Game of Worlds

by DualThrone

Trixie: Eclipse III

Trixie could smell the castle before she could see it. At first, she wasn’t sure what it was she was smelling, since it was cloying and acrid, yet not extremely unpleasant. She didn’t realize it was making her nose, her lips, even the insides of her ears tingle until she found herself stopping to brush her hoof against the end of her muzzle.

“The thestrals are burning the bodies of the golems the atermors create,” Zecora commented. “They believe it an effective way to prevent the magical material from being used anew.”

“Aren’t the golems formed of some kind of magical Void material?”

The zebra shrugged. “Whatever it is, it burns.”

“And causes a less than pleasant tingling,” Cadence noted.

“Burning magic is not an exact science.” With the lack of warning, or any touch on her magical senses, that seemed characteristic of however the visitors teleported, Eresari and Elena Bloodwynd were walking beside them. They looked just as they had when Trixie had first met them, and how they’d appeared at the war council: unruffled, unharmed, and no indication that they’d had to fight anything in the meantime.

“But it’s by far the most effective and lethal tool in the mortal arsenal,” Elena added to her brother’s comment. “The atermors have no special tools to counter it, and naturally fear it since mortals have long favored it as the ideal way to cull their plagues. A few times, it has also been used on the atermors directly.”

“Such as at the creation of the Quarantine Flag?”

Elena gave Celestia a nod. “The Physician spent his strength to raise the tattered flag as a relief column came in sight. They understood the cloth, and the magi that had come to relieve the suffering with their craft magically quarantined it, unknowingly forcing numerous atermors to the mortal plane and trapping them. Then came the local lord with sword and fire, and made the town a funeral pyre to the fallen--and slaying the first Emperor of All Maladies.”

“They burned an entire town because it had been afflicted by a disease?”

“No, Princess. They burned a city that had been afflicted by the atermors,” Ersari said. “Although they were able to bear the healthy away before they raised the inferno.”

“That seems kinda extreme.” Shining looked between the two lupines. “Unless they were told that it was the only way to stop the danger in its tracks.”

“Well spotted, Captain Armor,” Elena said approvingly. “Yes, our great-granduncle and his mate were there in embassy when the plague arose.They approached the lord and explained the plague to him, and how it could be fought. Both were mildly unsettled by how quickly and naturally he accepted the extreme measures to cull it, and implemented them.”

“A trait common among his nation, as a point of fact,” Ersari said. “I believe Sadow remarked on a recent reverse for the atermors where their machinations were known immediately and several were taken and thrown on the bonfiress that consumed the crops they had poisoned. Though separated by well over a thousand years, the ruthlessly pragmatic mind that the local lord had when the Flag was made remains and is even more common now.”

“There is always another way,” Celestia said firmly. “Even in the most dire of circumstances.”

“There is no…”

“You may be correct, Princess,” Elena said, holding a quelling hand up to her brother. “Magic radiates from every grain of sand here, so there may be options that would not be found elsewhere. Not that they’d be needed any longer.”

“This circumstance is… very worrying,” Ersari said.

“That the plague did not do the horrible things you described?” Celestia gave him a sharp look.

“Frankly, Your Majesty, yes,” he replied, looking at her steadily. “Altering the nature of their plague this way is not something that the atermors do. It would never enter into their wildest imaginings. This means that another did it, and certainly with their consent.”

“At the same time, they would not countenance weakening the sickness, which means that they permitted another to alter the plague but were not aware of what that other planned,” Elena continued. “This also means that we now have no idea how it spreads, and what it does, and whether it can be cured, and how to do so without inadvertently turning it lethal.”

“It causes twisting, and agony,” Zecora said. “And great exhaustion. But it appears run its course without intervention, though I hope to shorten it.”

“I could attempt to collect Green Leaf,” Cadence offered. “His peculiar sciences might be suited for something this strange and unpredictable.”

Zecora looked back at her for several moments before smiling broadly. “You must be Chidinida.”

Cadence blinked at her. “Yes, but…”

“You offered to collect him, as if you know where he is,” Zecora said. “And during his most recent visit, he spoke excitedly of a Princess Chidinida. You are clearly a princess, and his description was quite detailed.”

“He must have felt comfortable speaking of it to you because you live so far apart from the rest of Equestria,” Cadence said.

“Still, I’m obligated to smack him for allowing his enthusiasm to override his common sense, not that that’s unusual for him,” Anori added.

“Oh, don’t do that love,” Krysa sighed. “Being hit in the head just reduces his common sense. And makes him loopy, and the last time he got loopy that incident with General Market and Princess Thryssa happened.”

“Anyway,” Cadence said before Anori could reply. “I could attempt to collect him.”

“I prefer to have you near, Cadence,” Celestia said. “I think we’ll already be spread thin fighting off the atermors’ golems, much less any of their kind that appear.”

“I appreciate the offer, Princess Chidi,” Zecora said. “I’d love to have him here to assist me. But I think I have all I need, and do not wish to bother Green.”

“Very well.” She looked to Ersari. “We were noticing that if there’s a battle going on, it’s awfully quiet.”

“Even with as much material as they could ever wish to replenish their thralls, forming them takes time,” he said. “And they need to rebuild their projected forms in this plane from having heads repeatedly removed from bodies. Alas, they’re quite familiar with us and know how to place themselves out of the reach of our blades.”

“In terms of space between themselves in the Void and their projections here,” Elena added.

“So we’ve arrived during a lull,” Celestia stepped into the light they were approaching and stopped. “I wish I hadn’t felt compelled to abandon it to the Forest after Luna was sent to her moon, but there was just too much history in these walls. That, and the way was steadily becoming hazardous as the years passed, and I didn’t want to force my subjects to brave a hostile wood to see their princess.”

Trixie stepped up to join her, looking across the chasm at the ruins. The castle reminded her strongly of the manor house of one of the noble estates rather than the vast and towering palace at Canterlot, even as broken and decayed as the ruins were. It looked like it could have housed the Princesses and the small army of servants and functionaries that made up the royal court, but only just.

“It strikes me, Princess, that your old palace barely fits that description at all,” Elena said, glancing sidelong at Celestia. “It seems more like the manor house of a jei fortress-estate.”

“That’s because it was,” Celestia said with a touch of sadness in her voice. “It wasn’t a towering structure proclaiming our glory and power. It was home, really home. At Canterlot, I practically live in a different home than my sister; here, her room was just opposite mine. It was no accident that when Luna took upon herself the visage of Nightmare Moon, neither one of us was willing to damage it. And now, it’s encompassed by foul things from a completely different place.”

“Hey now, Princess, no need to be harsh.” Trixie jumped a little at the voice seeming to be practically in her ear and based on the reactions she could see, she wasn’t the only one surprised by its suddenness: Celestia’s horn glowed, and both of the Bloodwynds had half-drawn their swords.

“Hey, hey, hey… we’re all friends here, no need for that kind of action.” The taloned hoof of a light-coated thestral appeared on the rim of the chasm they were standing near and with a deft, fluid little hop, a thestral mare dressed improbably in a top hat and waistcoat with gold watch hanging from around her neck like the tag of a dog, landed in front of them and made a show of dusting herself off. She turned a brilliant showmare’s grin on them all and twirled a hoof dramatically before taking a bow. Without the tall hat, Trixie realized that the thestral seemed barely bigger than a filly

“Matchstick,” Zecora said with a little nod in the thestral’s direction.

“Hey Zee, plants inside if ya please.” Matchstick grinned at the rest of them. “Welcome royalty, visitors, bodyguards, captains, soldiers, and my favorite fellow con artist to our humble little colony with a rather persistent cockroach problem.”

Trixie gave her as bet a glare as she could manage. “Fellow con artist?”

“Buck yeah.” Matchstick’s grin didn’t fade at all. “Show magic is all about the trick, So’s playin’ cups, not that I’d ever run a con involving three walnut shells and a lima bean on a nameless side street of Manehattan. I’m an honest mare; I do it on the mian.”

“Matchstick is not your given name,” Celestia observed with an amused look.

Matchstick took another elaborate bow. “Premium matchstick mare at your service. Now speakin’ of such, time to do one of those smoke-and-mirror acts and make this party disappear.” She stepped to a side of the bridge leading across the chasm and took off her top hat, rolling it along her leg to the end and catching it with a hoof, gesturing across with that smug grin and the formal hat.

Zecora smiled a little and trotted across the bridge first, followed by the Bloodwynds. Trixie decided to bring up the rear, gesturing the others on ahead and then making sure they were out of earshot before leaning in closer to Matchstick.

“Walnut shells and a lima bean are a pretty distinct signature,” she pointed out in a low voice.

“Yup.” Matchstick put her hat back on and winked. “How long do ya think Armor’s gonna poke around the major cities before he figures out that he’s been played?”

“I’ll give it a couple weeks,” Trixie shrugged. “He grew up with Twilight Sparkle without going stark raving mad.”

“Ah.” Matchstick grinned again as she led Trixie across the bridge. “Still, two weeks of fun for the cost of a few words. That there, my con-artist showmare, is how you hit the big time.”

Trixie just shook her head. Being called a con artist was annoying but she was already getting the impression that Matchstick meant it as a compliment. “How’ve things been holding up here?”

Matchstick dropped the smug grin and her eyes (which Trixie hadn’t realized, until just now, were two different colors) became more serious. “Hard slog.” she said. “They really like coming at us in giant waves of bodies. They can’t beat their way through stone, though, so they gotta pressure the chokepoints and we have an engineer, so we’re trading one wounded for a thousand bodies. Can’t beat the math of infinite bodies, though.”

“Does cutting heads off help?”

“Seems to,” Matchstick said as she headed in towards the castle. “About a minute where they don’t seem to know what to do before another one steps up. Hit on the idea of burning the leftovers yesterday and it’s slowed them down pretty good cuz the bosses seem freaked out by the bonfires.”

“Whose idea?”

“Brass, like all the real clever ideas are.” Matchstick grinned. “She put it together when she set up a sawdust trap on the approach to a chokepoint. Stirred up the stuff pretty good and threw a torch into it. Thought ya woulda heard the blast all the way in Ponyville and they ran like mad… and the ones behind were burnin’ so Brass was all like ‘huh, idea’ and so we light the corpses after each wave.”

“Have any tried to get below?” Celestia asked, appearing out of Trixie’s peripheral vision. “Tried to get at the Tree?”

“Yup. Made Everfree awful mad.”

Celestia furrowed her brow and looked at Trixie. “What do you mean?”

Matchstick shrugged. “Anyone tries to get down there, by stairs, by sneaking in, whatever, all the vines go absolutely ponypies until they make tracks. Ain’t seen anything like them anywhere else, even in the rest of the Everfree. Thick as a leg, covered all over with giant thorns, and try to grab and crush you if you get in reach.”

“And they’re… plants.”

“Near as I can tell,” Matchstick said. “Was thinking of showing them to Zecora since she’s top-tier herbalist and has lived here forever, but Sharp put the kibosh on because we can’t afford to throw away a healer just to see if we can figure out what some vines are all about.”

“Will you show them to me?”

“To us,” Shining said, flanked by his fiance and her bodyguards.

“To us,” Celestia amended. “If you please.”

“Eh…” Matchstick shrugged. “Sure. If the princess of instant fiery holocaust can’t handle some uppity plants, we should probably get lost and let the birdbrains and their golems feed the things.”

She turned and casually trotted off the edge of the chasm, snapping her wings open as she did and starting to lazily spiral down into the depths. Trixie heard Celestia sigh lightly before she felt the princess’ telekinesis wrap around her and levitate her a little bit above the ground before she followed the thestral off the edge, Cadence (carrying Shining) and the bodyguards following. To Trixie’s surprise, the chasm was not nearly as deep as it looked from above, on the bridge. A far less pleasant surprise was that the darkness at the bottom was created by a solid floor of thick, black, thorned vines that seemed to spontaneously writhe of their own accord. Matchstick banked and headed into the shadow of the bridge before she came to a sudden hovering stop.

“Uh-oh.”

“What do you mean ‘uh-oh’?” Trixie said from where Celestia was levitating her.

“I mean, uh-oh, the plothole writhing vines of aggressive murder-death-kill got murder-death-killed.”

Celestia’s telekinesis briefly blinked out and Trixie dropped a her full height before the alicorn recovered. “Matchstick, are you saying the way to the Tree is…”

“Clear, yeah, that’s exactly it,” the thestral reported. “And whoever did it looks like they just upended a vat of acid on ‘em.”

Author's Note:

Another day, another chapter, and hopefully a batch of commentary to go with it. Hope y'all liked it.

Comments

[My name is R]

With the lack of warning, or any touch on her magical senses, that seemed characteristic of however the visitors teleported, Eresari and Elena Bloodwynd were walking beside them.

I can't tell, does this mean that Trixie can usually since the outsiders' teleportation, or that she usually can't?

“Matchstick, are you saying the way to the Tree is…”
“Clear, yeah, that’s exactly it,” the thestral reported. “And whoever did it looks like they just upended a vat of acid on ‘em.”

Well, that ain't good.

Another day, another chapter, and hopefully a batch of commentary to go with it. Hope y'all liked it.

I find it amusing that this is the first chapter that didn't have any comments when I showed up. I had already drafted my comment before I saw this message or the emptiness below, by tha way.

I believe Sadow remarked on a recent reverse for the atermors where their machinations were known immediately and several were taken and thrown on the bonfiress that consumed the crops they had poisoned.

bonfires

[DualThrone]

11726960

I can't tell, does this mean that Trixie can usually sense the outsiders' teleportation, or that she usually can't?

Usually cannot. Thus them appearing with no warning any no indication of magic power tickling her senses.

I find it amusing that this is the first chapter that didn't have any comments when I showed up. I had already drafted my comment before I saw this message or the emptiness below, by tha way.

It's not going to be the last...

bonfires

Yes, thanks.