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Starscribe


Stories about ponies are stories about people. Every challenge is an opportunity to change. My Patrons let me keep writing, at: https://www.patreon.com/RealStarscribe

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Lyra always knew there was something more out there. She learned in her youth, when she became the victim of a bloodsucking horror that kept her enthralled to his twisted will, feeding on the blood of others to sustain itself. Until Bonnie came, and set her free with fire and bullets. After agonizing withdrawal, Lyra's body healed. But her soul was another matter entirely.

Now she tries to live a normal life, passing the day to day as a music tutor. But horrors still stalk her nightmares, lurking in every shadowy Canterlot alley.

As time passes, something deep in Lyra rebells at this vision of her world, where mankind are desperate prey always fleeing from dark things. Something is calling to her, a vision of a better world. Once her soul wakes to magic, it will never sleep again.

Unless someone puts her in the dirt, of course. Someone like her monster-hunting girlfriend.

Updates Saturdays.


This story is a tribute to the World of Darkness. Knowledge of its setting and characters is not necessary to read this--its lead character will have to learn everything right along with readers. But for the curious, I'm using 1st Edition Mage the Awakening, Hunter the Vigil, Changeling the Lost, Vampire the Masquerade, and Werewolf the Forsaken. It's primarily a mage story, but will include elements of the other books where appropriate.

This story started with the simple premise of wondering what Twilight and her unicorn friends would look like as a cabal of mages. But given how long I've been writing and how old the fandom is now, centering a story on Twilight felt too predictable at this point. I wanted to use one of the background characters as viewpoint instead. Everything else grew from that premise--making the changelings into changelings, some earth ponies into werewolves, etc.

Editing by Two Bit and Sparktail. Two Bit was also my enabler for this story. The cover was made by the fantastic Zen. I'm really happy with how this one came out.

Chapters (22)
Comments ( 71 )

Yaknow, I've followed you since lonely day's stories, and all of your stories ive read are great. Looking forward to this one, too :)

Oh god, yes. I am here for a WoD story.

Great story as always Starscribe. Barely started and already can't wait for next chapther. How do you do it? Anyways i wish you happy holidays and that you may continue to write many geat stories

This sounds very, very interesting. Bookmarking~!

Well, that's a start, all righty...

I feel it's wrong way to do it, but I think by now I absorbed enough WoD lore just from pony fanfics : )

It's kinda weird knowing that this world has names like Sweetie Drops and Ponyville mixed in with names like Akiko. Kind of a bizzare alternate universe. Other than that, I'm curious where this is going. I'm not familiar with World of Darkness at all.

Beautiful. Read this chapter three times to make sure I didn’t miss anything. This is quickly shaping up to be my favorite of your works.

Oh hell yeah, this slaps so far! Been waiting for the next weekly fix from you for a hot and spicy minute, and I reckon this is it!

Brilliant work thus far. Definitely looking forward to seeing how this develops.

Of course there’s a Tabitha, alias Rarity. Though I’m not sure who Reagan corresponds to. Still, welcome to the world beneath the surface, Lyra. No, not that one, the other one.

A voice spoke from the weapon, faint and artificial. “Metahuman target identified. Suppression engaged.”

That gives me Psycho-Pass vibes in addition to Vampire the Masquerade. Nice!

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Feel that. I'm always terrified at the beginning of a Starscribe story. Will it be a 20k comedic romp or a 500k 3-part Epic that makes me re-evaluate my life choices?

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Hahahahah. This one is looking like about 80-100k based on the outline if that helps.

Hearing voices is concerning, yes, but not for the reasons Lyra thinks. But now that she's a wizard, it's time to meet the local Ministry of Magic... who, unfortunately, seem to be about as effective as Rowling's when it comes to clear and present threats. Still, hopefully Lyra won't have to deal with crazed electromancers in the near future.

(Yes, of course she will, but I can hope. :derpytongue2:)

Heh. Nothing like an incongruous granola bar to keep you grounded in your initiation into the deeper mysteries. (Not those mysteries, the other ones. No, not the werewolves'!) And congrats, Lyra, given the talking cat, you are now officially a magical girl... and you may have something to help with right this moment.

Ah. Now the true test begins. It's one thing to tell reality to shut up and listen. It's another to lie to your beloved's face. As we've seen, even Bonnie can't maintain complete confidentiality with Lyra. We'll see how this goes.

Scribe, this is the first story on this site that I’ve actually thought about reading without being in the site. Most of the time I’ll just be checking back in and seeing what is updated, but every week I’ll remember that there’s supposed to be a new chapter uploading. I think about this while going about my day, doing things completely unrelated to this fiction or even this site.

Seriously, this is already one of my favorites of yours and it’s just getting started. Fantastic work! :heart:

Ah, the delicate dance of living with a hunter. It's only going to get rougher from here, to say nothing of Lyra having to figure out a viable work-life-magecraft balance. It's an unenviable state of affairs, but at least she'll get shapeshifting out of it. Let's just hope no inconvenient holy relics get pointed in her direction...

Ooh now this premise sounds awesome! I've been playing WoD for over a decade and I love the setting and mood. Looking forward to seeing how this one turns out.

Ooh, now that was a fun awakening, and very evocative.
From the visuals and vibe, I'm thinking either Thyrsus, or maybe Acanthus? There's probably a key giveaway with the tower, but I'm not hugely familiar with Mage.

“Capper,” he answered, without hesitation. “That's a good cat name, isn't it? I'm your familiar—or I could be. If you're smart.”

He's the friend you need :raritywink:

Ah, the benefits of a private tutor who knows what he's doing. Sadly, the world isn't going to sit around and wait while Lyra works her way through the tutorial. Time to see what that breakthrough entails.

Also, the ticking clock of Bonnie's Awakening leads to some interesting questions about mage-focused hunter groups. Presumably most of them reinforce one another's belief in the mundane, but I imagine there's greater turnover among them than... Okay, all hunter groups have high turnover given what they fight, but for the mage-focused ones, a larger-than-average part of it is becoming that which they despise rather than simply getting killed by them.

Kitty kitty kitty nya :3 Lyra the calico deserves more time to explore and get into trouble. Ahhh shes just sooooo cute being a cat is like my biggest fantasy

That last line is just asking for trouble. Lryra isn't going to have a very boring night, it'll be a terrifyingly exciting one.

This story has been a fun reminder of Mage, I mostly played other systems (Vampire and Werewolf) in that universe. Mage felt to me a lot more imaginative, the rules let you do so much more with magic.

Her own part was simple—where to hide, what to watch for, and how she would help if anyone got hurt. The pressure wasn't on her, she was just a contingency.

Oh you poor Sweet Summer Child Lyra.

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I remember playing vampires, werewolves. I even played the one where you played a ghost back when I first came out when I had some friends who were trying to start an mail order role playing paraphernalia company.
Still remember the odd feeling of playing around the table inside of a warehouse full of role playing stuff of every description.

If Lyra's familiar can tell she's not ready, the rest of the Cabal can surely tell as well, given their greater experience. I'm highly suspicious as to why they might be putting an inexperienced newbie in a situation she obviously can't handle.

Always best to have someone on healing duty, yes. It's not a glamorous role, but it's very often necessary, and likely will be during Operation: Frankenstein. (Even if prometheans probably won't show up.) The question is just how necessary Lyra will prove to be, and how much Bonnie will suspect.

Cant wait for bonnies world to break when she sees lyra in her crosshairs tmr night.
Also so either lyras group has a mole or better yet theres an enemy attack planned so a 3 way battle with a bitch of an objective.
See them charging, special ops go in, then the actual bad guys clean up someone gonna die for sure ug hopefully lyra broaches this smartly with her group.

We're not trying to end the world, we're just charging up a key!

Sure. You're trying to charge a key. You think the other side isn't making its own preparations?

It'll certainly be interesting to see how this plays out, especially with Lyra's jazz remix of the healing spell in play. No telling if that's actually going to go as she intends it. To say nothing of whether she can get back home before Bonnie. There will be many awkward questions if she can't, at bare minimum.

Darn it. This story is very good and I read it all too quickly. It's the worst feeling when you find a good story with a lot of chapters but it's not done because you aren't ready for when you catch up.

Never bothered thinking about the World of Darkness setting before but now I want to play a game set in it, but for now I'll be living vicariously through Lyra. See you all next week.

Lyra is in a hard spot between Bonnie and her friends, which is such a World of Darkness theme it probably has a section if every rulebook.

Bonnie is gonna find out sooner or later. If she doesn’t have a hidden camera watching this spell, she’ll eventually snoop through Harper’s purse and find the knife. She’s already snooped through her purse before to find the empty gun.

As has been noted, the tension between mundane life and the supernatural is as much a part of WoD as dice pools. Lyra’s going to face this kind of decision far more often in the future. Here’s hoping she makes it through the night with minimum pain and misery borne mostly from being a wet cat.

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Well, good news. There are definitely several to be found if you go looking, but there's one that you might already know of. Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. It uses a weird, early version of the same source engine that was used for Half-Life 2 and released in an incredibly broken state right in between other big games releasing at the same time, causing it to be highly criticized while flying way, way under the radar.

These days it's doing much better. It has a cult following with many dedicated fans that have worked over several years to make a patch for the game that fixes a vast amount of bugs and makes it playable. A patch so high-quality, so well known, that it comes pre-installed with the game if you buy it from GoG.

I haven't checked the price, but it should be relatively cheap since it's nearly two decades old by now.

They must have figured out how much trouble the CMC can get into.
"Sweetie, why are these men trying to capture you?"
"I was just talking to someone online named Al Kaida..."

Oh boy. Trying to nip a potential wizard in the bud? Acquiring a valuable bargaining chip? All-too-literal human resources? There’s no way this will end well if the hunters get their hands on Isabelle. But keeping her safe is much easier said than done. We’ll see how this goes.

Changelings. Just great... anudda complication. Mages and vampires are bad enough, but put a Changeling court in the middle'a things, and matters can get truly complicated!

Things are a whirlwind of chaos for Lyra. She doesn't really know what she's doing and barely knows what's even going on at any given moment. Not like it's any of her fault. The world of those unseen by the mundane is... haughty. Unappreciative. Newcomers are given a crash course that they deem incredibly basic without realizing that it's all stuff they're already used to with an inside perspective. A sort of half-conscious elitism.

She's adapting remarkably well, though. Probably thanks to that vampire bullshit she had to go through- it's far worse for creatures of the dark.

Ooh, a mage in The Hedge, the locals are going to be very interested. Also doesn't help that it sounds like they've stopped in the middle of what appears to be the Goblin Markets.
And Changeling Sweetie Belle! Kinda makes me wonder if the other CMC are going to be other supernaturals.

Changeling Sweetie Belle. Where have I heard that before? :raritywink: At least this one won’t be going through the pony equivalent of the city of Rapture. And there’s the question of what her fetch is up to, but that’s another matter.

In any case, lying naked in the mud is rarely a good state, even when not in the middle of the Hedge. At least Lyra’s earned some goodwill by saving Isabelle’s life. And there’s still the question of whether charging the key even worked. It’d be terrible if all this fuss and bother meant that they missed their chance.

Lyra keeps getting freebies. My guess is Capper had something to do with her relation to Isabelle somehow. How much has he planned for ahead of time? He's probably the most dangerous creature in the story so far and I'm curious what exactly he is.

When I played world of Darkness I was fascinated by the interlocking universes displayed in the game.
Even then I was thinking just how many actual normal people are in the world with all of these interlocking, opposing, and lying in secret, cabal's of magic users. Who are in many cases blind to these other groups existence.

Ooh, sounds like she's been given some hedgespun raiment. That's a neat token to be gifted, though I'm a little curious what other features it has that she can't use as a non-changeling.
Also fun getting conformation that neither Izzy or Tabitha know about each other's secrets, with Lyra stuck in the middle keeping both of their secrets (one now bound up in a changeling pledge to secrecy).

Poor Lyra. That’s three different kinds of secret lives she has to keep to herself, one sealed by binding oath. This is going to get incredibly unmanageable at this rate. At least she gets some nice armor out of it… though metal may not be the best form of protection against an electromancer.

Also, I do wonder how long the two sisters will keep their true lives hidden from one another. It’s very possible they may never know.

(Also also, I find myself wondering whether the local Chrysalis is Theodore’s mother… or his former captor.)

Bonnie's gonna be mad. The conflict of interest alone would tear her apart, but Lyra sneaking around behind her back will make it so, so much worse.

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Yeah, these kinds of conflicts of interests, paranormal life vs mortal life, are the bread and butter of World of Darkness games.

Heh. One way or another, horses were going to get involved.

In any case, the truth (well, a truth) is out. What the coven does with it remains to be seen. And odds are Lyra won’t be home by the time Bonnie gets back, which will lead to its own collection of problems.

There’s also the not-inconsiderable matter of rescuing Tabitha… though it’s possible Izzy may call in some favors there. We’ll see how this all shakes out soon enough, to say nothing of Bonnie trying to reconcile “my girlfriend who I rescued from leeches” with “dangerous wizard.”

There's something weirdly amusing in witchfinders not being able to find the witch right in front of them. Of course, with the scent of another known supernatural entity distracting them...

Yeah, not terribly surprising that Starlight's familiar with Banishers.

Twilight's gonna Twilight. And that can mean tunnel-visioning in on what her principles tell her must be done as much as panicking when things go off-script. And Lyra is absolutely going to run into Bonnie tomorrow. We'll see how that shakes out.

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