Journey of the Sorcerer [4]
Stories in Stone
Capricorn's Curse
By TDR
Journey of the Sorcerer
She screamed again her cry echoing off the black crystal halls. She galloped through the palace , the smell of brimstone and burning cloth filling the air as she ran, the things hot on her hooves. She needed to find a window, or a way outside so she could take to the air. Her pink magic grabbed at the doors slamming them shut behind her as she ran.
It was to little avail as the things broke though the heavy crystal doors like they were paper and continued their pursuit. Roars sounded behind her like the yowls of a large angry cat, she spared a glance back over her shoulder only to see the gnashing teeth and and sparks of fire close enough that the end of her tail was singed. She ran faster, her scream for help a long drawn out thing that echoed in the hall and seemed to get even louder.
She suddenly noticed it was getting louder. She stopped screaming to breath, but the sound continued, a second glance back showed the things were all making the cry now, mocking her panic as they hunted her.
She darted around a corner rushing down another long hallway before slamming head first into something. She yelped as she stumbled, looking up as she scrambled back to her hooves seeing nothing. She took a step forward again and smacked into what felt like a wall. There was nothing before her but a long hall. She slapped at it with a hoof, the paint on the wall made to look like a hall scraping off at the slap showing the brick underneath.
She whirled looking up at the towering beasts standing over her, unkempt fur and black scales, black wings like a bats and long tails covered in spikes. The creatures slowly advanced on her now as she pushed her self back against the wall, screaming out as they fell upon her.
========================================================
Princess Glimmering Armor Sparkle sat up with a scream in her bed, her wings flaring out as she sat up, knocking a number of stuffed animals and one small Changeling out of her bed with her cry.
The yelp as the changeling hit the dark floor next to her bed sounded to Glimmer like a monsters bark and the pink pegicorn prim pony princess panicked. She screamed out again trying to launch herself into the air. Her blankets and sheets tangled about her tethering her to the bed briefly giving her the impression that the thing had grabbed her and forcing her to flap even harder. The sheet hooked on the edge of the bed gave way just as the door was flung open and Shining Armor burst in
Shining Armor blinked at the darkness of the room before he let out a yell as a large mass of something plowed into him at high speed. The winged bundle of teal sheets and blankets crashed into him, sending him rolling backwards into the hall and across it into the wall on the far side in front of a rather surprised Cadence.
The Empress of the Crystal Empire stepped back a little as her husband and the bundle of sheets that she assumed was her daughter judging by the pink wings and blue tail sticking out of the mass of cloth
flailed wildly.
She glanced at the door as a black blur darted out of the darkness and scrambled up her back to hide under her wing.
Cadence tensed a little at the thing at first, though she relaxed considerably feeling the little hooves gripping her back.
She ignored the flailing of her husband and the cries of of her daughter a moment to look back at Shin huddled under her wing.
The small changeling was in his normal form for once. A black unicorn with a red horn and green hair with the usual holes in his mane and legs. Green gossamer wings hugged to his black carapaced back. This was a sure sign he was upset, he was rarely in the form he was born in any more.
Prince Shintasha ( Shin ) Sparkle had learned some time ago how to change his form. Since then he rarely wasn't something else. He also never seemed to take the same form twice, though he often did color variations of his favored forms. He also never copied any one perfectly unless they asked and even then there was usual some tell that kept the copy from being perfect.
Oddly enough it didn't matter what form he took, Cadence could always tell who and what he was. Sure he might startle her at some point, the sea monster in the park fountain was a prime example of that, but she could always recognize him as being him.
Despite being the eldest child he remained smaller than any of the others even though he was seven. Still Cadence wasn't sure how much of that was actual growth or how much was he just liked to remain small. Another oddity was that none of the other Changelings in the Empire could hear him. Luna had looked into that and found that while there was nothing wrong with him, he was isolating himself from all the others. It wasn't an unheard of thing among the natural born Changelings, it was simply unusual, of course he was an unusual foal. It some times happened when they came upon information in the hive mind that they didn't like. Many were worried that it meant he didn't want to take over the rule of the Changelings.
Shin had yet to reveal what it was that he had found over the hive mind but if it was brought up he would usual change into something like a desk or a rock so that he could avoid talking about it.
He had also become some what clingy..... alright, excessively clingy. He was just about always hugging or draped over some one, be it herself, Shiny, or his sister. The other royal foals were not immune from it either, though only Elusive and Rynthia seemed unbothered by the attention. Dawn never sat still for long and Talon and Glimmer both seemed uncomfortable with him being hugy for too long.
It was not that he was shy, far from it. Usually he was all up in every ones personal space looking everything over and getting into everything. The only one of the royal foals who seemed more adventurous was Dawn. Shin was just... well, clingy.
Cadence glanced over to her husband who was currently getting pounded on with tiny hooves as Glimmer screamed something about monsters. The Empress of the Crystal Empire sighed as she grabbed the blanket in her magic pulling it off the pair and revealing her bruised and battered husband getting bounced on and punched on by his daughter.
The pink pegicorn princess immediately stopped looking down at Shining with wide eyes and smiled sheepishly before quickly getting off her father.
Glimmer was already a tall lanky filly, towering above all the other royal foals save Talon. Likely she would be as tall as, or taller than her mother when she was fully grown. Shining was already dreading dealing with her possible suitors.
The young filly was as close to a storybook Princess as she could get. Long flowing, light blue, mane and tail, baby blue eyes and a regal manner about her that as far as Cadence knew hadn't been trained. She had even attempted to learn Royal Canterlot speak, thankfully for every ones eardrums, she gave both it, and the use of the royal 'We', up after only a few confusingly loud days.
Interestingly enough she was also careful with her image, remembering what happened to those in her books that abused their status or treated others badly. All any one ever saw was a perfect polite little angel.
Which was a load of shit.
Yes, her daughter was compassionate, kind, and tried to be friendly with every one, but she had a devious streak that showed itself far more often than Cadence liked.
If some one didn't treat her with the proper respect, or did something Glimmer didn't like they would usually have something bad happen to them.
Hot sauce in tea, frogs in their bath tub, waking up with their manes a completely different color. While none of the pranks were dangerous or permanently damaging the results were always very noticeable and some how themed around the perceived slight her daughter had received.
For the longest time every one blamed Shin for the pranks given the distrust of changelings and the ease which some one who could alter their form could sneak around.
Glimmer however always came to her brothers defense offering both Shin and herself a perfect alibi. In fact Cadence herself had only gotten lucky at one point and caught her daughter in the act of trying to swipe a particularly irate nobles wig. Since then she had noticed what to look for and kept a closer eye on her daughters antics, though she still missed most of them..
There were a few how ever that Glimmer didn't do anything to no matter how mad she got at them. Cadence was of course one of them, because Glimmer knew her mother knew and what would happen. Her brother was another, because Shin was her alibi in most cases and it wouldn't do to make him mad at her. Talon some how avoided her ire, though Cadence wasn't sure how, the Hippogryph foal was not one to sugar coat anything. Rynthia was also immune simply because Rynthia had figured it out too and she had a way of unnerving any one simply by staring at them.
While Dawn had been on the receiving end of more than a few of the retaliatory pranks, the little Kirin not only thought it was good fun, but had turned it into a prank war of escalation. A prank war that had destroyed three rooms of the palace and left both of them, and a number of Guards, bald for a few weeks.
How a couple of four year olds had managed what they did Cadence never wanted to find out.
The only other pony that Glimmer never did anything to was Jer'rahd. While she was no longer afraid of most Kirin, Jer'rahd still absolutely terrified her and if he was in the Crystal Empire she did her best to stay as far away from him as possible.
Jer'rahd was a little upset by this and had tried to make friends with very little success. Which hampered his and Luna's abilities to watch over her pair of foals when she and Shining had to travel some where or wanted some alone time.
If Jer'rahd hadn't seemed upset over Glimmer's fear of him and done his best to curtail it, Cadence might have thought he had planed it to get out of foal sitting duty.
“So what happened here?” Cadence asked looking down at the bundled ball of black fur huddled under her wing and the filly trying to fix her mane and ignoring that she had just trampled her father who was still laying beside her with a look of bemused annoyance on his face.
“Nothing of real importance mother … simply a unpleasant dream....” Glimmer states haughtily.
“Yep.” Shin comments from under her wing.
“Wait is that Shin? Was he in my room again?” Glimmer demands.
“Yep” Shin commented.
“What did I tell you about that!?” Glimmer grumbles.
“Not too.. though I had a bad dream and momma and pappa weren't in their room.” Shin explained.
“You should have woken me up before coming in!” Glimmer orders.
“I tried, then I tried to wake you up again when you didn't hear the knocking, then you woke up screaming and flung me aside with your wing.... Mr. Bumbles smacked me in the nose.” Shin protested poking his head out from around Cadence's wing his little fangs partially bared in annoyance at his sister.
“That was the blue bear right?” Shining questioned.
“The large green one dear.” Cadence corrects. “ The one aunt Tia got her.”
“I thought Queen Luna got her that one.”
“No Luna got her the purple rabbit, Mrs. Fluffikins.” Cadence corrects again.
“Then where did the Diamond Dog doll come from?”
“Princess Little Piddles came from the Pinkie Pie Fun Fair when it rolled though here.” Cadence states. “Twilight won that one for her.” .
“Oh....” Shining sighed defeated in recalling any of the names for the massive collection of plush animals his daughter had.
The two foals however had completely ignored their parents and were currently making faces at one another. Shin was much better at it .
“Alright you two that's enough. It's nearly morning and Talon should be here first thing. Dawn, Rynthia and Elusive should get here by lunch time. So both of you go back to your rooms and to bed or you'll be too tired to play when they get here.” Cadence comments flatly.
“Dawn's coming!?” Glimmer shouted in a panic before galloping back into her room. “ I have to hide everything!!!”
“She's not that bad any more......” Shin yells. “ She didn't eat or break any of my stuff even accidentally last time. And she only ate your pillow cause she dreamed it was a giant marshmallow!”
“Should I hide the good silverware?” Shining asked with a smirk.
“Oh please she hasn't stuffed everything in her mouth since she was three. Luna and Jer'rahd broke her of that habit …. thankfully.” Cadence muttered the last picking Shin up off her back as he turned into a fairly large pink lobster and scuttled off to his room. “ We only need to worry about her if she gets a hold of a lot of sugar. So warn the cooks....”
“Got it......” shining adds watching Shin scuttle off before gathering up the torn blanket with his magic.
“You think Jer'rahd and Auntie Celestia are going to have a issue with this thing?” Cadence muttered
“I don't know all the details, but Peach Blossom seemed more annoyed than worried. Evidently he and Starfall have been left in charge while Jer'rahd and Princess Celestia go after Luna and my sister. The whole things being kept rather quiet, though the public's likely to find out sooner or later, hopefully after the fact. I say we prepare just in case, Breezy and Dusty are getting involved too.”
“Wait those two... does that mean......”
“Yeah, that thing is gonna be there.”Shining shuddered
“Oh dear.... Jer'rahd and my aunt, with that thing, and the pair of them are pissed off......” Cadence frowned her ears flattening.
“Should we prepare to house a bunch of refugees from Gallopagos again?” Shining groaned.
“Perhaps we should...... and anything bordering the Great Hooper Sea too..... just in case.”
==========================================================
Talon Strike Mist the Third, flattened his ears to his head and tried to ignore his parents arguing. The hippogryph foal was little annoyed at the pair of them, but he knew their arguments always ended in one of two ways. One they would wind up trying to make him another sibling, or two they would get into a physical fight which would end up with them trying to make him another sibling.
To be perfectly honest with how headstrong his mother was and how much a slacker, slash, jerk his father could be it was a wonder their home wasn't swarming with hippogryphs.
The hippogryph sighed, his wings fluttering a little as he fluffed up his feathers. The dark gray fur and main feathers covering him were almost blue in coloration with flecks of white on them. Puffs of white showed through from his down feathers under his main ones making him briefly resemble a storm cloud breaking up into a puffy white one. He whipped his tail, the long cat length tufted with a lighter blue coloration that matched his short cut mane. He sighed rubbing his claws over his beak and stretching his back legs out, his hooves scraping over the deck as the arguing continued.
He wasn't sure what it was about this time, though it seemed once again something was going on in Equestria. There was a sizable force being deployed. A mix of Ponies, Griffons, and Harpies that now lived in the new Griffon nation after the last place they lived was all but destroyed and ceded to the remaining harpies.
Talon flipped a page in his book , barely paying attention to the words, it was just the charter of the Council of Gods, nothing he hadn't read twenty times before any way. There were a number of glaring errors in it he needed to point out at the next meeting of the council.
Talon was smart, in fact he was considered by many to be genius. At age five he had gotten into a debate with Princess Twilight Sparkle over the nature of Starswirl's third therom of energy. The only reason she had managed to win that debate was that she had contact with a echo of Starswirl who could point out how he had come up with that particular theory.
He likely could have already been leading the Griffon Nation save one glaring issue. While smart enough to run it he didn't have the emotional stability to do so. Despite his intelligence he was still only six, and what he saw as a logical thing, others saw problems he didn't, he also had no clue how to go about political double speak. When he was told something he took it at face value.
He wasn't really concerned with why his parents were fighting this time. In truth it was probably nothing more than his mother was cranky. She hadn't been sleeping well lately and it showed with how she looked. Dad had probably said something insensitive and she lost it.
Talon had been having bad dreams as well, but it was the usual. The same phobia he always had in dream form. While it panicked him while asleep, he could logically dismiss it when he woke.
Still this would be a fun few days He was going to stay with Empress Cadence and Emperor Shining Armor. Their libraries had books he had yet to read, and there was always a host of intellectuals staying there either in the libraries studying or debating something. He would love to check in on Berry Kaisur as well and see what she discovered from her crystal research.
Then their was his friend Shin. While the changeling god wasn't on par with him mentally, Talon rather enjoyed his company, even when he got clingy. Games of hide and seek with Shin always wound up a challenge as there was no telling what he could change into at any given time.
He was less excited to be seeing Glimmer. Mostly because he would surely be stuck attending a tea party, or something like that with her. Still he put up with her because it was polite and she was nice enough to him that he didn't want to upset her by refusing.
He was also rather excited because he had heard that the trio from New Canterlot were coming as well. While that made him suspicious of what was going on, the lot of them were often together on holidays or when their parents were called away for something.
He rather liked them all though Rynthia was the only one who was even close to rivaling him mentally. Elusive tried, but he couldn't get his head around half the things that Talon knew.
Then there was Dawn.
He had no idea how to think about Dawn. The Kirin whelp was a walking disaster of madness and chaos. He didn't understand half of what she did and the other half he couldn't understand how she did it. She wasn't a god,well neither was Glimmer, but all of them were often forced to try and keep up with her rather than the other way around. She got along with everyone and seemed to know every one. No matter what was going on the little Kirin always seemed to be trying to enjoy herself some how. It was an odd carefree state that he envied at times, perhaps she was the only normal one of the group and this was how all six year olds were really supposed to act. He thought that unlikely as he had some experience with Griffon chicks his own age and none came close to how Dawn acted. Still his experience had been clouded with others, some thought him odd with his mixed parentage, or thought him frighting for what he was, or even worse, treated him as if he was better then them because he was royalty or they tried to gain favors.
There was always something that kept him from making any friends, he blamed some of it on himself as he didn't try to get along with any one his age.
Perhaps that was why he rather liked the other Royal Foals.... none of them cared about that.
Granted they were all gods or royalty themselves so they might have known where he stood. Or in Dawn's case, never paused long enough to think about it.
Still, despite his worries he was going to try to enjoy himself, no matter how many tea parties he was forced to sit through.
==========================================================
This had been quite interesting. It had not even been a day since his master had sent him out to gather information, and in truth he was completely amazed by what he found.
Mechanical transports, towering structures that put a castles to shame, magic everything,from trinkets to advertisements, the wealth of power abounded here.
And these things were not just for the lands rulers, things like these 'trains' and 'high rises' were made for the commoners. It made him quite interested in what royalty of this age possessed. Surely they would not all have the same level of luxury, after all what would be the point of royalty if you didn't lord what you had over others
Then there were the creatures themselves that wandered about him. Ponies of all kinds, Griffons, Minotaur, Zebras, Diamond Dogs, Donkey's, and a number of races he didn't recognize at all. All of them in the same spaces, chatting, or walking with each other, no bloodied conflict, none of them seeming to think themselves worth more than others....
Madness.
It had been harder to infiltrate in this age of wonders simply due to the culture shock. He could blend in fairly well as members of his own race still wandered about, though the awe he displayed was hard to repress.
At least he thought it would be harder.
Amazingly no one seemed to care very much, and aside from a few utterances of what he assumed was some sort of new swear word that sounded like 'tourist', most ignored him unless they were trying to sell him something. There were a lot of creatures trying to sell him things.
The market he wandered through carried things he had never seen before, and all manner of foodstuffs that were rare and hard to come by. Grapes, strawberries, pastries, sugar, flavored drinks, tea, Again he was struck with the curiosity of what this ages rulers feasted on if the finest things he had ever seen were now commoner fare. Such rare delicacies were being sold to the rabble for what seemed to be a pittance. He needed to sample some of them, just to make sure they were real.
It barely took any effort to lift a pouch from a distracted Griffon and see what sort of odd coins existed in this day.
The metal disk itself was a gold coloration, but it did not seem to be gold. One side of the coin had the image of the sun, and the other one of the moon. The mint was from a place called Equestria, so he assumed that was the land he was in.
He shoved the bag under his cowl, it was a bad idea to be caught with ill gotten gains, better to spend them and be rid of the evidence. After a short bit of time he was decked out in a new outfit and had sampled a number of the new foods, with the taken purse nearly empty he considered his next move, though he was readily distracted.
While pondering how the apples of this era had grown large, pretty, and rather bitter compared to what he recalled, he spotted the Griffon he had relieved of his wealth speaking rather loudly with a pair of ponies in some sort of uniform. He decided it was time to be else where. A library would be best for recent history, though many of those wandering around were reading odd gathered bits of paper with words covering them. Perhaps one of those could be acquired.
Slipping into an ally he scooped one of the parchments up from a rubbish bin where it had been discarded before making his way to a park like area away from the markets and the uniformed ponies.
Seeing few others around he took a seat on a stone bench, sinking a little lower into his new cloak to look over the paper.
The words were illegible to him at first, but a swift spell quickly fixed that.
Manehatten Times, the name meant nothing to him, nor did what he assumed was the date stamp at the top. The numbers were arraigned as they should be but he was unsure what ANM meant. What ever event reset the era seemed to have happened only a thousand and sixteen years ago.
The parchment was indeed garbage. Most of what was written in it seemed to be little more than gossip on some Princesses or another. There were sale papers and some things about recovering from an attack by something called Tirek. There was also mention of a Queen Luna, and a Empress and Emperor of a place called the Crystal Empire. Perhaps this Queen was the one who ruled this particular area. Judging by the words she did not seem well liked.
Just the paper was not going to be enough, there was barely any proper context in it , he needed to find some one more knowledgeable about the local areas or a library of some kind. There was far too much information to be had, and he needed to be sure he had all his facts straight or his master would not be pleased.
====================================================
Far above the city another cloaked figure sat on the edge of a roof, her red cloak fluttering behind her in the wind as she looked out over Manehatten though a pair of binoculars.
She had been close by supervising another mission when the order was given to her straight from the Princesses mouth.
A Code Black.
There had only been one Code Black since she had been put in charge and created the system to denote a missions importance. And that code had been given when Queen Luna's youngest daughter was an assassination target. The call wasn't given because of the attempt, the call had been given because both Princesses, Queen Luna, and Lord Jer'rahd had immediately acted on it without consulting her or any one else. Thankfully she had been able to talk them down from making the Zebra race extinct, but only barely.
This time she only had a general idea of what was going on. She was aware however of three things.
First was that Princess Sparkle and Queen Luna were missing and that Guard Captain Kaisur, Queen Bleu Scale, Princess Celestia, and King Spike Sparkle were going to do something about it.
The second was that she had a named target and a brief description of said target for capture and the target had been sighted entering this city.
The third was that her mare friend was one of the ones missing and her target had information that might help with a rescue, or failing that … a recovery.
Special Agent Sweetie Drops didn't like to think like that, but her target was here and so was she and capturing him was all she could do.
With Lyra's life possibly on the line all the monsters of Tartarus themselves could get in her way and it wouldn't be enough to stop her from finding this Donkey named Bray.
Title is Journey of the Sorcerer by the Eagles
For those of you who are fans of the Hitchhikers guide movies and show , you should recognize it.
There should be at least one or more chapters like this, not all the pieces are in place just yet.
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it is looking good. shit will go down.
After a long time I have finally created an account here so I could comment on your stories. First of all: I love your stories, man the story in stone series is one of the, if not the most, enjoyable stories I have ever read! Damn you're a good writer and you have a great mind for the best combination of fantasy, humour, cliffhangers and brutal action! Keep up the great work! I'm really curious in what this story will bring.
~LittleNicky
Dat alliteration, tho.
7144076. It always does
7144148. As they say on tv 'But wait there's more!!'
7145021 thank you.
7145558 I will drop a few every so often.
Dis gon b gud.
>NEW DATA ACQUIRED
>POSSESSING....COMPLETE
>PROBABILITY UPGRADED OF ENEMY IDENT.
>SUBJECT: GROGAR IDENT CONFIRMED,
>KNOWN ABILITIES: LEVEL FIVE NECROMANCER, POSSIBLE IMMORTAL, POSSIBLE HALF DEMON
>THREAT: SUBSTANTIAL
>END OF LINE
7153014 Hmm your imput receptors might be missing somethings...... but don't worry next couple of chapters will fix that BWAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHA
7153024
>COUNTER ARGUMENT PROGRAM ACTIVE. BEGIN DATA RECALL.
>SUBJECT: BRAY
>FORM: DONKEY LIKE BEING
>FIRST APPEARANCE: GEN 2 MLP
>KNOWN ALLEGIANCE: SUBORDINATE TO SUBJECT: GROGAR
>THREAT: NEGLIGIBLE
>DATA RECOMPILED, PROBABILITY OF ENEMY IDENT SUBJECT: GROGAR 100%
>END PROG.
Noticed another plot-hole TDR. In SiS: LE, you listed Glimmer as a unicorn when she was born. You have her here listed as a pegicorn like her mother.
Then again, there's been more than a few times where you've listed Cadance as an alicorn.
Not really a bad thing, just something I thought I'd point out.
8450471
hmm have to go back and fix that