• Published 29th Apr 2014
  • 9,537 Views, 592 Comments

The Life and Times of an Alchemist Turned Pony - Thadius0



Okay, saving Equestria from powers I foisted on it, not a problem. Saving a mare from certain death, easy! Getting used to being a pony? Someone shoot me.

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Chapter 7 - Oh right, that's why we don't do that.

I woke up the next morning and went over to my desk. “Right...rules. Rules rules rules…”

I levitated a quill up and began to write.

Rule 1 - Do not leave the wall outside of the tower. If you do, I make no promises you’ll be able to get back in.

Rule 2 - Do not even TRY to get in my labs. Doors won’t open without me anyways.

Rule 3 - Please, for all that is holy, DO NOT MESS WITH MY MIRROR.

I looked at the rather simple list. “Yeah, even Twilight could follow that.” I walked over to the door and opened it, surprised to see that it actually connected to the guest room. “Huh, surprisingly helpful. Xante, you up?”

The bizarre sight of a lich doing a yoga routine is not a pleasure that I would ever think about seeing in my life. He looked up from the mat. “Morning!” I rolled my eyes at the thought of him needing to do such a routine, but he made about as much sense as Discord before he went mad.

“I’ve thought of a place where you and I can go on tour. It’s quiet, relatively anyways, and the sight of a biped won’t be such a shock to them. You up for it?”

Xante quirked an eyebrow and put his legs behind his head. “Sure. Hang on, is your assistant still around? I wanna mess around with her a bit.”

I shook my head. “She’s in Canterlot today, reporting some of the results from my...few experiments I’ve been doing. When she gets back, she’ll be attempting to entertain and answer our other guest.”

Xante nodded, legs back to normal. “Right-o. So, is there anything I should particularly know about this place? I’m guessing that it’s not Ponyville. I’m already there, in a manner of speaking.”

I shook my head again. “Yeah, Ponyville and quiet don’t exactly belong in the same sentence. Where we're going is the town I built, full of Adepts. And ponies who don’t exactly like miss sunbutt. So, uh...try not to strip or push too many buttons. Almost everyone there has some sorta past they’d like to forget.”

Xante hmmed. “Sounds good to me. I’ve always liked exploring new places- when you have eternity ahead of you, you quickly learn to take pleasure in travelling.” With a couple of pops that made me wince, more magic circles flared around his hands and his clothes reappeared. “So let us move.”

I paused and pinned the small list I’d made on the door. “Let’s just hope she reads it and doesn’t question it too badly…” And with that, I knocked on the door, requested the ground floor, and opened it again.

The ground floor we got, and I ushered Xante through the only other unmarked door. The ten-foot high wall that was half as many feet thick greeted us, with its impressive wooden door. I thought I’d have a bit of fun with Xante, though. “So tell me, what do you notice about the wall?”

Xante’s eyes briefly glowed brighter, then he grinned. “Enough anti-magic wards to blockade an entire prison. I’ll give you a bit of advice on that ward on the door- needs a slight tweak, and it’ll be twice as efficient.” He pointed to a rather unobtrusive area on the door. I looked at it with my normal eyes and my ‘senses,’ but the wards seemed as powerful as always.

“Huh. Interesting, I’ll mark it and Measured and I can go over it later. We sorta patched this system together to keep out...well, anything we didn’t want to get in.” I pushed the doors open and thankfully saw no other ponies on the other side. “Quick, afore they notice I’m leaving.”

Xante looked around. “Well, I see no noticeable differences. Asides from everything being a bit-” Unfortunately, a very familiar high speed missile headed towards him at blinding speeds, knocking him over onto his face.

“Ow.”

I looked at the pony-missile and facehooved. “Girls. Why. Are you. Here.”

The trio of destruction looked up at me from their position on top of the ancient lich. “Oh, hey mister Auric! We haven’t seen you around town lately!”

“Yeah,” Scootaloo pitched in, “And when we asked, all the grown-up ponies say ‘you’ll understand when you’re older,’ and won’t tell us anything!”

“So,” Applebloom finished, “We decided to come over ourselves! Oh, and bring you some sweets from Sugar Cube Corner!”

“I think I sat on them,” Sweetie muttered from her position, hoping we wouldn’t hear.

“Um, if it isn’t too much bother, would you mind getting off? My old and decaying body has sort of split in two, and I would very much like to reconstitute myself, if that’s alright with you three.”

It was at that moment the girls realized they were sitting on an animate corpse and responded appropriately:

Screaming, flailing, and in Sweetie’s case, causing things around her to spontaneously combust. Most notably, bits of Xante. He didn’t seem to be in pain, just mildly annoyed.

“Ow. Ow. Ow- that’s not supposed to burn! Neither is that! Ah! Mind the robe! Don’t burn that don’t burn that don’t burn that! It’s too fabulous to burn!”

I had to think fast, though. Sweetie was apparently a Mars Adept, coming into her power. And pissing off something that doesn’t die is never a good idea. From what I can recall, they redefine ‘holding a grudge for all eternity.’

Fortunately, I knew Jupiter’s greatest technique. I pointed a hoof at Sweetie and said “SEAL!”

A symbol flashed over her head, which quickly winked out, taking her flames with it. I smiled down at the lich. “Doing better?”

Xante nodded. “I’ve had worse, but this robe- Oh, this robe is simply RUINED! I paid good money for this spidersilk, I even found some wood-elves and paid them so much! You don’t get dirt out of spidersilk, it’s hand wash only!”

I shook my head at him. “You clearly don’t know who you’re talking to. We’ll go over it later. I have a trio to wrangle.”

Speaking of, I turned to the trio in question, two of which were looking at Sweetie Bell. She herself was alternating between looking at her horn and her hooves, not believing what had been happening around her. “Did...I do that?”

I nodded at her. “Welcome to the Adept Club, Sweetie. We’ll figure out something resembling lesson plans and training later. For now...I think you three should run back to town and try not to set anything on fire. I don’t know how long the seal will last.”

When they got off, Xante’s head grinned. Rainbow coloured magic flowed from his neck, recalling the various pieces of his body and reassembling. “Before you leave, I want to give you a little something… I think I have it here…” He rummaged around in his pockets, before pulling out a small bag.

“Alright, I’ll forget about it one time, but don’t run over me again, okay?” He proffered it to them. They looked at the bag with wide eyes, and I looked at Xante with narrowed ones.

“These are the Cutie Mark Crusaders. They caused explosions and calamity when an Adept wasn’t a part of their number. Giving them anything is like asking, no, daring the universe to smite you.”

Xante smiled. “It’s just candy. I’m paying them not to run into me. If they do… well, then I’ll have to tell their parents or next-of-kin or something.”

I smiled at that. “Oooh, I might just have to do...that…” I recalled my self-imposed exile from Ponyville and sighed. “One day, that is.” I turned to the trio and cocked an eyebrow. “So? Think you lot can go back to town and not mention anything you saw here?”

They exchanged a quick look, got into a huddle, whispers were exchanged, and then Scootaloo’s head popped up. “What sorta candy?”

Xante cocked his head. “Uh… let’s think, I bought that stuff fairly recently on a train. I think that they’re jelly babies or something.”

Her head rejoined the huddle, and this time Sweetie’s popped up. “No chocolates?”

Xante frowned. “Chocolate’s bad for your teeth, you know. Besides, the only chocolate I have is a bar of dark chocolate that’s over a thousand years old. But…” he waggled his eyebrows and withdrew a red Lindt box, “This is genuine Belgian chocolate, under a preservative spell. It’ll be the best damn chocolate ever.” He opened the box, confirming that the existence of small chocolate balls was indeed there. My own mouth watered along with the Crusader’s, and we all wiped our mouths with our hooves, grinning sheepishly.

“Can y’blame me? It’s been so long since I’ve seen chocolate that good.” I turned to the girls. “I guarantee that one of those will be dangerous for your dinner appetite and might just ruin your opinion of other chocolates.”

The trio conferred again, before they turned to face the lich as a united front. “We’ll each take one of the chocolates and we’ll split the jelly babies, and we’ll tell nopony about what we saw here, and you’ll give Sweetie lessons in her new fancy magic. Deal?”

I turned to the lich, quirking an eyebrow as if to ask, does it meet with your approval?

He chuckled. “My, you have good manners. Here.” He slipped them two each. “It’s a secret to everybody.”

They let out a small cheer and each popped one in their mouths. I swear I heard the fireworks go off in their minds. After about ten seconds of them standing there, I took to waving a hoof in front of their faces to snap the trio out of their chocolate-stupor. “Run along now, girls. My friend and I have things to do today.”

They blinked before nodding and thanking the lich profusely and running back the way they came. I chuckled a bit. “Cute kids. They’ll be right little hellions, especially if they all turn out to be Adepts.”

Xante smiled. “Just glad that I don’t have to break the REALLY good chocolate. Trust me, after you’ve tried a genuine Wonka Lindt, the Earth ones’ll taste like utter garbage.”

I blinked a few times at the mental imagery. “Note...to self. Try to scry that world next…”

I shook myself out of my stupor and looked up at the lich. “You have a way of derailing conversations. Let’s...just get to Newvale and hope your Twilight doesn’t try to break the rules I wrote about…”

-----
(Meanwhile, in the guest room of the tower…)

Twilight woke up. “Ah, that was… surprisingly pleasant.” She looked around.

“Now, where’s Auric? I wasn’t asleep for that long, was I…?” Getting up and refixing her shirt, she wandered over to the door, on which was pinned a note.

“From Auric?” She pulled the list off and read it. Then reread it again. Then again, to confirm what Auric had written. Her eyes narrowed.

“You sneaky little…” she took a couple of deep breaths.

“Okay, Twilight. Okay. In and out. Iiiin and oooout.”

She frowned. “Nope. Not helping. Still mad. Then again…” she bit her lip, remembering the Jupiter room.

“Perhaps it’s best to…” She frowned.

“No. I guess I’ll not go there, and I won’t tamper with the mirror, but I WILL at least see into the other rooms!”

If the door could chuckle, it would have.

Twilight walked over to it. “Alright, give me the labs, please.” She opened the door to the kitchen. Her eye twitched, and she shut it again.

“No, I said laboratories.” Opening it again, she was given the bathrooms. A bit of hair started frizzing up.

“I swear, if this isn’t the laboratory room, then I swear to Celestia, I WILL turn you into firewood.” She glared at the door, which seemed to be mocking her. Opening it a third time revealed nothing but a blank wall, with another note pinned onto it. Taking it down showed a very...well, it was a message.

Twilight-

If you’re reading this, then you’ve just tried to get into my labs for the THIRD TIME using the door that has a mind of its own. Not only does this door NOT connect to the lab doors, but the lab doors, which are on the ground floor, do not open without me. Special enchantment to prevent someone from CREMATING THEMSELVES while I’m not home to LOOK OUT FOR THEM.

If you’re THAT bored, feel free to LOOK, but not TOUCH, at the mirror. Or, perhaps in a few hours, when Measured returns, you two can swap comparative magic theory.

Lord and master of the tower, wielder of Alchemy, and your host-
Auric Fulcrum.

Twilight’s eye twitched and her mane burst into a small blaze. With conscious effort, she turned it off and tried to calm down. It didn’t work.

“YOU MOTHER-”

Author's Note:

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Part 2!