Descent Into Birthright

by Amber-Citrine Sunset

Sunlight's Dirge, Moonlight's Symphony

Act 0: Prologue 4 of 4: Episode 4 of 5: Sunlight's Dirge, Moonlight's Symphony

The Sun's glowing providence doesn't hold a candle to the Moon's emotional embrace.

Elsewhere during the attack by the Ruined...

Sunset saw the sounds of nature calm down and slowly go quiet. Birds settled down to rest for the night, while the flora closed up their buds and the fauna headed to their dens for a good night's rest until the new day. As the sun slowly was swallowed up by the horizon, a new set of sounds emerged from nature's heart to overtake the quiet, those of the night's scavengers, predators, and others who made the night their home.

In the middle of a well-kept clearing in the middle of the forest there stood a large cobblestone tower that stretched close to the canopy of the trees. At the base of the tower was a small graveyard, with three graves dug off to its left. The first read “Sunlight Song, 887-898”, showing a mark of a sun surrounded by notes. The second read “Nocturnal Sigh, 885-900”, and had a mark etched onto the gravestone showing three moons suspended over a cloud being pushed by wind.

The last read “Moonlight Silence, 880-910” and showed a mark of a full moon bordered by empty music notation. It was not only empty of occupation, but had also been cleanly opened... from the inside.

Inside the tower at ground level, a large pine coffin slowly opened with a creaking sound that spoke of something unnatural. Inside, its occupant began to stir and stand up, shaking off the cobwebs in her head before climbing out of it and stretching. Her bones popped loudly as she scratched her flank, where death had allowed her cutie mark to fade to a blank slate against the periwinkle, lime green and bright orange stripes of her body that made her look like a technicolor zebra. Her eyes were soulless, empty blank whites that reflected and shone when the light from the lanterns hit them. Her horn remained a pure white, shining against the thin black aura that had seemed to overtake the rest of her body.

Tiredly, the undead mare climbed the circular stairs up to her laboratory, preparing for a night of her favorite pastime: star gazing. She didn't need to feed right away; the two adventurers that had entered her tower the previous night had tried to ambush her and she'd made short work of them. The larger of the two she'd fed on until he was a lifeless husk and the smaller of the two had been crushed under her supernatural strength. She'd chosen not to raise either of the two as zombies or thralls; they'd fought well and if luck had been on their side they might have won the conflict. Eternal rest was its own reward.

Opening the door to her laboratory, she wrinkled her nose at the smell of death. Having survived the change from death to undeath, she had gained stronger senses, one of which was a heightened sense of smell. One of the former adventurers lay in the corner as an empty husk of its former self, having been ripped open through the spine. Due to the undead mare's magic, it was decomposing supernaturally fast. The mare had had to work fast to make herself a golem from the adventurer's blood; just because she was going to let the soul rest didn't mean that she was going to let the blood go to waste.

“Were there any problems during th' day?” The mare asked the corpse.

The blood that still present within the body slowly floated out of the enormous hole in the center of the corpse's back of its own accord, then shaped itself into the rough shape of a pony with black dots for eyes. “No, Madame Moonlight Silence.” The voice was deep and eerie, with the blood itself vibrating all along its surface area to produce the sound instead of coming from any sort of “normal” vocal cords.

“Return ta guard duty, dearie.” Moonlight Silence commanded.

“Yes, Madame Moonlight Silence.”

Turning away from the corpse, the lich then turned to her chemistry experiments. On a large table neatly arranged into rows with pieces of wood, chemicals bubbled, beakers leaked steam and fog, and a tiny hoof-sized cauldron was storing the results of mixtures from other beakers that were attached by means of little glass tubes. The elixir she was brewing was not quite done yet, but when it was she'd have a weapon to use against her eternal enemies who had wronged her so many years ago when she was still alive. Now that she did not age, she had all the time in the world and the descendants of her enemies were going to suffer.

She took a sip of the liquid in the tiny cauldron, one eye opening all the way and the other squinting to a near closed state as her crimson mane lit up with static electricity. Strong stuff, but the liquid wasn't strong enough yet. She shook her head to clear it as she next went to her reading table, upon which were several open books listing several areas of research. Some books talked about how the blood flowed through an equine body, other books detailed the effects of electricity, and still others discussed the philosophical nature of the soul... or how its “energy” could be manipulated by electricity directed at a pony's body in different, focused locations.

One book in particular spoke of the soul-catching powers of a magical sculpture known as the Dragon's Heart. The picture in the book showed a sculpture of a dragon with two sets of wings and overly comical googly eyes that were made of a material or mineral that stood out from the material of the body. Only nine were made “by the gods” for each continent, and she was in the process of trying to find where one of them was hidden.

The last three times she had gone out to the locations listed in the book, she'd found only empty space where it was obvious some military presence had bashed their way in. Someone or something was after the Dragon's Hearts, probably for the power they wielded if they were all charged and brought across the continent, back to their original source of power. This source was an underground ancient city in the Muial'ki lands, in the heart of Trol'Kyanis.

She paused at the book, skimming it. This time she was sure the Dragon's Heart was still in its protective monster-filled vault, and she was going out to claim it once she knew what sort of creatures were in that vault. To that end she'd sent out her thralls to gather information from passerby as well as sneak into the village of Waterlock and listen to any unusual ponies of interest that might be passing through.

As she turned her head from the book, there came a loud pounding from the front door of the tower, with the sound reverberating up the tower's insides and amplifying it. Her thralls were not due back for another three days, so the only other option it could be was another adventuring party demanding she submit to true death “as was proper.” At this she scoffed; she was not going to be stopped until her lust for wrath was sated in the same way her nightly blood lust was when it was time to feed.

She poked her head out of the window to look down at who was banging on her door, and she was surprised to see that it was not an adventuring party, but what appeared to be a traveling merchant of some kind. A small wooden wagon filled with boxes was nearby, and the yoke used in helping to pull the wagon was still around the pony's neck. It was an older stallion, and from what she could see, he was exhausted. A pony looking for a place to rest the night?

Perhaps she'd feed early after all...

She went down the stairs while preparing and then casting a simple spell that would restore her coat to her original honey-gold. She could not hide the fact her eyes were still dead, however, and she hoped he wouldn't run too fast when he saw that she in fact was dead, or rather, undead. Once she reached the bottom of the tower she opened the door to look at the stallion face to face. He had an eye patch painted to look like a bullseye and over two dozen scars along his left side and flank; it looked like he had been the victim of some kind of torture in the past. His other eye was heavy with exhaustion, and he looked almost ready to drop to the ground dead tired.

“Can you spare a room, miss? I'm so tired and...” He quieted down quickly as he met her gaze.

No. Moonlight Silence's inner voice said. He is innocent. He lives. She was able to sense the shadows in a person's heart, and those who were truly innocent deserved to live a long and full life.

“Ya, I can spare th' lower room of mah tower. It's a dungeon but I ain't got anywhere else ta spare. What can ya offer in exchange?” Moonlight Silence said, voice slightly hollow and exotically feminine as her horn glistened briefly with magic. Pupils appeared in her eyes, a deep supernatural green with orange fire. “Mah apologies if I am... different, dearie.” She looked over at the wagon and its goods.

“You're... you're not even breathing...” The stallion took a step back.

“Yes, dear.” Moonlight Silence gave a wry smile, showing tiny fangs.

The stallion found his feet, eyes wide open. “I... I think I'd better go...”

“Do ya have ta, dearie? We were gettin' along so well.” Moonlight Silence replied, rolling her eyes. She never got to have any fun.

He cast the yoke off with a quick gesture and bolted, abandoning the wagon. “I choose to live! I choose life!”

When he hit the edge of the clearing, Moonlight Silence gestured, and the very weeds at the edge of the clearing bent inward and tried to entangle his legs. All it really did was slightly slow him down as he saw it coming, leaping the animated grass and running for his life toward the nearby village of Waterlock. He'd never make it before the sun came up, but he'd live; Moonlight Silence had better things to do than chase down someone who had “seen her and survived to tell the tale.” One of her supernatural skills was the generation of fear (or at least respect), and the weak-willed had next to no chance of resisting it.

Dropping the appearance spells so that she reverted back to her clashing stripes, she went back upstairs with a little spring in her step; she'd look at the wagon of supplies later in the evening and pick and choose the best pieces before making sure the stallion was reunited with the wagon. While she was undead, she was not evil, and was not just going to hoard everything for the sake of hoarding everything. She probably didn't even have enough room to store all of the goods in the wagon anyway.

Going back to her books, she skimmed more passages on the Dragon's Hearts. Nine had been created for each continent of the world, and if all were brought together, the soul of an ancient dragon could be brought forth if a suitable vessel crafted from gemstones (both in scale and in value) were available. Each Dragon's Heart had to be charged with the power of an innocent soul in order to be effective, and she planned on using one of the victims of her wrath as the desired soul. The mere thought of it made her giddy as she imagined her target eternally screaming while locked inside the statuette.

However if even one uncharged Dragon's Heart were replaced in their place of original creation in the lands of Trol'Kyanis, the interconnected Dragon's Hearts would lose power for a thousand years, consuming any souls currently trapped within them. She had to work fast to try and somehow keep track of the others, and if any were in or headed to Trol'Kyanis for that purpose.

Her studies had led her to learn of a place called the Shadow's Dive, a huge network of abandoned sewers underneath a failed city-turned necropolis thanks to a plague. Somewhere at the center of the network was an altar with the Dragon's Heart on it, and she was going to get it come hell or high sewer water.

But that would have to wait for a little while longer. Tonight she was going to relax and stargaze to her heart's content, dreaming of a time where the descendants of her rivals would be destroyed and she could finally rest. She passed by a few paintings on the way up the stairs leading to the top of the tower, with each painting showing a noble-looking mare or stallion through the ages.

She paused by the last three; the third from the end of the sequence showed a very wealthy mare surrounded by coins and gems. The entire painting had a big “X” painted over it in blood; Moonlight Silence still had the woman's bones hidden in a chest under her tower and had made sure her spirit was cursed within them until they turned to dust naturally. The second-to-last was a military stallion wearing highest honors, with the plaque underneath the portrait reading “Steel Ironhooves.” This was the stallion that had wronged her, leaving her embarrassed at the altar... and in enough despair to turn to darker arts.

That was two centuries ago. By now she knew it to be nothing more than petty revenge and a hollow victory if a victory at all, but she had come too far and was going to see to it that somepony, anypony related to Steel Ironhooves suffered. And she knew just the pony to be the target.

Since then she had followed the family line, watching from the shadows as the ponies of that line always got the better of the ponies from her family. With her descendants in ruins and theirs constantly on the rise, all she was doing was laying in wait for them to flock to a particularly charismatic pony... so that when she stepped in, the entire family would fall with the destruction of that single chink in the armor.

She passed by the last painting in the sequence, tapping on it with a hoof and smiling just a little before opening the trap door to the tower's roof. The portrait's plaque read “Triangle Star”.

At the top of the tower she had a little telescope set up next to a small table upon which lay her journal of observations. From the brass that made up the scope's outer shell to the mirrors and quartz inside the scope to focus the image, the telescope had been made by her own four hooves and was priceless to her. It was small enough to be carried in a large saddlebag if broken down into its component parts and she never traveled far without it if possible.

“All right, my starry sky,” Moonlight Silence said to herself. “Let's see what we...”

As she peered through the eyepiece, focusing on the trees below before turning it towards the heavens, she caught sight of the trees moving in an unusual way, as if something were being pushed against several of them so that they bent and shook from side to side. The amount of activity going on down there gave her pause, then she focused in on the trees and then to the road winding between the trees.

She caught sight of a war party of Ruined laying utter waste to a caravan that had been surrounded, and she gasped as she also caught sight of one particularly bright-colored Ruined in the trees aiming at the caravan. The Ruined fired, striking... a foal?! Sure enough, several other foals lay dead from the Ruined's accuracy.

Moonlight Silence felt a growl rise up in her throat. She might be undead, she might want some people dead and a family ruined simply out of petty spite... but under no circumstances was there ever a reason to shoot a defenseless foal who had not fully experienced life! Focusing more intently now, she watched the battle and put particular emphasis on the guards. The guards were simply outmatched in strength, numbers and tactics, inexperienced fools that were kind of put off by the appearances of the Ruined. This was having a big effect on their effectiveness to the point that they just couldn't compete.

The lich sighed. This night, victory would go to the Ruined.

But not before she fed on them herself!

The anger now welling inside her was making her hungry, and she went back down into her laboratory, going over to a large iron-and-brass studded wooden chest. Inside was her favorite suit of clockwork armor, invented by her own hooves. Built from wood, brass and somewhat poor-quality iron, it was crude compared to other creations in the current day, but it still worked as well as when she'd first invented it back when she was among the living.

She quickly slipped into the armor. Thanks to a series of clever gears and chains, the plates moved about on their own all over her body to cover vital areas. Some parts of her body were left unprotected, making the armor seem patchwork and piecemeal, but this was the intended effect so her adversaries would underestimate her. Finishing off the look with some flank-plates and a bubblegum-pink velvet beret to continue the theme of clashing colors, she instructed the blood golem to watch the laboratory and that she would be back shortly.

She quickly rushed back up to the top of the tower after grabbing her favorite melee weapon from a lab table. The hoof-sized sickle was made of a special bright orange metal she'd discovered that would not break and would only strengthen and become sharper when exposed to blood. She hated to dirty her hooves with melee, but knew far more about self defense than the guards of that caravan did.

Putting herself into a combatative mood, she prepared a teleport spell that would bring her behind the wagon several hundred meters. “Time to get dirty...”

Her horn sparked as she cast the spell, her form taking on the appearance of a beam of neon blue light that began to wind its way through the sky. The teleport was over in an instant, and she opened her eyes at the end of the spell to see that she was facing down the largest Ruined she had ever seen. Obviously the chief of the war party or even of the tribe(s) in the area, the Ruined was already in a stance ready to charge. Moonlight Silence turned her head to see a pair of surprised, uneducated lower class ponies. One of them was a guard from the nearby base that she recognized (from her scouting of the area), and the other one a mare she didn't recognize.

As the chieftain of the Ruined snarled, Moonlight Silence turned back to address him in as cold a voice as she could muster. “Take another step, creature... and dearie, and ya gonna wish ya didn't!” Her normally dark unnatural aura flared a brilliant white for a few seconds so that she seemed more threatening.

The huge Ruined staring her down didn't look one bit intimidated and pawed the ground once before charging, having already committed to his actions beforehand.

Moonlight Silence's horn glowed briefly, and a shield of white energy sprang up to deflect his charge. The Ruined slammed face first into the shield, and the air was torn asunder by a screech of pain. The shield was tied to her horn with a short ribbon of light, and when the Ruined chieftain crashed headlong into it, the ribbon brightened as it sucked precious energy and life force from where the point where the Ruined had collided with it.

Two more Ruined flanked her with large sticks in their mouths, and charged believing they had the drop on her as the shield wasn't all-encompassing. Moonlight Silence stood up on her rear hooves and held her front hooves out, and the same white aura that had covered her was instead transferred in equal portions to either one of the Ruined. Both of them appeared to be swallowed by the aura, until one could see that it was actively eating away at both flesh and life force. Both of the Ruined dropped dead after several seconds, without even a chance to scream in pain as the aura that had surrounded them had paralyzed them.

The chieftain backed off, clearly both surprised and a little confused. The aura of Moonlight Silence flowed back to her like water from the corpses of the other Ruined, and she got back down on all hooves again as it brightened. Then Moonlight Silence saw it, the beginnings of either respect or fear. The years in their passing made the two hard for Moonlight Silence to tell apart.

Kavesh was rooted to the spot, his gaze locked with those terrible, cold dead eyes. He found that he couldn't move as the pony started to approach, and he slowly felt his adrenaline turn to something he hadn't felt in a long, long time: Fear. This pony was... wrong. Unnatural. Dead! And yet she was approaching, with dead eyes, a predatory grin that rivaled his at his best, and unnatural hooves that almost seemed to be darkening the ground as she walked on it, like the land itself was being poisoned.

He wanted no part of that, and struggled to look away.

“Now, dearie. What did I tell ya about regret?” Moonlight Silence asked.

Kavesh growled. He'd meant to snarl or roar, but he was feeling a bit tired from the impact against her shield. The white burning light had sapped his strength and he didn't want to feel that again!

The rest of the tribe began to slowly approach, and Moonlight Silence looked up with a beastial snarl. “If ya want ta remain among the livin', stay BACK!”

She laid a hoof on Kavesh's head, and he dropped, yelping as his life energy was drained and he was left feeling more and more tired. He struggled to remain on his hooves but found he was beginning to buckle.

The rest of the tribe paused and looked at one another. Here was something against the law of nature, destroying their chief and leader without a second thought. The two ponies behind her were weak, barely able to defend themselves. One was using a weighted lump of metal, the other was using her hair of all things... to leave them alive would be an insult to their tribe and a stain on their glory.

There was no way they were going to let that stand.

The tribe charged as an organized group, aiming to go around their injured leader and overwhelm through sheer numbers. That shield of light couldn't protect the unnatural pony forever, and then they'd kill all three and use their skulls as gnaw-toys for their young!

Moonlight Silence, now energized, turned to the two ponies behind her, releasing her hold on Kavesh who by now was on the ground exhausted and nearly paralyzed, his life energy drained and making him feel like he'd run thirty miles in one day. “Time ta go, dearies!”

Ridge Dasher and Sunkissed Amber looked at each other before Moonlight Silence repeated the spell she had used to get there in the first place. Expanding her area of effect a bit, her teleport spell enveloped Kavesh, Ridge Dasher, Sunkissed Amber, and Gleam, along with the supplies and such that were attached to his harness nearby. Five beams of light: light blue, dark gray, amber, white-flecked green, and dark gold, shot up into the sky and wormed and twisted their way back to Moonlight Silence's tower. Without access to magic, the Ruined could not follow.

Kavesh wound up in a cage in the laboratory. The first thing his eyes saw when the light cleared from them was the blood golem, and he was left paralyzed with fear. Ridge Dasher and Sunkissed Amber wound up in the dungeon below, in separate cells with barely enough room to turn around in. Gleam appeared hanging from the ceiling by his tail, which had been knotted up and hung on a hook. Struggling and growling, he found he couldn't move; he was hogtied from head to tail with thin silver strings enchanted to be unbreakable. For the moment he was out of commission.

A single bleached pony skeleton lay in pieces around the outside edges of the cells, its skull cut neatly into two parts, and manacles hung from the walls where another near-skeletal pony corpse could be seen hanging upside down by their hind legs. Moonlight Silence appeared at the top of the tower, and took a minute or two to make sure she was in one piece before going downstairs to greet her... guests... after taking the time out to rifle through Sunkissed Amber's trade goods and supplies which were neatly piled in another corner. She came across the silver rod, the letter from Honor's Edge, and the (uncharged) Dragon's Heart itself.

“Hmmmmm. These dearies will be...” Moonlight Silence licked her lips. “Very interesting.”

Down in the dungeon Sunkissed Amber blinked as she shook off the shock of the teleport, then as she looked upward her jaw dropped at Gleam's situation.

“Uh... what just happened?” Ridge Dasher asked, looking over at her.