Tombstone

by Fullmetal_Pony

Chapter 2

After only one day of captivity and Twilight was sufficiently board out of her mind, constantly replaying what happened over and over again in her head, watching Tombstone conduct his research, and sometimes speaking in a strange tongue she had never heard before. Occasionally one of his undead servants would bring him what he needed.

Perhaps if I got him talking I can find out more about him and why he hates his own kind so much. “So how long do you plan on keeping me here?”

“Don’t know.”

“What are you working on?”

“None of your business.”

She let out a sigh. “Can I ask you something personal?”

Tombstone stopped what he was doing and turned to face her.

“What!?”

“Why do you despise other ponies so much?”

“That’s a long story.”

“I’m all ears.”

“You really want to hear the tragic tale that was my life, fine! I’ll try to sum it up best I can. It all started over a millennium ago, I was but a foal and as far back as I can remember I had nopony to watch over me. No family, no friends, just me growing up on the streets of some town I can’t even remember the name too trying to survive another day. Everypony I met either paid me no heed or rejected me for reasons I’ll never know. As you can imagine this made learning magic difficult. It took some time but I managed to gather the materials needed to teach myself the magical arts, I even found material on dark magic and found myself intrigued in the subject. I had a knack for necromancy, that’s when I got my cutie mark. But when others found out that I used dark magic and what my cutie mark meant that only made things worse. As the years passed I traveled around Equestria, but everywhere I went I was rejected by my own kind. That is until I met a certain Unicorn mare. Her name was Vibrant Sunset, she saw me differently than the others. We were in our mid-teens at the time and become fast friends and we even fell in love, she made all the pain go away and made me feel like everything was right in the world. The other ponies of that particular village were increasingly suspicious of us, they didn’t like me and her by extension, even her own family began to turn their backs on her. We didn’t care so long as we had each other. That’s when my world came crashing down around me. I had to leave for a few days in order to acquire some updated texts on magic I was studying. Unfortunately tragedy stuck while I was away. All the village crops had disappeared over night. I later found out it was due to a passing swarm of parasprites, but the villagers didn’t know. All they knew was that their crops were gone and I was the scapegoat they blamed it on. Then they turned on Vibrant who was labeled guilty by association, from what I heard an angry mob dragged Vibrant out of her home and cut off her horn so she couldn’t defend herself, nopony did anything to help her, not even her own family. They tortured her trying to get her to confess to where I was hiding and that I was responsible for what happened. Vibrant tried to tell them they were wrong, that I was innocent. When they didn’t like her answer they….they burned her at the stake.”

The look on Twilight’s face was one of sheer horror. “That’s horrible.”

“I know. It just so happens that I returned the next day. I wondered into town and was met with glares that could kill, as well as an increasing number of ponies gathering around me. They started shouting things at me like ‘you destroyed our crops you demon’ and I didn’t know what the villagers were going on about, but I had managed to piece together what happened and demanded to know where Vibrant was. They all just gave a soft chuckle and motioned to the direction she was in. The crowd parted a little so I could get a better view and what I saw was the charred corpse of a pony tied to a pole, somehow I just knew it was Vibrant. At first I felt nothing but sadness, but that sadness quickly became a burning rage. They took my world from me and I was going to make…them…pay! The mob tried to jump me, but I lit my horn and sent out a shockwave that knocked over or sent flying everypony that surrounded me, then I set the village ablaze. The villagers ran around in a panic while I continued my rampage, not caring who got in my way. Once the flames died down what was left of the village was now a smoldering pile of ashes, the villagers long since fled. I made my way over to Vibrant and broke down crying. That had been the last straw for me, after I gave her body a proper burial I fled to live out my days in solitude and washed my hooves of ponykind forever, or so I thought. I still needed to venture back to civilization every now and again to get the materials or supplies I needed, and to catch up on current events every so often. But I made sure to make as little contact with other ponies as I possibly could. At first I blamed myself for what had happened but quickly realized it had been their fault, it had always been their fault! I swore vengeance on ponykind for the pain and suffering they caused me, and would not rest until I brought about their destruction. I dedicated my life to the pursuit of knowledge so I could obtain the means to carry out my plans. I studied magic and developed my own spells and theories. But one can only accomplish so much in one lifetime. That’s when I decided to become a lich to make myself immortal so I could take my time and not rush into a fight I wasn’t prepared for. Although it still seems I jumped the gun a few centuries ago, but now I am ready.”

“I’m sorry for your loss but that was a long time ago. Ponies are different now.”

“Not likely.”

“Times change, a lot can happen over the course of a thousand years. Let me help you.”

“How?”

“By showing you that most ponies are good natured at heart, although I would stay clear of Manehattan.”

“You do seem kinder than most I’ve encountered that much is certain. But, especially in my current state of lichdom I don’t think that would work. Now I need time to myself to focus on my research. Perhaps your time could be better spent somewhere else.” He then undid the collar around her neck. “Follow me.” Tombstone and Twilight made their way down what looked like the inside of a cave with many different passages leading to who knows where and the only illumination coming from glowing crystals on the walls. “Don’t even think of trying to run for it, my lair is a virtual labyrinth. Only I know the layout and even if you do somehow manage to find the exit only my magic can open it.” They finally came to a door, when it opened Twilight was blown away. “Welcome to my library.” Twilight couldn’t believe her eyes, there were rows upon rows of books stretching on for what felt like forever. “Do you like it?”

“Like it, I love it, this is amazing!”

Twilight was positively glowing. She was so giddy that she almost forgot that she was still being held captive.

“It’s actually nice to meet somepony else that’s interested in learning. I have books on just about every subject you can think of, art, literature, history, magic as well as other topics. I’d say I have more information stored here than the Canterlot archives and Crystal Empire library possibly combined. I even have Star Swirl the Bearded’s original notes and texts in his writing.”

“You do! But I those have been lost for centuries!”

“I have many rare tomes that I’ve collected over the years that have been thought lost. There in my private study.”

“Can I read them?”

“I suppose there’s no harm in it.” Tombstone turned to the first bookcase against the wall on the right and lit his horn. All that could be heard was the sound of tumblers unlocking and then the bookcase slid open revealing a hidden room. “All my most rare and valuable texts are stored in this room and I would never dream of parting with a single one.” They made their way inside. It was considerably smaller than that of the main room with books on the left and back walls and a reading area on the right. “And here we are Star Swirl’s lost works.” He levitated a few books and journals over to the table on the right side of the room. “Enjoy and feel free to look at the other books in my collection either in here or the main room. Although you’re barred from reading the ones that contain advanced magic, don’t want you learning anything thing useful that could be used against me. You’ll know when you find one as you won’t be able to open it. And I warn you any tampering with the material or mistreatment of my property and I’ll know about it, understand.”

“I would never harm a book.”

“Very good, I shall take my leave.”

“Before you go, what are those?”

She pointed to a sealed case in the middle of the room. It contained two books, one was a rather thick tome with a white cover and the other looked over twice as thick with a black cover.

“Oh those, they are the culmination of my life’s work. Every spell, every theory, every ritual I developed is contained in those books. The white one is for regular magic and the black one is dedicated to dark magic. As you can see I was far more interested in the dark arts. And no you can’t read them they’re especially off limits.”

“Oh come on, please.”

“No, it’s my life’s work. All my secrets are contained within them. I would rather see them burn than let them fall into somepony else’s hooves. Besides you couldn’t read them even if you tried.”

“How come?”

“They have many layers of protection. First you would have to get the case open witch I magically sealed. If you do get it open then you have to get the books themselves open which are also sealed. If you managed to get those open then you’re faced with another problem. The pages would all appear to be blank, as I cast a spell to hide the words. If by some chance you do manage to reveal the text you’re faced with one last obstacle. The words are written in a special otherwise dead language that only I can translate. All the while a silent alarm spell would have been triggered by now.”

“You sure are thorough I’ll give you that. Wait special language, you mean like the one I heard you speak in the lab.”

“That’s the one. It’s called dovahzul or dragon language. It was the ancient language of the dragons before it became lost to them for reasons unknown. It died out even before Celestia’s time. The fact that I managed to gather enough material on it to reconstruct the language for my own purposes is nothing short of a miracle. Dovahzul itself is tied with magical properties. I’ve used it to create alternative forms of spell casting, through words and magic circles. Spells that even Earth ponies and Pegasi could perform.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Oh but it is, allow me to demonstrate. Wuld Tusron.” In an instant he traveled from one end of the room to the other in the blink of an eye, leaving only a gust of wind in his wake.

“How did you do that!?”

Tombstone had big grin plastered on his face. “Well you see Twilight instead of channeling magic through a horn first, using words or circles draws its magic directly from the source and even from other living things in the surrounding area. You see every living thing has at least a small amount of magic in them, plants, animals, and even the air you breathe has small traces of magic in it. For example when you perform a levitation spell you are merely stimulating the magic in the air causing it to manifest as an aura around the object you are lifting. The same is also true for teleportation spells. You’re merely displacing your form from one place to another traveling through the magic particles in the air. Sometimes a spell can be amplified depending on the spell and how powerful the being is. For example if I were to cast a spell that can draw off the magic of others in your presence it would be more potent than if it was drawing off my magic alone. However there is a disadvantage to using words as the effects of them only last a few seconds, so you would have to continually recast it for a prolonged effect. Circles on the other hand last much longer.”

“That’s incredible!”

“Yes well you would have to know what the words meant for them to be of any use. Merely imitating them will have no effect.”

“You don’t think I could learn some do you?”

“Absolutely not, I don’t really feel like having my own magic used against me.” Come to think of it, why did I bothered explaining all that to her. Oh well, I hopefully didn’t give away anything that was of any use to her.

“Oh right.”

“Now I need to get back to work, I’ll stop by later with some food.”

Tombstone then took his leave and Twilight started reading.

Comments

[Alitaher003]

"I'm not going to tell you anything about what I'm doing."
Proceeds to basically leak most of his work and how he defends it.
I'm surprised he survived that long..