The hour following Starswirl’s impromptu teleport was an eventful one for all parties involved.
Starswirl, with his many years dealing with spirits and spooks of all sorts, realized fairly quickly that he had only partially returned to the land of the living. It was merely his spirit that had returned, leaving him a noncorporeal entity. Upon realizing this, he hastily stepped into a wall, unsure of whether or not he was visible, and his there while he tried to make sense of his situation.
I’m a ghost! What an opportunity!
And it was. Towards the end of Starswirl’s life, he had been studying death and spirits in an attempt to understand what made ghosts and why they appeared.
I had wanted to do a case study on a ghost for my research, he thought, giddy. What better way to understand the subject of a case study than to become the case study!
With that thought in mind, Starswirl got to work understanding himself over the next hour. He pondered such questions as ‘why am I so tired after casting my teleportation spell?’ and ‘why am I hungry if I don’t have a body?’
Meanwhile, Twilight was with Spike in the living room. She had left the broken glass where it was for a more in-depth study later, and was currently sitting on the floor with her dragon assistant and a Ouija board. They had already tried spectral analysis, magical analysis, and more mundane methods of deducing what had happened, and none had bore fruit. When Spike had suggested the Ouija board, Twilight decided to humour him.
“Now we just hold the little heart thingy-”
“Planchette.”
“Swearing isn’t Princess-like, Twilight, and it’s a super good plan. Now, we just hold the little heart thingy and ask a question, and the ghost will answer us! That way we’ll find out what’s going on.”
The two placed their claws and hooves on the planchette, Spike considerably more eager than this alicorn friend.
Starswirl poked his head out of the wall, looking around for any sign of danger, and upon seeing Twilight with a small dragon, which he assumed was for ghost-hunting, he quickly retreated back into the wall.
He tentatively poked his head out of the wall once more. If he were visible, they most definitely would have noticed him by now. With this in mind, he observed the two.
“Ghost!” Spike called out. Starswirl assumed they meant him. “We summon you!”
Starswirl didn’t feel particularly summoned. There was no tugging on his ethereal soul, no pain, and no compulsion whatsoever.
I guess it’s kind of an optional thing, he thought, amused. Nevertheless, he walked over towards the two amateur mediums.
“Spirit, tell us your name!” Spike intoned, ignoring the skeptical look on Twilight’s face. The planchette stayed where it was. “Spirit, I command you to tell us your name!”
“Well, now that you command it I’d better do what you say,” Starswirl scoffed. “Kids these days need to learn to respect their elders...”
The pony and the dragon didn’t hear him, as expected. All three beings in the room were surprised, however, when the planchette started to move.
“It’s working! I told you it would, Twilight! Get the notepad!”
Twilight levitated the notepad in front of her and took down the individual letters as the planchette highlighted them. On a normal day, her skepticism would have won and, and she might have accused Spike of moving the planchette himself, but today was not a normal day. The broken mirror had defied all explanation, and recent events had caused her to have an open mind about new things.
“So, what did it say?” Spike asked, eager.
Twilight read over the message again. “I...” she started. “I think the ghost sassed us.”
Spike jumped up and ripped the message out of the air, reading it. “Oh, a wise-guy, huh?
Starswirl snicked. I guess those things really do work, he thought, amused. Well, I’m stuck here for an unknown amount of time. I may as well have some fun.
“I am the ghost of King Sombra! Fear me!” he moaned, raising his hooves in the air. The planchette, with Spike’s claws still on it, started to move once more.
Starswirl wasn’t actually sure what was going on with the mad unicorn king. Whether Sombra was dead or alive, he was sure he would get a reaction out of the two. If he didn’t know what was up with Sombra, why would the uneducated masses know?
Twilight read the message aloud.
Spike jumped up into the air and yelped before running and hiding behind the couch. “It’s Sombra, back from the dead to get revenge on me for saving the Crystal Empire! Run Twilight! Save yourself! He can’t kill us both!”
Now, news doesn’t travel very fast in the afterlife. There are no newspaper deliveries, radios, or any other means of communicating with the world of the living. The beings in the afterlife are forced to rely on the slow yet steady flow of new souls for their news, and even then it takes a while for that news to circulate.
So you can imagine Starswirl’s surprise upon hearing that the small, immature dragon helped save the long-lost (or recently-lost, by Starswirl’s perspective) city.
Is he serious? He sounds serious.
Starswirl, for the first time, took a good, long look at his surroundings. The walls were made of blue crystal, and they stretched up high, the ceiling of the room far above his head. Tapestries hung from the walls, depicting various scenes, usually involving six ponies and larges monsters of various types.
This is a castle.
He took a close look at the purple pony. Her horn was glowing as she held aloft the notepad, a slightly confused expression adorning her face. Her wings fidgeted nervously, as if-
Wait. Back up, Starswirl thought. Glowing horn, confused face, fidgety wings- oh. Oh!
Starswirl immediately regretted his prank. “It was a joke! A joke! I’m not here for revenge! I’m not here to kill you! I would never try to kill the princess!” he stammered out.
Ouija boards are fickle things. They’re used to the slow, ominous speech of the long-deceased, who have largely given up with their unlife and communicate with one or two word answers. Because of this, Spike’s Ouija board was having a rather difficult time keeping up with the ghostly wizard's rapid speech, and so skipped a few words.
Twilight read what the Ouija board had relayed.
“I’m here for revenge... I’m here to kill you... I would try to kill the princess!”
Spike screamed and ran out into the hallway. Twilight screamed, thinking the ghost of a powerful king was trying to kill her. Starswirl, misunderstanding Twilight’s scream and believing it to be a battlecry, screamed as well.
Twilight launched herself into the air and flew out the window, shattering glass in her haste to escape.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaahhh... wait, where’d they go?”
Numerous books were strewn about the library that Starswirl had found in one of the upper rooms of the castle. It had taken him a while, but he had figured out a way to interact with the physical world. All he had to do was swipe his hoof through whatever it was he wanted moved, and it would slide a small bit in the direction he swiped. With enough swipes, the books could be dropped from the bookshelves to the floor and opened.
He’d had a minor setback when he started to wonder about the nature of his intangibility. As he was climbing the stairs to explore the strange castle, he had started to wonder how he was standing on the floor when he passed through everything else. Once he realized how strange that was, he immediately fell straight through the floor.
Being the genius he was, it only took him ten minutes to realize that ghosts could fly.
And thus the afternoon was spent flying around the castle and reading books on history in an attempt to catch up. He had no need to hide what he was doing- the strange new princess had run off and Starswirl didn’t know where the little dragon went.
Now, evening had rolled around and the sun was starting to lower, its light casting a pink glow over the landscape. Starswirl tried to light some candles with his magic, but nearly passed out after lighting only three.
With a firm resolution to get to the bottom of his magical troubles, he attempted to light the remaining candles with one of the ones he’d already lit, but only succeeded in knocking the candle off the wall sconce he had found it, lighting an adjacent tapestry on fire.
He decided to work in the dark.
Unable to cast a light spell for more than a few seconds at a time, Starswirl strained to read each word of the history tome he had opened, a job only made harder as the passing of time saw the setting of the sun beyond the horizon.
A knock on the door. Starswirl’s ears perked up as he heard the knocking, as clear as if the front door were right in the same room as he was. An amplification spell.
He debated getting up and seeing who it was, but decided against it. He couldn’t interact with the knocker, so the entire exercise would be pointless. He went back to reading.
Again, a knock at the door. Starswirl groaned.
“It’s bad enough I can’t see anything, now I have to put up with this infernal noise...” he grumbled to himself, floating through walls and towards the large front door. He poked his head through the massive door.
He was greeted with a pile of trash. Items of all sorts sat in the pile- sticks of wood, hundreds of small bags, a pony skull, and what appeared to be various severed body parts of creatures indigenous to the more wild parts of Equestria. Behind the pile, the purple pony princess stood, herself laden with similar items as those in the pile.
Beside the princess stood another pony, with a butter-yellow coat and a flowing, light-pink mane. She was saying something to the princess in a quiet, demure voice, laced with a slight trace of panic.
“I-I-I just d-don’t think this is s-s-something I can help you with!”
“Of course you can! Ghosts are pests, right? You’re the best in town at getting rid of pests!” Twilight retorted. “That’s why I went to you! Well, also everypony else was busy, but that’s beside the point.”
She knocked once more, her hoof going straight through Starswirl’s face.
“Alright, Fluttershy. It looks like nopony’s answering, so the ghost might be distracted. Now’s our chance!”
She pushed the door open.
“We killed Sombra once, we can do it again!”
Less than a day back and he already broke a Princess.
Remember bud, you break it you bought it.
Oh god... this story is just getting better.
She then uses her ghost-finding spell and sees he has listened to her, and Starswirl finds out he can use the wendigo-ability: Freeze, causing him to fight back and winning without even trying, because he is Starswirl. Fluttershy then panics and grabs the next book( Starswirls journal) and closes it so she can hold it in front of herself. Because she closed it Starswirl gets sucked back inside.
I guess you could say his plans weren't that CRYSTAL clear.
Interesting story. Last chapter to short in my opinion.
Let's see what you have in store for us, Dino Days^^
lol, cannot wait to see how twilight reacts when she finds out she tried to kill starswirl
Why would someone like a story and not fav it? That's like saying you love someone, but don't like them... Now I just thought of Doctor Cox and Jordan from Scrubs....
LOL this was SO funny!
5625731
Perhaps someone wants to follow the story and read it, but isn't quite ready to pass judgement on what they think of it. I liked it because from what I've seen so far it's worth it, but I can see how someone might not see it the same way
5625898
My complaints come more from the fact that at least 90% of the people who added it to a bookshelf added it to bookshelves called "Favorites" or other variations of that, yet there are still less likes than there are faves.
Well, I don't think you need to do this. Just let the story speak for itself. Trying to guile people into liking always makes Authors seem a bit desperate to me. You have no need for that as the near 300 likes (one of them mine) clearly prove.
5625946
I'm not trying to guile likes out of people at all (but yes, I do feel like I'm coming across that way). I just find it strange that there are more favourites than likes. Clearly if you add it to your favourites list, it's worthy of a like, right?
And to be fair, the Ouija board even mostly worked. On the whole I'd say it was a good plan, or at least an A- plan.
5625963
Many people don't add a like to a story that isn't at least halfway done, because they don't know the direction that the story is going, yet. A like, once made, can only stay as a like or become a dislike. If you later take the story somewhere they don't want, but don't hate, they can't undo their like and leave it at that, they'd have to change it to a dislike. As for favorites, that's mostly for tracking the story - before the "tracking" section the only way to follow a story was to put it into Favorites, and habits die hard.
You really can't "like" a story that's just starting out, because you have no idea what's going on or what's going to happen. Most of those people are just waiting to see how this plays out. I suggest not inquiring about likes and such in the future, as pointed out - no matter your intentions, it seems needy and desperate, and there are plenty of people willing to get in your face about that or downvote you just for that alone.
Just keep writing well and being fun and things will happen as they happen.
5625963 I'd partially blame inertia. I still have the considerable majority of stories I've bookmarked at some point or other on my "Favourites" shelf myself simply because for the longest time that was the only option available (okay, eventually "Read It Later" was added, but that never seemed to do actually bother to alert me to updates, so I didn't use it much). The just plain "Tracking" one is still a bit new to me at this point, to be honest, so I could understand people still using "Favourites" by default simply out of habit.
Should be interesting to see where this one will be going, in any event -- especially after the inevitable initial comedy of errors and once Twilight gets over the equally inevitable squeeing about meeting her idol.
5625963 This is probably a relict from older times. Before there was the tracking folder, faving was the only way to follow a stories progress. Back then many persons faved a story when they found it interesting enough to follow it's further development, but only liked it, when they were sure it was good. Some persons also only like a story, once it's done.
Now that we have a tracking folder, I only put things into the favorits-folder if I already liked them, however there are some who handle that differently.
I wouldn't worry about it. Actually while the story is still incomplete, faves are probably worth more than likes, because those who fave it are likely to read it when you update and thus help you gather heat to move to the feature-box. This is not necessarily guaranteed for likes.
Yup, this is awesome. It just keeps getting better!
5621980 Our prayers have been answered
congrats on feature box
5625912
They probably just added it to their automatically-generated notification-enabled bookshelf, which is called "Favorites" by default.
5625731
I always thought Favs were higher on the scale of liking.
Oh my Luna! Poor Starswirl!
And, and then...
...
Too good!
STARSWIRL SCREWED UP! THE GREAT STARSWIRL SCREWED UP BIG TIME!
This is going to be great!
5625963
Actually, personally, I favourite before I like because I can unfave, which just resets my apparent opinion to 'neutral', but if I like and change my mind, then (at least when I joined fimfic, might have changed) all I can do is change it to a 'dislike' which might be undeserved. So I usually don't thumbs up until I'm done with a story, though I'll fave on as little as a promising first chapter.
This story is 'meh' at best. Grammatical errors, while not too big of an issue, are still popping up and word choice is getting on my nerves. Characterization is more of a problem. Twilight seems kinda bland and panicky, and going to Fluttershy because she's "the best at getting rid of pests" (ie her animal friends) feels insulting. Starswirl himself seems like some average twenty year old schmuck rather than the wise old academic you seem to want us to think he is. The comment about foalhood beatings comes off more as an attempt to explain away uncharacteristic actions than as legitimate back story.
Overall this whole thing feels like a bunch of fluff based off an idea that began with 'ooh! what if this happened!' While not in of itself a bad way to start a story... it has room to improve.
Edit:
I'm sorry, that came off a lot harsher than I meant it to. The story is very fluffy, it's not something that I can take very seriously and the story line makes some leaps of unquestionable logic. If you meant it to be fluffy, than good. Your word choice in some parts really annoys me though.
5627485
I agree with everything you said except for the average twenty-something year old bit. I haven't done the best job at explaining it yet (it's first brought up in the next chapter) but Starswirl's a bit senile.
EDIT: Also, 'best at getting rid of pests' was Twilight's excuse for bringing her at all. She went to Fluttershy because everyone else was busy.
Finds out castle is haunted by legendary evil warlock ghost. Gets least brave friend to get rid of it.
Good job, Twilight.
This is a really funny story I really liked the part about starwirl saying he is king sombras ghost that was funny I hope you update soon
LOL, poor Starswirl. Of course he had to end up in the castle of Princess Neurotic.
Looking forward to what happens next!
Well, if they killed Sombra once, they can clearly do it again with Kindness especially.
Even if he's already dead. And particularly non-violent.
This actually sounds like a great comedy concept... But, yeah. Starswirl's got his afterlife now confined to an army of Twilight Sparkle's scheduling and checklisting.
Celestia and Luna learned magic from Starswirl. Starswirl learned the art of pranking from Celestia. Good show!
(By the way, love the story. Brilliant idea to have the spirit of the unicorn embedded in a book. Nice!)
DID SOMEBODY ORDER SOME SMUG?
puu.sh/fX6p7/a1b8639fe1.jpg
5628907
Finally! Thought this smug got lost in the mail. I was starting to worry a bit.
5628908
Sorry, just ran into some difficulties finding the comments :^)
5627166 My explanation for my user name is that I am a God of Physics who just so happens to be a NEET and a Hikkimori(Look those up.) I hate people like you who are narrow minded and invade houses(Christians invaded my house. Sue me. Or rather them.) So I decided to be obstinate. However, I guess you could say it was a part of the human psyche that made me want to act strong and seem strong which interestingly enough ties into the mating instinct deep down inside. But enough of that. If you have not noticed, God represents philosophy and physics represents science. So what does that mean?
My HIGHER POWERS DAMNED USER NAME BE A SPIRITUAL OXYMORON!
5629050
5627166
Hush now, you two, and get along.
5629066 So when new chappie coming up?
5629077
It's currently about 10-20% written, so either later today, tomorrow, or at the very max on Tuesday.
5629082 Need a proofreader?
5629132
Did you read the blog post I just made, or are you just psychic? Either way, PM me.
says everyone is in it
where am I?
Bullshit much
5625912
Shit. Meant to put it in "read it later", not "favourites". My bad. Forgot there was a "read later".
Description says Starswirl is put into a book. Starting to sound like that old Xbox game 'Kameo'.
5629066 THIS IS HAM-MAZING!
Keep it up and you might make it into my favorites of favorites folder... Along with the only 5ish other stories in there...
5630714
Sorry, we can't talk anymore.
Just kidding. I understand that not everyone shares my love for the scaly and the feathery.
You have a watch. Keep it up.
Remind me of the bearded menace. That's not been updated in ages, DON'T BE LIKE THE BEARDED MENACE PLZ, I LIKE THIS STORY.
Same thing happened to me! Those Ouija boards aren`t capable of picking up our words when we actually want to live! So what happens when you want to have fun? It utterly destroys it!
5631017 YESSS that was beautiful
I miss it :1
And this story is looking amazing s far :3 keep up the great work!!