Sanctuary at Any Cost

by Ravenmane

There Really are Curses

Please just a little further, I pleaded to the carpet, it’s just ten feet to the ground. The enchantments were far past inoperable, meaning all that was slowing my descent was focusing magic through the burnt out carpet. Focus was never really my strong suit; I had a bit of a temper with the more complicated spells. It worked for incinerating something’s innards, but maintaining an already expired spell was not high on my list of controllable incantations. Don't get me wrong, I can do the spells to make a carpet, but I need time to focus, prepare, and compose myself.

It didn’t matter much as the carpet touched down softly on the grass, when I saw just how many ponies were watching me. One however was stammering. I’d gotten used to looks from some ponies but this lavender unicorn wasn’t stammering in disbelief, that was uncertainty.

“Y-Y-You’re Val,” she finally managed to ask.

I nodded. “You must be Twilight Sparkle correct?”

“How did you-” she began, the rest of her question caught in her throat.

“Formerly enchanted carpet Miss Sparkle. I’m sorry, but had I kept you long?”

She shook her head. “Not very long, but please call me Twilight.”

Twilight waited for me to roll the carpet up and we went inside to put it back in my quarters. “So, you flew something that probably wouldn’t even fly down so you wouldn’t be late? Are you crazy?” We were already on our way up the tower’s stairs.

“I don’t like being late Twilight,” I replied, “what about you?”

“I’ve started to learn not to sweat every last detail Val, but you reminded me of something I did a while ago.”

“What did you do?”

“Princess Celestia tasked me with writing to her my findings on the magic of friendship. I wrote to her every week until I completely lost it.”

“What happened?” My eyes were wide, eager to hear her story. I felt like I knew where it was going, but she had to tell me so I heard the story; not just predict what happened.

“Well it got so bad that I decided to make a problem for me to solve one week. I think I’ll spare you some of the details, but I enchanted my doll so that three fillies would fight over her. It got out of hoof and the whole town began to fight over her. Well, Princess Celestia broke the whole thing up and she told me I was worrying too much.”

We were right in front of my quarters now. I opened my door and set the rolled up carpet next to my desk, “You and Celestia must be close,” I’ll patch it up in the morning. “She told me you were her student, but were you just a student or more like an apprentice?”

“I’m her personal student,” she confirmed as we started to double back, heading to the dining hall, “she’s my mentor.”

I grinned, “where I’m from we call that an apprenticeship.”

“Princess Celestia said in her letter that I could teach you a thing or two about how magic works in Equestria. What do you know about magic?”

“It’s my life.” She stared. “I mean that literally, I can’t survive without magic. My people bathed in raw magic for so long that we can’t live without it anymore.”

“Ewww, I can’t even fathom what a life needing magic to just survive is like. I don’t think anypony could.”

“Celestia told me you could teach me about the currents of magic to be exact. It will help me transition from needing to inject myself with mana every day to letting the ambient magic in the air sustain me.”

“So Val, what’s mana?”

“A lethal poison to ponies, but it is undiluted magic forced into a liquid. Well, that’s the theory of what it is at least. There’s an alternative to me injecting myself with mana every day though.”

She tilted her head in curiosity as we made our way into the dining hall and took seats.

“Gathering mana in the other way seems a little counterproductive outside of a battle situation where a healer has your back.”

“What is this other way?”

“A physical sacrifice of blood,” I told her in a hushed voice. “I assure you, it’s rather painful. From my point of view it has no point if I can’t replenish my health with the aid of wayward souls or a good healer at my side.”

“What is it that you do then?”

“I’m a kind of wizard called a warlock. It’s a difficult path, studying dark secrets and wielding them against those very same beings. You know, fight fire with fire.”

Twilight glared at me with a mixed parts skepticism and unease. “What kinds of dark secrets are you talking about? Forbidden magic?”

“Some of it could be considered that. Demon summoning, raw destructive power, magical diseases, and lastly curses, those are the tools of any warlock.”

“Val,” her voice was adamant, “there’s no such thing as curses.”

I smirked, “I’ll show you after dinner. Curses are very real, and very dangerous in the wrong hands. I won’t do anything painful; you’d sorely regret that kind of demonstration.”

*****

We walked out into the garden after dinner. “So you said you were going to prove me wrong. Let’s see some proof.”

“Alright, I’ll hit you with a curse while you’re in mid-gallop. You should feel the effects as soon as it kicks in.”

“You sure it won’t hurt?”

“Well,” I thoughtfully paused, “it might hurt your pride. So give me a nice hard gallop.”

“Okay,” she said hesitantly before tearing off towards the hedge maze.

I focused, sensing her magical make-up and focusing on it. In an instant, I felt a curse explode from my mind, draining her stamina considerably. Seeing Twilight practically slow to a crawl made me want to prove her diminished speed by beating her to the maze.

Even with her head start, I beat her by simply walking. “How,” she started as she gasped for air. “How could you do something like that?”

“That was just a simple curse that drains its target of most of its speed and energy; a curse of exhaustion. Most of the curses I know of are painful or drain defenses from my foe. It allows me to defeat my enemy faster. Breaking their ability to defend against spells or wracking them with constant pain, those sorts of things.” Twilight’s breathing was labored while I explained. “It wears off pretty quickly though Twilight. In battle, a warlock has to be able to recast curses on the spot. On a moving enemy that’s trying to kill you faster than you can kill it.”

“Doesn’t,” she gasped for another breath, “doesn’t sound easy.”

“Don’t strain yourself, just relax and let it run its course.” I sat at the entrance to the maze, “I’d call it off but I can’t.”

Minutes later Twilight regained her composure. I hadn’t lied, my curse was short lived and in truth, that one never really feels like it lasts long enough.

“Okay,” said Twilight after she waited for the full effects of my curse to fade. “I’m willing to believe that curses are real now.”

“That’s good,” I replied with a smile. “Did you feel anything different about the magic?”

She thought about it for a little while. “It was the intent of the magic. I felt like I was being weighed down by the magnitude of the magic, not the spell itself. I’ve never really been under the effect of a spell that wasn’t at least partially my own. Not while I could analyze it like this at least.”

I nodded. “That’s how I always felt my curses flowed. I felt like the painful ones constricted the target with magic, the spell merely holding the magic in place. I know other spells act differently, but those are the ones I can grasp the easiest.”

“Do other spells you cast have intent like that?”

“Yes, I was taught to cast each spell intending to do nothing but unleash the spell’s potential. For example,” I opened my hand and focused on creating fire in my palm. “I desire to bring illumination and immolation upon my foes,” green flames erupted in my hand, “and I create a fire hotter than any natural flame. I was always told that a spell carries the desire and intent of the one who casts it.” I cleared my mind of the intent, causing the flames to dissipate.

“But those weren’t very bright flames Val,” Twilight observed.

“No, what I mean is a dark tone of enlighten; a different definition. The same is true with forcing diseases upon an enemy, you force them to erode and decay from the inside out.”

Twilight gave a shudder. “You don’t know anything but painful spells? I mean I think I can start to understand how you interpret magic, but all that gruesome pain and suffering. I need to be able to teach you how to think differently.”

I thought about it. It wasn’t easy to comprehend just how I interpreted magic. It was as close to instinct as anything else. “I fought in a worthless war; offense is what I know best. Anyways, intent is what I can see it being. Internalizing magic; using mana as a conduit perhaps. It isn’t easy to theorize, magic is part of my biology and breaking it down without a subject to study isn’t easy.”

“Well, that’s too bad. That means you’re our test subject.”

“So what, we’re just going to barrage me with dangerous tests over and over again?”

“That’s right.”

Somewhere deep in my mind a spark triggered, making me excited beyond rational thought. “Then let’s practice magic.”

Comments

[tyber zahn]

I like how you write val very much. I know i said it before but you write him like he should be from a story point of view. Not full of himself and not extremely arrogant.

Please, do continue with this.

[AssortedCreme]

I have to wonder in a morbid curiosity kind of way, what would a Soul Shard formed from Twilight's soul look like? What with her being a pony and the Element of Magic and all.

[Ravenmane]

780935 I had that thought eventually, I think it would be unstable at first than either eventually stabilize or make one hell of a bomb.

[Liqwidice]

Sounds like she's going to go all "My little Portal" on him.

[mercva]

Very wellwritten -- too many WoW crossovers use technical game jargon. They also tend to write shopping lists of what the character is wearing. Yours is written naturally, with language that a NPC might use.

How long until he summons a Dreadsteed, by the way? I want to see the ponycrew's reaction to that.

Are you going to include the teleport-to-a-previously-laid-marker spell that Blizz included in Cataclysm?

[Ravenmane]

940235 Probably not, I'm even throwing out the Hearthstone on general principal. I'm writing more of a lore/novel-esque character than a direct from game annoyance. He's done stuff, but doesn't talk a lot about serious boasting privileges. He does some history stuff in the presently written chapter and I have the whole "this is my dreadsteed" part written out for when I need it.

[Naturaljunior]

This is pretty awesome so far, I haven't read a crossover like this - I mean warcraft, and this is really well done, No errors or anything grammatically groundbreaking here or there, Cant wait to read some more magic stuff