Ancient Curiosity

by The Psychopath

What's This? What's That?

Sneezy grumbled furiously. This insipid creature preferred to laze about all day in a land made from the dead of centuries and 'drink' coffee. How it even managed to imbibe such things was a mystery in itself.

"I can't take this anymore!" The unicorn paced about, annoyed, gnawing at a magical apparition of a stick she made for herself. "What do we do? We can't kill it and we can't go back empty-hoofed!"

The lich watched them, letting his orb float about his head and imbibing coffee silently.

Ruby tapped the ground nervously. "Uh...we would...we could just ask him to come with us?" the crystal pony suggested.

He backed away, perplexed by his friend's face.

"And why would he even accept such a thing?!" Sneezy gestured to the horizon. "Every creature wants to kill him!"

"They can try!" the lich laughed.

The three ponies slowly looked at him in response to his quip.

"You can hear us?" Cobalt asked.

She was met with a shrug. "Why not?" The lich stood up and gestured to everything. "I made this continent. Why would I not be privy to what happens on it?" He snorted, chasing out something the ponies didn't want to understand.

Ruby gulped and took a step forward. "So...would you follow us to the continent?"

"What for?" the lich asked.

Sneezy climbed over the giant stallion, furious. "To be judged, you freak!"

Cobalt pulled the unicorn down and shook her head. "We can't do anything but ask." She looked around briefly. "I mean, you've stayed here on your continent forever..." Her eyes lit up and she looked at Sneezy with a devious grin. "Why, I'm sure it's boring here. You learned of coffee by accident, but what about chocolate?" The lich grunted dismissively. "What about what makes the chocolate?" She withheld her excitement when she noticed the lich freeze momentarily. "What about the boat that took us here? There's more. The city is built around it all!"

The lich put down his cup and sighed. "Alright. You're obviously playing on my curiosity in hopes that I let down my guard and then get stuck in a trap." He stood up and brought his orb onto his palm. "Very well. I'll follow you."

"And no funny business!" Sneezy shouted.

She was pat on the head by the towering creature as he moved forward. "Yes yes. I can't do anything on my own without centuries of preparation anyways, and as I mentioned earlier," he turned around and tilted his torso with a shrug. "I'm not interested in doing that sort of thing anymore." He straightened himself and cracked his neck. "I suppose we have to go to one of the beaches."

"Any beach will do," Cobalt said as she flew next to him. "We just need to use a signal flare to get the boat to come and pick us up."

After much walking and grumbling by Sneezy lamenting the loss of her dream of heroism and accolades, the four had arrived on the beach, but...

"What is that stench?!" Ruby screamed as he covered his muzzle.

"It's horrible! By the In-between!" Cobalt added.

The lich waved a hand weakly. "Oh. That's just low-tide mixed with a hot summer." He tapped his nasal bone. "I can selectively choose when I can and can't smell anything," he stated with a smirk in his tone.

"Well, lucky you!" Sneezy said derisively.

"Sneezy, please!" Ruby begged.

"Yeah yeah, I got it," the mare grumbled.

She walked past the lich, let her horn glow with ambient magic, and then shot a ball of fire into the sky. It popped in a display of sparkles and snakes of fire. The group waited a moment, but growing impatient, the unicorn let loose another spell.

"Where are they?" she wondered angrily. "Supposed to have reacted by n-Hey!"

The lich pulled her aside and strode forward proudly. "They'll never see a pithy little thing like that," he exclaimed. "Need something like this."

In an instant a ball of fire as big as the lich appeared in his hands, and with a quick movement of his arm, found itself getting launched dozens of feet into the air. The trio watched it with baited breath, nervous as to what might happen. They were nearly blinded when the ball finally burst into a veritable star of light in a nebula of sparkles and smoke.

"What was that?!" Sneezy Pollen shouted. "That's something that takes at least ten unicorns to do!"

The lich shook his hand to chase off the embers. "One of the first spells I improved upon way back when." He put two fingers to the side of his forehead and rubbed it. "When was that? Two thousand years ago? Don't remember the exact date." He watched another light pop in the distance and 'grinned'. "There we go!" he cheered. "Told you I knew how to do a flare." The lich leaned forward, unsure of what he was seeing. "Looks like they set themselves on fire. Lots of smoke."

"That's a coal-powered paddle ship!" Cobalt cheered.

After about an hour of waiting silently, or rather, uncomfortably due to the lich literally remaining still like a statue, unmoved by even the moment of the world, a large ship came into view. Arkom's creator finally moved, eliciting cracks from his body. The large vessel was made from wood, but its external hull was riveted with sheets of copper and tin. They were already suffering from the salt of the sea and turning into plates of rust.

"Wow!" the lich said. "Does that ship have sixty-four cannons across its three decks?" He paused. "Where are the sails, and what are those wheels on its side."

Ruby stepped forward. "It's just a transport ship, although it's been outfitted to handle you I guess. So, the wheel--"

Ruby was shut up by the lich waving a hand at him without moving. "Ah ah ah, sh sh sh! Shut up! I want to figure it out myself."

"Hey!" a voice cried out from the ship. "That was a huge flare! I didn't think you were going to use one of those massive ones!" The owner was the captain of the vessel: A gruff old, bipedal bird that vaguely resembled a parrot. His vestigial red wings wrapped around his torso and were decorated with all manner of golden paraphernalia and ribbons to make them look like a coat. He focused on the group, using his crystal eye and almost fell over when he realized what he was looking at. "I thought you killed him!" He scampered onto his talons and began ordering his crew in a panic. "Turn around, turn around! They've been zombified!"

"No! No! We're not zombies!" Sneezy shouted at the top of her lungs.

The captain narrowed his eyes and quietly gestured something the unicorn didn't recognize. A loud whirr came from the ship, and from an unseen compartment a blue box was shot. It gradually came in overhead before dissolving and letting a freezing blue mist gently wash over the trio who were left shivering.

"Yeah. Okay. Undead don't feel the cold," the captain muttered. He was left baffled by the giant biped pensively staring at his ship. "Uhhh..."

With considerable effort, the ponies managed to look at the lich and realized that his body was smoking. Burning, in fact, but he hadn't noticed.

"Y-you're on fire," Cobalt said.

"Is it the fire inside that makes it run? What's powering it? What's doing the fire thing?" the lich pondered out loud.

"Oookaaay...We're taking the lich back home to be, uh, judged," Cobalt explained.

"Weren't you supposed to kill it?" a diamond dog sailor asked.

"We can't! Not alone!" Sneezy lamented. "Just...just let us on board."

"No way!" the captain exclaimed. "You're on your own!"

The lich flexed his left hand, and a loud rumble reached everyone's ears. It was quickly followed by multiple pillars of rotting flesh implanted with multiple off-white spikes of varying shapes and sizes. They slammed into the boat and started to crunch the hull plating when the captain yelled out.

"Stop! Stop! please! You can come aboard!"

The lich shuffled his cloak and brought his orb into it, hiding it from view. "Well, there you go! A bit of persuasion never hurt anybody," he mused as the pillars lowered back into the tainted ocean.

"You threatened to kill them," Ruby accused calmly. He cleared his throat, trying to calm his nerves. "That's not--"

"Negotiations are always tenuous at the best of times," the lich said dismissively. "Now when will they disembark?"

Just as he said so, a small boat was dropped in the water, and several terrified sailors used oars to approach the continent of the dead. Never in all their lives would they have ever expected to be doing this sort of thing, but here they were anyways. The four got in the boat, and the lich plopped himself onto a seat with a grunt. The sailors were so terrified that they were visibly and audibly trembling with every row they made. It took them several times to hook the chains onto the boat's rings because of the sheer terror they felt, and when the lich and the 'heroes' were finally on board, they found that their 'prisoner' was the target of a dozen of the crew members aiming red-wood muskets at the undead.

As always, the lich seemed ambivalent to everything around him, but Sneezy didn't feel like all of this would end well for anyone but that undead monster.

"Why are they pointing sticks at me?" he asked the trio. They remained silent as the lich approached a pale-blue pegasus. The pony tensed up fearfully and raised the musket directly at the lich's head. "What are you all doing with these things? Shouldn't you be holding them upright? Very strange for clubs, though."

When he reached out with a bony hand, the pegasus screamed in terror and pulled the trigger of his weapon. The sudden flash and loud thunder crack startled everyone around. A few of the armed sailors shuffled away when the cloth surrounding the lich settled down and the immobile statue showed no reaction but remained immobile. This went on for several minutes, wracking the nerves of the sailors beyond what they already were. Sneezy started feeling hope well up inside her at the prospect that the lich was finally dead.

"Ow!" the lich shouted. "That hurt! Gimme that!" he ordered as he swiped the musket from the pegasus' hooves. Said pony passed out instantly. "This thing spit something out at me!" the lich complained as he turned the weapon around every which way. "Was it from here?" he wondered as he stuck a bony finger into the barrel and pulled out burning embers and soot. "Hooo. How does this thing function, then? Was it a fireball?"

Sneezy drooped and her friends patted her on the back in solidarity. While the lich amused itself with bringing up theories to himself and discovering all the mobile parts of the weapon, the captain snuck up to the trio.

"What is wrong with it?" he asked.

Sneezy shrugged. "I don't know. Ever since we met him he's been like that."

She was met with incredulity. "I don't believe you," the captain denied. "That thing has tried to kill all life on this planet for generations. Why would he suddenly start acting this way, and what is he planning? He wants to make his own weapons out of the dead or something?"

"We're not sure," Cobalt said. She thought for a moment and looked at the lich. "I think...I think time even got to him. You know, failing over and over again."

"It's what he told us," Ruby added. "He grew tired of it and decided to just stay on his continent." He paused. "You saw it yourself: That huge thing in the water. He ordered it to attack you when you refused to let us aboard."

Everyone flinched when another bang resonated through the air. They turned around to see the lich holding another musket at his face, the barrel still spewing some smoke.

"Ah ha! I figured it out!" the lich celebrated. "When I pull the hook here a metal ball comes out" He turned towards the trio, unaware of their presence. Half his face was missing. "It hurts! Yes!" he said staunchly.

The captain rubbed his beak. "Uh huh..." He leaned in closer to the trio and started whispering. "Is he alright in the head? I mean, I know there's nothing in there, but..."

Sneezy sighed. "Well, if he's this enthusiastic about the muskets, he'll likely be as enthusiastic about the ship and especially the city." She took a deep breath and cast a glance at her 'prisoner'. "Better he be occupied like that than trying to kill everything."

The captain gulped and tapped his taloned fingers against each other. "So, what do we do now?" he asked. "Just sail to the city?" He was met with a shrug and a face stating the answer was 'obvious'. "Hoo boy..." he said as he turned around and rubbed the back of his feathered head.

With no other choice, the boat sailed back to the mainland, where creatures from around the world would be waiting. While fizzy in sound and reception, the new radios aboard the ship were doing their job in informing those that were waiting behind of their 'cargo'. The trio expected a massive welcoming committee of not-so-welcoming individuals.

What took two weeks aboard a sailboat to reach Arkom only took a few days via paddle-boat to go back the other way as there was no need for stealth this time around. The fact this captain had even entertained the thought of picking them up had the three of them succeeded never crossed Sneezy's mind. She just wanted to go home, take a shower, then sleep for the whole week while dreaming about what could have been.

Ruby and Cobalt were the ones to jolt the lich out of his reverie from staring at the chimney outside the ship and turn him around. If he had eyes they would have been sparkling. Gigantic buildings as far as the eye could see, each sporting their own chimney and even larger, much dirtier buildings in the distance sporting multiple smokestacks belching out a crude miasma and black muck into the air. The three ponies were used to outsiders finding the sight repulsive even though they had grown up with it, but the lich's fascination and amazement startled them regardless. He leaned against the railing on the nose of the ship, taking it all in with his lower jaw dangling down.

"I guess we shouldn't be surprised that a dead creature wouldn't be affected by the air like the outsiders are," Cobalt said with a weak smile.

Ruby, meanwhile, coughed violently. "Speak for yourself! I've been here for four years and I'm still not used to it," he complained between fits of coughing.

"Well, guess we best prepare for the welcoming committee and everypony's reaction to...him," Sneezy spat. She rolled her eyes and leaned her head against one of the walls of the ship while being careful to not hurt her horn. "It's going to be fine,. It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine," she reassured herself while lightly headbutting the metal.

"Woah! That one is made of metal frames!" the lich shouted while looking at a building under construction.

"It's going to be fine it's going to be fine!" Sneezy shouted angrily while bashing her head harder and harder against the wall.

Her friends quickly jumped to her aid to stop her. It was going to be a long day.

Author's Note:

Probably just two chapters. Will be a short story.

---

I decided to publish my non-pony books myself, accomplishing a dream I set out to do when I was 17. I currently only have Reverting Scales (book 1) out right now which you can get on Kindle for 5 dollars or in paperback for 12. If you can't or don't want to purchase it, I would be grateful if you could share it. I'm aiming for twenty sales before starting the second book. You can find it on every Amazon (I think. There's a lot of them).

The main character is a dragoness that starts out as a 'thing' developping in her egg and grows into a drake over the course of the story. It was partially inspired by Tui. T. Sutherland's Wings of Fire and E.E. Knight's Age of Fire books where dragons are the main characters.

Naydrus is a dragon born to immense parents who live with and serve humans. When the dragonling hatches, it is revealed that she doesn't look anything like her family and she has a passion for fighting. However, she also carries a deep hatred for the hominid 'caretakers'. This inspires her escape from the city through the sewer system and find other dragons that share her mindset. However, the world is a big place and very old. Much has happened and continues to happen without Naydrus being aware of it, causing her to cross paths with dangerous individuals and end up in hazardous locations.

You can find it through these links:

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