Thief of Redemption

by One Tin Soldier

Chapter 6- A Dank Dark Wizard Dude

Torrents of water poured from the sky, like teardrops raining down from the heavens. Not a soul was foolish enough to stay out in weather like this.

Yet hooves came down upon the wet ground in the small village of Kalmar. Striding down the main street in search of something. The lampposts flickered and cast a yellow sheen through the night, the light dancing on every drop of rain.

Finally, the stallion found what he was looking for. An old building, but in good order. He looked up and squinted at the sign above the double oak doors. "Historic Library of Kalmar". He slowly walked up the steps before finding the door to be locked. The stallion unsheathed his wings and sliced the door in half almost instantaneously. The momentum of this swung the stallion around to buck the remains of the door into the library with a crunch.

The stallion folded his wings back in and walked into the library. The inside was musty and smelled of books. A lamp on the front desk shone warmly and made the pegasus's grey fur look almost metallic. Root stepped past the front desk and continued on to the "L" section.

He soon found a book titled Legends of Equus, Both Real and Untrue. Flipping open to the table of contents, he found an entry called "Dread Magnus". Finding the page confirmed his suspicions.

This was who he was looking for. It had been more than nine years since Root's quest had begun. This was the first real lead. All others were either burned or scribbled out in the places he needed.

The page had no illustrations and was mildly short. It detailed his great success in the arena of Shadowskull Ridge. Apparently, in the first century of the second beginning, Magnus has shown up out of the blue, and beaten every monster and contestant the crowds threw at him. He did it with only his bare hands, it seemed, and every fight looked like some sort of a joke. But he never took any of the tibs(money in that era) the winner normally received. Nobody knew why. Then, one day, Magnus defeated the most powerful warrior in the land. After the fight, Magnus had a quiet word with the warrior, Jahg, who was king of the Red Plains. After that, he vanished, and no one ever saw him again.

The only description the book gave of him was that he held darkness in one claw and truth in the other.

The validity of this tale did not occur to Root. This was who he was looking for. He did not have any idea why, but such was his goal, regardless.

Root flipped through the book and found Jahg, King of the Red Plains. A minotaur, stronger than any of its own or any other. His might was unrivaled by any in that raw time. He created the first known minotaur republic, known as the Taurus Empire. It began in the first century of the second beginning and spanned for over seven hundred years before collapsing. They made technological advances unbeknownst to any other era, it seemed. Then, all that knowledge was lost in the dark ages just before the third beginning. Various scientists and explorers claimed to find lost relics of the Taurus Empire throughout history thereafter, but nothing of merit was ever confirmed. Jahg was buried in the first city, Tindera. He was appraised by many for his glorious and righteous rule.

Root looked up and closed the book. If he could somehow locate Jahg, it might lead him to Magnus.

Root exited the library without looking behind him. He looked up at the stormy sky, raindrops obscuring his vision. Root unsheathed his wings and took off into the maelstrom.

<:---.'.---:>

The tunnel had a gentle slope downward as if we were entering the throat of something. The walls, too, helped with that illusion. And strangely, the light did not fade away as we got deeper; instead, the walls themselves seemed to glow a pale green. Darkness yawned ahead of us.

The air grew chillier as we continued downwards. Only my face was exposed to it, though, so that helped. I glanced at Stormy. He glanced back and we continued walking. I guess neither of us wanted to talk.

Gradually, the slope got steeper and the tunnel got narrower before we came to the first step. A set of stairs leading down into the darkness, with the passage being narrow enough that we'd have to walk single-file. I glanced back at Stormy again and shared his unease.

I stepped down onto the first step and immediately a symbol ignited to my right. I leaped back and fire sprayed where I had just been a moment ago. Oh snap. Stormy was fifteen feet back into the tunnel. "You still sure this is a good idea?" he meeped.

"Well, yeah."

The symbol had already faded away into the wall again. I knelt down, put my finger on the step, and pulled away as the flames shot out again.

I looked back at Stormy. "You got any ideas?"

He came back down to me and shook his head.

If only we had one of those unicorns... Still... I snapped fingers. That's it.

I unsheathed my sword. I hope this works. I put the blade of the sword near where that rune appeared. Sure enough, yellowish energy seeped out of the wall and into the sword. I wonder if this thing has a charge, or something.

I stepped onto the first step again. Nothing.

I looked back at Stormy and smiled. I started down the stairway and was immediately electrocuted.

After recovering and slowing making our way down the long stairs, scraping runes off the wall with my sword, and literally EVERY step was rigged, we arrived at the bottom. A somewhat circular stone room with a few torches burning brightly. There were five passages leading away from it, not including the stairs we had just come down.

I looked at Stormy. "If I was an evil wizard, which passage would lead to my quarters, and what would the other passages do?"

"The middle one?"

"No evil wizard would just make it the middle!"

"Well, maybe that's why he chose the middle one. All the other passages loop in on themselves."

"Man, it's really easy to forget what you can do. You're awesome, man."

"What is a man, and why are you calling me it?"

"It means 'Golden Hero' in some old language."

"Really?"

"Yes, now let's go."

"Thank you!"

I shook my head and we continued into the middle passage. Almost immediately, we came to a dead end.

"I thought you said this was the right way," I said.

"It is. Why'd you stop?"

"I..." I watched as he walked straight through the wall. I facepalmed and followed him.

On the other side, it was much hotter. The walls looked like were from hell, or something, and veins of magma coursed through them and into little pools. The way twisted and turned ahead. I hurried to catch up to Stormy.

After just a little ways, we came to an almost planky-looking bridge spanning a large river or lava. Man, we came to the wrighn place. What looked like flaming bats rose from the lava and dived back in.

I looked back at the bridge, my heart racing a little. Stormy took the first step forward. The bridge held. He started moving across and I took the first step. I wasn't sure if I was lighter or heavier than Stormy with all my armor on. Anyway, I carefully and speedily crossed the bridge. On the other side, I marveled at how easy it had been. Then I felt something land on my shoulder.

I slowly turned my head toward it and found myself facing a small, grinning, demon-like face. On fire. The whole bat-imp-thing was on fire! It screeched super loudly. Now Iwas on fire! I jerked myself to the ground and started rolling around all over the place. When I was sure the bat had flown away and the fire was out, I looked at my awesome robe-cloak. It was singed where the fire had been, but was otherwise okay. Phew...

I got up and dusted myself off a little before seeing that Stormy was getting way too far ahead of me. "Hey!" I yelled at him.

He stopped. I absolutely hated how you could never tell if he was paying attention and he never looked you in the eye when speaking to you. Sigh.

I jogged up to him and patted him on the back. "Alright, buddy. Where to now?"

"There's just this one passage ahead."

I looked and saw that such was true. "Oh. Well I was just trying to be personal."

We continued on. After a while, we came to a circular room that was empty. Well, more like ovular. There was a throne at the far end. Random banners and pools of darkness littered the room. There was no foreseeable light source, but then I remembered how the walls of this place glowed green just a little.

I cautiously took a step into the room. Nothing. I whipped out my sword and scratched at the floor around me a bit. No runes came off. I slung my sword once again. "Alright, Stormy. I think this is where the dark wizard dude is at."

Stormy cautiously stepped into the room. "Well it looks like there's random scoops in the ground, so make sure you avoid them. You can see them, right?"

I eyed the pools of darkness. "Yeah, I think so. I've never thought of this before, but can you see magic, dude?"

He tipped his head a bit. One of his ears twisted a bit. "Sometimes. Mostly not, though. I think if it's physical, I can probably see it."

Weird. "Well, alright. Let's head to the throne and see if this dude can help us out."

We picked our way across half the room when something said, "HALT!"

I halted. Stormy did too.

A tornado of puplish, blackish and greenish energy twisted together in the middle of the room (just in front of me) and formed into some sort of a dark mix between a sad clown, a fish, and a vampire. It was REALLY weird-looking. It's voice was a low baritone, with barely any emotion. It was also twelve feet tall.

It regarded me steadily and said, "I am the dark wizard you seek. For me to listen to you, you must answer me three questions. Any flippancy is also a wrong answer."

And I was just about to say, 'Will you define "listen" for me?'

Instead, I simply bowed and said, "If that is your wish."

I think Stormy backed up a little bit, probably frightened for some reason.

The apparition came a tad closer. "What do you believe is the wrong answer to this question?"

Hmm. "I believe that nothing is the wrong answer to this question."

"Indeed. True, and yet completely not. That will work fine."

He glared down at me with nothing but dreariness in his gaze.

"What do you believe is the right answer to this question?"

"Anything." I didn't even hesitate this time, it was so easy.

The wizard seemed a little baffled, as if he was surprised to see someone use simple logic.

"Well, fine then," he said. "You will not get the last one right." He paused, likely expecting me to object.

I said nothing.

This likely made him a little more uncomfortable with my indefatigable presence.

Then he stooped down until his face was only mere inches from mine.

"When will you die?"

...

What kind of a last question was that? Pathetic!

"I'm already dead."

Hey! That's not what I was going to say! What the heck!

The wizard bent back away from me. "You don't say..."

Then he faded away into the invisible breeze.

Then we heard a voice from the end of the ovular room. It was like a really thick swath of ivy. "Oh great! What do you guys want?"

~/\^/\~
Rules of my Descention
.V.

I will be like any other mortal, except that I shall possess unprecedented crystallized intelligence.

~\/v\/~

We looked to the throne and saw... ewww.

It was big hog. Lounging on the throne sideway and picking meat off a bone, he looked really gross. Yet, there was an intelligence in his eyes. He was annoyingly looking our way. "Well, come closer," he said irritably.

We shuffled a bit closer. Stormy was really reluctant. He probably just needed to get out more.

We got about ten feet away from the hog. I could smell his stink quite well from that distance, and really didn't want to get closer.

The hog was wearing little bits of some kind of green armor all over the place and had one them giant nose rings. Jewels littered his fingers and he looked mildly bored.

'Well," he grunted, "why are you here, and what do you want?"

Careless redundancy... "We're here because we heard there was a powerful dark wizard who lived here. Are you his second in command, or something? And what was that thing back there?"

He held up his weathered hand as if to say: 'Take it easy.' It was a hog with hands. Weird hands, but hands. Man, that just looked wrong! He lounged a bit more in his chair and said, "I'm the dark wizard you heard about. That guy back there is just a filter so I don't get crappy people bothering me all the time."

"Isn't that what the lair is supposed to prevent?"

"No, the lair is to prevent weak people from bothering me. The ghost is to prevent dumb people from bothering me. I'll listen to whatever you have to say, because I'm not dumb. Then, I'll decide whether to kill you, help you, or something else entirely. But remember, I'm the one in control here. I'm not really that mean, but if you are a smackhead, I'm just gonna roast you."

"Alright then."

"So whadda you want?"

Hmm. If I played this right, I could probably get him to do what I wanted. "Me and him both have a death link implanted in us. We were hoping you would get them out for us."

"Death link, eh?" He pointed to Stormy. "What's his name?"

Stormy shrank back a bit and I said, "His name's Stormy Whisper."

The dark wizard dude looked really unimpressed. "Hmm, well, okay." Then he shot out his hand at Stormy and a wave of dark green magic flew at Stormy. He disappeared in a puff of dark smoke and something clattered to the ground.

"DUDE!" I yelled and turned to where Stormy had just been. Something caught my eye and I stooped down to pick it up. It was a compass.

I turned back to the wizard, who was picking his nails with his teeth. "Hey! Why'd you do that?"

The hog faced me again and said, "He was annoying."

"That doesn't mean you should just kill him!"

"I didn't kill him. I just turned him into whatever object best describes him. I wonder what would happen if I used that spell on you..."

"No, please don't. I'm just struggling to understand why."

"He looked pathetic, mopy, shy, weak, and wouldn't even look me in the eye."

...

He did have a point.

"Alright, so can he come back somehow?"

"Yeah, the spell will wear off sometime between a year or three from now."

!!! "That long?"

"Well, yeah. Or maybe if a strong enough magical burst hit him, or something."

"Well, he's kind of my guide."

"So that's why he turned into a compass. I'm not so sure you really lost him, then."

I looked down at the compass in my hands. Its needle was spinning slowly around the surface it rested, as though it were carefully exploring it. I leaned close and whispered, "Stormy, you there?"

Nothing.

I glared up at the wizard. He didn't seem to care or notice.

I forced down my anger and pocketed the compass.

The wizard smiled and turned to face me again. "I like you, boy."

He waited for me to respond, but I didn't.

He climbed down from his throne and approached me. I was used to the smell enough by now that I could bear his close presence.

"Alright. I'm gonna put my hand on your head and get it out. Don't you worry about a thing."

He came face to face with me and closed his eyes while stretching his hand toward my forehead. His hand began glowing a softer, swelling green.

He placed his hand on my helmet. After two seconds, he removed his hand and said, "Well, buddy, looks like you're all clear. There was no death link, no nothin' in you, really."

I took off my helmet and saw a glowing green handprint splayed out on the front. "Uh..."

He eyed the helmet in my hands. Then he slowly facepalmed.

"Okay, try number two," he said, and once again reached out his glowing hand. We both closed our eyes. This time I felt it connect, and my mind seemed to pull hard against the hand's grasp. Then the hand let go and drifted through my head. It was incredibly weird. If you've ever had stitches where they numb you really hard before hand, it was like that, but with a whole hand moving around inside your head.

When at last he let go, we were both breathing deeply. I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but it seemed like it could have been either very short or real long.

The hog staggered back a bit more and sat down heavily on his throne.

I took a few uneven steps forward and sat down on the stone floor.

It was a few minutes before he sighed deeply and blinked slowly. "So," he rasped, "I oughta tell you a bit more about all this.

"There are many forces in this world, but the most prominent and well-grasped is that of good and evil. Most people have a pretty good idea of right and wrong, but they don't really understand the reality of what makes something "good" and what makes something, well, "evil."

"Good is anything that lowers yourself in order to elevate others. Evil is the opposite, lowering others in order to elevate yourself. Some minds are twisted so as to believe that what they are doing is good, when they're actually doing evil. This happens surprisingly often, and the results can be devastating.

"Now, there's three types of magics: light magic, dark magic, and trickery magic. Light magic is much weaker in general, and far more limited, compared to the other magics. Ponies, predominately, are light magic users. There are very few ponies who lack the ability to wield light magic, whilst many other races consider one who is blessed with the tiniest amount of light magic to be a king. Princess Celestia is the peak of light magic, and she's probably about twice as strong as I am."

"Princess Celestia?"

"Yeah, real turdblossom. She's the ruler of Equestria, the land of ponies. Which we are actually currently in right now. Now, back to my lecture.

"Trickery magic is a little more common than light magic among the other beasts of this world, and it's usually a bit stronger, too. Some entire races possess trickery magic, similar to how ponies usually have light magic. Not really sure if any ponies have ever had trickery magic, but I wouldn't really be surprised. Anyway, trickery magic is less about direct power, and more like... uh, trickery. It deals with, like, bending the mind, extreme teleportation, and trickery is just limited enough that we can deal with an extreme case of it, but you can do some pretty weird crap if you get good enough at it.

"And then there's dark magic. Dark magic is excessively rare. Maybe one in two thousand would possess it. You can always obtain magic in certain ways, but obtaining dark magic is incredibly difficult, due to the rarity of such power. I have dark magic, born with it. But while light magic's peak of capability is about Celestia, and trickery's capability is about twice that, dark magic is supposedly limitless.

"Depending on how powerful your dark magic is, you can do any number of things. You just take that raw power and will it to be/do what you want, and it will conform. The stronger you are, the more you can do. I'm very weak when compared to the capabilities of dark magic, even though I can shred most creatures that live in this world. There's a fellow who was in charge about a millennium ago. His name was Discord."

"Oh hey, I've met him."

"Really? I thought he was still entrapped in stone... Anyway, that's neat. What'd ya think of him?"

"Odd fellow. Said he'd be watching me."

"Oh, I'm not surprised, not at all. Well, Discord uses dark magic, and he's pretty powerful, I think, though Untergang might be stronger."

"You know who Untergang is?"

The hog was picking his nose. "Yeah, I know him. He's a pretty tough dude. Hardcore, too. He wanted me to join him a while back, but I told him I didn't really feel like it. Then he got kinda mad, so I teleported back home. Well, here. He's also the one who put the death link on you."

"Yeah, I know."

"Yeah, so Untergang is really powerful with his dark magic. He did put that death link on you, and it's far too strong for me to be able to relieve. Sorry, dude. Also, he's got a curse on you that allows whatever you're seeing to be broadcasted to a some viewing portal whenever he wants to know what you're up to."

"Geez, are even my thoughts safe!?"

"Well, I think so," he said uncertainly. "But underneath all that, I noticed something... darker."

"Darker?"

"Darker."

"Darker..."

He laughed and said, "Yeah, darker. I couldn't really get past it, though I did notice something WEIRD."

"What's that?"

"There's like, some sort of keyhole to it! I've never seen anything like it before. It looks like if just the right signature of magic attends to it, it'll open that whole barrier, and everything'll just come rushing out. I can't wait!"

"Uh..."

"Oh, and there was one last thing in there, but I'm not going to tell you what it was, or you would be far less interesting to watch."

"And what do you mean by "watch?"

The hog got off his throne and whistled like no whistle I'd heard before. Man it was like someone screaming in your ear, but a whistle. Uhhhhgh.

Immediately a fiery bat zoomed across the ovular room and landed on the hog's shoulder. I looked at its little demon face and it looked back at me with an applaudible amount of hatred. Then my eyes widened and I almost snarled at it. It was that same little jerk from before, who burned my shoulder! He seemed to silently cackle when he saw my recognition of him. That little-

"So! This is Koko, and I'm sending him with you. He'll be my eyes and ears for when I watch you. Oh! And if you're ever in trouble, just scream in his direction, "HELPMEOUT, DUDE02!"

That got my mind off the evil rascal for a moment. "Dude-o-two?"

"Yeah, that's what people used to call me before I moved down here."

"Dude..."

"Yeah, and I'm real proud of it, so don't get any ideas. Just go out the way you came in, and you should be all set. Koko can take care of himself, and he won't get in the way, won't you, little Koko?" He said this last part as he cuddled the flaming hellbat close to his cheek. Koko just looked at me with an evil grin.

I shuffled my feet a bit before saying, "Anything else I should know about?"

Dude02...(sigh)... I'm not going to use that name for him. THE HOG looked up for a moment. "No, I don't think so. You have a nice day, and holy smokes was it a pleasure to meet you. Now, off you go. Ta-ta!"

And that was that. I walked out of the oval room and took out the compass. I stared at it for a while. The needle was deathly still. I sighed and put it back in my pocket before exiting the rest of the lair without issues. When I emerged from the lichen cover, Koko flew past me and disappeared into the marsh all too fast.

I looked up at the sky. I guessed I would have to make this next part of the journey more or less alone, and I felt mildly refreshed. But that refreshment also came with a glimmer of loneliness. Such a duel feeling left me blankly staring at the sky for a while. A few raindrops started to fall, and I began to head North through the marsh.

Author's Note:

How'd you like THE HOG??