Painful Reprieve

by Shinigamimirror

Professor Lyra Heartstrings

Professor Lyra Heartstrings

Everything was in place for the professor of mythology. Lyra scanned her incantations and runes placed on the floor. She rechecked her sound muffling enchantment. She had fire-proofed everything in the room. Her scrying crystal was ready, and the proper markings were in place. Lyra nodded her head. It was time. She took a full vial of her blood in her magic and poured it over the pedestal. The room lit up in a crimson light and the crystal ball bathed the walls in an eerie glow. Lyra took the crystal in her hooves and concentrated her magic on the parchment she had written her contract on. Using the crystal as a focus, she found the target of her summoning spell. With a blinding flash, the scroll burned into red flames and Lyra was thrown back, knocking over the pedestal. The orb crashed to the floor and rolled outside of the pentagram. As soon as the crystal left the pentagram, Lyra felt searing pain in her horn. The crystal rose into the air and the vials of blood she had collected shattered. Lyra watched in horror as all the blood coalesced into a floating sphere around the crystal.

“Nooo!” She screamed. She attempted to use her magic to bring the orb back into the summoning circle, but it only resulted in more searing pain to her head. She scrambled to her hooves and tried to reach the mass of blood but ran into an invisible barrier. She rammed her hooves against the wall. The shield was steadfast. The summoning circle had formed a protective barrier, keeping her sealed inside. “No, stop the summoning. This is all wrong!” Lyra rammed into the barrier with all her strength, but only resulted in more pain. “Stop!” All Lyra could do was watch as the blood was absorbed into the floating orb. Once all the blood was gone the room filled with a bright flash and everything went dark for Lyra.

**

---

**

It had been 3 months since the publication of her book on humans. Instead of earning her renown in the study of mythology like she originally thought, it brought rumors and heresy. The book had sold well, but not for its intended purpose. Instead of being a household name for mythology, she was a laughingstock. Ponies were buying her book as a joke. Her students at Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns were not taking her classes seriously and had started making jokes about her. Even her colleagues were joining in on the ridicule. Lyra growled at the thought of everypony talking behind her back.

When she had set up her scrying orb in the back of her study it was to try and find glimpses into the past to prove some of the myths and legends she studied existed. No matter what she tried, she was unable to escape the temporal limitations of simple scrying spells. She wanted to make a breakthrough but the tomes she found at the local archives were not enough. Time travel spells were hard to find but not quite what she was looking for. She had spent some time in the Starswirl the Bearded’s wing but nothing on time scrying. She did however find a few notes on blood magic. Mostly what she found on the forbidden magic was that it was able to bypass normal magic constraints by offering blood or other such sacrifice.

With pure curiosity and a drive to discover a way to uncover time scrying, she began to follow the breadcrumbs of blood magic. Starswirl mentioned a blood mage by the name of Crimson Heart. The only thing that Lyra could find on him was that he had been consumed by his own magics. Blood magic was a forbidden magic as part of the dark triad.

Lyra’s Research into the dark triad led her to the restricted wing of the Canterlot archives. Because of her status as a professor, she was able to request special clearance from Celestia herself. Her reputation as an expert in mythology preceded her and she had no problems cracking into the taboo tomes. Lyra learned that the dark triad consisted of three magics.

The first is black magic. Black magic is frowned upon for obvious reasons. It is fueled by hatred and is used to manipulate and harm others. This school contains the mind magic as well as corruption magic. It is normal magic corrupted by insidious or nefarious intentions. Black magic slowly corrupts the user as it is fueled by negativity. Black magic was made infamous by Sombra. Despite its nature, black magic is not illegal, but highly frowned upon.

The second of the dark triad is necromancy. Bringing back those who have already passed is especially heinous. Any act of necromancy is illegal and is the only magic in Equestria that is completely banned. Even studying necromancy with the intention of casting it is barred. The only tomes available that mention the art are those who merely mention that it is against equestrian law.

The third and final school of dark magic is blood magic. Blood magic is the art of sacrifice and using blood for amplifying magic and altering life. Blood itself can also be manipulated by strong blood mages. The blood may be used to make magical contracts that can be fulfilled by the essence of magic. Blood magic can also be used to make golems and flesh constructs. Most study of blood magic was sealed away in the archives after Crimson Heart attempted a blood ritual that resulted in his disappearance.

With enough patience and digging, Lyra was able to find a book that documented Crimson Heart’s rise to power and his subsequent fall. It turned out he was trying to find the key to immortality and his final ritual went horribly wrong. Nopony knows what happened to him. The research he did leave behind along with his journals were kept locked up in the restricted section.

After learning the schedules of the guards and tactically acquiring a guard pendant with the proper clearance, Lyra was able to gain access to Crimson Heart’s old journals. The journal’s went into great detail about how to perform blood rituals to enhance magic. With the knowledge in hoof, Lyra used the rituals to enhance her scrying.

She called it blood scrying. She ended up using syringes to draw blood from her foreleg to avoid prying questions from her filly-friend. Bon-Bon was very perceptive and would notice scars on her. She used a chemistry set to store her blood in vials. All she needed was a drop of her own blood on the crystal ball to scry wherever and whenever she wanted.

It almost worked too well, and it wasn’t long before Lyra was able to pinpoint a human civilization in ancient Equestria. Lyra spent all her spare time gazing into her crystal ball taking in depth notes about everything she could on humans. Eventually she found the cause for the human’s disappearance. There was a great war between humans and ponykind and the great unicorns of that time used a powerful banishing spell. The humans were banished to an entirely different dimension.

With the help of her blood scrying, Lyra was able to follow the humans to their new dimension and watched as the human’s became the dominant species of their planet and their technological advancements. Lyra could not believe the advances the human’s made in such little time. There were carts that ran on fossil fuels, giant flying aircraft, and weapons of mass destruction. Just like from when they were banned from their reality, humans were susceptible to greed. It was no wonder they were banished. Even after all that time, war seemed inevitable for humans.

With this information, Lyra was able to publish her book. The backlash she received from the book was unexpected and she spiraled into a depression. There had to be a way to prove that she wasn’t crazy. With research in hoof Lyra began to work on a summoning circle. She was going to use blood magic to summon a human artifact from their realm to prove her legitimacy.

Her target was any piece of human technology that could not be traced back to anything ponies had invented or discovered. With Lyra’s blood scrying, she was able to find that most humans carried around small devices called smart phones. These devices were used for everything from communication to accessing a network of archives called the internet. This ‘internet’ gave human’s access to every piece of information that they could possibly imagine. With a smartphone, Lyra would surely be able to prove her theories were more than just crackpot ideas from an overactive imagination. With a human smartphone in hoof she would prove she wasn’t crazy to everypony. With her target in mind, she began the preparations for her ritual. She wrote up a contract and began her blood pact.

****

I, Lyra Heartstrings, write up this blood contract to allow the power to perform a blood summoning. The summoning target will be a specific human device known as a ‘smartphone’. I give this gift of my blood as sacrifice to bring this ritual to life. I allow the powers of blood to reach through time and space to procure this specific target with nothing more and nothing less. My summoning will be contained within a summoning circle and the powers of blood may not trespass upon our world. All constraints within this contract will be upheld without any undue harm done to the summoner and the blood within this contract shall protect the summoner from any contract backlash. If the terms and conditions of this contract are broken, the contract will become null and void and the summoner will remain protected.

Signed, Lyra Heartstrings

****

Lyra awoke with a loud groan. Her horn was in pain and her head throbbed. She blinked open her eyes slowly. It took her a moment for her to collect her most recent memories. She gasped in horror as she realized something had gone wrong. Her study was trashed. The pentagram on the floor was smudged. The pedestal had been knocked over and the crystal orb had rolled into the corner of the room. The blood contract burned up and there was no trace of it anywhere. Lyra spent the next ten minutes looking into the scrying crystal. The orb was blackened on the inside and rendered useless and inert. She began scouring her study for any smart phones that could have been summoned from her ritual. She began to panic when her search came up empty. She also noticed there was not a trace of blood anywhere in the room.

“No no no no no!” she reeled. It didn’t work! She had been planning the ritual for months and she had nothing for it. “It has to be here somewhere!” She yelled. In her blind panic, she upturned all her notes and research journals. All her work was for naught. “Argh!” she yelled in frustration.

Defeated, Lyra resigned to cleaning up her mess. She was torn. In a way she had failed, but at this point she was relieved to still be alive. She had not repeated Crimson Heart’s folly and fully protected herself from the contract itself. After cleaning up her study, she took a few minutes to collect herself. She was in one piece and nothing bad had happened. She took a deep breath and slumped in exhaustion.

Lyra’s self-reflection was interrupted by several knocks on her study door followed by the sweet melodious voice of her filly-friend. “Lyra honey? Are you awake in there?” The minty mare smiled to herself. Bonnie was always so worried about her and it was always so nice to hear her voice after a research binge. Lyra fixed her mane and tail and cleared her throat.

“Yes Bonnie. I’m awake.” Lyra looked around her study to make sure there was no incriminating evidence and closed her secret room with her magic. There was no way she would ever drag Bon-Bon into this. She loved her Bonnie too much to include her in anything to do with blood magic.

“I made lunch if you want to come out and eat.” Bonnie’s muffled voice was hopeful. Lyra’s smile only deepened at Bonnie’s kindness. Lyra opened the door to her study to find the beautiful cream-colored mare sitting on her haunches. She was met with a smile and Bonnie lunged forward with a tight embrace. “I’m glad to see you out of your study. Come eat with me. I made a salad.”

Comments

[tsaukpaetra]

Oh, so she wasn't directly involved in the summoning, but that's not to say it wasn't wasted.

[Luckyfanisaac]

watched in horror as all the blood coalesced into a floating sphere around the crystal.
(New paragraph)
“Nooo!” She screamed. She attempted to use her magic to bring the

[DovahkiinMaster]

Aww, poor Lyra. Driven to desperation to avoid ridicule for ideas she knows are true, but can't tell others proof of because she got the information illegally. It's okay Lyra, we appreciate your effort to prove our existence.

[Ali della Morte]

Great chapter

[Teraunce]

Well then...that happened. At least summoning Charlie himself was an accident.

[Ziper Ace]

I hope he will not turn into a pony anymore since Lyra was a laughing stock I really want to see her prove everypony wrong so she can finally be happy.
Plus I really want to see other pony’s reaction when they see a human.

[fargo11]

10768825
I just did (reading your comment from the title page) and yes, it was weird.

[hmaf43]

With the help of her blood scrying, Lyra was able to follow the humans to their new dimension and watched as the human’s became the dominant species of their planet and their technological advancements. Lyra could not believe the advances the human’s made in such little time. There were carts that ran on fossil fuels, giant flying aircraft, and weapons of mass destruction. Just like from when they were banned from their reality, humans were susceptible to greed. It was no wonder they were banished. Even after all that time, war seemed inevitable for humans.

so humanity just go "fuck off, i don't care" and proceeded to become more advanced than ponies. lol