follow the next flight of stairs.

"And Sombra was an umbrum by your own words!" Celestia objected, causing him to stop and look up at her through the railing.

"Sombra was primarily created by the umbrum, the purpose of his existence can only be estimated, even if I have a very certain idea of what it was." He paused and sighed. "And I have no desire to use anything the umbrum could use, rest assured of that."

Celestia worked her jaw, regarding herself in his mask "So, what do you intend to do then?"

"The dark crystals were created by infusing normal crystals with shadow magic," he replied. "It was an ability he was born with purposely... and I will do something similar to serve my purpose."

"You're going to create a void crystal." Celestia more stated to herself in realization than asked him.

"I already have." He continued his way down the stairs, the alicorn princess following him "It awaits us at the bottom."

---

Twilight in the meanwhile had herself reached the bottom of the alicorn capital's library, and it was there that she found herself awestruck once more since her arrival in this place.

The bottom of the library was a huge open area, from its bottom the colored glass of the roof could still be seen; and on the sides magical lamps shone a bright light throughout the area. She wondered if they were always alight, or if they simply turned on whenever visitors arived. It was one of the countless mysteries she hoped to solve with time spent in this place.

But that was not the nature of her fascination, it was the floor at the bottom: The entire surface was one gigantic collection of diagrams, runes and circles, each more intricate than the next. The golden letters and lines forming patterns and mosaics on the white marble beneath it.

"There are layers." she whispered in astonishment, then blinked as her eyes spotted a rune. "That's... I know that rune!" she exclaimed, her eyes quickly starting to scan the floor for other signs "That circle!" she began to walk from one sign to the other frantically. "That symbol..."

It was magic; the entire understanding of the alicorn nation's greatest mages combined into a single painting that spanned the bottom floor of the entire library and even then was still stacked in too many layers to count from above.

And she could read it.

Everywhere she looked she recognized symbols, patterns and diagrams she had seen in perhaps simpler but recognizable form. And if she could read them, then she would surely be able to translate the alicorn language.

"Feathers," she murmured with a huff "I can barely read the lower ones... " she tilted her head as if she could get a different angle, then looked up "There has to be a trick, maybe there's another version..."

Twilight looked around at the bottom, finally spotting the golem that had led her down here. It was standing at the edge of the mosaic, silently watching her.

"Perhaps Zean'et means magic?" she murmured, then moved towards it, standing beside the silent guardian to look over the mosaic. "Zean'et? Is there another version? One where I can see all layers?"

The golem turned its head to regard her as if trying to make sense of her words.

"Zean'et?" Twilight repeated.

The golem nodded, then slowly got onto one knee, Twilight watching in wonder as it placed both hands on the edge of the mosaic; the young alicorn unable to look away as the outside circle of the mosaic slowly began to shine... and the mosaics began to rise as lines and circles of white light from the floor before her.

Layer upon layer rose into the air, until each level of the vast library had its own glowing collection of diagrams, runes and circles to accompany it.

Twilight stared upwards, awestruck still by admiration and sheer fascination.

"Every layer corresponds to its own level..." she murmured. "Stars, if only the princesses could see this."

She paused, her eyes slowly dropping lower to the floor. "The princesses, I..." she felt a strange pull on her heart "I can't... if I tell them..." she shook her head and looked upwards once more.

Twilight Sparkle had found a treasure; one that she was not willing to share just yet.

Author's Note:

Be aware, I changed the last part of the preceeding chapter. Go check it out if you werent aware yet! Thanks.

Comments

[GnollReader]

I cant promise chapters during the week, sadly. Work does keep me busy :(

[forrest yuchnitz]

9148642
holy crap your alive

[GnollReader]

9148651
I am.. I also forgot one thing: I changed the last part of the preceeding chapter! Go check it out!

[ForwardDusk]

It lives!!! And I just reread this barely a week ago

[GnollReader]

9148661
Ah, sorry mate, I changed the last chapters end cause I didnt like how it felt after rereading it <.<

[billbob12345]

wowow

[Grahf]

I almost forgot about this story. When I saw your blog post i was thinking about "The Reader"

[GnollReader]

9148686
I hope to update the sequel of that one next.

[Nopetrain]

I'm so glad this one is alive again too!

[Remissis]

oh happy day

[Fixer]

time to re-read it from scratch, thank you for updating

[lolitsjack]

This story:

[SoleReclaimer]

Holy shit, after4 years it updates

[Alex_]

Oh man, this was a blast from the past! I'm probably going to have to take the time to reread The Watcher and this at some point, because it's been so long.

It's good to see you back!

[TruthHut]

Holy crap it lives! Thank you for continuing this.

[Fearlessgerbil937]

So glad one of my favourite fics Is continuing!! Thank you!! 😍😍😍

[Dark-Aii]

IT'S ALIVE !!! !!! !!!

[GalacticTNT]

I just reread the first story and this one to catch up on what happened. I just want to say, if I haven’t said it before, this is amazing and I can’t wait to see where you are going with it.

[Cirrus_Brony]

Amazing! Thanks for the update!

[PuppetXMaster]

9174080
really made her feel like a character, doing something because she was curious, not just a written character being made to do something because it would further the plot of the story

[PuppetXMaster]

9174081
don't even remember the other one

[filly101]

You are back Hooray!

[KingChaos]

Good to see you have begun this again. So many stories get left abandoned here. All with great potential too.

[Dark Shade 75]

This has always been one of my favorite stories. Very provoking imagery throughout the whole read. Love that it's being picked up again.

[LeatherPancakes]

Huh, welcome back.
Wasn't expecting a chapter ever again.

[Midian9013]

[Stareater]

The story is great can't wait to see more of the storyline and how it's going to play out.

[Animatorsnake]

10231002
But didn't Celestia and Luna lose connection with the Elements because, A - Luna turned to Nightmare Moon, influenced by dark magic so she couldn't use the harmonious magic of the Elements. B - Celestia loss control of the Elements due to the fact the Elements weren't meant to be used against another user, so instead of harming her sister, she banished Luna with the side-effect of being unable to use the Elements again.

I mean sure you give some plausible reasons, probably in time the Element of Magic will pick a different successor, at this point, the Tree of Harmony might as well choose who will be future Elements - S8 showed that the tree is sentient and isn't some magical tree planted by Starswirl and the Pillars anymore.

[Kain26831]

Damn shame this is dead fantastic read from start to end

[Nightmare_Me]

MORE? or when will the next chapter come out?

[Kadigan]

10359088
Considering the Author hasn't been around since late 2018, I'd say sometime never. Sadly.

[Nightmare_Me]

10387548
I knew that, just let a person dream alright?

[Kadigan]

10387825
Sure, sure. I mean, "How many lovers have you made today?" recently got updated with a suprise chapter after a year of silence, and a few others similarly stalled have seen a continuation... so I suppose there's hope. I mean, it's not like the Author can't visit these pages anonymously, right? ;)

[Nightmare_Me]

10387846

Let’s just hope that he is and that anonymous person is nearby.

[Metrotexas5]

this story is dead isn't it? good damn it I've been checking it often for like 2 years now and it's so sad cause it's the first story to really get me into reading over all big sad indeed

[KingChaos]

Writer's Block?

[Glitched Grim]

As someone who is new here and just started reading I require you to finish this….now.

[Fearlessgerbil937]

Just read for the 5th time, just as good as I remember. If there was one story I could wish to be continued this would be it

[Amethyst_Spark]

Wowee I would love an update