Level Up!

by RisuUmbra

Chapter 37: The End of One Journey (Part 1)

Chapter 37: The end of one Journey (Part 1)

Markus PoV:

The three of us trotted down the road almost in complete silence only accompanied by the clopping of our newly shod hooves that rang out into the air. Another shudder ripped down my spine and jostled me from my mindless trot. Morgana was trotting next to me and was staring off into the middle distance just as rattled as I was. David was actually trotting a good few feet away from us, he was still slightly crispy from ‘The Incident’. The memory Calcifer and I shared flashed down our bond, Calcifer and I merged into that harpy thing again and perched on top of the forge hissing and flinging cinders at anyone who came close, Morgana frozen staring horrified at the nail sticking out of her hoof, David repeatedly banging his head into a wooden support beam as the blacksmith’s wife rattled off hoof care tips to him, and the blacksmith himself laughing the whole time while trying to pull me off the forge.

For a moment I felt bad for leaving so quickly, but that feeling was quickly overshadowed by the memory of malicious glee on the blacksmith’s face as he held me down and hammered on the shoes. Calcifer was the one who shivered this time, I was incredibly aware of the feeling of the horseshoes clopping against the old paved stone road. That was quite possibly the worst experience I’ve had here in equestria and that's really something coming from me.

The feeling of my mind being overridden by Calcifer’s instincts was incredibly jarring but not as alarming as it should have been. Calcifer apologized again in my mind, feeling incredibly guilty for accidentally taking control. I let a bemused smile grow on my face and gave Calcifer a quick scratch under his chin and told him once again that I forgave him already. This might actually be a good time to practice this whole merging thing I can do. Calcifer sent me a flash of excitement at the thought of merging with me again, he wanted to fly with me. Though I will need a teacher… I clippity-clopped up next to the crispy David and tried to not look sheepish at the sight of his singed fur.

“Hey bud… wanna teach me how to fly?” My question was quite possibly the last thing he was expecting as he whipped his head around so hard I'm pretty sure I heard his neck crack. His previously blank expression immediately turned excited and maybe slightly mischievous much to my chagrin. We collectively decided to take a break on the side of the road and practice, Morgana had happily created a ring of soft dirt for us to practice on, then promptly created a nice stone recliner for her to relax on and watch me fail. I remembered that Calcifer doesn’t cost any mana to keep summoned anymore so I summoned my thunder lion to get some experience and hangout with Morgana, much to her glee.

At first I couldn’t figure out how to merge with Calcifer on my own, every time it happened it was Calcifer that initiated it. David sat to the side making a few clouds as landing pads and waiting for us to figure this out. Calcifer sent me his memories of each time we merged and was just as confused as it was almost instant and in times of stress. I reached over and softly swaddled my warm bird in my hooves and focused on what I felt the first time. Calcifer’s warmth matched the same warm feeling I get when we merge but we were still separate… At least Calcifer was enjoying the hug. I took a deep breath to calm myself and focused on the bond between Calcifer and I. Compared to the connection we had before he evolved it was like looking at the mental equivalent of a steel pillar or a wide open freeway, almost unbreakable and completely clear.

I felt Calcifer’s feathers grow warmer as the two of us flexed our bond. Calcifer's thoughts and feelings were so clear it was almost like they were in my own hea- “Markus?!” David’s voice snapped us out of our internal introspection, he was standing in front of us and looking over us in amazement, much to our confusion. I looked down at my- no… our body and was happy to see that we had succeeded. I was back in my harpy form, not only had my body changed but my clothes and armor as well. My slightly tattered forest green cloak was covered in swooping and swirling filigree made out of what could only be black soot, my leather chestplate was absolutely covered in the stuff and had turned completely black. I crossed my eyes and looked at the few feathers that were dangling down into my vision, speaking of vision I could suddenly see everything in extreme HD.

We were about to celebrate succeeding until our body reminded us that we weren’t exactly stable at the moment, I’m pretty sure I squawked as I lost my balance and fell. Whatever gravity the moment had was lost the moment we fell, I chose to ignore David and Morgana’s giggling and tried to push myself to my hooves using my wings… and failed. Calcifer’s frustration made me make a low rumbling chittering noise as I continued to fail standing up. It didn’t help that whenever I tried to push myself up I just pushed myself forward through the soft dirt. The combination of light, hollow bones of a bird and the muscle mass of a mammal made it really easy to push myself around. I was incredibly floaty and almost jittery for the amount of energy I had… I don’t think I'm gonna be flying any time soon.

---

It took the rest of the day just for me to figure out how to keep my balance and walk and even then it was still touch and go. Calcifer and I promised each other that we would figure it out, until then I would be practicing my potions while we got ready to eat dinner. We probably made an odd sight with two separate fires, David and Morgana were preparing the food while I was waiting for the water in my cauldron to start boiling. Calcifer quickly grew bored with watching water boil and decided to go and take a nap on the fluffy fur of the thunder lion.

I reviewed the only two recipes that I knew, The Lesser Healing Tincture and the Annealed Flask. I had to remind myself that this wasn’t chemistry, to make the tincture I would need some food or biological matter that’s high in nutrients. It doesn’t specify what kind of food in particular so I just went with any food as long as it can nourish you. The next ingredient is raw unaspected magic, just douse the whole pot in the stuff and make sure it’s completely saturated in it. I had a bit of trouble with this at first as my magic wanted to automatically aspect into fire, the last step would be to stir the cauldron while chanting until the color changes and then let it boil down into a sludge.

“Chanting what?” That was the part that stumped me the most, I would have to chant some kind of incantation over the cauldron or else it won’t work. The only issue with that is… the recipe didn’t give me a chant. This could barely be called a recipe as is, the only physical part of the recipe is the whole nutritional and that's a whole other thing all on its own. I could throw freaking grass in this thing and it would still count! Maybe it’s because this is a lesser tincture and not a more complicated one, I might get an actual recipe at later levels. I sighed all my frustration out and got over it, the water was boiling now and I wasn’t expecting to really succeed on my first try here.

Instead of listening to the tiny voice in the back of my head telling me to dump grass in the pot, I dumped in two of our extra hay ration bars… they won’t be missed. The dry bars of hay quickly began to dissolve in the boiling water, I had to stop and focus for a moment to make sure my mana stayed unaspected as I fed it into the brew. The boiling cauldron quickly began to bubble and foam as my silver mana slowly sank into it. The bubbles and foam started to glow silver from my magic saturating it, now came the part I was most confused about but I was going to try anyway… might as well have some fun with it. I willed the fire under the cauldron to flare out and let the smoke waft around me.

“ Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Filet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.”

“What… ?! I think I did pretty good!” David and Morgana had stopped cooking and were staring at me as I finished my ‘chant’ if you could even call it that. I didn’t stop stirring the cauldron as my two friends started to laugh at me, I was actually pretty proud of myself for remembering that from Macbeth. I had only read it once for an assignment back in my first year of college and never picked it up since. I will admit I got a bit too into the chant, I went full witch while chanting. Hoof waving, swirling smoke, I even made the fire under the cauldron turn silver. It was completely ridiculous and I loved it. David and Morgana’s laughter abated as I watched the swirling silver liquid slowly brighten and turn… pink.

“Well, that doesn’t look right” I was debating just tossing the mixture but in the end I decided to just let it boil down. I might level my Cauldron Crafting skill by letting it finish even though it’s not quite… correct. I left my fire and went over to the cooking fire to eat with everyone. The four of us were in pretty high spirits, we were on the last leg of our journey. Tomorrow we should be able to see Mt. Canter once we’re past the ridge and should reach it in only a few hours, I was actually excited to see all the other players and to find out what's going on. I went over all the things we needed to ask and tell the other players, there’s the guild, that group of lunatics “the Book of Hours”, finding out what’s up with the Equestria we’re in. I wonder if any other players had to fight giant monsters like we have… or maybe we really are cursed.

Morgana was looking forward to seeing Canterlot, she did mention that she wanted to see if any other players were earthbenders like her. David was wondering what we would do after our journey and his question caught me off guard.

“Seriously…what’s the next step after this? The first thing we did was set up the guild, done. Then we set out to meet up with the other players, almost done. We’re probably gonna send them to join our guild or spread their own guilds all around, what next. We still need to find out how to get home… “ David’s tone was almost apologetic as he laid out his worries, his splash of realism dampened our mood slightly but we knew he was right. We need to think of what to do next.

“Well… we do have Keeper and his network! We could ask him and… wait until he finds something?” Morgana was trying, we didn’t have enough information to really have a good place to start looking. We do know that the ‘Book of Hours’ are other humans from the past that were brought here before us, maybe we could start a search for them. There’s also my goddess, but she doesn’t really seem to like the idea of us going home. I’m already stuck here, that’s probably why I haven’t been thinking about leaving… I still haven’t told David and Morgana that I can’t leave.

“About that… remember how I never finished telling you everything about me back at the house before we left?” The mood before my words was barely above hopeful, after I spoke them however the mood plummeted. The three of us were silent as we were reminded of the moment that happened. I had stopped right after the spirit gave me my cutie mark and the revelation had stopped me just before the last bombshell.

“There’s one more thing that I need to tell you, it was after I got captured. You already know that the sp- that my goddess can rewind time when she needs to, well… Calcifer didn’t save me the first time. Ozzy was seconds away from snapping my horn off my head and I screamed for help… and my goddess answered. She gave me a deal, she would rewind time and give me some help and in return… I had to give up my ability to leave equestra” I couldn’t look at them, I felt ashamed of myself for being too weak. I risked a glance at them and glimpsed the horrified face of David and a teary-eyed Morgana.

“Even if we do find a way back, I won’t be able to come with you… I'm sorry, but I didn’t want to hide this from you”

Author's Note:

The Set-up is almost complete, it's about time to get these irons in the fire. Are you ready my dear?

... I'm Scared, I've never been scared before

It's all going to be alright little one, soon everything will be as it should.

What if he doesn't like me... what if he rejects me?

There's no need to fear, once he reaches the threshold he will seek you out all on his own

Threshold?

Yes... He will come to realize just how empty he really is, he will see that he is... incomplete

Comments

[Fancy Fox]

Would you just LOOK at all these
HOT IRONS IN THE FIRE

[The reaper of war]

Great work as always

[TheCommunistDog]

Hot hot hot hot hot hot!!!!

[Mix-up]

Grade to see the experience of having nails shod through their hooves was traumatizing enough for them .

Interesting chapter nice to see Marcus starting to slowly fit himself into the role of a creepy cult leader now. I wonder what magic effects his brew will inadvertently produce in his inexperience? It's also nice to see that he decided to explain that he is now bound to his goddess' will, and that he can't go back to their home world with them. Still, I would have thought they would asked question what kind of deity she is and seems to be her general agenda and the type of areas she is sending him to, these kinds of beings are never what they seem if they need tools like mortal's to do their bidding, even more so when they don't even bother showing that they are amoral in their behaviors. The author's not is ominous enough, sounds like he is walking right in to a trap deal that he won't be able to walk out once he stumbles into it.

[Auram Potentia]

The Set-up is almost complete, it's about time to get these irons in the fire. Are you ready my dear?

... I'm Scared, I've never been scared before

It's all going to be alright little one, soon everything will be as it should.

What if he doesn't like me... what if he rejects me?

There's no need to fear, once he reaches the threshold he will seek you out all on his own

Threshold?

Yes... He will come to realize just how empty he really is, he will see that he is... incomplete

nice lore drop here

[Alyarin9000]

Hah, makes sense that a harpy-like form would have that floaty effect. He'll get used to it eventually.

So, now they know he's trapped here. I wonder if tehy'll stay out of solidarity... That'll probably be more tempting for them once they reach Canterlot and see heartland Equestria.

[JOEBLACK]

“Well… we do have Keeper and his network! We could ask him and… wait until he finds something?” Morgana was trying, we didn’t have enough information to really have a good place to start looking. We do know that the ‘Book of Hours’ are other humans from the past that were brought here before us, maybe we could start a search for them. There’s also my goddess, but she doesn’t really seem to like the idea of us going home. I’m already stuck here, that’s probably why I haven’t been thinking about leaving… I still haven’t told David and Morgana that I can’t leave.

I'm sorry. What? When did this come up? I've been binging and this is the first time Markus thought of them as fellow once humans????????